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Then I heard it: a loud melodic voice laced with a French accent.“Dance, Jake, dance!”My mom was yelling from thestands. She meant “dance” the way Randall Adams does, like the field was his ballroom. My French ex-pat mother had attached herself to the Iowa Tornadoes the year Randall burst onto the scene, and now she was completely devoted. She had joined the League of American Women Who Loved Randall Adams. My mother had convinced me that if I took dance lessons, I, too, could someday be as good as Randall.
I took lessons privately to please my mom, refusing to tell anyone at school, knowing I’d never get laid if I was caught in a ballet or jazz dance class, and getting laid was way more important to me than learning to dance.“Jake, dance!”I heard her again, her voice unmistakable. Then it clicked: “Football finesse.”That’swhat that meant.
Our offense huddled, and my brain focused on the next play while my body went to dance class. My teammates lined up, the center snapped the ball, and suddenly I was holding it. My feet were moving, back and forth, like I was on a dance floor. My eyes searched downfield, and there he was: Jesse, our tight end, open thirty yards down the sideline. My feet kept dancing as my arm spiraled a perfect pass to Jesse. He caught it, then was tackled by a defensive back in-bounds. Forty-five seconds were left with the clock ticking. It was first and ten at the Westlake twenty. Westlake’s defense was the best in the region, but they’d been caught off guard. I usually took the ball and ran, ran like a bull who thought I could do it all on my own. My heart thudded against my sternum.Fuck, I was shocked. (Though probably not as much as I bet Coach Mark was.) I looked up at the clock again. I could almost feel the congratulatory slaps of my teammates on my back.
“Keep dancing, Jake! Dance!”she shouted again. I wanted to wave and tell her to stop, but there was something so sweet and calming about hearing my mom’s voice amid the din of the crowd. Everyone else’s cheers and rants were blocked out. I onlyheard that French-accented voice coming through, speaking directly to me.
We lined up, and my feet were poised to dance. Damn, I wanted to run, but my feet just kept dancing, moving like I was mimicking Fred Astaire. Time slowed down…no one open deep…Westlake’s defense readying for me to pass, covering our best receivers.Just run, I thought again.No—wait.I danced to my right, slowing time. I got a glimpse of our running back, open, three yards beyond the linebackers at the Westlake ten, alone, just waiting for me to get him the ball. And I did. I lobbed the ball to him as if we were just playing in my backyard. He almost seemed surprised when he caught it but immediately took off downfield. Touchdown! I stole a look at the clock. It read 0:10.
Bowie’s stands went crazy. I could hear the roar, the stomping on the bleachers, my mother’s voice. I was pretty sure I also heard my father’s voice, hoarse from yelling too much and too loudly. My brain roiled in a fog of disbelief as I turned to walk off the field. Coach Mark’s grin took over his whole red face as he waved me back onto the field. “Now that’s the finesse I’ve been talking about. Go hold the ball for your kicker. You just won a football game.”
When I got home that night, I dug in my closet for the Randall Adams poster my mother had given me last Christmas, sort of messing with Dad (diehard Lone Stars fan) but also sort of sending me a message. She loved the way Randall danced on the field, but if you really listened to her talk about him, it was his graciousness and the way he handled fame that endeared my mom to him the most. I’d laughed when I opened the gift, and my whole family gave my mom a hard time about her crush on Randall Adams. Over Christmas dinner, I pointed out that it was easy for Randall to be so gracious and smiley all the time. He was rich, famous, and surrounded by beautiful women. But my momargued that sometimes that makes it harder, and not everyone has the same values and manners as Randall Adams. I knew there was a subtext there for her cocky high school son, and I saw right through it. But I loved that she kept trying.
I unrolled the poster and tacked it up on the wall over my bed, in between Christie Brinkley (yeah, I knew she was like fifty-something, but that photo of her in a red one-piece has never been beaten) and Danica Patrick (how could you not fantasize about a hot brunette who drives race cars?). “Look who I surrounded you with, Randall,” I joked to myself, looking up at the classic image of Randall Adams, smiling, holding a football. “Thanks for turning my mom on to that whole dance thing. It helped me out a lot tonight.”
I leaned over to shut off my bedside light, and my phone buzzed.Shit, it was Tabitha Mclean. I’d only been trying to get a date with her for a year, but she’d always say she didn’t date younger boys. I hated that she called me a boy. Even though she treated me like shit, I was mesmerized by her, the way she walked, her heel striking the ground just as the muscles flexed in her perfectly round butt. Her long, highlighted, auburn hair swished on her shoulders. And it was hard not to stare at her breasts encased by the tight pastel-colored short T-shirts that she regularly wore (which I was pretty sure violated school dress code). I’d spent way too many nights thinking about those perfect tits.
Tabitha:Great game, Jake. You still up for Chuy’s soon?...Send
“Oh my God, Tabitha Mclean. Freaking Tabitha Mclean,” I said out loud, staring at my phone, double-checking the contact.Chill, Jake. She’s a senior, you’re a junior. She’s already made it clear after your five hundred other attempts that you aren’t her caliber.
Jake:Sure, anytime. Tomorrow night?...delete
Jake:You looked beautiful at school today…delete
Jake:Thx, it was kinda a fluke…delete
What I wanted to say was, “Please, please show me your boobs.” I waited, counted to one hundred, and then wrote:
Jake:Thx. We’ll work something out…Send
The following weekend, I picked up Tabitha, and we went to Chuy’s Mexican Restaurant on Barton Springs Road in downtown Austin. During dinner, we didn’t really talk. She’d already told me—well hell, she’d told the whole school—that she’d gotten early acceptance to UCLA on a soccer scholarship. While we waited to be seated and during the first half of the meal, she looked at her phone more than me. I did not pull my phone out once, no matter how awkward I felt sitting there watching her. My dad always told me that’s one of the rudest things you can do at the dinner table.
Tabitha looked up from the fajitas she was picking at. “I can’t wait to get out of Texas and go to California,” she said, rolling her light blue eyes. “I’m tired of running into the same people all the time. Ready for some new faces.” She tucked a loose auburn curl behind her ear. “How about you, Jake? Got any life plans?” She said it as if she knew I didn’t have an answer, which made me super nervous.
“Um, well. I mean, I like Austin,” I stammered. “Might try to play college ball.”
“Really?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “So what are you going to do to make money in the future…and don’t say football.”
“Wasn’t thinking football,” I said affirmatively because I didn’t know at the time that I would shoot up from five-eleven to six-twoandI’d retain my speed on the field, which would garner college scout attention the fall of my senior year, securing a fewoffers from sizeable state schools, including my dream school (it was home), the University of Texas.
“Okay, well…” She motioned with her hand for me to spit out the answer. “What are you going to do?”
“I think I’d like to be a history teacher.”
“A what? History teacher? Like, you mean a professor or something?”
“No, like a high school history teacher here in Austin. And then probably take over my parents’ ranch someday,” I explained, thinking that sounded like a plausible, well-thought-out plan for a sixteen-and-a-half-year-old.
Tabitha’s mouth turned up into a crooked grin, and she looked at me like I had three heads. I said it again with determination, puffing out my chest a bit to make my five-eleven frame seem taller while pushing my longish black hair off my temple in what I thought was a sophisticated, older-person gesture. “Yeah…history teacher. That sounds like a good life to me.”
She rolled her eyes again and looked at me like I was five. “So again, what are you going to do to make money?” She crossed her arms over her chest, challenging me.
I studied her, thinking,If you didn’t have such great boobs and a reputation for experience, I’d call you a cab and get the hell outta here.Then the classic Jake line hit me. I twisted my lips, trying not to laugh. “Well, actually, I do have a plan.” She nodded her head, tossing me an impatient glance. “Gonna marry rich. Get some hot UCLA girl to take care of me so I can teach history and ride horses.”
Tabitha’s eyes got big, an incredulous look on her face.Checkmate, I thought. “Do you mind showing my picture around when you get there?” I kept going, trying to keep my voice sounding businesslike. “I hear those California girls love Texas guys, so if you don’t mind…”
She burst out laughing. “All right, all right.” Her hand went up, signaling for me to stop.
