“Tell your mom thanks for the ziti,” she said.
“Yeah, tell your dad—” But she’d closed the door and couldn’t hear me. Someone down the block was mowing the lawn, and it drowned out my voice, but it didn’t drown out Amanda’s voice, what she’d said, her voice in my head. I was a huge asshole. But that didn’t mean I had to keep being an asshole. I admitted to myself that I’d wanted to go to the beach party and not her game. It wasn’t because I’d committed to it first. It was because I was flattered by the attention, that people wanted me there, the varsity players, a hot senior girl. Amanda was right: I was flattered to be good enough for them.
But I’d always been good enough. Better, because I’d been good enough for Amanda, and she was the best there was.
Now I wasn’t good enough for her anymore.
How could I get to be good enough for her again?
16
When Tim came home from the hospital the following week, I made sure Amanda had practice before I called.
Then I went over and told him everything. Everything.
“Wow,” he said when I got to the part about kissing Amanda. “Yeah, son, you don’t touch my daughter when she doesn’t want to be touched. That Darien kid found that out the hard way.”
I laughed, more than a little relieved to find out that Amanda had broken up with Darien. Tim crunched a carrot stick from a bowl by his chair. “Can you see if there’s any ranch dressing for these? My daughter—I mean, my doctor—has me on a pretty strict diet.”
“Sure.” I walked over to the refrigerator, trying not to remember the last time I stood there. I opened it and searched the shelves for salad dressing. When I finally found it, I saw someone had written Not for Dad and a dead smiley face in Sharpie on the ranch. Next to it was a bottle of low-fat sesame ginger. That one was labeled Okay for Dad. I noticed the beer was gone too. I poured the sesame ginger into a bowl and brought it back to Tim.
“Looks like you’re out of ranch. I brought this one.”
“Shit. She got to it.” He dipped his carrot into the dressing. “It’s actually pretty good. Have one.”
To be polite, I took one. Tim was right. It was pretty good. I took another. When I reached for the third, he said, “Hey, hey, slow down there, son. That’s supposed to last me until dinner.”
“How do I get . . . ?” I stopped. I’d been planning to ask how to get Amanda to stop hating me, but instead, I said, “How do I get to be good enough for Amanda?”
Tim smiled. “Well, no one’s really good enough for my daughter, but maybe . . . I’ve got this football team I’m coaching, kids without dads to help out.” I nodded. It sounded familiar. “I can’t run around as much as I used to, apparently. Maybe you’d want to coach?”
“That sounds great.” Then I remembered football practice. I was almost ready to quit the team. I mean, I hadn’t made it fairly anyway.
But Tim said, “We can schedule around your football practices. I’ll call Coach Tejada and ask him.”
“That’d be great.”
So, two days a week, in addition to school and practice, I helped Tim with his team. Amanda wasn’t there. I didn’t expect her to be. I wasn’t doing it to show off. But I wouldn’t have minded if she’d noticed.
A few weeks later, she did. She showed up to watch a game. Tim introduced her to the team. “This is my daughter, Amanda. She plays high school softball, and she’s gonna play college.”
The boys acted politely impressed.
Amanda looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t seen her since that day, not even at school. It was like she’d dropped out or found an invisibility cloak or something.
Tim said, “Chris has been helping me out.”
Amanda said, “Cool,” in a tone that indicated it wasn’t.
I picked up my clipboard. I’d wanted to type the lists on my phone, but Tim insisted that football was traditional.
“Okay, so here’s the starting lineup. DeMarco is offensive guard, Sebastian’s offensive tackle. . . .”
“I’ll see you later,” Amanda told Tim.
But, as she walked away, I noticed she looked back.
“Zephyr is, um, quarterback,” I said, trying to pretend I didn’t see her.
The team won but, more important, this kid Davis, who’d never caught anything, caught a pass. I’d spent most of the last two practices working with him.
I really wished I could tell Amanda about it. I wished she would care.
Tim did, at least. “Hey, good job with Davis,” he said as we put away the equipment.
“I know, right? It’s weird how proud I was about it. You’d think I was his dad.”
“Nah.” Tim shouldered a bag of pads, gesturing for me to take the cooler. “That’s how I felt when you got your first hit.”
I remembered the hours he’d spent, standing behind me, telling me to follow through, and I smiled.
We walked to his truck. I wanted to ask him if he thought Amanda would ever forgive me, but that would be too selfish. Also too bare. So I said, “How’re you feeling?”
“Hungry. My daughter’s been feeding me tilapia. Apparently, it’s a fish.”