YOU NEEDED ME
A/N: I'd been toying around with this idea for a while, and considering what I'd experi-enced in my personal life, I thought it'd make a great story.
PROLOGUE: Jake
"All right, men, let's hit the showers!" I called to the wrestling team as I blew my whistle. Almost immediately, I was knocked over by ten sweaty young guys as they ran by me on their way to the locker room. Not that I'm complaining, but I think there should be a clause in every coach's contract that clearly states, "Warning: if you accept this posit-ion, expect to be turned into roadkill by your own students."
I went into my office, hung my whistle on the hook beside my desk, and sat down with a bottle of grape Propel and a copy of Sports Illustrated. I'd been doing this job for about three years, and I enjoyed every second of it.
Wait, you're probably wondering who I am, right? Well, let me tell you.
Hi, I'm Jake Kuhn, and I'm twenty-five years old. (Mom still calls me Jakey some-times, which I never liked, even as a kid. Mothers.) I currently live in New Haven, Connecticut, with my girlfriend, Charlotte Johanssen. She just got her doctorate in psychology, and as you may have guessed, I'm the wrestling coach at Oakdale High, home of the Oakdale Cadets, and I love my job. I still remember when I proved to my track coach that I could lose weight. I ran everywhere I went, worked out twice a day watched what I ate, and by the time track season ended, I'd lost twenty pounds.
I wasn't always this fit, though. When I was a kid, I was a bit on the chubby side. Not to the point where it was endangering my health, mind you, but some of the other kids still called me names like fatso, wide-load, doughboy, country virtuoso Roy Clark, you name it. In short, I was a pretty miserable kid. As a matter of fact, I still remember getting into a fight in third grade because of it, and both of us having to stay after school for three days. Not only did he call me fatso, but he'd also been picking on my sister,in Laurel, who was six at the time. Looking back on those days, my first thought always is, If only that douchebag could see me now.
Well, enough about me. You're probably wondering about Charlotte, right? Well, I can't say I blame you. She's terrific.
First of all, her mother is a doctor. An M.D., specifically, which is why Charlotte decided to tackle the wonderful world of psychology, as my Bobeshi Kuhn would say. Dr. Johanssen works in the ER at Stoneybrook General Hospital, and it turns out, she'd mentored Janine Kishi, the older sister of one of my former baby-sitters. She may be an ER doctor, but she's also assisted on a few surgeries. Karen Brewer-Judson once told me that Dr. Johanssen even assisted on her tonsillectomy the summer she was ten.
Anyway, Charlotte works in the office building somewhat catty-cornered from the school. We take turns driving each day, and park our red Pontiac GrandAm under the maple tree in the parking lot. I've heard stories of people with that particular color vehicle having rotten luck on the road, such as accidents, flat tires, or hitting deer. So far, we haven't had to deal with that. Well, actually, I kind of hope we do hit a deer one day, be-cause then we can have the poor bastard for dinner if it's not diseased.
We have a wonderful group of friends, and when we were kids, we were all former charges of the Baby-sitters Club, which is the agency our parents called whenever they needed a baby-sitter. We even got to be honorary members when we got older. It was started by Kristy Thomas-Everett, my former softball coach. She's now married and has two boys: seven-year-old Daniel and three-year-old Tony. The current generation is led by Laura Perkins, who's a senior at SHS, as well as the yearbook editor.
Well, now that you know about me and Charlotte, let me tell you about the others.
Nick Pike lives in Brooklyn, where he's in his last year of seminary. In the spring, he's going to be an ordained Presbyterian minister. At first, I was a little surprised by his career choice, because when we were kids, he was the pest and practical joker of the Pike bunch—basically the kind of sibling you couldn't stand but also couldn't stay mad at for very long. But I, for one, respect his decision, and I'm glad he's doing so well.
James Hobart currently lives in Chicago, where he's just started his internship as a doctor. He'd done his med school rotation at Northwestern Hospital, and hoped to stay there, until he got the letter saying he'd matched at Cook Co. General Hospital. Either way, we're all proud of James. He'd graduated from Duke University, Magna Cum Laude, class salutatorian—both high school and college, and with honors. He'd also scored in the top ten percent on the MCATs and the top twenty-five percent on the board exams.
One more thing about James. He and his family are originally from Australia, and came to the United States when he was eight, so he has a slightly thick accent, which is why he and his brothers were picked on so much. Unlike some people, however, we liked them immediately.
Marilyn and Carolyn Arnold are twins. They live in both sides of a duplex in the 2000 block of Rosedale Road in our hometown of Stoneybrook, Connecticut, which is about a half-hour drive from Stamford, where a lot of our parents work. Marilyn teaches music at the Jeremy Brewer Day Center, which is a sheltered workshop for disabled people in Stamford that was started by Karen's paternal grandfather, and Carolyn teaches sixth-grade science at SMS. They may be identical, but once you get to know them, it's very easy to tell them apart.
If I had to pick the true individual of the group, one name comes to mind: Becca Ramsey. She's been Charlotte's best friend since we were eight years old, and by true individual, I don't mean that she's the only black person in the group. Unlike most of us, she's a major theater buff—which is so ironic, since I'm told that Becca had such intense stage fright as a kid, and fainted onstage during her second-grade class production of Lit-tle Red Riding Hood.
When we were eleven, Nick and Becca were in a children's show choir called the Stoneybrook Kids. It was started by Mr. Drubek, the now-retired choir director at SMS, and Jason Everett, Kristy's husband. He was a hero to a lot of us kids, namely Karen and Andrew Brewer, Kristy's younger stepsiblings. It's now run by two alumni: Nancy Dawes-Korman, Bill Korman's wife and one of Karen's friends, handles the music; and Nina Marshall, Andrew's fiancée, is the choreographer. The age group of the kids is seven to elev-en, and Kristy's oldest niece and nephew—her brother, Charlie's, kids—are both in it. Her nephew is a member, and her niece is a roadie, as well as an alumni—which is what happens sometimes. And you know what? If I wasn't so busy with sports, or had any musical talent whatsoever, I would've auditioned in a second.
Oh, that reminds me. When we were eight, like I said, Kristy had a softball team called Kristy's Krushers. It was for kids who were either too young or too scared to try out for Little League, which some of us eventually did. I played shortstop, and Charlotte was a cheerleader. The team only lasted a couple of seasons, because when Kristy got to high school, she got too busy. And let's just say that when it came to softball, we were really good at table tennis.
Nowadays, Becca lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and she's currently rehearsing for an off-Broadway production of The Color Purple, which opens in early November. The last time I talked to her on Facebook, she said that she'd talk to the director about getting comp tickets for all of us.
Okay, back to me. After a few more minutes of reading about U-Conn's chances of making it to the Rose Bowl this year, and listening to ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses" on the radio, I threw the Propel bottle away, shut off the radio, put on my Red Sox cap, and left the office. It was time to meet Charlotte.
As I turned the corner, I saw a group of kids crowded around the stairs at the end of the hall, and the sound of two girls going at it with the others egging them on. "Why me?" I muttered as I ran over to the fight.
"This'll fucking teach you to steal my lunch, you little bitch!" one of them scream-ed.
"Oh, yeah? As if I'd mess up my stomach with that dog shit!" the other retorted.
"Hey! Hey, break it up, you two!" I shouted as I pushed my way through the crowed and separated the two girls. Sr. Gomez, the Spanish teacher, happened to be passing by on his way to his classroom, and ran over to assist.
"She started it, Coach!" the black girl protested. She had shoulder-length black hair with beads woven into it, and was wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans. The other girl had reddish-brown hair in a ponytail, and she was wearing a gray T-shirt with a picture of Brian from Family Guy that read, "SARCASM IS A FREE SERVICE I OFFER", and a tan pleated skirt.
"I don't care who started what, we're going to the office," I shot back as I grabbed the black girl's wrist. "Now, come with me, both of you."
"All right, the rest of you wrestle-maniacs go home, school's over," Sr. Gomez addressed the other kids as he clapped his hand down on the other girl's shoulder.
"And don't start with me, because I was almost knocked over by the wrestling team a few minutes ago," I told them as the four of us headed to the office.
"Poor you," one of them muttered. I pretended not to hear her, but I did, loud and clear. I didn't care, though. I just wanted to get this over with and meet Charlotte.
All the while, I couldn't help thinking, How lucky can you get?