The Walk On (20 page)

“Locker room, fellas,” he heard Coach Brotman say. “Let’s get out of the rain. Guys, give these kids a break. They’re all soaked.”

That was for sure, Alex thought, but that wasn’t why Coach Brotman—and the other coaches—were pulling everyone away from the TV cameras and the writers with their notebooks and tape recorders.

They all trooped into the tiny locker room and waited for the doors to close.

“Great win, fellas,” Coach Gordon said when everyone was quiet. “You showed what kind of team you are in that second half.

“We’re gonna give game balls to all you guys on the O-line for the way you blocked, and we’re gonna give one to you too, Crenshaw, because there are Main Line guys still lying on their backs out there from some of the blocks you threw.”

They all cheered for the O-line and Crenshaw. Alex waited for Coach Gordon to go on, because clearly no one deserved a game ball more than Matt.

He continued. “And you know what? We’re gonna give game balls to everyone on defense too. You guys didn’t allow a single point all night. You kept us in the game until we figured things out offensively.”

More cheers. Alex, in the back of the room, looked at Jonas.

“We?” he mouthed.

Jonas shrugged.

“Two more things,” Coach Gordon said. “One, no one talks to the media tonight. There will be a lot of requests. Just say, ‘Sorry, I have to get on the bus.’ I will do the talking for the team tonight.

“Second, you have the weekend off. The players who were involved in the incident with the student newspaper this week have come forward. So the matter’s closed. We’ll see you all at the usual time Monday.”

Alex was standing between Jonas and Stephen when Coach Gordon announced that the Steve Garland matter was closed. He glanced at them, but neither one looked back at him.

He realized this was not the time or place to even exchange glances.

Coach Gordon had left the locker room, presumably to talk to the media, while everyone got dressed. No one showered—there were only four showers in the entire locker room—so everyone just changed into dry clothes for the bus ride home.

As soon as they walked through the door, Alex felt the TV lights on them and he heard several voices shouting Matt’s name.

“Matt, give us a minute!”

“One question, Matt!”

“I feel like the president,” Matt said to Alex and Jake without cracking a smile.

Alex noticed Christine Whitford and Steve Garland standing with a clump of other media people who were separated from the players by yellow-jacketed security guards.

On the bus, Alex sat next to Jonas and they both pointedly said nothing. The bus was quieter than Alex expected after a win. He suspected everyone was exhausted—and relieved that Garland-gate was apparently over. He was dying to ask Jonas or Stephen if they had changed their minds and talked to Coach Gordon, but couldn’t do it.

Finally, just before the bus turned into the school parking lot, Alex’s phone buzzed. Cell phone calls weren’t allowed on the bus, but—on the way home—texts were allowed. Alex figured it was his mom telling him she was waiting for him. The rain had finally stopped.

Alex looked at his phone and saw the text wasn’t from his mother but from Stephen.

It said,
Stark’s
—
11:30 tomorrow?

Jonas was looking at his phone too.

“You get this too?” he said, showing Alex his phone.

Alex nodded, just as his phone buzzed again.

NO Christine
, the second message said.

“Okay?” he asked Jonas.

“Fine,” Jonas said, and they both sent their answers to Stephen as the bus pulled up in front of the locker room.

By now, phone calls from Christine didn’t surprise Alex anymore.

She texted him early on Saturday morning, asking him to call her. He debated whether to ignore her, text back, or call.

He finally opted for calling—knowing it was probably a mistake.

“Can we meet for lunch today?” she asked.

“No,” Alex answered too quickly. “I mean, why?”

“You saw what happened after the game,” she said. “No one was allowed to talk to anyone on the team.”

“I know. But after what happened last week, it’s just too risky for any of us to talk. If
anyone
is quoted, even anonymously, Coach Gordon will go nuts.”

“I know. I’m just curious how you all reacted when Coach Gordon decided to give up on the spread option and go to the I-formation at halftime.”

“Coach Gordon?” he blurted. “Who said it was Coach Gordon’s idea?”

“He did,” she said. “You mean it wasn’t him? Was it Coach Brotman?”

Alex caught himself. If Coach Gordon had decided to take credit for the change in offense,
he
wasn’t going to be the one to contradict him.

“Sure, it was him.”

“Come on, Alex.”

“I really don’t know who it was,” he said, not happy that he was lying but not feeling like he had a choice. “The coaches go off into a corner for a while and we can’t hear what they’re saying.”

“So you just don’t want to give him credit for being smart, then.”

“What!”

Now
she
was defending Coach Gordon? Who would she get
that
from? Oh God—it had to be Jake.

She was talking and he was half listening.

“You know I’ll find out the truth one way or the other,” she was saying. “So will Steve. The assistant coaches still talk to him.”

“Find out from them, then. They should know.”

She sighed, clearly exasperated. Alex realized that he did a lot better not giving in to her on the phone than he did in person.

“How about if we meet at Stark’s for lunch to talk about all this?”

“Can’t,” he said. “Have plans.”

“With who?” she asked, almost sounding indignant.

“Don’t sound so shocked—I do have friends.”

“I know,” she said. “I just thought we were … friends too.”

He started to say something like,
That’s funny, we weren’t friends until I got knocked silly and you got a story out of it
. Or,
Seems to me like you’re a lot friendlier with Jake than you are with me
. He caught himself, though—neither comment was a good idea.

“We are,” he said. “But I can’t talk to you right now. I’m the third-string quarterback and if I get caught doing something that upsets Coach Gordon, he’ll cut me altogether. Look what he did to Coach Hillier, and that could have cost us the game last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” he said. Geez, if he stayed on the phone much longer he was going to say something he shouldn’t. “I gotta go,” he said. “My mother’s calling me to breakfast.”

“No, she’s not,” Christine said. “You’re just afraid to talk to me.”

She really was too smart for her own good—or his.

“You’re right,” he said. “Which is why I have to go now.”

He hung up feeling guilty, but letting her join them at Stark’s would be a disaster on every possible level.

“Well, who was it, then?” Jonas asked.

They were sitting at a back table inside Stark’s. Much to Alex’s relief, there were no familiar faces around when he walked in the door and found both Stephen and Jonas waiting for him, even though he was two minutes early.

They hadn’t wasted any time getting to the point: Jonas said he hadn’t spoken to Coach Gordon and Stephen said the same thing. Alex figured it went without saying that he hadn’t confessed, but he confirmed that for the two of them nevertheless.

Which led to Jonas’s question. Who?

Alex had been wondering all night and had a theory. “What if no one said anything …? Is it possible that Coach Hillier had it right, that Coach Gordon didn’t want the entire team running for days and so he just
said
people had turned themselves in so it would look like he got what he wanted, even though he really didn’t?”

They both stared at him for a second.

“So he bluffed?” Jonas said. “Waited until the last possible minute and then decided running everyone would hurt the team, so he backed off without admitting he backed off?”

“I wouldn’t put that past him,” Stephen said.

A waitress came to take their orders. The place had been virtually empty when Alex walked in, but now people were starting to fill the tables. Still, no one from school. He was sitting with his back to the wall, facing the front of the restaurant, so he could see everyone who walked in.

“Actually, it’s pretty ingenious,” Alex said. “He’s got everyone scared to talk to anyone in the media, especially to anyone on the
Weekly Roar
, and the rest of the team probably believes a couple of guys turned themselves in. We only know he’s lying because we’re guilty, and we’re sure not going to tell anyone else that.”

They were both nodding in agreement.

“You know he didn’t give Matt any credit for changing the offense last night when he talked to the reporters,” Stephen said. “Took all the bows himself.”

“How do you know that?” Jonas asked.

Stephen reached down to the empty chair next to him and picked up a copy of the sports section of the
Inquirer
.

“Page four,” he said. “Right at the top. Read the first quote.”

Jonas took the paper and opened it so Alex could look over his shoulder. The headline,
CHESTER HEIGHTS MUDDLES THROUGH MUD AND MAIN LINE
, was stretched across the top of the page, making it the number one high school story of the day.

Jonas read the quote from Coach Gordon aloud: “ ‘What we were doing in the spread option wasn’t working because of the conditions. Sometimes you have to adjust on the fly. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. I thought the kids did a really good job of running an offense we don’t practice very
often because we usually only use it in our goal-line package.’ ”

Alex grunted. “Pretty carefully worded. He doesn’t actually
say
it was his idea.…”

“But he makes you think it was,” Jonas said, finishing his sentence.

“I wonder how Matt feels about that,” Alex said.

Stephen shrugged. “I think Matt gets who his father is. He’s always turned it into a joke when someone brings up his father. I remember once he said, ‘My mom always says we need two houses: one for us and one for my dad and his ego.’ ”

“His mom might not have been joking,” Jonas said.

Their hamburgers arrived. Alex was savoring his first bite when he looked up and saw something that almost made him choke on his food.

Christine Whitford.

“Oh boy,” he managed to say as his food went down too quickly. “Trouble.”

Stephen and Jonas looked up as Christine, after a quick pause to look around the room, started walking toward their table.

“Did you invite her?” Stephen asked, clearly not pleased.

“Swear to God, no,” Alex said.

“Good,” Stephen said. “Then you can tell her to leave.”