Can't Get Enough of Your Love (28 page)

He stands and looks at his coach.

“I'm talking to you,” I say, and he snaps his head back to me. “What's your name?”

“Curtis.”

“Okay, Curtis, listen up. You have to go up and under with your inside arm”—I demonstrate on him—”then stick your elbow hard into his back, like a hook move in basketball, only meaner and completely legal.”

I elbow him hard and hear a little “oof.” Damn, he's bony. Why aren't they feeding these kids? If it weren't for his pads, Curtis would blow away in the wind.

“Up and under with your inside arm, then hook. It's just like swimming, only you're standing up. If you do this every time, you'll be ready for anything coming your way. And keep your feet moving, stay balanced, and work to the outside.” I point to a chunky lineman. “Get set.” The chunky lineman gets into his three-point stance. “Line up,” I tell Curtis, the Bony One, and he gets down in a four-point stance.

I shake my head. “Stand up, Curtis.” He stands. “Don't grab the dirt with both of your hands. Use a three-point stance. Grab dirt with your inside hand so you can start with your outside hand free.”

He gets into a three-point stance.

“Now as soon as you fire off the line, Curtis, start swimming.”

Curtis, the Bony One's, first attempt leaves him once again on the ground, but at least he ruined the lineman's block.

“Again.”

His second attempt ends in a stalemate, but at least Curtis has his outside arm free, his feet moving laterally to the outside.

“Better. Again.”

His third attempt works like a dream, the chunky lineman spinning behind Curtis, the Bony One. Curtis smiles.

“Do that
every
time, Curtis,” I say, tapping his chest, “and I'll be reading about you in the newspaper.”

I look at the coach, who is old, gray, and white, shake my head, and walk away. The coach runs up to me, and I've never seen him before. Oh yeah. We have a new head coach, our third new head coach in the last four years.

“They respond to you,” he says.

Because I'm cute,
and
because I actually know what I'm doing.

“Where'd you learn all that?” he asks.

I stop. “My daddy. I also play defensive end for the Roanoke Revenge.”

He doesn't blink. “They play in the spring, right?”

“Yes.”

“So what are you doing this fall?”

I don't answer right away, because I'm not sure how to answer. Is he asking me if I'll help him coach? I look out on the rest of the practice field and see at least six other coaches.

“Look,” he says, “I shouldn't be coaching the line, but I have to. I'm short-staffed, and I don't have a paid
assistant position left. But I might be able to get you some booster money.”

“To do what?” I ask.

“To coach the line.”

“You want me to … coach?” I like a new man with new ideas, but …

“Yes. Defensive ends, tight ends, whatever you feel comfortable with. They need lots of work.”

I nod. “They sure do.”

“So, will you do it?”

Unpaid work
after
work? And what if I want to take a night class in addition to the distance-learning class? How will that fit into all this?

Erlana loves the idea, but only if she gets to blow a whistle and cuss at bony little boys. Lana doesn't like the idea of hanging out with sweaty boys and taking long bus rides on Friday nights when she could be out on a date. Joy … Joy thinks that Erlana is too mean and that Lana is tripping about going on a date.

Joy also thinks the idea is perfect.

“I'll do it,” I say. “But I have to look like a coach. I'll need a coach's shirt, sweats, a whistle, and one of those purple satin jackets y'all wear.” Those jackets are
so
cool, and I've never seen a woman coach wearing one. “And I will have to be paid as much as the other coaches somehow, some way.”

“Okay.”

Okay? That was too easy! I should have asked for more! “Have you taken your team picture yet?”

“No. It's scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

I smile because …

I am
in
that team picture, and I am not in there as the
cheerleader sponsor, trainer, or water girl. I am listed in the program as “DE/TE coach Erlana Joy Cole.”

Daddy would be proud. And those boys do respond to me. Because I know what I'm talking about. And I'm pretty damn cute, too.

R
achel has me working this year with Hakeem, a stocky black boy with Down syndrome. He is a sweet child, we spend most of our day in the resource room playing paper football to work on his math skills (the boy can definitely count using threes and sevens), and he likes to hold my hand.

And, he likes football.

Unfortunately, he's a Cowboys fan. “They rock!” he shouts. Hakeem likes to shout, and I like to hear it. Sometimes education is just too darn quiet to be educational.

At least he doesn't like the Washington Redskins or the Carolina Panthers, the teams closest to Roanoke. “What about the Steelers?” I have a thing for wide receiver Heinz Ward. I used to dream that one day I would bear him a child. It's why I wear number 89 for the Revenge. “The Steelers are a good team.”

“Nah,” Hakeem says. “Steelers are bad. Cowboys are number one!”

“You know, Hakeem,
I
play football.”

He widens those big eyes of his. “No, you don't.”

“I do.”

“Girls can't play football.”

“Wanna bet?”

He pulls out a quarter. “Yeah.”

“You're going to lose that quarter, boy.”

I take him out to the practice field between classes and tell him to go out for a pass. A number of other students stop and watch us. “That's Coach Cole,” one of them says, and it gives me goose bumps.

Hakeem takes two steps and turns around.

“I can throw the ball farther than that, Hakeem.”

He shrugs, takes two more baby steps, and turns.

“Hakeem. Go out for a pass. Start running.”

“You can't—”

I cock my arm back. “Start running, boy.”

“You can't—”

I step back and launch that football about forty yards downfield. It isn't a perfect spiral, but it looks pretty in a wounded-duck kind of way. My crowd of admirers say, “Wow!” and “Damn, she got an arm and a half.”

Hakeem looks at me. He looks at the ball bouncing down the field. He looks back at me, and he smiles. “Hot damn!” he shouts. “Hot damn!”

“Hey now, no cursing.”

He frowns. “Sorry.”

“It's okay,” I say, laughing. He is so cute! “Go get the ball.”

His smile returns. “Okay.”

I think I have made another friend.

And in mid-September, after coaching the defensive
line
to two straight victories (okay, the offense had a little something to do with it, too), I receive a stray phone call from one of my old friends after an article
appears in the
Roanoke Times
about PH's “most unique” football coach.

Juan Carlos calls.

“What's up?” I say, all cool and collected, but underneath, I am
not
cool or collected. I haven't spoken to him since he called me a “bunta.” Of the three, I thought Juan Carlos was the least likely to ever speak to me again, and here he is on the phone.

“I am sorry to call you so late.”

It's only eight thirty, but that's late for a working-man. “It's okay.”

“Um, Lana, my mama died today.”

“Oh no!”

“Could you … would you come to the wake? It is tomorrow evening at Valley Funeral Service on Peters Creek.”

“Sure, sure, I'll be there. Oh, Juan, I'm so sorry.”

Silence, then … “I will see you tomorrow.”
Click
.

He sounded so devastated! I know I'd be completely overwhelmed without my mama. I wonder what happened. I call Mama. “Mama, would you look in the paper for me?”

“When are you going to get a subscription?”

“As I told you, they don't deliver the
Times
way out here.” I'm sure they do. I'm just too lazy to find out and too poor to get a subscription. I usually look at the newspaper at school.

I hear a rustling of pages. “What are you looking for?”

“An obituary.”

“Who died?”

“Juan Carlos's mama.”

Silence, then … “He called you?”

“Yeah. I just got off the phone with him.”

“That's so sad. Last name?”

“Gomez.”

Silence. “I don't see a Gomez anywhere. When did she die?”

Oh yeah. It wouldn't be in the paper yet. “Today. Juan Carlos invited me to the wake.”

“And you're going, right?”

“He's still my friend.”

And he is. He needs me. He needs a shoulder to cry on. I have to go.

The next evening, I arrive at Valley Funeral Service on Peters Creek Road, parking in a nearly empty lot, which means, I guess, that not many people knew his mama. I find Juan Carlos sitting in the front row all alone, wearing a nice suit and tie. He cleans up nicely. I don't look up at the open casket yet, instead making a beeline for Juan Carlos. I wanted to meet his mama, but I didn't want to meet her this way. I also really have trouble at wakes because Death (with a capital D) and I don't get along, ever since my first dog died when I was thirteen.

Juan Carlos stands and hugs me, his body shaking. “She is gone, she is gone,” he whispers.

“What happened?” We sit, and I hold his hand, looking up into his unshaven face.

“Cancer,” he whispers. “There was nothing they could do.”

Cancer? People don't die suddenly from cancer, which means …

“She tried to fight, but she was not strong enough.”

Oh no! This explains
so
much. “How long was she sick?”

He nods, wiping a tear from his nose. “Three years.”

No wonder he worked so much. He had to work
overtime to pay for her medicine or her chemotherapy. And somehow … My eyes well with tears. Somehow he made time for
me
. I was his reprieve from being around his dying mama. I was the life in his life.

I feel like such a bunta.

“I did not want you to see her, because she wanted no one to see her most days.” His voice chokes up. “She lost her hair, Lana. She lost her beautiful hair.”

I hold him fiercely, and after a while, I can't tell who is shaking more. Why didn't he tell me that his mama had cancer? I would have understood. At least I think I would have understood.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“It was her wish.” He looks toward the casket. “She was a strong woman. She did not want anyone to know she was not strong. I wanted to tell you.” He looks at his hands. “I was on my way to tell you that night. She was feeling better and wanted to meet you that night.”

That night. So much went wrong that night. I wish I could have that night back to do all over again.

The funeral director comes down the aisle to us trailed by a beautiful dark tan, dark-haired woman. His cousin? Juan Carlos drops my hand, jumps up, and runs to her. They embrace, and then—

She's kissing him.

On the lips.

Either she's a kissing cousin, or …

No, they're using quite a bit of tongue, and at a wake?

They turn to me. “This is Monique,” Juan Carlos says.

Monique seems to be a mixture of black and Hispanic, with lighter skin than I have. She also has some seriously bushy black eyebrows.

“Hello,” I say.

“We are to be married,” Juan Carlos says.

My heart skips a beat. Whoa. They hooked up quickly. They do make a nice couple, but this was my man—or he was one of my men. I have no right to be jealous, but I am. “It's nice to meet you, Monique.”

She whispers something in Spanish to Juan Carlos, and his face tightens. “Lana,” he says to her without the “ahh” I loved to hear.

And then, Monique kills me with her eyes. Her pupils almost completely disappear, and she literally bares her teeth at me.

“You … you are trash,” she says in a thick accent. “Get out!”

I don't move. I look at Juan Carlos.

“Perhaps you should go,” he says.

I want to tell Monique what a good, fine, decent man Juan Carlos is. I want to tell her how lucky she is to have such a dedicated, hardworking man in her life. And I want to tell him that I'm sorry for all that happened between us.

“Go!” Monique shouts.

I stand, my legs a little shaky. “I came here to pay my respects.” I look at the casket. “I will pay my respects, and then I will leave.”

“You are not needed here!” Monique hisses.

Again, I look at Juan Carlos, but he is powerless, his shoulders slumping.

I want to tell Monique that I was invited, that I miss Juan Carlos terribly, and that I admire her excellent taste in men. I want to tell him that I shouldn't have taken him for granted, that I still think about him, and that I still smile whenever I hear a Led Zeppelin song on the radio.

Instead of leaving, I go to the casket and see Juan Carlos's mama for the first time. Though she is thin and the wig she wears isn't a precise fit, she is beautiful, the spitting image of Juan Carlos. “I'm glad to finally meet you,” I whisper. “You have a fine son.” I turn to look one last time at Juan Carlos.

“Thank you for coming,” he says.

“Thank you for asking me to come,” I say, mainly to Monique.

And I cry my eyes out all the way home.

I
don't blame Monique for her anger. She thinks I ruined Juan Carlos, but I could never ruin such a truly golden man who has a heart of gold and hands with the golden touch. My stupidity was her gain. I didn't deserve him. I didn't deserve such a golden man.