“Yes, Coach,” we muttered, and then slunk back to the benches.
“Three racquet laps, damn.” Trevor whistled at the punishment.
Three racquet laps, I thought. What I wouldn’t give to be able to run even one. But of course I didn’t say anything. Instead, I stretched out on the bench like I was enjoying myself but secretly wishing I’d never come back.
“Omigod!” Emma shrieked, sounding scared. “What’s that?”
She pointed toward the far side of the tennis courts where some large animal was slinking through the bushes that rimmed the foothills, its fur coppery in the sun.
“Yo, that’s a coyote,” Trevor muttered, nervous.
But as soon as we spotted it, the bushes stopped rustling; the animal was heading back into the hills.
“That’s weird,” I said, “you don’t usually see them during the day.”
“Maybe it wasn’t really a coyote,” Emma teased, making her voice spooky. “Or maybe, it was looking for you.”
MY MOM CORNERED me when I got home from school. She’d called twice, apparently. I hadn’t picked up my phone.
“Where were you?” she demanded, more worried than upset.
“Tennis practice,” I said, and she thought I was joking.
“Ezra.” She glared that mom glare. Cooper, who was dozing on the rug under the kitchen sink, woke up and whined guiltily. “Sit down.”
I sat. Lifted my eyes from the place mat as though it was an ordeal. Waited.
“Did you get that girl pregnant? Is that what’s going on here?”
Out of all the things I expected my mom to say, that was so far down the list that it was practically on the waiting list.
“Yeah, and you can plan the bris,” I muttered, which wasn’t my finest moment. “No, Mom. God.”
We stared at each other, and she softened, sensing exactly why I’d been moping in my room all weekend.
“Ezra, honey,” she cooed. “Girls change their minds. It happens. Lord knows I broke enough hearts in my day.”
“Mom,” I moaned, putting my head down.
“I’m just saying, honey. A shower and shave wouldn’t hurt. You can still be miserable and clean.”
“That,” I said sarcastically, “is awesome advice.”
“Tone,” she cautioned, pouring us each a glass of unsweetened juice. “How’s school?”
“I won homecoming king.” I said it in the way Toby’s friends used to when they made serious announcements—a hint of a smirk, like maybe it wasn’t true, but wouldn’t it be hilarious if it were?
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Really.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” Mom said, all false cheer. “I bet that girl’s kicking herself for throwing you over now.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.
26
CASSIDY STILL WASN’T back in school on Tuesday. Mrs. Martin, who clearly thought she was being very astute, singled me out during roll to ask if I knew where Senorita Thorpe had gone. The class laughed in this uncomfortable, knowing way while I muttered, “No se, Señora,” and wished I could disappear.
I had PT that afternoon, so I conjured some flimsy excuse to get out of hanging around the tennis courts that I doubt anyone believed, and I drove over to the UC Eastwood Medical Complex with my windows down.
The weather was gorgeous, and as the warmth streamed through my car, I replayed a conversation from lunch that day, when Jimmy had announced that outie bellybuttons looked like ni**les. Evan had laughed so hard that he’d snorted Sprite, and the whole thing had been hilarious if you didn’t think about it for too long, in which case it became incredibly depressing. The truth was, I didn’t understand how it had suddenly turned so painful to be around Evan and Jimmy when we’d been teammates since the ninth grade.
The three of us had been the only freshmen to make varsity tennis. But sitting there at the lunch table we’d inherited, thinking back to the first upperclassmen party we’d attended, the three of us nervously wearing our letter jackets like they proved we were cool, it made me wonder whether we’d ever had anything in common besides taking crap from the seniors a year longer than the rest of our teammates.
It frustrated me, listening to conversations that consisted mostly of gossip and unfunny jokes told at someone’s expense, holding back my clever remarks and pretending to enjoy myself. It was as though I’d gone off on epic adventures, chased down fireworks and buried treasure, danced to music that only I could hear, and had returned to find that nothing had changed except for me. But maybe it was better this way, remembering those few months at the beginning of the year as this wonderful thing that was over now, rather than living in Cassidy’s world without her.
Dr. Levine had me go through the usual exercises and do a couple of sets on the elliptical. We chatted about how I was doing, and if I’d been to see Dr. Cohen lately, and I don’t know what made me say it, but I asked if it was possible to ditch the cane.
Dr. Levine regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, and then looked down at my chart.
“I think we could try that for a week or so to see how you get on,” he said, “so long as you understand that you’ll be working with your current range of motion, which really is on the borderline.”
I said that I understood, and he went on to depress me with a list of cautions and don’ts and definite don’ts that came along with a stack of pamphlets.
I zipped the pamphlets into my backpack and stepped into the hallway, thinking it was lucky I’d kept that stupid elevator key after all. The bathroom where I usually changed out of my sweaty exercise clothes was out of order, so I used the one at the other end of the hall, near the north elevator.