Gracie (3 page)

I nodded, thinking of Kyle.

Suddenly, though, I forgot all about Kyle.

Johnny was off with the ball, headed for Kingston's goal. I was on my feet alongside Dad, Mom, and the boys.

Johnny faked out the last defender and had a momentary opening. He took a hard shot at the sliding goalie and scored!

My family must have been cheering so loudly that we attracted attention. Some of the players looked up at us. One of them was Kyle. He winked at me.

Jena gasped. “Ohmygod, Gracie! He winked at you! Did you see it?”

I didn't know what to say, so I ignored her.

“Don't tell me you're not interested,” she insisted, shoving me lightly. “He is so hot!”

“I'm interested,” I admitted, dimly aware of the action that had resumed on the field.

Just then another roar erupted from the Kingston crowd. I shot my attention back to the field, eager to know what I'd missed.

The referee was blowing his whistle. The official time for the game had expired. With the score 1–1, the outcome had to be decided by a tiebreaker. Each team would take turns at penalty shots. The team with the most goals after five players shot would be the winner.

So the players from each team shot one after the other, going from team to team, four times. The suspense was intense. Each of the players scored.

Then the fifth Kingston player, The Giant, slammed it into the lower corner.

The Kingston crowd went wild.

He'd scored the go-ahead goal. It meant the Cougars had to score or the game was over.

Johnny was our best player so, naturally, he was the one to attempt the kick. The crowd around me grew completely silent as he stepped up to the ball and placed it twelve yards out from the goal. Mom and Dad held hands, barely breathing.

The ref blew his whistle to signal that it was time to shoot. Johnny took a few steps back.

“C'mon, Johnny!” Dad bellowed, his voice piercing the silence.

“Breathe,” I whispered fervently to Johnny, hoping he could somehow sense how much I wanted this for him. Sure, I wanted the Cougars to win, but really, even more, I hoped my brother would be the one to win it. I knew how much it meant to him.

Crossing my fingers, I closed my eyes. “You can do anything,” I said softly, trying to return the confidence he had given to me the other day.

Opening my eyes again, I saw his powerful strike. The ball flew toward the upper-left-hand corner of the net—and at the last second veered ever so slightly, slamming off the post!

My jaw dropped at the same time that Dad's head dropped and Mom sat down. Jena grabbed my hand sympathetically.

It took a moment for the Kingston crowd to realize they'd won, but when they did, they went wild with jubilant shouting and cheers.

The Kingston players jumped into one another's arms, and their spectators crowded onto the field. For a moment, I lost sight of Johnny and scanned the field eagerly to catch sight of him. Then I found him. He was crouched and alone, holding his head in his hands.

My family sat quietly, miserably, as the bleachers emptied out. Then Dad stood and lifted Granddad. Mom, Mike, and Daniel followed him. Together, they headed toward the car in silence. But I couldn't go with them. I had to find Johnny and make sure he was okay.

I said good-bye to Jena and went to wait in the field outside the boys' locker room. I hadn't worn my watch,
but it felt like a long time before the first players began to leave. I nodded to Peter, who nodded back as he came out.

Kyle came out and gave me a kind of
look
meant to be sexy, I guess, but right then I couldn't pay attention to him. I needed to see Johnny. “He in there?” I asked. Kyle nodded, so I brushed past him and slipped inside.

Johnny was sitting in the locker room on a bench all alone, showered and dressed, but not moving. “Hey,” I said softly, settling beside him.

He looked up but didn't reply.

“You scored a great goal,” I commented, trying to be upbeat but knowing I wasn't really helping.

“Dad send you?” he asked miserably.

I shook my head. “No.”

He just grunted. I wished so badly that I could roll back time, find a way to give him another shot at that ball. He didn't deserve this defeat. He'd played so well and given it all he had. This was not fair!

“Your team's waiting,” I mentioned. Win or lose, the Cougars always went out for pizza after every game.

“I'm not going with them,” he said. He sat straighter and pounded his knees. “It was supposed to go in! I put it right there! I blew it!”

I raised my index finger and pretended to be Dad, quoting one of his favorite expressions: “You know, son,” I said in a deep voice, “you win as a team and you lose as a team and—”

“To hell with that!” Johnny interrupted bitterly.

“Know what?” I said. “You're right. You were terrible out there.” I hoped some reverse psychology might work. I was getting desperate.

It made him crack a smile, at least. “Yeah, I was. Big time,” he agreed. He reached for some wet towels and chucked them at me. I laughed and ducked away. He laughed, too.

“Come on, they're waiting,” I said, smiling.

Johnny nodded and got up. We walked out of the locker room together. Not too far away, some of his teammates waited for him in a car. He waved bye to me as he got in with them. I waved back, happy that I had cheered him up a little.

My eyes opened in the middle of the night. At first I didn't understand why I had awakened, but then I heard people talking.
Was it Johnny Carson on his late-night talk show?
It seemed too loud for that.

Sitting up in the dark, I listened hard. Dad was talking to another man at the front door.
Why would someone come over at this hour of the night?

I went out into the hall and looked down from the top of the stairs. Mom was there beside Dad now. They were talking to Sal Brown, a local policeman.

I could only hear pieces of what he was saying, but it was enough. “They were crossing Route 1…a drunk driver wouldn't yield…Johnny was thrown from the car.…”

“Where's Johnny?” Mom demanded, already going for her purse. “Which hospital? I have to get there. Johnny needs me.”

I saw Officer Brown look at Dad, and my heart seemed to stop.

“Johnny's at McCarthy's funeral home,” Officer Brown said.

Mom clutched Dad, who staggered backward slightly. She sank to the floor, wailing as though her insides were being torn out.

But I just stood there at the top of the stairs blinking, bewildered. I didn't know why Officer Brown would say something like that.

There was no way Johnny could be dead. He was too alive to die.

I didn't cry that night or even the next day. But the funeral finally made it real. Once the tears began, I cried until my face was a big swollen red thing with two slits for eyes, and then cried even more.

Johnny's death made a giant hole in the universe. The pain was unbearable; it made me curl up in a ball and wish I could float away, never to return. Johnny dying was so unbelievable, unimaginable, that it made everything else unreal.

When sorrow is as deep and awful as ours was, everyone shows it differently.

I didn't see Dad cry once, but after the funeral he attacked the goal in the backyard, ripping it down, tearing at the back sheets like a wounded animal.

Mom retreated inside herself, becoming very quiet. She hugged Mike, Daniel, and me a lot. She wanted to stay strong for us, but one time I went to the laundry room and found her weeping into one of Johnny's sweatshirts.

After about a week, Mom and Dad insisted that we go back to school. They would be going back to work, too. I didn't know how they could or how we would manage, but Monday morning we all got dressed and sat
down to breakfast. “What if somebody asks something?” Daniel wanted to know.

“Tell the truth,” Mom advised gently. “He died in a car accident.”

“What if they want details?” Mike pressed.

“There are no details,” she replied evenly.

Dad was feeding Granddad at the other end of the table. “He died instantly. He didn't see it coming. Dying doesn't hurt,” he added firmly. That was what he had to believe and I had to believe it, too.

Glancing up from my eggs, I saw that Peter had come in from the kitchen. He just stood in the doorway, shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

“Peter, come in,” Mom invited him warmly.

“Am I still giving rides to school?” he asked. It must have been tough for him to say those words because normally Johnny would have driven us. No doubt, Mom had asked him to come.

At that moment I knew I couldn't face it. “Do I have to go?” I asked pleadingly.

“Everyone goes today—and tonight,” my father insisted. His tone left no room for argument—but he had to be kidding! Did he actually expect us to go to the soccer awards dinner that night? It would be complete torture!

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but Mom shot me a look that made me think better of it. It said:
Don't push him right now
.

With a rumbling sigh of discontent, I grabbed my books and slammed out the back door behind Peter, Mike, and Daniel.

School was as bad as I'd expected. Johnny's death had changed me in some way I couldn't understand. I only knew that I was different now. I no longer wanted to goof around in the hall or talk about what had been on TV the night before or complain about homework or the cafeteria food. It had all suddenly become so meaningless, so unimportant.

Jena knew I didn't feel much like talking and she just stayed with me, walking by my side in the hall, sitting quietly with me at lunch. I probably acted like I hardly noticed her, but I was glad she was there. It couldn't have been easy for her, since Jena was never one to be quiet for long.

Around suppertime, nobody but Dad wanted to go to the soccer awards dinner. He insisted that we all get ready, but we just poked around, moving in slow motion, even Mom—especially Mom. I didn't know why he was doing this to us. It would be like the funeral all over again.

We all dawdled around for so long that the dinner was nearly over by the time we arrived. Coach Colasanti was giving an award for the most improved player when we took our seats at an empty table.

Coach Colasanti caught Dad's eye, and I knew he was about to say something about Johnny. My stomach
clenched. Did he have to? It was only right, I suppose, but I didn't know if I could sit through it.

“I couldn't close this evening without a few words for a boy who is not here,” he began, and instantly a tingling came under my eyes. I bit my lip, determined not to cry. “A boy who was not only extraordinarily gifted,” he went on, “but also the best damn team player and all-around human being I've ever had the honor of coaching. I'm talking about Johnny Bowen. In his honor, I am retiring the number seven. No one can, or ever will, fill Johnny's cleats.”

Dad must have known this was happening. That's why he insisted we be there. The coach looked at him. “Bryan, want to come up here and say a few words?” he requested.

Everyone clapped respectfully as Dad went to the podium. “Thank you,” Dad began. “This means a lot to my wife, Lindsay, to me, and our whole family.” Dad paused, his eyes darting over the audience. I think he was deciding if he should say more or sit down.

“Johnny loved you guys,” he continued after a moment. “He loved this game. He loved this place. More than anything, he wanted to beat Kingston and make our town proud.”

When he talked about beating Kingston, his voice cracked with emotion. It probably hit him that Johnny's last memory of soccer had been one of defeat. I didn't want to be reminded of that, either, so I pushed the thought aside. I wanted Dad to sit down and not say any more.