Safety Net (22 page)

Erick calmed down and tried the
reasonable approach. “Okay, I get it. But you didn’t tell me about him before.
What’s he like? Where’s he from?”

Candace was slow to answer, and
when she did, her voice had an edge to it. “He’s British. So, listen, babe. I
have to go now, it’s no joke. My suitcase is sitting right here, and it’s got
no clothes in it. I have to pack. Perry’s gonna be here in fifteen minutes.” She
softened a little. “Erick. Baby, I am so proud of you. So happy for you. You
know I am, right? I promise, soon as I can, I’ll find your clips.”

Erick sighed, not completely
coddled, but feeling less prickly. “Okay. Go and pack. Have fun in Amsterdam.
Tell me all about it, okay? I miss you, pumpkin.”

“I miss you, too. Bye now.”

“Bye.”

As Erick turned his phone off, he realized
he’d forgotten to tell Candace he loved her. He looked down at the phone
screen, wondering if he should call her back. No, that would be silly. She
knew. He always told her. It was okay to skip saying it once.

-----

Winter quarter classes hadn’t
started yet. Erick expected the campus to be dead when they got back from
Florida. He definitely hadn’t expected the mob of fans and press waiting in
front of the football offices when the buses pulled up to drop them off. As
Coach Bowman and the players stepped off the bus, the fans cheered. Cameras
flashed blindingly around them. Dempsey, by Erick’s shoulder, whispered in awe,
“Whoa. This is unreal.”

Coach Bowman was the man of the
hour, fielding questions, praising the team, highlighting the decisive plays
from the offense, defense, and special teams. Erick tried to look at the
reporters and see them as people, as potential friends, and ignore the cameras.

“Yes, I knew I could throw that,” he
said when a Mercury-News reporter asked him about the eighty-one-yarder. “I’ve
thrown farther than that in practice. Bit harder when a couple of guys are
coming towards you.” The reporter smiled. “Doesn’t matter how far I can throw
if no one’s there to receive, so you should ask Anson Dempsey about that one.” He
grinned a little. “I’m still not sure how he got down there so fast.”

“After your performance in the
Orange Bowl, do you feel you should’ve won the Heisman? Did you want to prove
with this game that the Heisman voters made a mistake?” the Chronicle reporter asked.

Erick spotted the Fox Sports lady
in the crowd and focused on her for a moment, so he wouldn’t give the Chronicle
guy one of his West-the-psychopath looks (as Dale called them). “Davaughn
Charles deserved the Heisman this year.” He faced the Chronicle reporter. “As
far as wanting to prove something in the Orange Bowl... The team wanted to
prove that Crocker deserved to be there. That Crocker football has some of the
best talent in the country.” He paused, scanned the crowd of reporters, and
smiled confidently. “I think we proved that.”

Coach Bowman took over again, but
Erick was cornered by a few reporters asking if he was going to enter the NFL
draft this year. He sidestepped the question bluntly and obviously by praising
the seniors on the team who were graduating and would be moving on to the NFL.
None of them were expected to be first-round picks, but Erick respected all of
them.

After the press conference, there
was a brief team meeting, and after that a hastily arranged but nice
celebratory banquet in the alumni center. The athletic director thanked them
for their winning season and announced that the Mendel family would be donating
eight million dollars to expand and renovate the training facilities. The team
cheered this news almost as heartily as they’d cheered their bowl win.

By the end of the meal, Erick was
drained by the nonstop socializing. He ducked outside into an empty courtyard
in the alumni center and considered sneaking into the stadium. He checked his
phone out of force of habit. There was a voicemail message from Mama.

All the anger from Miami Gardens,
from the night before the Orange Bowl -- all the anger the bowl win had erased
-- rushed back. Erick considered deleting the voicemail without opening it. He
did not want to hear from his mother. He did not want to speak to his mother.

Erick found a bench in the
courtyard -- a smokers’ bench judging by the cigarette butts scattered on the
gravel around it -- and sat down, flipping his phone in his hand. He
remembered, vividly, the moment the dinner with the Menackers had changed from
a pleasant evening to a night in hell: the moment he’d noticed the laser-beam
stare Mama was giving Lowell. Erick had seen that stare before. Mama had given
it to Amber for about six months after Erick started dating her, and she’d
directed it at poor Becky the one time she’d met her. His family hadn’t met
Candace yet; Erick hated to imagine how Candace would react to Mama’s Stare.

Lowell hadn’t reacted. He had
seemed oblivious to it. Lowell’s mother wasn’t, though, and even Kaylee picked
up on it halfway through the dinner and directed her own stare at Mama. But
Kaylee was still a kid, not in Mama’s league.

If it had only been the Stare,
things might not have been so bad. Even when Mama hijacked the conversation
between Mrs. Menacker and Trisha about having kids and turned it into a
detailed ode to Erick West’s high school football accomplishments, things weren’t
so bad. Erick wasn’t embarrassed by his achievements, but there was a time and
a place for boasting, and besides, he had broken nearly all his own records
since coming to Crocker. His high school performance didn’t seem that
impressive anymore. He wanted Mama to stop, and even nudged Janine to spur her
into interrupting, but he saw Lowell listening to Mama, rapt. Lowell met his
look and smiled at him. A warm, amused,
you are the coolest but I am so
giving you shit for this later
look. Erick wanted to dive across the
restaurant table and kiss him, but settled for blushing and toying with his
breadsticks.

The point where the evening broke
irrevocably was when Mama paused to take a bite of her entree salad and Erick
put in, “Lowell was all-Indiana tight end in high school. State champion.” He
beamed at Lowell, getting some his own back, and Lowell wrinkled his nose at
him. “He was a basketball star, too--”

“Indiana,” Mama sniffed, discarding
the entire state.

“Yes. The home of Notre Dame,” Mrs.
Menacker, who had shown admirable restraint all evening, countered, eyes
leveled on Mama.

Mama met her gaze, and Erick
winced. Wondered if he could reach past Janine and pinch his mother before she
opened her mouth. Wondered what Mama would do if he did.

“The great Notre Dame,” Mama said,
not quite sneering. She looked at Lowell as if he were a piece of shit. “I guess
your son couldn’t get into Notre Dame, then?”

Erick stood up. Was actually
reaching toward his mother, not even sure what he was going to do. Janine
grabbed his arm, pulling him down. “Erick,” she whispered urgently. “We’re in
public.” Kaylee, sitting on Erick’s other side, patted his back. Mama ignored
him.

Mrs. Menacker was a strong woman.
She said with quiet authority, “Lowell was offered a full
academic
scholarship to Notre Dame and guaranteed his spot on the football team. But he
had other offers, including ones from Wisconsin, Kansas State, Michigan State,
Texas A&M... He chose Crocker.”

Erick hadn’t received offers from
Michigan State or Wisconsin. He calmed his temper, hoping this would be the end
of it.

Mama speared a cucumber slice in
her salad. “Well. Just a tight end, though. Not a quarterback.”

“Dee,” Daddy said in a low voice.
That, finally, got her to shut up about football, at least momentarily.

After the conversation awkwardly
limped along -- Florida weather, the hassles of traveling, nitpicky complaints
about the hotel -- Mama brought up football again, this time the NFL. It should
have been neutral territory, but unfortunately the Menackers were die-hard
Bears fans, giving Mama all the opening she needed. Mama’s favorite NFL team
was the Cowboys (3-9 this year and doing worse than the Bears), and Erick
boggled at her need to turn even this topic into a war she was intent on
winning.

At the end of the dinner, Erick
wanted to apologize to Lowell, to Mrs. Menacker and Kaylee, and, hell, to everyone
else in the restaurant. He didn’t get a chance to, the Menackers left so
quickly, and the next day he had other things on his mind. He figured the four
touchdown passes he barreled into Lowell’s hands during the Orange Bowl put
things right again.

Except here he was, faced with a
voicemail from Mama.

After toying with his phone so much
it got slimy from his sweating palms, he decided it could be about Trisha so he’d
better open it.

“Erick, this is Mama. I called to
tell you that since we got home, the phone has been ringing off the hook.
Everyone wants to talk to Daddy about you. The Charlottesville paper is sending
someone up here tomorrow to talk to us.” A pause. “Well. I wanted you to know.”
Another pause. “I know what you said about finishing school, but Erick, doll
baby, if you can’t get a championship out of your team next year, that’s going
to hurt your chances at a first-round draft, and you know you deserve it. Won’t
matter how good you are if the rest of the team drags you down. Just think about
it. You still have time to change your mind. Well. Bye now. Mama loves her doll
baby.”

Erick stabbed at the delete button
and wished he could scrub his brain. What part of “the Crocker football team is
full of talent and I’m surrounded by great guys” didn’t she understand? Why
couldn’t she see that it didn’t matter how good he was unless the defense did
their job, shutting down their opponents’ offense so he could get on the field?
Unless the special teams did their job, putting Crocker in the best position,
getting the extra points? And unless his offense -- the group of guys he
trusted with his life -- did everything he expected of them and more? They
always did more. They delivered one hundred and ten percent. They were there to
make the back-up play when his target receiver fell. They were there to stomp
on the defense and protect his passes. They were there to run the ball or catch
his eighty-one-yarders and score touchdowns. How could she be the mother of a
guy who’d played football his entire life and still have no concept of what it
meant to be on a team?

And, God, did he wish she would
stop calling him “doll baby” like he was three years old.

“Um, Erick?” Lowell stood a few
feet away in the courtyard. “The food’s all gone. They’re packing up in there.
You don’t have to hide out here anymore.”

Erick looked up. “My mother called.
Left a voicemail.”

“Oh.” Lowell didn’t move from where
he was standing. He glanced back over his shoulder and said, “Uh, I think they
want to lock the place up.”

Erick looked around the courtyard
and realized the only way out was the way he’d come in. “Ah. Okay.” He got up
and joined Lowell. They walked through the banquet room, past the caterers
packing up trays and staff tearing down tables.

“Where’re the guys?” Erick asked. “Where’d
Dale go?”

“Dale went back to the dorm. He
said he was beat. Some of the guys are gonna hang out in Hopkins. We’re invited.”

Erick rubbed the back of his neck.
“Let’s go to Dr. Brandt’s.”

After a moment Lowell said, “Okay.”

They hadn’t spent any time together
at Dr. Brandt’s apartment since Erick and Dale had told Lowell about it and
shown him around. Orange Bowl practice and winter break had descended upon them
before they could make use of “the shack,” as Dale called it. Erick had stopped
by twice to check on the place and douse the patio plants with water.

It felt weird opening the apartment
door and stepping into someone else’s home. Erick switched on a lamp by the
sofa and looked around. “TV and computer, check. My work here is done,” he said
jokingly.

Lowell sat down on the sofa. “What’d
your mother want?”

“To tell me to enter the NFL draft
this year,” Erick said with a sigh. “She thinks the rest of the team is going
to drag me down next season.”

Lowell’s expression was a mix of
sympathy and anger. Erick sat down beside him.

“Look,” he said, “I didn’t get a chance
after that dinner, but... And tell your mother this, too... I’m really sorry...
Mama--”

“My mom called your mother ‘a real
piece of work,’“ Lowell said. He hesitated. “I’ve been wondering why your
mother hates me.” He glanced at Erick. “Does she know? About us?”

Erick sat back, stunned into
silence by this appalling thought.

“No,” he said at last. “If she did,
um. Hard as it may be to believe, things would’ve been a hell of a lot worse.” He
mulled it over. “She didn’t like you because I like you and I respect you as a
player, and because I think you’re as good a player as I am.”

Lowell smiled and lightly punched
Erick’s shoulder with his fist. “Not a better player? Four touchdowns, dude.”

Erick raised his eyebrows and
grinned. “Who threw those touchdown passes, Menacker?” Sobering, he said, “Mama’s
always been...prickly...about my friends. If they’re football players, they had
to be good enough for me ‘so I wasn’t wasting my time,’ but they couldn’t be
too good, or she saw it as competition. To her, you’re my competition.”

“For what?” Lowell asked
incredulously. “I’m not even a quarterback.”

Erick fidgeted. “Attention, I
guess. Oh God, that’s why she called... Your four touchdowns. You’ll be getting
a lot of attention for that.” Erick grimaced. “She’s not afraid the team’s
going to drag me down. She’s afraid the team’s so good I’ll get lost in the
crowd.”

Lowell blew out a breath. After a
long silence he said, “She must have some good points, though, right? She
raised you, and you’re not a total loser.”