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Carmelina stood up and put her finger to his lips. "Bobby, I'm not."

He looked at her. "Not what?"

"Not pregnant."

"What?"

"I'm not pregnant. I got my period last night."

"You did?"

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, Bobby," she said. "I'm sure."

Bobby eyed her, warily. "You're not joking, are you? Tell me you're not."

Carmelina didn't say anything, and Bobby knew she was telling the truth. A stream of shoppers continued past them, though Bobby forgot for a moment where he was. He suddenly felt tremendously weak but tremendously light, and he thought that something wonderful had happened—or not happened—and it made him want to cry. He looked over at Carmelina again, catching the tears in her eyes, and suddenly there might as well have been a valley a mall wide between the two of them because he knew this would be the last he saw of her, and he believed she knew the same thing.

"God smiled on us, I guess," she said.

He nodded. What else was there to say?

Ivan pressed the doorbell and stepped back. He held the bouquet of flowers. He was thankful to be placing them in someone's hands, instead of at the base of a tombstone. If Shelley would take them.

He heard a voice and could see Shelley's figure approach, through the tiny door window. "Shelley," he said.

The door opened. Just a little. "Yes?" Shelley said.

"I'm sorry."

"Fine," Shelley said, then began to close the door.

"Other than my papa," Ivan said, "you're the most important person in my life."

Shelley hesitated.

"I'm not real good with words, you know that. I was an asshole, and I'll apologize for a week, or a month, or a year straight, if you'll forgive me."

Shelley then opened the door and stood, arms crossed. She shivered but said nothing. Ivan held out the flowers, which she took but did not embrace.

"I was outta my mind. McClellan, Wrestling, Hannen—"

"It's cold out," Shelley interrupted.

"I'm trying to tell ya."

"No excuses, Ivan," she said.

"Everything coming at me—," he started, then stopped. "No ... No more excuses."

"I probably shouldn't tell you this," Shelley said. Her eyes welled. "But I've been sick, really sick, the past few days, wondering how you could've done that to me. I wanted to do something nice for the team because you're part of that team and I'm proud of you. And you go and destroy it. Who are you to do something like that?" She shook her head. "No one's ever made me feel this horrible. Flowers aren't gonna make it better, Ivan." She handed him the bouquet.

Ivan gently nudged the flowers back. "Please..."

"I've always been there for you," she said.

"I know," Ivan said. "More than I have for you."

"This one hurt."

"In a million years, I never meant to hurt you. Especially you. You're family to me. Even more because you know me better than anyone in the world. You mean more than the state championship or Western Arizona or anything."

He let out a long breath, then said, with as much conviction as he had in his heart, "There's nothing else I can do but promise you that for as long as I live, it'll never happen again."

Then Ivan wished her good night and walked home.

Bobby's opponent was wiry and powerful and just a quick cut from escaping from his control when momentum carried both wrestlers outside the circle.

"Out of bounds!" the referee yelled. "Back in the center!"

Bobby ended up on his back. His chest rose and sank rapidly. He closed his eyes, feeling calm, given the circumstances—leading 7–1 in the third period of the Region 3 semifinals before nearly a thousand spectators in the Union High School gymnasium. He sat up, adjusted his headgear, climbed to his feet, and gave a nod to Coach Messina.

Coach Messina also stood, tugged at the pleats of his slacks, and said, as if it were just the two of them having a quiet conversation, "Fifty-one seconds and you're going to the states."

Going to the states
... Bobby nearly smiled.

His opponent had proved to be formidable, and perhaps on a morning when Bobby had been wrestling less than his best, the match might have been a toss-up. But Bobby had taken him down easily with a leg sweep for an early 2–0 first-period lead. Then he'd let him up and taken him down again for a 4–1 margin at the end of two minutes. He followed that with an escape and takedown in the second period.

Bobby waited for his opponent to be set in the bottom position. It felt odd not being anxious that disaster might strike, that his opponent might find some way to reverse him to his back and capture the lead. But that simply wasn't a possibility, not with the way he had plowed through the districts, manhandled his teammates in practice all week, and scored a second-period pin in his region tournament first-round match.

His opponent was a beaten wrestler, frustrated that his attack from the top position hadn't materialized. Bobby smelled it, felt it, sensed it on a level beyond what fans could see. Wrestling was sometimes too subtle to be just visual, he knew.

So Bobby settled into the top position, knowing the most important fifty-one seconds of his life to date would pass quickly and uneventfully until the referee raised Bobby's hand in victory. And then he could look toward some other "most important" period or minutes or seconds of his life, and he would be a region finalist and he would be going to the states.

Going to Jadwin,
Bobby thought, a moment before the referee blew the whistle. He liked that. He liked that very much.

The gold medal, slightly larger than a half-dollar, sat in Bobby's hand. He stared at the front—two wrestlers encircled by the outline of New Jersey—then flipped it over:
REGION III CHAMPION
—129
LBS
. Bobby closed his fist, then tossed the medal into a drawer, where it careened against the other medals, then fell silent.

Ivan flicked on the ceiling light. The basement was cold and drafty. He tied the laces of his Wrestling shoes, swept dirt off the soles, stepped onto the mat, and began.

On his feet, he did singles and doubles, hi-crotches, ankle picks, duck-unders, and snap-downs. He used different setups: dropping his level, tap-and-go, moving side to side. Then combinations: arm drags and stepping in for the double, faking an ankle pick and coming with a hi-crotch to the opposite leg, shooting the single and switching to a double.

Despite the chill, despite the dehydration, Ivan was soon sweating.

The basement walls pushed outward and the ceiling rose toward the lights of Princeton's Jadwin Gymnasium....

Ivan finished on his feet, with hip throws, headlock hip throws, pancakes, leg sweeps, duck-unders to a lift, singles to a lift, bear hugs, Japanese wizzers, and the fireman's carry.

The sound of hot water rushing through the house's piping grew louder, rising to a crescendo of screaming fans, the stands shaking under their weight....

Down on the mat, Ivan sat out and turned in, sat out and turned out, sat out and did switches to both sides. He did wrist rolls, wing rolls, inside stands, outside stands, switches.

Under the gymnasium lights, Ivan stood on the center mat, waiting for the start of the 129-pound state finals. He paced back and forth like a caged animal, measuring his opponent. The instant their eyes met, he knew it was over; he smelled the fear.

They poised. The whistle blew. Ivan lunged forward and took his opponent down, threw in a half nelson, and squeezed. Closer ... closer ... closer ... Until it was over.

His opponent lay motionless at his feet. The state championship was his. The roar of the Jadwin crowd was deafening. Looking out at screaming fans, Ivan lifted his arms. Behind eyes shut tightly, the image of victory remained etched in his mind.

"Ivan?" his father called from the top of the basement stairs. "Are you there?"

Ivan opened his eyes to silence. No crowd, no cheers, no state championship victory. He stood chained to an unfulfilled dream and haunted by the nightmare of last year's semifinal loss.

"Yes, Papa. I'll be up soon."

The door shut. Ivan walked across the floor and sat down on a wooden chair. It creaked under the weight of his body.

There wouldn't be anyone at the states more prepared than he was, he promised. And though Ivan figured, by the state finals, he might face someone equally tough—someone who might be Ivan Korske with another name, someone as starved to win as he was—he doubted it completely.

Coach Messina lay down a sheet of paper, the bracket for the 129-pound weight class. Sixteen wrestlers, the champions and runners-up from each of the eight region tournaments. "You got your wish," he said. "You're seeded third. You wrestle Schnell, from Paulsboro, in the first round on Wednesday night."

But Bobby was already looking ahead. "Korske's seeded first."

"You won't face him until the finals," Coach Messina said. "If he makes it that far."

Coach Messina was serious about that. Talent brought you to the states, he always said. But it was the wrestler who "caught fire" that made it through Wednesday's first round and Friday's quarterfinals to the semifinal and championship matches on Saturday afternoon.

Bobby looked at the bracket again, reading the names of the other 129-pounders, thinking how remarkable it was to see his own name alongside the talented wrestlers he had read about all season in the newspapers. And he must have looked, he hated to think, too respectful of the other wrestlers, because Coach Messina picked up the paper and tore it in half.

"Seeds mean nothing."

Then he ripped it in half again.

"The bracket means nothing. What matters is that you win four matches in a row. Four. That's all you need to think about."

The bedroom light remained on, while the clock on the dresser clicked past eleven ... twelve ... and one o'clock ... Bobby stared at the ceiling, old matches rolling through his mind, thinking about how he would adjust for one opponent or another. He was dead tired. Still, Bobby wouldn't turn off the bedroom light because the moment after he fell asleep, it would be morning and the first round of the states would face him.

So Bobby stared into the darkness beyond the windows, and he studied the ceiling, and he looked toward Christopher's room. And he lay there, his mind racing. Very anxious. A little lonely. Thinking. No escape; no time out. The endgame approaching.

"What if I lose?" he said out loud.

It wasn't as if he hadn't ever tasted defeat. Once this season, five times last season. Before then, often enough. Bobby knew what it was like to have an opponent's arm raised by the referee, while he sulked at the side of the mat, wondering what went wrong in the match, what he could have done differently, more quickly, better.

Winning was different. He didn't think after he won; he just soaked it in. Like an August breeze down the Shore. Like a smoldering fire in the dead of winter. The feelings melted inside him.

"Losing isn't possible," Bobby told himself. Softly, at first. Then he said it again, more forcefully. And again. Until, finally, as if he were speaking to someone sitting at the edge of his bed.

Of course, losing
was
a possibility. It was real; it was life. Parents divorcing never seemed like a possibility, yet that had become reality. Life wasn't sugarcoated; there was no sound track to somehow soothe the pain. Bobby had learned that, had experienced it intimately.

For a moment, he entertained the thought of going downstairs, opening the refrigerator, and throwing down as much food as his stomach could hold. So what if he didn't make weight and forfeited away his chances? Shit happens sometimes.
Sure Coach Messina would be pissed as all hell, but he's not the one who has to deal with all this. It is
my
family that's a mess. It's
my
dad who doesn't live in the house anymore,
my
mother who's a crying wreck,
my
little brother who's crushed. A person can only take so much.

Just go eat.
The thought of eating was mesmerizing—the smell of food filling Bobby's nose, the taste washing over his tongue. His stomach quivered and he felt like throwing up.

But that passed.

Bobby managed a laugh. One minute, thinking about how much food he could shove down his throat and eat away his chances for the state championship; the next, so focused on a tide he was sure he would win.
Insanity is what it is,
he thought. A roller coaster of utter confidence and deep panic, twisting and turning between giving in and stepping forward.
If people only knew,
he thought.
If they had any idea how screwed up I feel.

So Bobby weighed himself a half-dozen times for no good reason except that he was comforted standing on the scale; knowing it was okay to remain motionless, holding his breath; it was okay to hear only the tap of his finger on the counterbalance until the scale arm floated and his weight was good.

Then he climbed back into bed. His stomach rocked, but he ignored it, concentrating on the beat of his heart moving through his thighs and shoulders, feet and hands, toes and fingers.

Then visualizing dozens of Wrestling situations. On bottom, down by two with twenty seconds left. On top, behind by five, needing a pin in the last period. On his feet, score tied...

Eventually his eyes became heavy. His mind slowed. Bobby reached over and turned off the bedroom light. With the final whistle of the last match, he drifted asleep.

Shelley turned her head slightly, her eyes hiding in the moon's shadow. "Nice night ... Too bad it's late," she said, her voice soft. "After everything's over tomorrow, maybe we can take a walk back to Layaree's Wall. Maybe get lost. Maybe the moon will be out again."

"Maybe," Ivan said.

"I'd say good luck, but I'm sure everyone's already told you that. I'd say, 'Hit that single-leg takedown well,' or, 'Don't forget to wizzer,' but I'm sure you have that covered, too."