The Domino Effect (20 page)

“Oh, relax,” I told him. “We’re just messing around.”

“Alright, alright,” he nodded, up and down, up and down. “But this shit comes up again, it ain’t gonna be so funny.”

That was true. It would come up again, and it wouldn’t be funny. Not at all.

Brenda saved me from the crowded booth. We followed Terence outside and he went home as the two of us went down the steps of the academic building. Brenda giggled and pulled me along with an urgency that had me curious. Damn curious.

That morning, she had left a note in my mailbox asking me to meet her after school. Valentine’s Day approached and her note was covered in hearts. “I Love You” notes had been in my box, randomly, since we’d been back from Christmas break, so I didn’t think anything all that crazy was in play until she came for me in the Can with smiling eyes and a secret on her lips.

“What is it?” I asked as we entered a classroom, the same classroom where we had fought earlier in the year. “Tell me,” I insisted.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me tenderly, but we kept getting interrupted by her lips breaking into a smile. Brenda bristled with energy, like a kid on Christmas morning.

I fought off her kiss, held her hands down, and tucked my lips inside my mouth.

“OK, OK,” she said. “I did it.”

“Did what?”

“I got us a room.”

“A room where?”

“At the Yankee Inn in Hackettstown.”

My first thought was
why the hell would we want to go to Hackettstown?
My second thought, helped along by Brenda’s devilish grin, made my eyes go wide. I wondered if she could hear my heart beat.

Chapter 13

B
renda and I separated our sweaty palms and smiled at each other. The gym rocked on this Saturday afternoon, Valentine’s Day. A win by Hamde’s hoop team would bring us our first ever league championship and a spot in the state tournament. The game was close, but we had other things on our minds.

I watched the clock more than I did the tight game on the floor. We went along with the clapping and stomping of the bleacher boards, but Brenda and I were out of step with the rest of the crowd.

I wasn’t distracted enough to miss Terence, though. He was clearly the best guy out there, like all year long, but now he played even better because the edgy attitude had been dropped. I had gone to every home game, along with half the school, and Terence had starred every time, but he just didn’t seem to be enjoying it, scowling and fouling and everything. In the room afterward, he would barely talk about the game.

As the second half went on, Terence, nearly single-handedly, delivered the team to a monster lead, shooting the lights out, taking the ball to the hole or, when double- or even triple-teamed, passing to teammates for easy baskets. He even played a gentler version of his assault and battery defense.

The rout was sealed about halfway through the fourth quarter when Terence stepped in front of a lazy pass and streaked toward the other end. The crowd rose, expecting one of the fancy finger rolls we’d seen all season. Heads went up a little higher when Terence veered from his normal route to the basket. Instead, he swooped to the right and came at the rim from the side, where he jumped off his left foot with the ball cuffed under the opposite wrist. He seemed to float as he drifted higher and higher, knees climbing and the ball sweeping across his twisted torso. After windmilling an arm over his head, he slammed the ball through the rim with his legs flared out in opposite directions. What a sight. It was hard to breathe, just watching. Terence hung onto the rim and pulled himself up before letting go. He landed smoothly on both feet, facing the cushioned backstop. He spun around on his heels and headed back up court with a fist in the air.

Almost everyone, even the guys on the other team’s bench, hopped to their feet. The burst of excitement yanked some of the front row crowd onto the floor. The referees blew their whistles and brought all the craziness to a halt. Order was restored and Terence was rewarded with a rest on the bench, which he took without his usual towel-over-the-head routine. He looked pretty proud there, checking out the crowd with a cool smile on his face.

Our fans counted down the last seconds of the game and then stormed the court. The team lifted Terence into the air, and he waved a happy finger, bobbing in the sea of students that buoyed him. I would have liked to join in, but Brenda and I had a date in Hackettstown.

We climbed down from the stands and followed on the edge of the festivities toward the exit. In the area before the doors, two men stood, athletic guys in sweatshirts that said “Brown University” over the image of a basketball. Now I knew why Terence had picked up the whole “there’s no I in team” routine. Smart guy, that Terence.

Brenda and I left the gym and crossed campus toward our Valentine’s date. We passed the bridge above the crashing water and took the steps into town. On Main Street, Brenda pulled out car keys and unlocked a little blue car.

“Whose car is this again?” I asked, snapping my seat belt.

Brenda rolled her eyes and started the engine. “Tracy Johnson. I can’t believe you don’t know her. She’s in your math class.”

“Freckles?” I asked.

Brenda shook her head and shifted the car into gear. We climbed the winding road out of town and joined the empty highway. At the first exit, we took the access road into town. Tire wheels crunched the gravel of the parking lot, popping nerves like corn kernels inside me as we approached the Yankee Inn Motor Lodge, long and wooden and white. I waited in the car as Brenda checked in with her credit card, which she carried on her for emergencies. In my book, this qualified as an emergency.

She came back out, held up the key, and motioned with her head for me to follow. It felt like secret agent business, sneaking around like we were. The room was in the wing just off the parking lot, and I stomped my boots on the walkway as she worked the lock. Quickly, once inside, we closed the shades, flung off our jackets, and flopped onto the queen-sized bed.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this!” Brenda shrieked at the ceiling.

“I know,” I said, sitting up to inspect the room. “You think there’s anything on the TV?”

“Stop!” She smacked my leg before rolling off the bed to rifle through the shoulder bag she’d placed on the dresser. Alongside the TV was a tray with plastic cups wrapped in cellophane and a bucket for ice. I wished we’d brought some champagne or something to ease our nerves, because it felt like I was being tickled from the inside by thick fingers.

“What do you think?” she asked after turning around, a silky black thing held over her red sweater.

I (sort of ) faked hyperventilation, breathing in and out like a lunatic.

“So you like it?” she asked.

I nodded furiously.

“I’m going to change then,” she announced, and then bit her lower lip.

I was now sure, by her nerves, that she’d never done this before either. I’d never asked her, because I wanted to know, but I also didn’t. And I definitely didn’t want her to know that
I’d
never done it, though I was certain, in that moment at the motel, that all that was about to change. I hopped up from the bed and marched back and forth. I shadow boxed in the mirror, punching the air with hooks, jabs, and uppercuts.

What to do? What to do? What to do? Aha!

I kicked off my boots, ripped off my sweater and T-shirt in one swoop, and fell to the carpet as I yanked off my jeans. When the bathroom door cracked, I jumped up and bounced on the bed in nothing but socks and black bikini briefs. What an outfit.

Brenda looked amazing. The camisole reflected the light that slipped through the drapes. The hem lingered at the top of her thighs. Her hair brushed the spaghetti straps and her bare arms looked skinny and beautiful, especially the soft underside exposed as she touched the door frame beside her shoulder. Her smile was shy, but sure.

She lay down beside me. I kissed her dry mouth with my dry mouth. I slipped a hand under the silk and squeezed her soft hip. She smelled of lotion and candy. Brenda was still, except for her breaths, which were low and rapid. I was overwhelmed, pressing myself into her as I ran my hand up and down her legs. I felt pressure and redemption and wonder all at once. I reached for her again, but she grabbed my arm.

“Don’t worry, Bren,” I croaked. “I’ve never done this before, either. I swear.”

“It’s not that,” she said, her voice more hollow than breathless.

“What’s the matter then?” I asked.

She pulled back the sheets and hid her body under the covers. “I’m sorry, Danny,” she said, her eyes on the ceiling, the blankets clutched to her neck. “I thought I could do this. I want to do this. But I can’t without talking to you first.”

“I know what it is,” I said ready to restate my dueling-virgins theory.

“No you don’t, Danny,” she turned toward me to say. “You don’t know.”

Her voice was stern, like an adult’s.

“OK then,” I said. “What?”

She sat up and kept the covers pulled tight. She freed a hand to hold my wrist. “I don’t want you to get upset.”

“Why would I get upset?”

“Because it’s about Todd.”

I sank. I sank remembering them together. He had given her piggyback rides. She’d sat on his lap. They’d kissed all the time. They’d had private places. It had gone on for months. I bet he’d been to her house, and had met her mom and dad. He’d probably sneaked out of her brother’s room in the middle of the night like I didn’t have the guts to do. I tasted dirty pennies and got upset.

“Are you kidding me with this guy?” I asked. “What’s he got to do with us? What’s he got to do with anything? And you bring him up now?”

I shimmied off the bed and put on my pants. Brenda wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked. Tears fell from her face like small stones. “Don’t go,” she said through a sheet of tears.

My heart kind of stopped, but I was no longer the guy who thought about other people before thinking about himself. “I get it. You chose the popular guy over me and, what, he broke your heart or something? He dumped you for somebody better? It happens, Bren. I know. Get over it already.”

I didn’t really know what I was saying. I was just saying. I struggled into my T-shirt and sweater and boots and then abandoned Brenda for the cold afternoon. Dark clouds covered the sky and the wind burned my eyes. Without my jacket, I headed for the highway.

It took me two hours to get home. I had to walk on the highway’s shoulder. Cars honked as they whipped by in the wind. Truckers flashed their lights. On the one-lane road to Hamdenville, I had to step into the weeds whenever a car passed. I figured a little blue one would appear, with a sympathetic honk and begs through the open window to please get in. But I was wrong. No one came to pick me up.

Back at school, Terence was on the phone talking to his parents. He sported a Brown Basketball sweatshirt and a great big smile. No one else was around, so I walked to the shack and sat alone in the cold. It smelled of dead wood. On the way back to the dorm, snow began to fall.