Right then there’s a big play and the crowd goes crazy, and so I don’t bother responding to Nick.
I’m careful not to look down there, where Sam sits. But when Central scores a touchdown, and everyone goes nuts, I sneak a glimpse, thinking it’s safe. I mean, they’re far down, and Sam probably doesn’t know where I’m sitting. I see Sam clapping along with everyone else.
Raj leans down to me and whispers, “It’s so funny we’re both dating Madisons,” and I don’t correct him because he’s smiling, and in such a good mood.
I peek back at where Sam’s sitting, and right then I see him glance up my way, as if he could sense me looking at him. He knows where I’m sitting. He must have watched me walk up the steps.
I snap my eyes away, back to the field, trying to look like I’m focused only on the game. But I’m glad Sam saw me, surrounded by friends, with a date. I bet that’s a surprise to him. I’m not that Josh he could push around. I feel a flash of pride, but it doesn’t last long. Soon a kind of shame prickles my skin. Sam’s down there with just his parents, and I’m up here with everyone else in the freshman class, with all these friends, and I know that’s not the way it should be.
At some point, Madison clutches my hand and says, “You okay?” But just then the Bobcats fumble and I scream and cheer along with everyone else. I look at Nick, and we give each other a high five, and everything feels normal again.
===
A few weeks after Sam had vanished, after days of being shut up in the air-conditioned house, Mom came to my room.
“Okay, no more of this sitting around. I’ve enrolled you in tennis camp.”
“Tennis camp?” I envisioned a campfire and tents and wondered how in the world tennis fit into that.
“It’s for two weeks, at the University courts. It’ll get you out of the house.”
“But I’ve never played. I don’t even have a racket.”
“We’ll go buy one today. Some physical activity will be good for you.”
“But I won’t know anyone there.”
“Mrs. Lanzano said Nick signed up.”
I’d known Nick since first grade, just like Sam. They’d been best friends. Nick had always been nice to me, but we didn’t hang out or even talk. Even if Nick had wanted me as a friend, I always felt like Sam stood in the way of that. At school, Sam didn’t need me anymore, and he was always finding ways of blocking me from his small circle—the athletic kids. So hearing that Nick would be at this tennis camp didn’t give me much comfort.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s all settled.” Mom sounded like she was angry with me, like she’d reached the last straw about something. “Put your shoes on, we’re going shopping for a racket.”
In the car she drove faster than usual. She even cursed under her breath when she had to stop at a red light.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“What?” she said, snapping to my attention.
“Did I do something wrong? Is that why you’re sending me to camp?”
Her eyes softened. “Oh, no, honey. No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that . . . these past few weeks have been tough. For all of us. Just sitting around the house, waiting for news. I think we’re all going a little crazy. And when Mrs. Lanzano told me about the tennis camp for beginners, I thought it would be something for you to do, that’s all.” Mrs. Lanzano was a lawyer, and Mom had done some clerking for her firm, so they were becoming friends.
“Okay,” I said.
And so a few days later Mom dropped me off at the tennis courts at the University. It was August then, even hotter than July. There were about fifteen other kids there, and we all stood around holding our rackets, awkwardly as beginners do, while two guys in their twenties, assistant coaches on the University team, taught us the basics: feeding us ball after ball, showing us the proper way to hit a forehand, then a backhand, on to volleys, then the serve.
On that first day, Nick and I didn’t say much to each other. I hadn’t seen him since the end of school. He seemed taller. He had dark hair and these heavy eyebrows, olive skin. He sort of intimidated me. One of those kids—like Sam—who exuded confidence, who was good at sports, who got a lot of attention from girls. I just blended into the group and focused on the tasks at hand. Afterward, the two coaches took us aside—just Nick and me—and told us that we were both naturals. That we had great hand-eye coordination, which was a shock to me because I’d never been good at any sport—not soccer, not basketball, not football, not even T-ball. But tennis felt like something I might master. There was a satisfaction, a challenge, about manipulating that little ball around a box with clearly defined boundaries. And I enjoyed the distraction. For the first time in weeks, I hadn’t thought about Sam all day.
The next day, Nick asked if I wanted to come over sometime and play video games after camp. I didn’t really like video games, but I wanted to hang out with Nick—to spend as much time as possible away from home. Away from the sight of Sam’s house.
Nick’s family had recently moved to the other side of town—the side of town where we eventually moved, too. That day I’d brought an extra change of clothes. Once changed, we plopped in front of the couch and fired up the video game. I forget what the game was, but I was horrible at it. Instead of ridiculing me, or laughing, as Sam would have done, Nick tried to show me the tricks, explaining things patiently.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said.
When we reached a good stopping place (the game seemed to have no end point), Nick got us some Cokes and a bag of Doritos. We sat back down on the couch and ate and watched TV.
Out of nowhere, Nick said, “Do you think Sam is dead?”
“I don’t know,” I said after chewing a mouthful of Doritos, wiping the red dust on my shirt. My belly started churning. I wasn’t too crazy about having to think about Sam. Especially when associated with the word dead.
“I think he is,” Nick said.
“I was with him, the day he went missing. I was the last person to see him—” I stopped myself before saying the word alive.
“You were?” Nick looked at me. “For real?”
“Yeah.” I could tell Nick found this fascinating, the way he fixed his total attention at me. I felt like I had prestige, being so connected to such a melodramatic story. I told him an abbreviated version, changing some of the details—like not mentioning the soda being tossed at me, the name that was called out, instead saying I just fell off my bike. I told him how Sam laughed at me. I felt a twinge of guilt, saying it—like now that he had vanished, like now that maybe something bad had happened to him, I should just forget that he had ever been a jerk.
“Wow,” Nick said. “I mean, did the police interview you, since you were the last one to see him?”
“Yeah, they interviewed me a bunch.”
A moment of silence, as if Nick were taking all this in. I expected him to keep asking questions, but instead he said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t like him much. I mean, I didn’t like him period, or whatever.”