Homecoming (A Boys of Fall Novel) (8 page)

They laughed, and then Kelly’s cell phone chimed. She looked at the screen and grimaced. “Time to get back to work. Somebody just rode an ATV down the main street.”

“By the time you get there, whoever it is will be out in the woods again,” Jen said.

“Yeah, but I can get a description and we’ll have an excuse to remind people they can’t do that. You guys don’t talk about anything interesting after I leave, okay?”

Gretchen stood and started gathering the empty dishes. “We’ll probably talk about
you
.”

“Yeah, right. Knowing you two, you’ll end up talking about work stuff. Thanks for wrangling us some macaroni salad from Gram, Gretchen. And Jen, I’ll call you this week about the final float count for the parade.”

It wasn’t long after Kelly left that Jen caught Gretchen trying to stifle a yawn. “Gee, and I haven’t even started talking about work yet.”

“Sorry. Alex was away so we’ve been . . . catching up. But it’s not like I can start sleeping half the day away because I have a guy now, so I’m pretty tired.”

“I don’t think many people guessed you guys would end up together.”

“The farm girl and fancy, world-traveling photojournalist? I sure as hell didn’t see it coming.” Gretchen gave her a serious look. “What’s holding you guys back?”

“There is no us guys, Gretchen, and you know it. We barely spoke to each other after that night at the dam, and he left without saying good-bye. As soon as Coach is ready to return to the field, he’ll take off again.”

Gretchen shrugged. “Maybe you need to stop worrying about what will happen in a few weeks and just go with the right now.”

“Just go with what? We’re not doing anything.”

“And that’s the problem. Neither of you can think straight from wanting to have sex again, so why fight it?”

“Because I’m thirty now and I want to start having a family soon, so I’m looking for forever, not just fun for now.”

“I’m sorry, was there a line of potential husbands outside your door that I missed?” Gretchen snorted. “If a possible Mr. Right shows up, then maybe you reconsider your priorities. But for now, having orgasms isn’t a bad thing to put at the top of the list. A little monkey business never hurt anybody.”

“You just want me to text you monkey emojis.”

“Hey, life’s more fun with monkey emojis. And orgasms.”

There really wasn’t any denying
that.

B
y Tuesday, the upheaval from Friday night’s loss seemed to have passed and Sam thought they were having a pretty good practice. Rather than talking about last week, they turned their focus to Saturday’s homecoming game. They’d be playing a rival and they didn’t need any urging to work hard.

About halfway through the practice, he spotted Alex standing by the bleachers, snapping photos of the team. Sam knew he liked to take pictures for the yearbook and sometimes even for the local weekly paper. But mostly Sam thought he just liked capturing random moments in people’s lives.

He waved Alex over, and saw that Cocoa was with him. Sam lifted his hand when the dog gave him a high five. “Hey, Cocoa, it’s nice to meet you. Field trip today?”

“Family trip to town,” Alex said. “Gram has an appointment with the doctor and then they came up with a list of things they needed to get and . . . it became a thing, so Cocoa and I came, too.”

The chocolate Lab had run onto the field, and practice was interrupted while the players greeted her, most of them getting high fives. It was funny how one energetic dog could turn a team of focused athletes into little boys, and the two adults watched them for a few minutes.

“She’d make a great mascot,” Sam said. “It would be fun to make her a little Eagles T-shirt for the parade.”

“Sounds fun until you picture her jumping on and off the float so she can high-five every damn person lining the sidewalks.”

“Yeah, we don’t need a mascot.” When Cocoa went for a second high five from PJ, Sam shook his head. “You guys really need to teach that dog another trick.”

Alex lifted the camera. “Cocoa! Say cheese!”

The Lab immediately sat and lifted her jaw, turning her head slightly to the side as if she was an English monarch or old French general posing for a portrait. The shutter fired and then Alex yelled, “Good girl, Cocoa!”

“I was thinking fetch or play dead, but posing for formal portraits is a good skill for a dog to have, too.”

Alex laughed. “She did it while I was taking a shot of her with Gretchen and it was so funny we made a big fuss. She loves to be the center of attention, so she’s worked hard on it.”

“How’s Mrs. Walker doing? You said she’s seeing the doctor.”

“Just a checkup. Her blood pressure’s been a lot better, so they might adjust her medications again. How’s Coach?”

“He’s good. They’re doing some more tests on him this week because they’re afraid there might be more damage than they thought, but it’s not like an emergency thing. I was over there Sunday helping out with some of the yard chores and he was pissed as hell he was only allowed to sit on the porch and supervise.”

“He’s not the kind of guy who likes sitting much. He must be driving Mrs. McDonnell crazy.”

“That’s an understatement. But they’re going to talk to the doctor about him taking part in the homecoming festivities, so that would be a big help. She’s absolutely forbidden him to come to the school, though. He wanted to just watch the practice, but you know how that would go.”

“It won’t be easy for him to sit in the stands for Saturday’s game. That would probably be more stressful than just letting him coach the damn game.”

“I did mention that to Mrs. McDonnell and she gave me the look. He’s on his own.”

Sam heard a cell phone text tone and Alex pulled his phone out of his pocket. After reading the message, he sighed. “Gretchen and her emojis. I swear, sometimes I have no idea what she’s talking about. But I think she’s telling me they’re done at the doctor’s.”

“You guys will be in town Friday for the parade, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

They shook hands and Cocoa gave Sam a good-bye high five. Once they were gone, Sam blew the whistle and gestured for the guys to get back to what they were supposed to be doing.

The weather was unseasonably hot, so there was a lot of running to and from the bench for water, but a scuffle over
there caught Sam’s eye. There was some pushing and shoving and, for a second, he thought maybe the ghost of Friday’s loss had reared its ugly head again.

Then he saw Cody Dodge shove Hunter Cass. “You sat on my kid, you asshole!”

Oh, shit.
He broke into a jog and got there in time to keep Hunter from retaliating for the shoving. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“He sat on my kid, dude.”

“What the hell was your pumpkin doing on the bench?” Hunter asked.

“What was I supposed to do with it? Leave it in my locker?”

“Okay,” Sam said. “We’ll get another one and—”

“You can’t get another one,” PJ interjected. “Mrs. Fournier says we’re supposed to treat the pumpkins like real babies and you can’t just get another baby if you sit on the one you have and squash it.”

Sam had hated health class in high school and he hated it now. “Cody didn’t squash it, though. It’s not his fault.”

“It doesn’t matter. Cody and Mara are responsible for anything and everything that happens to the pumpkin. If it was a real baby, they wouldn’t leave it somewhere it could get sat on. Well, Cody might. And Ronnie would probably lose his kid.”

Ronnie laughed. “My mom said she’s having tracking chips put in any grandchildren I give her.”

“They don’t put tracking chips in babies, dumb-ass,” Hunter said.

“They put chips in dogs when they’re little puppies. I think they can put them in babies.”

“Maybe they should neuter you like a dog so nobody has to worry about it.”

Sam put the whistle in his mouth and blew it so hard the kids winced and covered their ears. “Nobody’s getting neutered. Let’s focus on the pumpkin problem.”

“I’m totally going to flunk health now and I won’t be able to play because Cass is an asshole.”

“Enough,” Sam barked. “It was an accident. And you’re not going to flunk health. One bad grade isn’t enough to fail you.”

The guys all looked at Cody and then away, shifting nervously. So the kid wasn’t very good at health class. Great.

“Maybe you can ask Miss Cooper for help,” PJ said. “She likes you and Mrs. Fournier doesn’t seem to hate her too much. If it’s presented as more about his grades affecting his future and less about playing football, Mrs. Fournier might go easier on him.”

Sam had to agree with that. “I’ll ask her to plead our case.”

“Dude, Mara’s going to kill me,” Cody said. “She’s been on the high honor roll like her entire life and if she gets a bad grade in health, she’ll never talk to me again.”

“Maybe you can go out to the Walker farm and get another one and nobody will ever know. Except Coach Leavitt, but he won’t tell. Right?”

“I, uh . . .” He wasn’t sure how far solidarity with his team was supposed to go. He should have their backs, but turning a blind eye to academic cheating seemed like a stretch.

“The pumpkins are marked and documented,” PJ said. Apparently he was the resident expert on the health class pumpkin project, Sam thought. “You’d never get away with it. Plus Mara did the face and none of us can do painting like this.”

PJ held up a piece of broken pumpkin, showing them the cute face she’d painted on it. He was probably right. “You need to tell Mara what happened and tell her we’re going to try to make it right with Mrs. Fournier. In the meantime, are there any other pumpkin babies here?”

One of the freshmen raised his hand, but he’d put his pumpkin in a box and tucked it next to the bench’s leg. Others explained they’d worked out their schedules with their project partners so they didn’t have custody during football practices or games.

“And a lot of us already took health,” Hunter said. “Cody’s grandma had Miss Cooper rearrange some of his classes so he wouldn’t be there with us. He’s easily distracted or something.”

“Shut up, dude. I guess I should text Mara.”

Shawn decided to pipe up. “You don’t text somebody their kid got sat on.”

Sam sighed as a whole new argument broke out. As much as he liked the football aspect of this temporary job, he was starting to see why Coach McDonnell had a heart attack.

—

J
en scanned the newsletter on her computer screen for what felt like the thousandth time, looking for any last-second corrections. The letter, intended for the families of juniors and seniors and detailing timelines and deadlines for the college process, was done from a template she’d made several years back, but she had to double-check all the dates and check the links to online resources.

Once she was satisfied it was correct, she sent it to the printer. She’d take a box of Stewart Mills High School
guidance department envelopes home and stuff them while watching TV so she could drop them in the mail within the next couple of days. She’d also send the notice by email, but there were too many families without reliable Internet service to depend solely on it.

Then she opened her calendar and pulled up the school district calendar and the sports calendar. Trying to find a day for the financial aid fair was like trying to throw a dart into the eye of a needle.

By far the biggest part of her job and the part she gave the most energy to—besides trying to keep her students emotionally and physically healthy—was the financial aid process. There weren’t a lot of resources in the northern part of the state and there definitely wasn’t a lot of money. Statistically, there were more parents who hadn’t gone to college than in the southern part of the state, too, so a lot of them didn’t even know where to start. College financing was a vitally important but totally scary and confusing process for many of the school system’s families.

She’d known that when she came back to Stewart Mills to take the job, and she’d rolled up her sleeves that first year. She made a list of everybody she could think of who could help parents and students through the maze of paperwork necessary. Experts from nonprofits. Volunteer students from some of the state colleges who got credit for helping. Some of the experts focused on the admissions process. Some talked about scholarships and student loans. Jen had her own library of books in the office that families could borrow, and she gave every senior a personalized list of at least five scholarships they might qualify for and made appointments to help them do the paperwork.

Don and Cassandra Jones donated dinner for everybody who made the drive north to help Jen out with the financial aid fair, and the turnout was often a pleasant surprise. This year she had two dates that could accommodate all of the volunteers on her wish list, and now she had to figure out which day worked with the high school’s schedule. She should have already nailed it down, but she was running a little behind because she’d waited for the organization that helped with the federal forms to confirm their availability.

It was a headache, but she didn’t spend seven years convincing her students they could do anything in life if they worked hard enough only to have them succumb to frustration or hopelessness at the end and give up.

A knock on the doorjamb made her look up, and she smiled when she saw Sam standing in the doorway. “Hey, is practice over early?”

“There was a tragic accident involving a pumpkin baby today.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I was hoping you could maybe intercede with the health teacher for us.”

“I don’t know. I’m sure the health teacher is going to question whether or not football practice is the best place for a baby and I can’t say I disagree with her.”

“Really, Jen? It’s just a pumpkin.”

Jen smiled when he cocked an eyebrow at her. “It seems to me you shouldn’t have any trouble breaking it to Mrs. Fournier, then, if it’s just a pumpkin.”

“Dammit, I’m not going to go in there and tell the woman that Cass sat on Dodge’s baby. That’s weird.”

“So you think
I’ll
go in there and tell her Hunter sat on Cody’s ugly pumpkin baby?”

“It wasn’t really ugly, actually. Cody’s partner is good at art and it had a funny little baby face with big blue eyes. It was kind of cute.” Jen only counted to eight before Sam groaned and ran a hand over his face. “This is ridiculous. This entire town is ridiculous and now that I’m back, it’s infecting me, too.”

“Has anybody broken the news to Mara yet?”

“Mara? Oh, is that the pumpkin’s mama?” When she nodded, he shrugged. “Cody was going to text her, but Shawn told him that wasn’t the kind of news you broke by text message. So he decided to put it on Facebook. Then there was a huge fight over whether a text message and Facebook were essentially the same thing. PJ said neither was acceptable. But Ronnie said he found out his grandmother died on Facebook and she was a real person, not a pumpkin, so it was okay.”

“Wow. What did they decide?”

“I have no idea. They were still arguing about it when I walked away.”

Jen laughed, able to picture his frustration. “I hate to tell you this, but Mrs. Fournier’s a hard-ass when it comes to the eggs. Or pumpkins. The babies. You must remember that.”

“I remember.” He tilted his head, smiling a little. “I remember wishing you were a little older so you could have been in my health class and been my egg’s mom.”

“You did not,” she said, shaking her head. “You barely noticed me.”

“You had such a perfect family, so I knew you’d be a great mom.”

“We’re not our parents,” she reminded him firmly. “And no family is perfect.”

“No, but it looked perfect to me.”

“Who was your egg’s mother? Did you get a good grade?”

“I forget her name. And we got a good grade because she made me lie about my involvement. She never let me touch the egg except to set it on my desk in health class once in a while for appearance’s sake.”

Jen snorted. “Control freak much?”

“She was afraid I’d lose my temper and smash it.”

Her inner guidance counselor heard the underlying hurt—old as it was—in his tone and wanted to soothe it. The rest of her wanted the name so she could find out if the woman still lived in town and kick her in the kneecap or key a curse word into her car door.

His chuckle surprised her. “You’re cute when you want to slay my dragons.”

“Did that show on my face?” He nodded. Of course it did. “Cute, though? Not fierce?”