Yearbook (9 page)

In fact it wasn’t until the following morning, after a sleepless night, when Amy went to sick call, that she learned about this basic fact of life.

That evening at six-thirty, Amy finally got to the telephone.

In a torrent she told Evelyn all the terrible things she’d gone through and how frightened she’d been. She told her the traumatic story and at first Evelyn said nothing. Then she spoke. “My dear! Nothing to be upset about. You’ve been given a blessed gift. Other girls have to wait three and four more years to become women. And though I wasn’t there to help, I’m sure you handled it beautifully, as always. Wait ‘til Aunt Bernice hears about this! We’ll be dancing at your wedding before any of us know it, darling. Now doesn’t that make you feel better? …”

THIRTEEN
 

A STRONG WIND EARLY SATURDAY morning changed a murky, hazy sunrise into a crisp fell day. The last of an Indian summer.

The football-crazed town of Floral Park had been Waterfield’s biggest rival for decades. The game shaped up to be the toughest of the season. A current of vengeful excitement surged through the crowd, both sides renewing their annual contracts for mutual hatred, both calling for blood.

“I don’t give a crap how many balls we have to bust today,” Petrillo told his boys in the locker room. “Just as long as we win.”

No ordinary contest, this was
war!

The last Eagle to trot out onto the playing field, Corky made a typically electric entrance, juicing up the volume of school spirit from hundreds certain number 33 would deliver. Hundreds blissfully ignorant of a not-so-unusual scene acted out late the previous night at the Henderson house when, as a quiet town slept, a cry rang out, building to a scream until a light went on and Dora shook her son Corky gently awake, soothing him out of his pregame nightmare.

The gun went off, the game began and by the time they were well into the first half Guy was totally confused by the 7-to-13 score.

The confusing part: Floral Park’s Sewanhaka High had the thirteen. The Eagles were losing.

Losing! Sewanhaka had outsmarted Waterfield with every move. They’d passed when least expected and run when a pass was anticipated.

Guy watched carefully, trying to figure out in his naivete what was going wrong.

Ro-Anne was a pile of nerves. She knew a loss on the field would mean no go in the heated back seat after the dance. “Go, Eagles, go!” she shouted, loudest of the cheerleaders.

Paying especially close attention now, Guy studied the game through his camera. He saw the Sewanhaka quarterback licking his lips in a strange way sometimes, just before the ball was hiked.

The halftime gun went off as Guy realized his close-up lens, seeing what none of the others could, might have broken a code. But what?

Forget it, he told himself. Their quarterback has a stiff case of raw lips. Period.

Halftime on the Eagles’ side was not one of hope and happiness, so Guy strolled down to the locker room.

Petrillo, surrounded by disillusioned players, was leaning against a rub-down table, laying it on as Guy silently entered.

“What can I say, boys? I thought this year we might make it. I thought with our offense, our teamwork, with Corky, hell, I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I should’ve known better.”

Heads drooped lower. A cloud of gloom permeated the locker area, as thick as the stench of perspiration.

Coach went on. “Doesn’t mean much. Not really. I don’t need another trophy in my den. Naw. I’ve had enough in my time. What’s the difference, huh? Win some, lose some. Right? Just that … hell, I don’t know. I thought you guys had that special chemistry that occasionally clicks on the field and makes for memories when coaches like me sit alone in front of fireplaces years from now. But look … if you can’t, you can’t. And all the work, all the dedication, simply means diddley-shit. So let’s just forget it, okay? Let’s go back and throw away the second half too. What’s a victory to our seniors in their last year, anyway?”

Guy saw tears appearing in some of the players’ eyes. What a deal, he told his diary, to be able to cry over a game and still not forfeit masculinity ….

Coach changed pace and tone. “Those Sewanhaka turds are cocky now. They could blow it. They can be beat. If you assholes would just go out there and act like a team! Get out there, crack a few heads. Haul a little ass!”

Close together on low benches, players coming out of their despair blurted back staccato grunts of agreement. Cautiously, Guy snapped pictures of the dramatic scene. Looking through his lens, he reviewed in his head the first half of the game and suddenly it all made sense.

Full speed ahead, Petrillo eventually shifted this down-and-out wake into an up-and-at-’em rousing cry for blood and victory.

With shouts and whoops, the boys were on their cleats again, trotting from the locker room in single file.

A grim Corky passed before Guy. He was almost out of the locker room when Guy blurted out, “Corky! Can I see you a moment?”

Corky trotted back to Guy. “What’s up?” he asked, impatient. Guy should know better than to detain him now.

Guy’s voice and fingers shook as one. “Listen, uhm, I know you’re going to think this is probably ridiculous …”

“Come on, kid. What is it?” Corky implored, still trotting in place, anxious to get out of there.

“Well,” Guy said in the screechiest voice he’d ever heard, even from himself, “I’ve been watching closely and I don’t know if it means anything or not, but before Sewanhaka hikes, their quarterback almost always licks his lips in a really weird way, like it might be a signal or something … and I could see it clear as day through the long lens in my camera, and I hate to bother you at a time like this, but you see the ridiculous conclusion I’ve drawn is every time he licks his lips he eventually passes the ball and every time he doesn’t it means he’s going to run it.”

Corky stared at Guy, saying nothing.

“That’s all I wanted to say, Corky.” Guy waved a friendly hand.

Corky still said nothing. He even stopped jogging in place and just stood there staring at Guy with a blank expression. The roar from the battlefield swelled. Players were making their second-half entrance.

“Let’s go, Henderson!” yelled an insistent Petrillo from the doorway.

Corky shook his head and put on his helmet. “Do me a favor, kid. Just take the pictures. You’re good at that. Leave the game to me, okay?”

Before Guy could sink to the ground with embarrassment, Corky ran from the room.

Deflated and upset, Guy slowly made his way back to the field, arriving several plays late. He took pictures only of spectators and paid little attention to what remained of the game.

Enthusiasm on the Eagles’ side picked up during the second half when Corky intercepted a long Sewanhaka pass.

The ball recovered, Waterfield’s eleven moved closer to the goal, first and ten, until Corky dashed into the end zone.

The touchdown tied the score, 13-13.

Corky kicked in the extra point and suddenly the Eagles were ahead. The Waterfield crowd ripped programs into confetti.

Coach Petrillo’s “Let’s do this one for the Gipper” pep talk had worked after all.

When the final gun went off, Waterfield went into a fit of delirium, Sewanhaka into a valley of despondency, and Guy into a splitting headache edged with remorse.

The locker room was jubilant pandemonium. Players still in uniform threw one another into showers. Others, already cleansed, waged spirited towel fights. Coiled terry-cloth tips snapped into naked skin, bruising, searing, eliciting cries of momentary anguish and pained celebration.

In the middle of all this festive rampaging, Corky sat on the bench in front of his locker, unwinding. Clad only in jockstrap and shoulder pads, knees spread apart, he thanked teammates congratulating him.

Off to the side, leaning against a locker wall, silent and unobtrusive, a fly on the wall, was Guy.

The party rose in intensity, volume and exuberance.

A sports reporter from the Eagler made his way through the circle of athletes to get to Corky for a statement.

“What was it?” asked the enthusiastic reporter, pen poised. “How’d you break their offense?”

The noise in the locker room dwindled fast. Everyone wanted to hear.

Corky was about to say that he was not the only hero of the afternoon; that there was a young man named Guy Fowler who also deserved some of the lavish praise.

He was all set to tell them about Guy’s halftime discovery, which eventually had him anticipating their offensive moves, but eager eyes and stares of adoration just wouldn’t let him share the approval. He adjusted quickly, telling captivated faces, “They confused me most of the first half. But they’re not so smart. Sure, they look tough in their uniforms, but padding can be as misleading on guys as girls. Don’t print that last part!”

Everyone cheered and whistled. Guy too. The reporter took it all down. Petrillo beamed like a proud papa.

And Corky smiled. He smiled a dazzler for his fans while trying hard to ignore the guilt pang thumping in the back of his head.

FOURTEEN
 

TISSUE-PAPER ORCHIDS clung to chicken-wire palm trees. Tropical travel posters covered cracks in the walls. Coconut-shaped balloons filled the baskets. Fish nets everywhere.

Entering the pulsating gymnasium that evening, apprehensive, uncomfortable in his itchy woolen suit, Guy found an exotic South Seas paradise right in the middle of mid-Long Island.

In one corner, an “underwater” lagoon had mobile cardboard sharks swimming from the ceiling. Below these paper maneaters a chair of plastic seashells served as King Neptune’s throne. Guy’s guess was this Atlantis-near-Flushing was where Ro-Anne would be crowned later in the evening.

Climbing to the top of the bleachers, he set up his camera equipment. Focusing, he spotted Amy, the awkward girl he’d seen at the Sugar Bowl the other night. She sat alone, a few rows below him, writing on a small note pad.

The four-piece rock and roll band, seemingly determined to make up in volume that which they lost to talent, segued from their bang-it-out hot stuff into a lazy foxtrot.

No sign of Corky or Ro-Anne.

Intrigued that Amy seemed to be the only unescorted girl there, Guy decided to introduce himself. As he stepped down the few rows, a fidgety finger accidentally triggered his flash attachment. The searing light burst in Amy’s face.

“Jeez, I’m sorry.” Too late, Guy put his hand over the bulb.

Blinking brown eyes, Amy squinted. “Don’t shoot! I give up!”

“I’m Guy Fowler.”

“I can’t see a thing. Do we know each other?”

Guy stood high above her. “Saw you the other night at the Sugar Bowl.”

Amy’s eyes adjusted to the light. “My favorite haunt!” she said with cold sarcasm, hardly moving her lips.

“May I ask what you’re writing?”

“Covering this bash for the
Eagler.”

“No kidding?” Guy was excited. “Me, too!”

“Really?” Amy was unimpressed. “How?”

Guy held up his Pentax.

Amy snapped her fingers. “Leonard mentioned you. Now if our memories should forget this tasteless bore, we’ll have your indelible photos to remind us.”

“I sure hope so,” said Guy. “This is my first dance.”

“No! Your first taste of raw excitement and here’s old cynic Amy in her jaded senior year spoiling it for you.”

“No you’re not.”

“I mean, telling you what a hokey mess it all is. “

“I can sort of see that myself, but it also looks like people are having a good time.”

“They should know better.”

“You’re not having much fun.”

“I should hope not!”

“How come?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Little things. The music. The decorations. Refreshments. Atmosphere. The crowd. Things like that.”

“That’s all?”

“Not quite. I object to the leering chaperones; spinsters treating us like ten-year-olds. The ass-kissers who dance with them, thinking they’ll get better grades with their box step. I don’t like any of it.”

Guy studied Amy. “Know something? You’re unusual,” he said.

“Thanks for noticing,” she answered icily.

“No, I mean unusual
interesting. “

“Well, I’m glad one of us thinks so. I find myself fairly un-unusual this evening. All this rush to have a good time exhausts me. “

“I sure wish I wasn’t having a good time,” said Guy.

Amy yawned. “That some kind of clever remark?”

“I don’t think so.” Guy smiled apologetically. “Just trying to keep up with you.”

“You’re doing rather well. Most people don’t stick around this long. I scare them off.”

“They probably don’t understand you.”

“Or me them.”

“Hey, listen!” Guy adjusted his skinny blue tie. “I’m no Fred As-taire or anything, but would you like to dance?”

“Listen, friend. I’m no Ginger Rogers, so it hardly matters.”

“Fine.”

Like Alice in Wonderland, Amy stood up and up until Guy realized how very tall she was. Now on flamingo feet, she hovered a good head higher than him.

Too late to back out.

The slow song was still playing. Guy placed his arm around Amy’s slim waist, and was afforded a lovely view of her Adam’s apple. They danced.

Too soon, surrounding couples snickered.

Guy wondered if she was finding this embarrassment as excruciating as he, and looked up at Amy.

Stoic and composed.

He cupped a hand over his mouth and quietly called far into the distance, a mountaineer:
“Hell-o up there!”

She stopped dancing. “Listen. There are no rules. Nothing is sacred. Give me irreverence or give me death.
But
… I will not tolerate any cracks about my height. I’m self-conscious in that area. Got it?”

“Well …” Guy defended himself. “Don’t you think I’m self-conscious about my shortness?”

They resumed dancing. “Then we understand each other. You have my word, I’ll never mention it.”

“Fine, Amy. You’ve heard the last from me on that subject, too. “

“Thank you, Guy.”

“You’re welcome, Stretch.”