Playing the Field (10 page)

There was only one person who I was sure I
could sell something to, and that was my grandmother.

After dinner I took the cordless phone to my
bedroom and called her. I sat on my bed, nervously drumming my
fingers, while I listened to the phone ring. I hoped she was home,
and I hoped Kirk didn’t walk in during our conversation.

“Hello.” I heard my grandmother’s voice on
the other end of the line.

“Hi, Grandma. It’s McKay. I was just calling
to see how you’re doing.”

“I’m doing just fine,” she said.

“Good, because I love you, and I always want
you to be healthy.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said.

“And of course being healthy starts with
healthy water.”

“Oh?”

“And since we’re talking about healthy water
did you know Hendricks now has their very own reverse osmosis
system?”

There was a pause on the line and then
Grandma said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to be healthy—and because
I’m trying to sell reverse osmosis systems for Dad. Do you want to
buy one?”

“Not really.”

“But it has four patented clear-water
filters.”

Grandma sounded a little impatient. “McKay,
what are you getting out of these sales?”

“Dad gets two hundred dollars.”

“I see.” There was another pause and then,
“How about I just pay you ten dollars to drop the subject?”

I was persistent. “Oh come on Grandma, don’t
you want clean water?”

“My water is just fine, but if your parents
need the money they can call me, and we’ll talk about it.”

I knew that would never happen. When Grandma
came to visit us, my parents didn’t even like her to put gas in the
car. They’d never accept money from her.

I mumbled, “Well, thanks anyway.” We talked
for a few more minutes and then hung up.

I lay down on my bed, and when I was finished
staring at the ceiling, I got the rest of my homework out of my
backpack. I saw my algebra book and shoved it further into my
backpack. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Swenson,” I said out loud. “I’m not
about to try for a career as a salesman.” I couldn’t. I was so bad
at it, even my own grandmother wouldn’t buy anything from me. All I
could do was hope Mom and Dad worked out the details of Kirk’s room
soon.

Chapter 8

Over the next week Tony and Rachel were
constantly together. He was at her locker in the morning. She was
at his locker before math. I even saw them hold hands outside of
Mrs. Swenson’s room. Tony gave Rachel a bracelet and she not only
wore it all the time, she was constantly fiddling with its blue
beads. At baseball practice Tony gave me Rachel updates. He always
did this in a superior sort of way, like I was supposed to be
impressed at what an adult he was.

I still taped the math class and brought it
to Serena every day. She helped me with my homework and we talked
about school. It was absolutely the first time in my life I had
ever liked algebra. I was getting so good at it, I could actually
tell what x was on a regular basis. It may have been my
imagination, but it seemed even Mrs. Swenson had a newfound respect
for me. Every once in a while, when I passed her on the way to my
desk, I’d say, “Go ahead and ask me, just ask me when those trains
will meet.”

She always told me to sit down, but her smile
didn’t seem quite as dour as she said it.

But the best thing of all was that I felt
like Serena and I were becoming friends, and it was a nice
comfortable feeling.

Brian, however, was still in the picture. I
knew he was either calling or coming over to see Serena because she
kept saying things like, “Brian said the pep assembly yesterday was
really lame.” I could never figure out why she mentioned him to me,
or what it meant. Did she consider Brian, or me, or both of us as
just friends? Did she like one of us as more than a friend? If so,
which one? I never tried to find out. To find out meant I had to do
something about it, and it was easier to be ignorant and pretend
she liked me and was just putting up with Brian.

After a few more days, Serena’s knee healed
enough that she came back to school, at first on crutches and then
without them. We said hi to each other when we passed in the halls,
and sometimes I walked her to math class. It was nice to have
someone to walk with, since Tony was always goofing off with Rachel
outside of the door. Once or twice I saw Brian while I was with
Serena. He always glared at me.

I tried not to let it bother me. After all,
glaring was not on the list of qualifications for being Mr.
Right.

Sometimes Serena and I went over our algebra
homework in the library before school, and if I had a problem with
anything she’d help me out. Life had become, for a short moment, a
happy peaceful place. Baseball was especially good. We won our last
game, which put us in first place in our league. We were ready to
take on the other winning teams in our district, and my batting was
on fire. Coach Manetti started calling me “The McKay Cannon”
because I could smack the ball off in any direction.

All the tournament games were held in a big
sports complex in Mesa. Rachel, Anna, and Serena showed up to watch
the first one. They sat in the front row of the bleachers and ate
popcorn and drank soda. A few times I casually looked over to where
they sat, but they never seemed to be watching the game. Mostly
they were bent close to one another talking. Every once in awhile
I’d see them laugh. I hoped they weren’t laughing at something we’d
done, or at least not something I’d done. Then the game got intense
and I forgot the girls were there altogether.

The Tempe Mavericks were a tough team, and it
was touch and go until the last inning. We were only one run ahead,
and we had to make sure the score stayed that way. When it was all
over, we’d won 9 to 8. I had three hits and five runs batted in,
and I felt good about that. I was sure our team had looked great on
the field, especially me. We gave the other team the standard
cheer, then Tony and I gave each other high fives and our usual
after-game routine. “Who the man?” he asked me.

“You the man.”

“You the man,” he said back to me.

We walked toward the bleachers and noticed
the girls standing behind the backstop waiting for us.

“Good game!” Serena called. “You made a great
hit, McKay.”

I was glad she’d seen at least one of them
happen.

“And you were super, too, Tony,” Rachel
added.

“Yeah, Tony,” Anna cooed. “I was very
impressed by your moves.”

They went on for a few more minutes
congratulating us, but my mind was stuck on Anna’s first comment.
Something about the way she said it bothered me, and as I watched
her I became more and more sure I was right. Anna looked at Tony.
Anna smiled at Tony. Anna laughed at everything Tony said, even the
stupid stuff. It all meant one thing. Anna liked Tony.

I never mentioned my observation about Anna
to anyone. I mean, what would I have said? “Hey, Tony, you’d better
tone down that walk. You’re attracting too many girls.”

Or to Serena: “Hey what is it with your
friends? How come they all like Tony so much instead of, say,
me?”

Or to Anna herself: “You might not have ever
walked past Mrs. Swenson’s room at math time, but in case you
didn’t know, Tony is taken.” Of course Anna knew Tony was taken. It
was her friend, Rachel, who took him.

I didn’t want to get involved in the whole
thing. And I wouldn’t have, if everyone didn’t drag me into it.

It happened the next week at the school
dance. I had never been to one of the school dances before, and I
hadn’t ever planned on going to one until they did something
besides dance at them. I mean, who invented dancing? It wasn’t a
guy, that’s for sure. A guy would never voluntarily choose to stand
in front of his friends and peers waving his arms around like he’s
trying to flag down an invisible boat. Girls invented dancing. I
know they did. Back in prehistoric times all of the cavewomen got
together and decided to play a huge practical joke on the
cavemen.

They said, “We’ve discovered something called
dancing. Stand here and wave your arms around while everyone
watches you. It will be fun.”

And men have been stuck dancing ever
since.

So I was firmly against going to the dance,
but Tony wanted to go, and he kept insisting I come with him. As we
sat on the bench waiting to bat during game two of the tournament,
he brought up the subject again.

“You’ll have a good time.”

“I don’t want to ask a girl to dance. What if
she says no?”

“Then you ask someone else.”

“What if they all say no?”

Tony stretched out his legs and shrugged.
“They won’t all say no. In the history of school dances, I don’t
think that’s ever happened.”

But I might be that lucky first one.

“Besides,” Tony said with a grin, “Serena
will say yes.”

Until that moment I forgot Serena would be
going. At least, I hoped she’d go. She and her friends hadn’t come
to see us play game two, but how many games could you expect a girl
to sit through when she didn’t fully understand the concept of
baseball? I was still surprised that she’d shown up for game one.
As I got up to take my turn to bat, I said, “Well, all right, I
guess I could give the dance a try.”

We won the game 8 to 6. It was a great
afternoon. The McKay Cannon was in action, and I was
invincible.

The dance was that Friday night in the school
auditorium. I had thought there would be decorations of some sort,
but it was just the auditorium with a sound system on the stage and
the bleachers pulled half way across the gym floor to create a
dance area. At first when Tony and I walked in, I could barely see
anything because it was so dark. But after a few moments I could
tell which kids were on the dance floor (mostly couples, because it
was a slow dance) and which kids sat on the bleachers (everybody
else). A few parents were also perched on the top rows of the
bleachers. I guess they were the chaperones.

We were in front of the speakers, so Tony
said to me, in a voice that was close to shouting, “Let’s go over
to the bleachers and see if Rachel is here.”

“Okay!” I yelled back.

We walked over to the bleachers, and after a
few moments of searching, we saw Anna sitting by herself. She waved
us over, and Tony and I sat down beside her.

“Where are Rachel and Serena?” Tony asked
her. He didn’t have to yell anymore because we were far enough away
from the speakers that we could almost carry on a normal
conversation.

“They’re both out dancing,” Anna said, and I
noticed she scooted a little closer to Tony.

Tony looked surprised. “Rachel is slow
dancing with another guy?”

Anna shrugged and smiled at him. “Loyalty
isn’t Rachel’s strong point.”

Apparently it wasn’t Anna’s strong point
either, because she scooted even closer to Tony. “Do you want to
dance?” she asked.

Tony took another look out on the dance floor
and then turned back to Anna. “Sure.” The two of them got up and
left me without another word.

So there I was. Alone on the bleachers with a
roomful of modern-day cavewomen all just waiting to watch me flail
around and make a fool of myself. At least it was dark. I bet guys
invented dance-floor lighting. The prehistoric caveman had said,
“We’ll dance if we have to, but we won’t do it in the light of
day.”

I moved up the bleachers in an attempt to be
farther away from the dancing. If I was high enough up, nobody
would ask me to dance; and I could just spend the night casually
observing the rest of my fellow cavemen. Since it was a slow song,
nobody was actually flailing around at this point. They just stood
there, swaying a little. Swaying didn’t look too hard. I could
probably manage to sway as well as anybody else, but if I asked a
girl to dance during a slow song what would she think?

Also, were you supposed to talk to each other
while you danced? If so, what were you supposed to talk about? I
felt a small bolt of panic run through me as I realized I didn’t
know the answer to these questions. I should have asked Tony what
exactly one was supposed to do while dancing, but now it was too
late. He was out swaying with Anna, and if anyone asked me to dance
now, I’d mess up for sure.

I moved a couple more bleacher steps up. From
there I could see Serena dancing with Brian. I wondered whether
Serena had asked him to dance, or whether he’d asked her. It was
hard to tell whether she was enjoying the dance or not, since it
was so dark and I couldn’t see her face clearly.

What if Serena spent every dance with him,
and I had absolutely no one I wanted to dance with? I wondered if
Tony would mind if I left without him, or whether my parents would
mind coming to get me ten minutes after they’d dropped me off. Then
the song ended, and Tony, Anna, Rachel, and Serena came back to the
bleachers. Brian, happily, was nowhere to be seen. I went down and
stood with them. I didn’t hear the first part of their
conversation, but when I got there it was clear Tony and Rachel
weren’t happy with each other. Rachel had her arms crossed. “Well,
if you hadn’t come late, you could have asked me to dance
instead.”

Tony let out a scoffing noise. “What? You
couldn’t wait a few minutes for me?”

“Why are you so upset?” Rachel asked, lifting
her chin. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Fine,” Tony said. “Then it won’t be a big
deal when I ask someone else to dance the next slow dance.”

“That’s fine with me,” Rachel said
crisply.

“Fine,” Tony repeated. They both looked out
at the dance floor and not at each other.

Serena’s gaze bounced back and forth between
Tony and Rachel. “Come on, you guys, stop fighting. Let’s all go
out and dance.”