The Extra Yard (19 page)

The game against Greenacres was a win-or-go-home game. It was like they were playing one championship game to get to another, and then another after that, if they wanted to make it to MetLife Stadium.

It almost made Teddy glad he had
The Voice
to at least take his mind off football.

Teddy hadn't done any coaching about singing with Gregg Leonard, his guy in the competition, from the start. He hadn't talked about what songs Gregg should pick or anything like that. The best he could do was treat it like sports and continue to give Gregg coaching advice. Mostly it was about trusting his talent, and telling him that this was a different way of trying to make a play to win a big game, before they'd both get the chance to do the same thing against Greenacres.

His mom had been on fire all week and was even more crazed now that it was Thursday and the big night had finally arrived. Teddy had shown up early with her and couldn't believe how cool the lobby of Walton Middle looked, all these tables set up with silent auction items that school parents and their friends and local businesspeople had donated as a way of raising even more money than they already had. There were tickets to Patriots games and Red Sox games and the use of a private suite for a Giants game at MetLife Stadium and even a trip to the Bahamas somebody had donated just the day before.

“Some of this stuff is amazing,” Teddy said.

“It is,” his mom said. “But people better come up big, because we're still not there.”

As they got closer to the start of the show, his mom kept going back and forth from the stage to the lobby every few minutes. She said she was pretty sure they were going to have a sellout, that she wasn't worried about that; she had a good idea of the amount of money ticket sales were going to bring in. Now she needed those auction items to come through for her.

“You keep saying we're going to be short,” Teddy said backstage.

He was wearing his blazer and a tie and khaki pants and loafers. All the judges were dressed up. Cassie was wearing a new dress her mother had bought her for the occasion.

“I'm better at math than you are,” his mom said, taking another peek through the curtains.

“Ouch.”

“Tonight is all-or-nothing,” she said. “The town won't extend the deadline. If we do come up short when we total up the money, then everything we've raised goes to Walton Middle for its new fields project, and there's no music department next semester.”

“Our fields are fine, by the way.”

“Tell our town that,” she said.

“So people have to come up big at the auction?” Teddy said.

“They have to come up
huge
.”

“You're the one who keeps telling us that it's never over till it's over,” Teddy said. “Or until the fat lady sings.”

That at least got a grin out of his mom. “Well,” she said, “the singing is about to begin, isn't it?”

The time came to close the auction. Before his mom walked back to the lobby, she said to him, “Your dad is here, by the way.”

It surprised Teddy. “He is?”

“He said that if I could go to your games, he could come to mine,” she said.

Then she was gone. Teddy peeked through the curtains and watched her walk down the middle aisle, waving at friends who were already in their seats.

Fifteen minutes later, it was showtime.

He wanted this for Gregg, because he knew how hard Gregg had worked, and he couldn't imagine the pressure of performing in front of this many adults. He wanted this for Mrs. Brandon, because he knew how hard
she'd
worked, and he'd come to understand that she did love her music as much as he and his friends loved their sports.

But he was surprised, now that the show was starting, how much he wanted this for his mom.

It felt as good as she said it would doing something for somebody else:

Her.

•  •  •

It was a great show.

The band had added a couple of members, which made the music sound better than ever. The two losing semifinalists, Vi and Angela, sang a duet. Some of the girls from Mrs. Brandon's chorale sang two songs. After they did, Mrs. B came back out and thanked everybody for their support all over again.

Teddy's mom had been right about the crowd: the gym was completely full. They'd even had to roll out bleachers on one side to handle the overflow. Maybe his mom wouldn't need as much money from the auction as she thought. Maybe, he thought, they'd get their happy ending after all.

Even here they'd used a coin flip, to determine which of the finalists would go first. Katie won the toss and said she'd rather go last. Gregg had told Teddy that if he could play baseball in the Little League World Series on ESPN, he could get through tonight. But Teddy still watched in awe as he walked to the microphone and proceeded to belt out Justin Timberlake's song “Mirrors.”

Gregg got a standing ovation. As he did, Teddy and Cassie turned their backs to him, just like the coaches did on
The Voice
. As Gregg walked off the stage, he leaned down and said into Teddy's ear, “I won't be as happy if I win as I am that I'm done!”

It was Katie's turn. She had picked a Katy Perry song, “Roar.” When she was done, and the people in the gym jumped to their feet and roared for her, Cassie didn't turn around this time. She jumped up from her seat and ran across the stage and hugged Katie.

When she came back to their small table, Teddy said, “I thought I was going to have to flag you for excessive celebration.”

The people were still applauding. Over the continuing roar of the crowd, Cassie yelled, “I'll take the fifteen yards!”

The band played a couple of songs while the votes were counted. Mrs. Brandon came out for the big moment, an envelope in her hand. She opened it up and smiled as she looked at the card she'd just pulled out. Then she announced that Katie Cummings had won.

Jack and Gus brought out the trophy from behind the curtain. Katie went back to the microphone and thanked Mrs. Brandon and Teddy's mom and Cassie. She congratulated Gregg, right before she said she was donating the hundred dollars she'd won as champion to what she called “the Mrs. B fund.”

Mrs. Brandon took the microphone from her and said, “This was never about me. It wasn't just Katie who won tonight. The music won.” That got the people cheering again.

With the show nearly over, Teddy looked across the stage at his mom. She had a card in her hand too. And despite all the noise and excitement in the gym, and talk about winners, she looked totally defeated.

Then somebody was standing next to her: his dad. He put his arm around her, said something into her ear, and began walking out onto the stage, making Teddy wonder if another show was about to begin.

T
eddy looked out at the audience. The people were just waiting, probably thinking this
was
part of the show.

Cassie leaned over and whispered in his ear. “What's he doing?”

“Not a clue.”

Teddy looked back at his mom. He tried to read her face now. But he couldn't. She was just one more person in the gym waiting to see—and hear—what was about to happen.

“I'm David Madden,” his dad said. “I see a lot of familiar faces in this crowd. But the best way for me to introduce myself, at least the way one football season is going in this town, is as Teddy Madden's dad.”

He turned and smiled at Teddy. Teddy gave a quick wave toward the audience, just because he felt as if he ought to do something.

“Of course you all know Teddy's mom,” his dad continued, “because she is the person who did the most to make this night happen, along with our wonderful champion, Katie, and all the other people who performed on this stage. Why don't we give everybody involved one more round of applause?”

He did, and they did. Cassie leaned over again and said to Teddy, “I thought Mrs. Brandon was the emcee.”

“Not anymore,” Teddy said.

“We all know why we're here tonight,” Teddy's dad said, “and the way we voted not just for Katie and Gregg, but with our wallets.”

He paused, to let that sink in.

“Anyway, Teddy's mom was just handed the final numbers raised by this event. And, sadly, it turns out that we've come up short of the figure needed to keep Mrs. Brandon's music department, which she loves, up and running at a school that she loves.”

No cheering in the gym now. Just a collective groan.

“Where's he going with this?” Cassie said.

“Why don't we both be quiet and find out?”

She didn't punch him this time. She kicked him under the table.

He had to hand it to his dad. Whatever was coming next, he was milking it for all it was worth. Then his dad reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and came out with a check. He held up the check so the people in the audience could see.

“I just covered the difference,” David Madden said. “All the people who put on this wonderful show have come too far to be stopped at the one yard line.”

He turned now toward Teddy's mom. “Alexis, please come out here so I can hand you this check,” he said.

As she did, the crowd jumped to its feet once more with an ovation to rock the gym one last time. Teddy's mom looked embarrassed as his dad handed her the check. But she smiled as she accepted it.

Teddy wondered how she felt now that her moment had become his.

“What just happened here?” Cassie said to Teddy.

“My dad's the one who ended up throwing the Hail Mary pass,” he said. “Completed it too.”

I
t was an hour before the Walton-Greenacres game at Holzman Field. Teddy and Gus were stretching on the field along with their teammates.

Teddy's dad hadn't arrived yet, but when Teddy looked over to the sideline, he saw Jack standing with Coach Gilbert and Coach Williams. Why not? Jack had been acting like an assistant coach from the time he got hurt.

Behind them the bleachers were already starting to fill up. Cassie and Kate and Angela were sitting in the front row, laughing about something. The day at Holzman was beginning to take shape.

“No way Norris loses to Brenham today,” Gus said.

“We just gotta keep winning,” Teddy said.

“Still doesn't seem right, losing a coin flip being this big a deal after we haven't lost a stupid game.”

“It won't matter,” Teddy said, “because we're not losing this game.”

“That's why they made you quarterback,” Gus said. “The way you can break things down like that.”

They were done stretching. When Teddy stood up, he looked around again, wanting to take it all in, because a part of him—a big part—still didn't believe that he was the quarterback of this team, and that he was here.

Maybe they would have still gotten to this day undefeated with somebody else at quarterback. Maybe the Wildcats were just that good. But he'd never know that, and neither would his teammates.

“Even though there's no script in sports,” Coach Gilbert had been telling Teddy and Jack just the other night after practice, “there's always a reason why things happen the way they do. Who steps up in the big moment, who doesn't. Who's there, who's not.”

Teddy walked over to the bench and picked up a ball, then waved at his receivers to follow him toward the ten yard line at this end of the field. Then Gus and Mike and Nate and Jake and Brian took turns running some simple pass routes, like now they were beginning to stretch out the Wildcats' passing game. Charlie Lyons joined them after a few minutes, direct-snapping some balls to Teddy before they switched to a shotgun formation.

The Giants were at the other end of the field, their quarterback going through the same progressions Teddy was. Greenacres was more than an hour away, but Teddy could see from the bleachers on the other side of the field that they had brought a lot of fans with them.

Jack came out and stood next to Teddy.

“Is this where you give me my pregame pep talk?” Teddy said.

“Nope. You don't need one today.”

“It should be you out here throwing the ball around. You know that, right?”

“Nope,” Jack said again. “This is your team now. Like your dad says. Stuff happens for a reason.”

“I hear you,” Teddy said. “Like there was a reason why my dad came back.”

He told Jack to go out for a pass now, threw him a beauty over the middle. Then he walked toward the sideline, as ready as he was ever going to be.

That was when he saw his mom standing behind their bench, waving at him. He grinned as he got closer to her, seeing that she already had her game face on.

“Hey,” he said. “Shouldn't you be up in your lucky spot by now?”

“Teddy,” she said, “there's no easy way to tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“Your father's not coming today.”

“That's not funny,” he said.

He'd been so busy focusing on his pregame routine that he hadn't looked for his father in the past few minutes. But he looked over his shoulder now, to where Coach Gilbert and Coach Williams and Jack were looking at the play sheet in Coach Gilbert's hand.

No sign of his dad anywhere.

“Maybe he's just late,” Teddy said, turning back to his mom.

“Teddy, listen to me,” she said. “He's not coming. He left early this morning, while you were still sleeping, for California. I hadn't checked my phone for messages until I got to the field. I couldn't quite understand him, but he said it was business.”

“But . . . it's the biggest game of the year,” Teddy said.

He was afraid his mom might cry. Teddy knew the feeling.

“I waited until you stopped practicing,” she said. “I told Coach Gilbert. He thought I should be the one to tell you.”