Kevin’s mom turns around for some reason and looks through the back window. She usually doesn’t do that: like her husband, she places great value on not being sentimental and teaching Kevin to be independent. They’ve watched spoiled children in the Heights grow up to become triumphs of mediocrity—feeble, whining creatures who are going to need their hands held all their lives—and they’re not going to let that happen to Kevin. Even when it hurts, even when Kevin had to walk all the way back from Hed in the dark when he was in primary school because his dad wanted to teach him the consequences of being late, even when his mother had to pretend to be asleep when the boy got home. Even when she wept silently into her pillow. What feels comfortable for the parents isn’t what’s best for the child, she’s convinced of that, and Kevin has grown strong because they’ve allowed him to.
But Kevin’s mother will always remember what she sees through the rear window that Saturday, and how her son looks as he stands in the parking lot. On the biggest day of his life he is the loneliest boy on earth.
*
Amat tries to make it look like he’s only walking past the cafeteria by chance, and succeeds pretty much as well as if he’d tried to claim he’d eaten his best friend’s ice-cream by mistake. Kira is heading in the opposite direction, but greets him cheerily and says far too loudly: “Hi, Amat! Are you looking for Maya?”
Kira gestures brightly toward the cafeteria and disappears down the stairs, but turns back and calls: “Good luck today!”
Then she tenses her muscles and growls dramatically, the way she’s heard teenagers do out in the town when they wish each other luck: “Knock ’em dead!”
Amat smiles bashfully. In the cafeteria Ana and Maya’s voices grow louder in heated debate and Kira hurries down the stairs before one of the girls says something about boys that her mother would have to scrub away from her brain with soap, water, and copious amounts of Riesling.
*
Benji is suddenly standing next to Kevin without Kevin having heard him arrive. His hand on his friend’s shoulder and not a word about the fact that Kevin’s eyes look shiny. In return, Kevin says nothing about anniversaries and cemeteries. They’ve never needed to. They just look each other in the eye and say the only thing they always say before a game: “What’s the second-coolest thing in the world, Kev?”
When Kevin doesn’t respond at once, Benji elbows him in the stomach.
“What’s the SECOND-coolest thing in the world, hotshot?”
“Fucking,” Kevin says, smiling.
“But first you have go into that rink and do the coolest thing in the world!” Benji cries, swinging his bag so carelessly that Kevin has to duck.
As they head off toward the locker room Kevin raises his eyebrows and asks: “So, Benjamin, have you been to the bathroom?”
When they were little, during one of their very first matches together, Benji wet himself on the team bench. Not because he couldn’t get to the bathroom, but because one of the players on the opposing team had been trying to check Kevin all through the game, and Benji refused to leave the bench and risk missing a changeover and leaving Kevin unprotected.
Benji bursts out laughing. As does Kevin. Then they pick up their sticks and set off to go and do the coolest thing in the world.
*
“Have you heard any of their new tracks, though? They’re completely insane! It’s like you get high just from listening!” Ana squawks.
“What is it you don’t get? I don’t like techno!” Maya cries.
“This isn’t techno. It’s house,” Ana snaps, insulted.
“Whatever. I like music where they can play at least one instrument, and with lyrics that contain more than five words.”
“God, when are you going to listen to music that isn’t a suicide soundtrack?” Ana wonders, letting her hair fall over her face and imitating Maya’s music taste with drawn-out air-guitar strumming and groaned lyrics: “I’m so sad, wanna die, because my music suuucks . . .”
Maya laughs loudly and counters with one fist gyrating in the air and the other on an invisible laptop: “Okay, this is your taste in music: Umph-umph-umph . . . DRUGS! YEAH! Umph-umph-umph-umph!”
Beside them Amat clears his throat. By now they’re bouncing around the cafeteria so uncontrollably that Ana knocks over a whole stack of boxes of gummy bears. Maya stops, howling with laughter.
“Are you . . . okay?” Amat asks.
“We just have very, very different taste in music,” Maya grins.
“Okay . . . I . . . well, you know . . . I was just passing, I . . . I might be playing today,” Amat says.
Maya nods.
“I heard. Congratulations.”
“Well, I’ll probably be on the bench most of the time. But I’m on . . . the team . . . I . . . But if you’re not doing anything afterward. Later, I mean. This evening. Or if you are doing something, then . . . I thought maybe I’d ask if we . . . I mean, if you like . . . with me . . .”
Ana slips on two packets of candies and very nearly brings down the entire soda fountain. Maya is laughing so hard she’s almost sick.
“Sorry, Amat, what did you say?”
Amat is about to reply, but isn’t quick enough. Suddenly Kevin is standing next to him, not bothering to pretend that he just happened to be passing by. He’s here because of Maya. She stops laughing when she sees him.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” she says.
“Your name’s Maya, isn’t it?”
She nods warily. Looks him up and down.
“Yes. What’s your name?”
It takes Kevin a few seconds to realize that she’s joking. Everyone in Beartown knows his name. He laughs.
“Ephraim von Shitmagnet, at your service.”
He bows theatrically, even though he hardly ever makes jokes. And she laughs. Amat stands alongside, hating the fact that it’s the best sound he knows, and it’s not for him. Kevin looks at Maya in fascination.
“We’re having a team party at my place tonight. To celebrate our victory. My parents are away.”
Maya raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“You seem very sure you’re going to win.”
Kevin looks like he doesn’t understand.
“I always win.”
“Really, you do, do you, Ephraim the Shitmagnet?” Maya laughs.
“VON Shitmagnet, please,” Kevin grins.
Maya laughs. Ana crawls to her feet and adjusts her hair awkwardly.
“Will . . . will Benji be there? At the party?”
Maya kicks her on the shin. Kevin nods cheerily at Maya.
“There, you see? Bring your friend. It’ll be cool.”
Then he turns toward Amat for the first time and exclaims:
“You’ll come too, won’t you? I mean, you’re part of the team now!”
Amat tries to look self-assured. Kevin’s two years older, and that’s crushingly obvious as they’re standing next to each other.
“Can I bring a friend too?” he asks quietly.
“Sorry, Ahmed! This is just for the team, yeah?” Kevin replies, slapping him on the back.
“My name’s Amat,” Amat says, but Kevin has already walked off.
Maya and Ana go back into the cafeteria, still laughing. Amat is left alone in the corridor.
*
If he gets a single chance to make a decisive move in the match this evening, there’s nothing he wouldn’t give to make the most of it.
16
Pride in a team can come from a variety of causes. Pride in a place, or a community, or just a single person. We devote ourselves to sports because they remind us of how small we are just as much as they make us bigger.