Million-Dollar Throw (14 page)

It was 21-14 now, and even standing on the sideline, Nate knew the momentum of the game had changed. You could almost feel it in the air.

A few minutes later the Patriots’ free safety Sam (The Bomb) Baum picked off a Danny Gilman pass and returned the ball to the Melville 10-yard line. On the very next play, LaDell knocked over three different tacklers on his way into the end zone.

It was now 21-20 and the parents and family and friends from Valley who’d made the trip to the game, sitting in the stands behind them, suddenly made it sound like a home game for the Patriots. Nate watched it all, heard it all, from next to Coach Hanratty, cheering like crazy with the rest of the guys on the sideline as LaDell ran in the conversion that tied the game at 21, but feeling at the same time that he should have been sitting in the stands where Abby and his mom usually sat.

It looked as if the game might end in a tie, but Valley forced Melville to punt with just under two minutes left. It was Eric’s first chance at their two-minute offense.

He handled it like a complete pro, mixing short passes to the side and passes over the middle, calling two plays in the huddle when he had to, spiking the ball when he needed to, and finally advancing the ball inside the Melville 10-yard line with eight seconds left.

On first down LaDell caught a quick swing pass to Eric’s right and looked like he might run it in, but Danny Gilman came out of nowhere, came flying across the field to knock him out of bounds. The clock stopped with three seconds left. Eric jogged over to talk with the coaches.

“I’m going with the lob pass to Bradley,” Coach Hanratty said to Eric, “the one we got your conversion on.”

“Love it,” Eric said.

He ran back to the huddle, and Nate could see him pointing to the linemen as he told them the play. They lined up, with only LaDell behind Eric. Malcolm snapped Eric the ball. Nate watched as Eric calmly dropped back and lofted a floater into the air that was going to be the last play of the game, one way or another, watched as Bradley fought off two Melville defenders for the ball, getting it into his huge hands, hitting the ground so hard that it was like he’d fallen out of his bedroom window.

But he held on to the ball.

Came down with the ball and the game.

It was the throw to end the game that Nate had imagined, the perfect comeback he’d imagined.

Just not his.

He thought about going over to Coppo when Pete’s parents dropped him off at home, but couldn’t even picture himself picking up a football again until practice on Tuesday.

Strictly temporary, Coach had said about his benching.

Right, Nate thought.

Until it became strictly permanent.

Coach Rivers had said Nate would get squared up during the week. But how exactly was he going to square it up with the other guys on the team, guys who wanted to win the game and the league championship as much as Nate did? How was Coach going to explain to
them
that Nate was still the starter, no questions asked, after the way Eric had played against Melville?

It seemed like just the other day that he’d been worrying about how his throwing was going to look on
The Today Show.
Now Nate was thinking how lucky he was that
Today
hadn’t shown up to see him standing there next to the coaches at the end of the game and doing everything except carry one of those clipboards backup quarterbacks carried in the pros.

Watching the guy who was supposed to be his backup win the game.

His parents were watching the news on television when he came through the front door. Nate never knew what to expect these days from his dad, what kind of mood he would be in when he was around. He seemed to know this dad less and less.

Tonight, though, the old dad was back, his arm around his mom’s shoulders, turning and giving him a big smile.

“How goes the battle?” he said.

Nate was already at the foot of the stairs, just wanting to get up to his room, close the door, be as alone as he’d felt when the game against Melville ended.

He almost said, “We lost,” before he caught himself.

“Beat ’em on the last play of the game,” he said.

“No kidding!” his dad said. “Pass play?”

“Yeah.”

His dad said, “Who’d you throw it to—Pete?”

“I didn’t . . .”

“Who was the lucky receiver then?”

“I didn’t make the throw, Dad.”

“But you said . . .”

“Eric threw it,” Nate said. “To Bradley.” His dad was still twisted around on the couch, looking confused now, still not getting it.

His mom was staring at Nate, too. She said, “Honey, did you get hurt, is that why you couldn’t finish the game?”

“I got benched,” Nate said, the words spilling out like change when you emptied out a pocket. “I played lousy, I got benched, Eric went in and threw the ball the way a good quarterback is supposed to and we came back from two touchdowns down and won.”

He had started moving as he spoke, was halfway up the stairs now, like he was trying to escape a rush, trying to find some open field, this time behind a closed door.

His mom knocked on his door about seven thirty, carrying a plate with a burger and fries, saying she had just checked her parents’ manual and that after a rough game you
were
allowed to have food in your room.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t feel like talking?” she said.

“Nope.”

“Never again?” He looked up to see her smiling at him and he smiled back, couldn’t help himself despite feeling about as happy as a rock.

“Probably not.”

“Thought so.” She placed his plate on his desk, along with a bottle of Gatorade. “Your dad said to tell you that kickoff is in half an hour.”

“Mom,” he said. “Tell Dad I’m pretty much footballed out today. Even where the Pats are concerned.”

“Forget about telling him,” she said, still smiling. “For news like that, I’d better send out one of those Google alerts.”

She left. He ate at his desk, managing to get through half the burger, not even touching the fries. When he was finished, he opened his laptop back up and went online, on the chance that Abby might be online at Perkins. Nate knew her well enough to know she must have brought her laptop with her.

She wasn’t online, though.

But then, he thought, why should this part of his day be different from any other?

Nate found himself wondering what she was going through right now, this minute. Wondering if she had a roommate. What her room was like. What it was like learning to be blind.

Wondering how scared Abby was.

Man, Nate thought.

Man, man, man.

It wasn’t just football that came out at you fast, it was
life
that did that.

He thought for a second about going down to watch the game, but this was a night when he didn’t want to see the real Brady do something great. He’d already seen one quarterback do that today.

So Nate went back to work online, back to places he’d book-marked already, learning things he never thought he’d want to learn. Or
have
to learn.

Then the computer beeped. An IM.

He nearly jumped out of his chair, banging his knee as he did, and typed out:

But Abby was already gone.

T
uesday, Nate’s mom informed him that she had decided to take a second job.

She had been working four days a week—her workday always ending before Nate got home from school—at The Clairmont Shop in Valley. It was one of the businesses in town that had been around forever, a place that sold stationery and picture frames and plates and bowls and silverware, where women in Valley, Mass., could find nice things to decorate their houses or gardens or even their dinner tables.

Until she went to work at The Clairmont Shop, it was just another store on Main Street he’d been walking past his whole life. Or waiting outside if Abby was inside shopping for something, like a gift for her mom.

Now Nate’s mom would also be hostessing at the American Grille, the best restaurant in town.

“You’re gonna be a waitress?” Nate said.

“Host
ess
,”
she said. “Like a maitre d’.”

“Whatever,” Nate said. “But Mom, the Grille isn’t a place you work at, it’s a place we go to.”

“It’s only going to be for a couple of nights a week,” she said. “You know the owner, Mr. Lopez, is a friend of your dad’s and mine. He was in picking out a present for his wife at The Clairmont a couple of weeks ago, and when he saw that I was working there now, he said, ‘If you wanted to go to work, you could’ve worked for me!’ So I went in the other day and we decided to give it a try.”

“When?” Nate said.

“Friday and Saturday nights to start, maybe throw in a couple of Sunday brunches for a while for good measure,” she said. “No heavy lifting. Smiling nice at the customers, taking reservations, getting people seated.”

“But that means you’ll be working nearly seven days a week,” Nate said.

She forced a smile, maybe practicing her hostess smile on Nate. “And Dad says math isn’t your strong suit.”

“You’ve gone from not working at all to working every day or night.”

“Well, think how rested I am, not working all those years before this,” she said.

They were sitting on the front stairs, side by side. It was where she’d been waiting for him when he’d come through the door.

Nate turned to her now and said, “We need the money that bad? Because now that I’m such a math whiz, I just figured out that you and Dad are working a total of four jobs between you.”

“That is correct.”

He was about to say that he never saw his dad anymore and now he wasn’t going to see her, either. But Nate knew that wasn’t what this particular talk was supposed to be about. It wasn’t about him. So he didn’t say anything right away. His dad had told him that sometimes the smartest thing in the world you could say was absolutely nothing.

“You okay with this?” his mom said.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Life’s always about choices, sweetheart. Your dad and I are making some tough ones right now so that things will be better for our family down the road.”

Nate said, “Will they?”

“You know me,” she said. “I’m a silver-lining, blue-sky, glass-half-f girl.” She put her arm around Nate, pulling him closer, Nate knowing she was trying to make him feel safe. “Always have been, always will be.”

Nate said, “The only person I know with a better attitude than you—just slightly, like one of those photo finishes in the Olympics—is Abby.”

His mom let out a big sigh. “Now, there’s a change of subject I can handle,” she said. “Just because ever being compared to Miss Abby McCall puts me in high cotton indeed.”

“High cotton?” he said.

“It means I take it as high praise, young man,” Sue Brodie said. “Which I do. How is your girl doing at Perkins, by the way?”

Nate stayed where he was, head against her shoulder now. It was something he could still do with his mom, but only when it was just the two of them like this.

“Haven’t heard from her,” he said. “Well, except for a hit-and-run IM the other night.”

His mom said, “She must be pretty busy, a first week of school that’s also her
only
week of school.” She leaned back now so she could see Nate’s face. “You miss her, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “But she’s the one going through stuff, not me.”

“Ha!” his mom said. “You’re going through this right along with her.”

“Not the same.”

“You’ve got the biggest heart of anybody I know,” she said. “So when somebody you love is going through stuff, so are you.”

Nate gave her a look.