SYLO

SIX

“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked.

“Why? What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong.”

I answered too quickly, which was a sure tip-off that something was, in fact, wrong. My adventure with the Ruby had been the night before and I could hardly think about anything else.

“Whoa, easy,” he said defensively. “I was just wondering why you were letting Kent move in on Olivia without a fight.”

“Olivia?” I asked, momentarily baffled. “Oh. That. Sorry.”

“What did you think I meant?” he asked with confusion.

“Not that. I mean, not that there’s anything else wrong but, I mean, there’s nothing wrong. Why do you ask?”

Quinn stared at me suspiciously as we walked along Main Street toward school. He knew something was up and it bugged him that he couldn’t put his finger on it. I had to get him thinking in the wrong direction, which wasn’t easy to do.

“There’s nothing between me and Olivia to fight over,” I added quickly.

“There could have been,” he said sternly. “But you blew it.”

I shrugged. “Kent’s an all-star.”

“And rich,” Quinn added. “Don’t forget rich.”

“Jeez, are you trying to make me feel bad?”

“Yes!” he shouted. “You can’t let that guy intimidate you just because he’s smart and good looking and athletic and—”

“Rich. Don’t forget rich.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Quinn snapped. “The only real difference between him and you is that he gets what he wants because he believes he can.”

“And he can brutally dominate me on the football field.”

“You’re making me nuts, Tuck. Where’s your head? Good stuff doesn’t just happen. You have to fight for it. But you don’t. You don’t even have the guts to talk to Tori Sleeper.”

“Forget Tori! Who says I want to go out with her anyway? That’s just you pretending to know everything about everything.”

“But I do.”

“No, you don’t. Why are you so obsessed with me getting a girl anyway? Worry about yourself.”

“I’ve got a girlfriend.”

“Who?”

“Neema Pike.”

I laughed. “Really? Just because she friended you on Facebook doesn’t make you a couple.”

“Whatever. This isn’t about me. We’re talking about you and Olivia.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. She’s leaving the island soon anyway.”

“Irrelevant, but go on.”

I took a breath to calm down, then said, “I like Olivia. I liked hanging out with her this summer. But if she only likes guys who have a boatload of money and can wreak havoc on a football field, I’m not interested.”

Quinn shook his head with disappointment. “Typical. Whenever you think something’s out of reach, you back off and say you didn’t want it anyway. What are you afraid of? Losing? Looking bad? That hasn’t stopped you from playing football.”

“Yeah, well, I’m quitting the team,” I said softly.

“What!” Quinn shouted. He hadn’t expected that. I thought his head was going to explode. “You’re giving up on that too?”

“What’s the point? I’m getting killed out there. I’m telling the coach today that I’m done.”

“This is so typical. You were fine when nobody expected you to be any good but now that you’ve got to step up you just…give up.”

“I’m being a realist.”

“Realist?” Quinn spat as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. “What does that mean?”

“It means I pick my battles.”

“It means you’re afraid of failing,” he said with disdain.

“What makes you such an expert on football anyway?” I asked. I was losing patience with Quinn’s accusations. “And girls?”

“This isn’t about football or girls. It’s about vision. You gotta have a vision.”

I laughed. “Really? What’s your big vision?”

Quinn went uncharacteristically silent. That threw me. I was expecting another quick, cutting comeback.

“I don’t know yet,” he said with total sincerity. “I’m being honest. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you something I absolutely believe: One day I’m going to leave this island and do something that people will remember me for. Something important. Bet on it, and don’t laugh. I see you starting to laugh.”

“I’m not laughing,” I said, suppressing a laugh.

“My parents want me to go into medicine but I’m thinking politics. I’m smart. I could run things as good as the next guy. Or maybe research. There’s a lot of undiscovered stuff out there waiting for somebody like me to uncover. Big stuff. But whatever happens, the one thing I will not do is stay here and grow old on this chunk of sand.”

I wasn’t sure how to react to that. So many thoughts flew through my head, not the least of which was the odd reality that Quinn had given me a straight, heartfelt answer for a change. The other was that I was somehow a loser for being happy on this “chunk of sand.”

“Then go for it,” I said. “I’m sure whatever you do, you’ll be brilliant. But just because you feel that way doesn’t mean I have to. There are lots of important things you can do. They don’t all have to be written about in history books. It’s just as important to take care of the little things.”

Quinn let that roll around in his head for a while, then nodded thoughtfully and said, “Okay. I buy that. So do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Start taking care of the little things.”

Arguing with Quinn made my head hurt. He had turned a simple debate about whether or not I should compete for Olivia into a philosophical speech about our futures. He was thinking years ahead while all I wanted was to get through the day.

I didn’t quit the team, and not because Quinn had shamed me out of it. The idea of facing the coach to tell him I was quitting was actually more daunting than getting pounded in practice. Maybe Quinn was right. I was even afraid of failing…at failing.

Practice was marginally better because I knew what to expect. I felt as though I was finally earning some respect from the other guys if only because I didn’t whine about getting hammered on every play. By Wednesday we stopped hitting and concentrated more on timing and getting me to execute the plays without thinking. By Thursday I was actually starting to have some fun. We wore our game uniforms and basically ran through plays at half speed. There was a moment where I stood back, took a breath, and thought about how cool it was that I was going to play a major role in the spectacle that was Friday night football.

Then a harsh reality hit: I was going to play a major role in the spectacle that was Friday night football. Meaning, we had a game. If my own team wanted to take me apart, I couldn’t imagine what would happen playing against guys who actually had a reason to want to destroy me.

We were playing Greely High in Cumberland on the mainland. Living on an island made it a challenge to travel to away games. As soon as school got out, we boarded a bus and the bus boarded the ferry. I’d made the crossing a hundred times and never felt so seasick. It probably had more to do with nerves than ocean swells but either way, I felt like ass. The bus ride to Cumberland took another half hour.

The best thing about that night was being introduced before the game with the starting offense.

“At tailback…number fifteen…Tucker Pierce,” came the announcement and I ran through the gauntlet of cheerleaders and onto the field. Only a handful of fans from Arbortown had made the trip but it didn’t matter. To me it was as good as running onto the field at Gillette Stadium.

There was a moment of silence for Marty, after which a couple of guys came up to me, pounded my shoulder pads, and said things like, “We’re with you, Rook” and “Let’s get ’em.” I was over the moon. These were my teammates. We were in this together.

Kent grabbed my face mask, pulled it close to his, and hissed, “Don’t screw up.”

Not exactly a “win this one for the Gipper” speech but I didn’t let it get to me. This was football and it was game time. The ref blew his whistle, the ball was kicked to us, and we returned it to the twenty-five. The impossible then became reality as I trotted out onto the field and into my first official huddle.

And that was pretty much where the fun ended.

The game was brutal. The Greely guys were like hungry sharks and I was bloody meat. It was much faster than in practice and I was one step too slow—not good for a guy who was carrying the ball. Fortunately we had a solid defense, so the game wasn’t a blowout, but I was fairly useless. When all was said and done my stats showed fifteen yards gained on twelve carries with one fumble lost and two dropped passes. We lost by ten points. Brutal.

When the game ended, I jogged off the field trying not to look as beaten as I felt. I glanced into the stands to see my parents cheering gamely. I didn’t know if I should be grateful for the support, or embarrassed that they were there.

Behind them was another fan who stood out from the crowd because he wasn’t cheering. Mr. Feit had come to the game. Seeing him made me stop short. He gave me a sympathetic smile and a shrug as if to say, “Hey, don’t blame me.”

I briefly imagined how differently the game might have gone if I had taken him up on his offer to use the crystals he called the Ruby, but there was no way I could use that stuff again.

Could I?

The next day I was so sore I could barely move. Luckily it was the weekend of the annual Lobster Pot Festival and Dad had given me the day off. I took advantage and slept until noon.

“You gonna sleep all day?” Dad asked, poking his head into my room.

“No,” I said, groggy. “All weekend. Set the alarm for Monday, would you?”

He laughed and sat at my desk, which meant he wanted to talk…which also meant I had no hope of getting back to sleep.

“What?” I asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” he said with a laugh. “I just wanted to tell you how proud we are of the way you’re handling things.”

“I’m getting my ass kicked.”

“True, but you’re hanging in there and that’s what we’re proud of. At least I am. Your mother would just as soon you pack it in.”

I sat up, trying not to wince in pain…and happy that I hadn’t quit the team. Hearing that Dad was proud of me was worth it, at least at that moment. Next week would be another deal.

“Maybe she’s right,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m trying to prove or who I’m trying to prove it to.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to anybody, except yourself.”

“That’s pretty much what Quinn said.”

“He’s a smart guy,” Dad said. “Annoying, but smart.”

Dad had that serious “father-son important talk” face on. I wasn’t in the mood but I was too sore to run away.

“I’m feeling a lecture coming on,” I said.

Dad chuckled again. “No lecture. I want you to talk.”

“About what?” I was getting nervous that he might know something I didn’t want him to know…like about our midnight rides or my adventure with the Ruby.

“Do you like living on Pemberwick?”

“Yeah. You know that.”

“I do. I just wondered if you missed Connecticut.”

“A little, I guess. But we’ve been here for five years. This is home now.”

Dad nodded but he looked troubled. I thought back to the strange conversation he and Mom had about moving to Pemberwick because it was a safe place.

“What’s going on, Dad?” I asked. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

He sat up straight, as if surprised by a question he wasn’t prepared for.

“No,” he said, too quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have a problem with being here.”

“I don’t have any problems,” I said sincerely. “Quinn’s another story. He can’t wait to get out so he can do something historic, but I’m in no rush to go anywhere. What’s wrong with working in gardens? Though I was thinking we should make it sound more important and call it landscaping.”

I smiled, thinking he’d laugh at the comment, but he actually looked sad.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

“Nah,” Dad replied. “Just know that you don’t necessarily have to travel to do something important.”

“That’s what I told Quinn.”

Dad shook off his dark mood, smiled, and stood up. “Well, you’re a smart guy too. You take after your dad. Now get up and go into town and have some fun.”

He left me alone with an uneasy feeling. My parents and I always got along great, which was a good thing considering I was an only child. (A term I hate, by the way. It sounds so forlorn or something.) We talked about everything. Even uncomfortable things like hygiene and sex. When Dad lost his job, I think it brought us even closer. It was like us against the world. We had to stick together and we did it by moving on and making a whole new life on Pemberwick. It sounds clichéd, but we were a team.

So it was strange to think that they might be keeping something from me. I suppose I shouldn’t judge. We all have secrets. But if they asked, I would tell them about the midnight rides. And the Ruby. I had to trust that they would do the same for me and let me know if anything was seriously wrong.

Of course they would. Why would I think otherwise?

I was tired of stressing. It was the day of the Lobster Pot Festival and I was ready to kick back, eat some bad food, listen to corny music, and basically spend the day having the kind of fun that a lazy weekend on Pemberwick Island was all about. More than anything else, it was a day to try to forget all of the lousy things that had happened over the last few weeks and just enjoy the moment.

The moment.

I think back on it. A lot. It’s like revisiting a favorite place. A place you wish you could go to again. But I can’t because that place doesn’t exist anymore, except in my memory.