Perfect Season Page 18

  Troy shifted the backpack from one shoulder to the other. Seth watched the car disappear before turning his attention to Troy. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

  “Is there something I can do?” Troy asked. The hollow sound of the words made him even more helpless.

  “Throw five touchdowns Friday night. That’s all you have to do.” Seth patted Troy on the shoulder. “Leave the rest to me. Don’t worry. You guys better get to class, right?”

  The second bell rang. Troy cast a glance at the brick building. “We’re already late.”

  “Well, I’m fine, so stop looking at me like that,” Seth said. “I’ll see you at practice. Bye, Tate.”

  They left Seth just standing there and hustled inside.

  Troy’s homeroom teacher, Mr. Chapman, didn’t even look up from some papers he was grading when Troy came in late. Chuku was frowning at something on his desk, his eyes so intent that he didn’t hear Troy’s greeting. Troy slipped into his seat, but before he could ask what was wrong, the bell rang, ending homeroom.

  At lunch, Chuku grabbed Troy by the arm as soon as he saw him, pulling him close.

  “Did you see the paper?” Gone was Chuku’s brilliant smile and easygoing manner. He scowled as Troy had never seen him do before.

  “I know about that.” Troy kept his voice low. “Listen, the league is having an emergency meeting. Seth says it will all work out. I don’t know. Mr. Biondi didn’t look so good.”

  “Yeah, but why are they talking about me?” Chuku’s voice crept up a notch and he shot a glance all around them, as if people might be listening. “I paid for those jerseys. I took you to Helena. And who’s this unnamed player who heard Seth talk about a signing bonus?”

  “Reed, that jerk. It had to be.”

  “I didn’t get a signing bonus. What’s he talking about?” Worry weighed down Chuku’s face.

  “Remember when Seth was kidding with you about it? It was the first time we had practice.”

  “I didn’t think I could hate Reed any more than I already did.” Chuku shook his head.

  “Look, all that doesn’t even matter,” Troy said.

  “It matters because I can get suspended.” Chuku’s voice rose. “Even if it’s not true. If they say it’s true, it doesn’t matter what the real truth is. I’m in deep crap.”

  “Chuku, relax.” Troy hushed him. “Please. It’s bad enough already. They aren’t after you. Trust me. They’re after Seth. They don’t want to end your season. They want to end it for everyone.”

  Tate came over, and between her and Troy, they explained everything that was going on. Instead of Chuku calming down, he grew even more visibly upset. When the bell rang, they got up to go. Chuku put a hand on Troy’s shoulder. “Can’t somebody stop them?”

  “Sure, where’s Superman? Maybe Thor.” They moved into the tide of kids flowing through the halls for the afternoon classes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  IN THE LOCKER ROOM after school, Seth told Troy in a whisper that Mr. Biondi hadn’t surfaced yet.

  “All day they’ve been meeting?” Troy asked. “That’s gotta be good, right?”

  “I have no idea,” Seth said.

  Troy marveled at Seth’s acting ability. At practice, he carried on as if the upcoming game against Glen Cove was his only care in the world. He worked on the defensive signals with Reed as if the traitor was a wonderful teammate. Seth was the same as always, and when he called them all in to take a knee around him at the end of practice and Spencer raised his hand to ask about the suspension rumors, Seth played it off as if it were nothing.

  “You guys let me worry about the nonsense.” Seth smiled; he actually smiled. “I got everything taken care of. None of that is true, and I’m sure we’ll all be fine. We win two more games, it’s a perfect season and we’re off to the state playoffs. Now let’s go. Let’s focus on winning.”

  They all raised their helmets up and chanted together. “WIN! WIN! WIN!”

  Troy slogged along beside Seth. With the sun already down, the air had a chill and steam curled up from Troy’s bare arms in the glow of the stadium lights. Troy looked around and was careful to speak low enough so only Seth could hear. “How can you be so nice to Reed? How can you be so calm?”

  “We need Reed to win.” Seth laughed. “He runs our defense, in case you didn’t notice. And I spent the last fourteen years of my life having three-hundred-and-fifty-pound giants trying to take out my knees. You think these people worry me? Naw. They’re nothing.”

  “But . . .” Troy reached the last concrete step of the bleachers and his cleats clacked on the blacktop.

  “But what?”

  Before Troy could explain, a vehicle zoomed into the parking lot and came to a stop with its lights blinding Troy and Seth, so that they tried to block it with splayed hands at the same time. The engine went dead. The driver hopped out and slammed the door.

  “Sorry.” It was Mr. Biondi—Troy could see that now. The AD glanced around as he approached Seth. Most of the players and coaches were already in or near the locker room door. Mr. Biondi leaned close to Seth and whispered in his ear.

  Seth’s back went rigid. “No way. You’re joking.”

  Seth’s laugh came out in a twisted cackle of disbelief.

  Mr. Biondi took a step back. “I wish I was, Seth, but I’m not. The vote was unanimous.

  “The season is over.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  TROY, HIS MOM, TATE, and Seth sat at the kitchen table staring at one another.

  “I was so close,” Tate said. She had already told them about the meeting notes she’d found that very afternoon online from a planning board session from a year ago. The town had actually taken a vote on a shopping center project proposal by a company called Maple Creek. The project was denied because they didn’t have enough room according to the zoning laws. What they needed was the football field.

  “Too little, too late.” Troy’s mom sighed. “You tried. We all did.”

  Their talk faded into nothing and the only sound was the wind rattling the brown leaves of the big trees out back.

  Seth jumped up all of a sudden and disappeared into the living room, saying, “I’ve got to make a call.”

  Tate looked at Troy’s mom. She only raised her eyebrows and shrugged.

  When Seth returned to the kitchen, his lips were pressed together so tight they lost their color. “Well . . . I think we just might be able to play.”

  “Really?” Troy’s jaw went slack. “What happened? How come you’re not smiling?”

  “First of all, it’s not done, but if it works the way Ellen Eagen—my lawyer—thinks it will, we can get a TRO, a temporary restraining order. That’ll keep the league from suspending us until the court hears the arguments.”

  “Court?” Troy’s mom looked worried.

  “Yes,” Seth said, “we’re asking the court to stop the league.”

  Troy never heard so much talk about courts and suing people, but he felt a blaze of hope. “So they’ll listen? I can tell everyone I was the one who gave Chuku the jerseys and me and the other guys can tell them about what a goof that Dennaro kid is?”

  Seth held up a hand. “I know this is a bit complicated, but Ellen says the court isn’t focused on whether I did anything wrong. The only question the judge is willing to rule on is whether the league can suspend us without a fair hearing, like a trial of sorts.”

  “Of course they have to give you a fair hearing!” Tate burst out, then froze and stared at Seth. “Right? I mean, don’t they?”

  Seth frowned. “Maybe not. That’s what the judge has to decide.”

  “So people don’t have to be fair?” Troy let out a bitter laugh. “Seriously?”

  “That’s exactly it,” Seth said. “We need to get the judge to force the league to hold a hearing, then Troy can tell them about Chuku and we can prove Dennaro is just a silly kid. If the judge agrees with the league and says they don’t have to have a hearing,
then we’re finished.”

  “I can’t even believe this!” Troy couldn’t contain himself.

  “There is one other way,” Seth said. “A way that guarantees we’ll win. If we can show intentional malice, the judge will make the league reverse the suspension.”

  “Malice?” Troy frowned.

  “It means evil,” Tate said.

  “Ellen tried to argue that someone—some group or individual—is behind this and doing it for another reason, a malicious reason, something that’s wrong.”

  “Like to ruin everything so the football team gets shut down?” Tate asked.

  “We all think there’s something going on,” Seth said, “but that won’t hold water with the judge. We have to prove it.”

  Troy’s mom’s cell phone rang and everyone stopped talking.

  She shrugged and answered it. “Oh, hi. Yes, Tate is doing just fine . . . No, please, it’s our pleasure. She’s a wonderful young lady and we’re happy to have her . . .”

  Troy watched his mom’s face drop.

  “Yes. I understand. No, she’s right here. Do you want me to put her on?” Troy’s mom nodded and held her phone out for Tate. “Your mom wants to talk to you, Tate.”

  The look on his mom’s face made Troy forget about malicious intent, the football program, and even a perfect season.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  STARS RIDDLED THE SKY like a billion pinpricks of light. Troy and Tate were side by side on the back porch. After Tate spent ten minutes on the phone with her mom from San Diego, she said she needed some air.

  “I’m sorry about your dad.” Troy felt Tate shrug in response.

  “They said he still has a chance,” she said. “My mom says we have to be hopeful and pray.”

  “Well, there’s a chance. That’s good.” Troy knew he sounded lame, even though he put a lot of spark into the word good.

  “Thanks for having me,” Tate said. “It makes it better to be here with you and your mom.”

  “You’re like my sister anyway,” Troy said.

  The stars flickered and they were quiet for a while.

  Finally, Troy couldn’t stand it. “So I have to ask you, Tate. I know this football thing isn’t even close to being as important as your dad, and I don’t want you to think I think it is . . . but do you want to talk about it to, maybe, I don’t know, get your mind off things?”

  After a minute of thinking, Tate sighed. “Sure. I think that’s actually a good idea.”

  “So,” Troy said after a beat. “What do we do now, then?”

  “I’m thinking,” Tate said, and her voice did sound somewhat relieved. “The thing that bothers me is that your mom and Seth can’t figure it out, and if they can’t, I don’t know how I can.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve got a devious mind,” Troy said.

  Tate elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re the one who can lie with a smile on your face.”

  A breeze rattled the dying leaves above them. One broke off and drifted in a crazy swirl, disappearing into the darkness beyond the fence.

  “I don’t lie.” Troy tried not to sound too defensive. “I bend the truth sometimes. I . . . I tell stories to protect the innocent.”

  “Innocent? You mean, you?”

  Troy laughed.

  Tate went quiet for a minute before she spoke again. “Someone ought to be able to . . . I don’t know, get bank records or something. Something to show someone is getting paid off.”

  “See?” Troy said. “Anything’s possible to you. My mom doesn’t think like that, getting someone’s bank records.”

  Tate snapped her fingers. “Wait, not bank records. Tax records.”

  “Tax? What, like the IRS?” Troy huffed. “The guys who say I owe them two million dollars?”

  “Yeah.” Tate’s voice drifted up into the night sky, fading and hopeless. “Not much of a chance at that. Like we know anybody in the IRS or the FBI or something.

  “Hey.” Tate popped up into a sitting position and she slapped Troy’s knee. “What about Ty? Didn’t he and his brother know that FBI agent down in Miami pretty well? Maybe him.”

  Troy sat up, too. The words burst from his mouth like coins from a jackpot. “Not Ty, someone else! Tate, I know someone who’s got a friend in the FBI who’ll do it for us! He’ll do it for me! He said he would!”

  “Easy, easy.” Tate slapped Troy’s knee with the back of her hand. “What are you talking about?”

  Troy looked into Tate’s dark eyes and saw the dull glint of starlight. “I’m talking about . . . my father.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  TATE FOUND TROY’S DAD, or Sam Christian, on Facebook. Troy sent a friend request and a private message, asking him to call.

  Troy was disappointed, but not surprised, when nothing happened that evening. The next day they went to school, and in anticipation of getting the TRO from the judge, Seth held football practice. The team was flat, though, even with Seth and the coaches acting as if they’d get the temporary restraining order and be able to play Friday night.

  Troy tried to hold out hope, but by Thursday night it had faded to a dying flicker. They were just finishing dinner when Troy’s mom’s phone rang. She lifted it off the table and scrunched up her face before she answered it.

  Troy wondered if it could be his dad.

  After a pause, his mom said, “You’re a lawyer for who? The Jets?”

  Troy studied his mother’s face as she spoke to the Jets’ lawyer on the phone.

  Her frown deepened and she became angry. “Yes, we’ll be there . . . I don’t know, do I need a lawyer?”

  Troy’s stomach plunged as he wondered what more could go wrong.

  “Then it will just be us,” she said, and hung up the phone.

  “What was that?” Troy asked.

  His mother bucked up and cranked out a smile. “Just your contract. It’s all fine. Some formalities. We’ll work everything out. I already talked to Ellen Eagen, Seth’s lawyer, about this. There are things we can do.”

  “What things? What are they saying?”

  Her face softened. Moisture in the corners of her eyes reflected light from the brass lamp over the kitchen table. She reached over and took his hand. “I miss your gramps.”

  “I . . . do, too, but . . .”

  “And Nathan. I bet you’d like to play on his team again, right?”

  “I like Chance and these guys, too,” Troy said.

  “Ha!” Her laugh was more like a short bark. “I’m glad I didn’t sell the house. They can’t take that. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the rules. They can’t take your house.”

  “Take our house? In Atlanta?”

  “We’ll have to move back.” Troy’s mom spoke as if she were in a trance, then she turned to Tate. “Tate, I bet you’ll be glad. Not now, but after your soccer season.”

  Troy’s mom looked around the kitchen, at its peeling wallpaper and the water stains on the ceiling. She sighed as if to say good riddance.

  “Mom, you’re not making sense.”

  She focused on him again and raised her chin, defying the world. “Well, the contract with the Jets has those performance clauses in it. We owe the IRS and it looks as if we’ll owe the Jets, too. There’s no way we can pay everything back.

  “We’re going to be bankrupt, Troy.”

  CHAPTER NINETY

  TROY STARED AT HER until he realized that it wasn’t a joke.

  He pounded a fist on the table. “I can’t do it. I just don’t know why. It’s gone, Mom. It’s just gone.”

  His vision grew blurry. Tears split the light into shattered fragments. A sob escaped him. “I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just gone.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Don’t. It’ll all be fine.”

  “But I don’t want to go back to Atlanta.”

  “Don’t you miss Nathan, and Gramps?” She spoke softly.

  “I’m the quarterback. We’re having a perfect season. Seth’s the greatest coach ever. Everythin
g is here.”

  A growl gurgled up from Troy’s throat. “Why did I have to bet Chuku for that stupid jersey? I don’t even care about Ray Lewis!”

  Troy pounded his fist on the table, jangling the silverware. His mom said nothing. Finally he looked up at her. He knew what she was going to say before she said it, and he winced at the sound of her voice.

  “Some things are meant to be. Come on, you two, let’s clean up.”

  She got up and he and Tate helped her. They worked together, clearing the table and loading up the dishwasher, drying and putting things away. When they were finished, they read books silently in the living room, Troy and Tate on the couch, his mom with her legs curled up under her in a recliner. They shared the light of a single floor lamp. Outside, dead leaves rattled across the porch.

  After a while, Troy’s mom closed her book with a thump. “Come on, let’s go up. We’ve got to meet the Jets’ lawyer before school.”

  “Mom, do you know something I don’t?”

  “I think I told you everything,” she said. “No money is no money.”

  “Not about that, I mean about this stuff in court with Seth and the league,” he said.

  She stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. “You know how they always say in football to play every game as if it’s your last?”

  “Yeah. Seth says that.”

  “I think tomorrow night, if Seth can even get this restraining order,” she said, “that’s what you should do.”

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  TROY HAD NO IDEA Mr. Cole would be at the meeting, and he could tell by the look on his mom’s face that she didn’t, either. Still, there he was, sitting at the head of the table in a conference room at the Jets facility. The lawyer, whose name was Ben Bolt, removed papers from his briefcase and dealt them around the table like cards.

  “I’ve highlighted the specific clauses.” Bolt seemed almost apologetic. “The contract calls for written notice. I have that here for you. It’s a formality, but we have to do things like this in the event . . .”