Chapter 6 – Percy
"Holy swim workout, Batman!" bemoans Devon.
"Shouldn't it be 'Aquaman'?" jokes Patrick.
That causes a collective groan from the peanut gallery, aka the boy's swim team locker room. But Percy has to agree, that afternoon's swim practice was one for the record books.
And that is exactly what Coach Levine is chasing – Scott Webber's 100 meter butterfly record. Or more like that is what Coach Levine is having Percy chase. Ever since Percy burst onto the swim scene his freshman year, everyone has been talking about Percy being the second coming of the Great Scott Webber – record holder, four time college All-American and six time Olympic medalist. Percy Jackson is on his way to greatness and everyone wants to be along for the ride.
"Hey Jackson," calls out Rick Boudreau, the team's athletic trainer, "Coach Levine wants to see you."
Everyone points at Percy and laughs.
"Uh oh, what did you do this time, Percy?" asks Devon
"He probably just wants my autograph," says Percy.
Everybody groans.
"Probably trying to impress his girlfriend," he says. "She probably doesn't believe he really knows me."
Everybody groans louder, as Percy turns and makes his way to the coach's office. On his way there, he finds himself imagining how his meeting with the coach will go. It isn't hard to imagine because it always goes the same way.
The first thing, when he walks into Coach Levine's office, the coach won't notice him. He'll be bent over his desk, pretending he's busy with paperwork. Then, when the coach does notice him, he'll act like he's surprised to see him. Then, as if he hadn't thought about it until just then, he'll suddenly "remember" Friday's swim meet. And "remembering" Friday's meet, he'll get this disgusted look on his face. And even though he's still younger than middle-age and stands six feet three and weights better than 200 pounds, he'll start to shake his head and clucking his tongue like a little old lady.
And then he'll say, "Jackson…" Like it's the name of his favorite grandson, who just got red-handed, passing top-secret government documents to Al Queda in an exchange for a thimbleful of crack. And that's all he'll say. Just "Jackson….."
Until Percy picks up his cue and says, "Yes, Coach?" Like he doesn't know what's coming. Then Coach Levine will take this as his cue to begin this week's lecture, covering everything Percy did wrong at Friday's meet and nothing he did right. Coach Levine will eventually conclude the lecture by warning Percy, if he doesn't shape up, "Greenfield is going to whip our butt on Friday and then you can kiss off that big-time college scholarship you've got your heart set on and everything that goes with it."
It is the same lecture Percy has been hearing week after week for the past three years. Except this year, there is a new twist. Coach Levine now throws in this little nugget. "You think you are good enough and fast enough to break Scott Webber's record? That record has been around for almost twenty-five years! It will take a lot of work and guts to break that record."
Which, as it turns out, is almost exactly the way it actually goes.
"Well," says Coach Levine, leaning back from his desk and folding his hands behind his head. "What have you got to say for yourself?
Standing there, across the desk from the coach, Percy isn't exactly sure what he'd say for himself, if he actually spoke for himself. Deep in his heart, he isn't all sure he cares that much about breaking the record. He isn't sure that a big-time college scholarship and a big-time career as a big-time college athlete is what he really wants. He knows it's what everybody thinks he wants – Coach Levine, his father and his mother and everybody else. He knows it's what everybody expects him to want. He knows it's what everybody wants him to want.
Because everybody wants the best for him, and being an All-American and Olympic swimmer with his face all over ESPN and Sports Illustrated seems to be everybody's idea of "the best." Things would be a lot simpler for Percy if he just agreed with everybody. But he's already spent the better part of his life being some kind of junior superstar and, more and more, especially lately, it's beginning to feel like junior superstardom – and "everything that goes with it" – isn't really all that much. In fact, he's beginning to suspect that even senior superstardom is a whole lot less than it's cracked up to be.
That's what he'd say for himself, if he actually spoke for himself. But there isn't much point in doing that here or now. For here and now, saying what the coach wants to hear will do.
"I'll try to do better this Friday," Percy tells Coach Levine. It's what he tells him every week. It's little enough to promise and, usually, it's enough to do the trick.
"You'd better," says Coach Levine. As usual.
"Right." With a nod, Percy turns to go.
"Aren't you going to ask me why?" says Coach Levine.
This is a new wrinkle in the script. The coach is improvising. Turning back to him, Percy says, "Why?"
Coach Levine does not answer right away. He just smiles. And then after a second he says, "Because Jason Sullivan is coming up for the University of Florida to see you swim, that's why."
"Oh, yeah?" says Percy.
It's the moment everybody's been waiting for. Percy's first chance to impress a big-time college swim coach. Jason Sullivan. If Percy can show him something this Friday, he can just go right on showing him and then rest of them more of the same, week after week, for the next four years. And, maybe, after that, if he's really good and he hasn't come up with something better to do with his life before then, he can go right on doing the same thing for another five or ten years – until his shoulders give out or some kid better than him knocks him off the pedestal everyone has put him on. And then….
"Yup," says Coach Levine, like the host of a game show, opening the curtain on a million-dollar prize, "this Friday, a big-time swim coach from a big-time school is flying in to take a look at you. What do you think of that?"
Percy half wishes he could muster a little enthusiasm for the coach's sake. But he can't. It's all he can do to sound halfway sincere when he says, "That's great, Coach. Thanks for telling me."
"And if he likes what he sees as much as I told him he would," says Coach Levine, "he might want to talk to you after the meet."
"Great," says Percy.
"Is your father going to be around after the meet?"
"He usually is."
"He'd want to talk to him, too," says Coach Levine. "If he likes what he sees. Will he?"
At this moment, Coach Levine reminds Percy of an animal trainer, holding out a cookie to his pet Yorkie, trying to get him to do a trick for it.
He tells the coach, "I'll try to do better than I did last week."
"You'd better," says Coach Levine.
"Is that it?"
Coach Levine nods. "See you at practice tomorrow."
Percy gives a tight smile and says, "Yes, Coach." And then he turns and walks out the door.
"Die, you scumbags! Die!" shouts Nico into Percy's earpiece.
It is later on Monday night and Percy is having his weekly "Guy Time." It's nothing flashy - just a bunch of the guys playing video games online. Lately, they have been obsessed with playing Call of Duty. Okay, more like Nico has been obsessed with playing it. The number of guys playing varies from week to week, but there is core of them that have been doing this for years. Tonight, it's Percy, Nico, Devon, Patrick, Beckendorf and two of Beckendorf friends, Connor and Travis Stoll. Percy has never met them but they were pretty good and their commentary was hysterical.
Right in the middle of Connor giving a play-by-play account in a German accent, Percy's cell phone starts to ring. He was half tempted to just let it roll over to voicemail but when he took at peak at the screen, he almost dropped his controller. The caller ID displayed "Callie." Quickly putting his headset on mute, Percy picks up his phone.
"Hello?"
"Percy? Um, hi. It's Callie."
"Uh, hi!"
Thinking he ought to say something more, Percy comes up with, "I was just thinking about you."
Except he comes up with it at exactly the same time that Callie is saying, "I guess you're wondering why I'm calling."
"No," says Percy, as Callie says, "You were?"
"Yes," says Percy, as Callie says, "You weren't wondering why I'm calling?"
They both laugh.
"Yes, I am," says Percy. "But I guess you're calling about what I was thinking about. Which is your not thinking about our not going out sometime. Right?"
Callie laughs, and says, "Nope."
Percy feels a surge of embarrassment.
"I want to know if you are going to beat Greenfield on Friday."
"Oh," says Percy, relieved to be back on familiar ground. "Sure, if you like." He wonders if he should tell her about the coach from Florida.
"I like," says Callie.
He decides he shouldn't.
"Done and done," says Percy.
"And," says Callie, "now that you mention it, I have been not thinking about our not going out sometime, too."
"Oh, yeah?" says Percy. "That's great. So, what do you think?" For a brief eternity, while Percy waits for an answer, Callie says nothing.
"Percy, where the heck are you?" comes Beckendorf's voice in his earpiece. "Did you overdose on blue Cherry Coke or something?"
"Yeah, Perce. We need your sniper skills on this next section," says Nico.
"Yezzz, where izz de Percy?" comes Connor, still in his German mode.
Suddenly, Callie says, like she'd rather not, but can't help it, "I don't think Jack would understand."
It's kind of what Percy's been expecting. Since last Friday, all the dozens of times he's imagining this conversation, how it might go, he's always known how it would probably go. But still, he'd always kind of hoped –
"If he knew," says Callie.
If he knew! "Yes," says Percy, tiptoeing over the minefield that's suddenly opened before him. "But what if he didn't know? I mean, what would there be to know? That we went for a walk? Or had coffee? Or caught a movie? I mean, what's that?"
"It was fun," Callie admits, "being with somebody other than Natalie or Zoe for a change."
"Thanks?"
Callie laughs. "You know what I mean."
"Sure," he tells her. "I get kind of tired of hanging out with the guys myself. Not that they're not good guys or anything." Even though they are ready to kill me if I don't get back to the game. But this is Callie!
"It's not exactly stimulating," he tells her.
"Am I?" Callie asks.
"Yeah," he says. "Am I?"
"What am I afraid of?" she says, more to herself than to him.
"I don't know," says Percy.
"There's nothing wrong with it, is there?"
"Not that I can see."
A moment passes. And another.
"DUDE! WHERE ARE YOU?" simultaneously screams Nico, Berckendorf, et al.
"When were you thinking about?" Callie asks.
"I wasn't," Percy admits. "I mean, I hadn't got that far. But, well – " He tells himself, Why not? "How about Friday night?"
"This Friday?" asks Callie.
"Yeah," says Percy. "I always have a hard time figuring out what to do at night, after a meet. You know, go out and celebrate with the guys. Or go home and veg out in front of the TV. But hanging out with you – I mean, if I knew I was going to – going to be, I mean - hanging out with you – then that'd be – you know – okay." He congratulates himself on being such a smooth talker.
"But Friday night…" she says.
He can hear her wavering.
"We wouldn't have to go anyplace where anybody would see us," he tells her. "If that's what you're worried about. We could go someplace else. Make it kind of test, you know? And then, that way, if everything's okay, which it will be, and you want to tell Jack about it, you can tell him you checked it out and it's no big thing, right?"
"Where would we go?" she asks him.
"To the movies?"
"As a test," she says.
"A free trial offer," Percy assures her.
"Well…." Percy hears her take a breath, hears her let it out, hears her say, "Okay."
To himself, he says, I'll be damned! To Callie, he says, "So, I'll pick you up Friday night?"
"Okay."
"Around eight o'clock?"
"Okay."
"Will you be at the meet?"
"Okay. I mean, yes," she says. "I usually always go."
"Good," he says. "There's going to be a coach there. From Florida. Looking me over."
"That's great!"
"Yeah," says Percy, wondering why he's told her and feeling embarrassed that he has. "Where?"
"My house."
"About eight?"
"Okay."
"And Callie?"
"Yes?"
"Don't worry about it, okay?"
"Okay," she says. "And Percy?"
"Yes?"
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
"Good night, Percy."
"Good night, Callie."
As he hangs up the phone, Percy just sits there a moment. With his friends calling his name and saying if he doesn't get back to the game they are going to banish him from "Guy Time," Percy just sits there grinning like a madman. He tells himself its no big deal. Come Friday night, he and Callie are just going to go out and catch a movie. So what?
So nothing! People do it all the time. It doesn't mean a thing. So why is he sitting here, grinning like a madman? Huh? And just who does he think he's kidding?
A/N: Thank you to my loyal readers and reviewers. I promise, the drama will start to pick up in the next couple of chapters. I hope to have the next chapter (Annabeth) posted in the next few days. As also, please review and let me know what you like, don't like or want to see. Have a great weekend!
Enjoy and Happy Reading, MFP
