10th Grade, High School
Age: 15
November 2007
...
When the whistle blows, all the boys stop what they're doing and form a large cluster around center court. The coaching staff for the three teams stand united, a collection of five men standing behind the head coach of the varsity team. The man is tall, bald, and intimidating and when he crosses his arms, Vince can see the tattoo on his arm flex with his muscles.
"Welcome to tryouts, boys," he says. "The next three hours will be a test of your strength, your speed, and your endurance. We will make preliminary decisions as to team placements tomorrow and final cuts will be determined and posted Friday. Look around – there are a lot of you and only a few spots."
He then explains how the sessions will work. The JV and varsity coaches will watch all the players from last year's JV and freshman teams to determine who will move up to varsity, move or stay on JV, or lose their spots. The returning varsity players will lead the freshmen candidates on a mile run before assisting the freshman coach with drills. No one gets cut from the freshmen team, but rarely someone is good enough to move straight to JV, taking one of the coveted twelve spots.
Vince did that last season, but he heard that he is the first to do so in decades.
The head coach points to the hoop behind him. "I want last year's JV team at that hoop," he says, then he points to the hoop in front of him. "Anyone on last year's freshman team, go to that hoop. And I want the varsity team to meet all the new freshmen in the gym lobby and take them on the Warrior Mile. You'll finish at the outdoor hoop."
He blows his whistle again and the boys begin to move as instructed. All of Vince's classmates head to one hoop while his teammates from last year move toward another. He shrugs a goodbye to a few of the other sophomores he is friendly with before he joins the juniors and seniors on JV last year with him. None of his good friends play basketball. The team isn't appealing to many of his football and baseball teammates, the back-and-forth hustle drawing a different crowd. But, that's almost a good thing. The less competition he has with friends the better.
"LaSalle!"
He turns and jogs toward the head coach. Vince is a tall kid, but he stands only shoulder level to the coach.
"Yes, sir?"
The coach nods to where the returning varsity team is walking out to the gym lobby. "Go with the varsity team. I've seen enough already."
There is no explicit welcome or congratulations, but Vince can't help but smirk as he thanks the coach and jogs to join the rest. He knows that the coach watched him last year while he played JV and even saw him in the stands at a few of his AAU games. This was Vince's biggest goal – making varsity at his first opportunity – and he did it. Now, a couple years playing varsity, maybe helping his team to some playoff games, and he'll have the scouts looking for him. With his last goal met, his new goal begins.
Division I.
He opens the doors just as the captain is finishing up explaining the 1.2-mile out-and-back the school sports teams have dubbed the Warrior Mile. All the teams know it. It's a downhill start with an uphill return, especially brutal during fall preseason when summer leaves nearly everyone out of shape.
When the door shuts behind him, making a loud bang, most heads turn to see who joined them. One of the varsity players claps once and cheers.
"Oooh, he really did it," he says, punching the kid beside him in the arm. "He pulled Baby Boy right on up without a tryout. You owe me fifty bucks!"
The kid crosses his arm and makes a face. "Freaking Coach," he grumbles.
The captain gives them both a hard look and then makes eye contact with Vince.
"Coach send you to join us?"
Vince nods.
"You know the Warrior Mile, I assume?"
Vince nods again.
"Take the back of the pack, make sure no straggler gets lost." Then he turns to the freshmen. "This is timed. Let's go."
All eight returning varsity players start at the front with a few freshmen that attempt to keep up with the older boys. After the downhill, the gap widens and Vince can barely see the rest of the varsity players as he sticks in the back with some slower freshmen. He is barely running and his feet itch to run ahead and join his new team, but he knows not to question his place. There is a hierarchy and he is not going to ruin his chances at playing because he didn't follow the captain's orders. He prides himself on his discipline.
But, as the varsity team runs past them on their way back to the school, he grinds his teeth.
When he and the two boys struggling at the back return to the school, everyone else is well rested and rehydrated. It's still warm enough outside that while moving he doesn't get cold, but as he stands waiting for directions on drills, his sweat starts to dry and it cools him down too much. It has the same effect on the freshmen, who jump up and down while they wait in line to toss free throws and do lay-up drills. It's a long three hours and it's starting to get dark when time is called and they're allowed to head back to the locker room.
Vince feels an arm fall over his shoulder. It's the kid from before. The one that won the bet. There are two others that flank him, all three seniors.
"You did good tonight, Baby Boy," he says. The guys next to him chuckle at the nickname. The first boy smirks and pinches Vince's upper arm. "Aww, guys, look. He hasn't even grown into his muscles yet."
"Don't worry, kiddo," another of the three boys says, smirking as well. "A season with Coach and you won't be all arms and legs anymore. You can kiss those lanky limbs goodbye."
The boys all laugh and charge ahead to join the captain, leaving Vince behind. He wonders if this is some sort of hazing or if it's how the team is going to treat him all season. Regardless, he can't let him affect him. He has a goal and he needs to put on his blinders and go for it. But, as he walks into the locker room, he can't help but feel the nickname like dirt on his skin.
He'll have to show them that he's not a baby. He is good enough to play here with the rest of them. Just because he is fifteen shouldn't matter.
…
The chalkboard, because of course their eccentric math teacher would request one of the few classrooms that hasn't been updated to include a white board, reads the following when Gus walks in:
1. Read pages 156-172
2. Partner with the person next to you
3. Complete problems 1-4, 6-8, 10
If their teacher is allowing them to partner, he can only imagine how difficult this section of the book must be. He sighs and pulls out his math book. He might as well get started. The kid directly behind him, who based on where he is in the row will be his partner, is a fast reader. It'll be to Gus's advantage to start in on the reading before that kid shows up.
The classroom is quiet, as it always is, for the first third. After that time passes, some low chatter begins as his classmates spin in their chairs and even move their desks to work on the problems together. Gus turns around in his chair and holds his book on his lap as he and his partner begin work on the problems. As they work, Gus finds himself looking across the room when he is supposed to be working on the problems.
Spinelli and Ashley T have been relatively civil to each other since the beginning of the school year. He's been watching, looking covertly over his shoulder, every class. Not that he'll be able to do anything if anything broke out between the girls or that his watchful eye has been deterring Ashley T from antagonizing his friend, but he feels a sense of duty to watch over her. Spinelli and Gretchen are the two closest people Gus has to sisters and even though Spinelli is tougher than he is and Gretchen is older, he tends to find himself keeping an eye out. Not that he thinks they can't handle themselves in any sort of situation but they both have their vices that tend to get them into trouble – Gretchen putting too much focus into her schoolwork and not enough self-care into herself and, of course, Spinelli has the Ashleys.
But Ashley T has been remarkably...benign. Granted, they are supposed to be silent in this class and the few times anyone has tried to chit-chat their teacher comes over and stands at the student's desk, just hovering until that person gets too uncomfortable to continue the conversation. The Ashleys are also, as Vince would say, manipulative and creative beasts, so it isn't surprising that she wouldn't antagonize Spinelli in front of their teacher.
Spinelli isn't quite as subtle though and it shocks him more that she hasn't tried to push Ashley T's buttons. He tried to ask her about Ashley T, but Spinelli just shook him off. They've just been sort of ignoring each other, only interacting when they have to trade homework problems to 'grade' them.
So, Gus has sort of put it out of his mind during class except for these few moments of interaction. Then he watches and is always surprised when neither girl causes an outrage over something.
Today, they seem to be communicating well. Spinelli listens intently as Ashley T explains something, pointing her pencil eraser first at a page in the book and then at her notebook.
"Hey, Griswald."
He looks away from the two girls across the room and back to his partner. The kid has an eyebrow raised.
"What are you looking at?"
He shakes his head. "Oh, nothing. Ready to move on to problem six?"
The kid nods and the two get back to work.
He and his partner finish relatively quickly. Math is Gus' favorite subject and one that comes relatively easy to him. His partner matches his skill level well. So, once the two are finished with the work, having done the problems and checked the answers, he turns in his chair again. Spinelli and Ashley T are still working.
Spinelli looks frustrated. He knows she doesn't like math and didn't even want to be in this class, so working with Ashley T is probably just making her mood worse. He expects to see Ashley T appearing just as frustrated, having to work with Spinelli any time there is partner work, but it's quite the opposite. Ashley T talks through something, quietly focused while using her pencil to point to something in the book.
He has to say that he has been impressed by her. He supposes he should have realized that all the Ashleys had different personalities, but he has always just thought of them as a singular entity. All four of the girls have always just been The Ashleys. Even if his friends have made the comment through the years that Ashley T was the least worst it was always in the context of her being an Ashley and, if he was being honest, he always just assumed it was because she was the quietest that she had earned that title.
But now she almost seems, dare he say, nice.
When the bell rings for class transition, he stands and watches as Ashley T gently puts her things into her bag. She adjusts the green backpack on her shoulders and walks toward the door without much fanfare. The only thing that would draw attention to her would be the slight clicking of her kitten heels against the tile floor.
When he meets Spinelli at the end of his row of desks, he has to shake himself out of staring at her.
"I need Thanksgiving vacation to be here now," Spinelli grumbles, crossing her arms as the two of them leave the room side-by-side. "I need a break."
"It's not that much of a break though, only a couple of days," he says. They'll have a half-day of school the Wednesday before and be off the Friday after, but then they'll be right back to school on Monday.
"Yeah, but it's a couple of days that I don't have to do anything school related."
"Touché," he says. "Did you finish the problems? No homework if you did."
She shakes her head. "No."
Then she groans and throws her head back.
"Ugh, why do I always have to partner with her," Spinelli complains. "She's gonna squeal about how stupid I am to her prissy posse and I'll never hear the end of it."
He puts a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, that set was hard for everyone. That's why Mr. Wolfman had us do it in pairs." She doesn't look at him and instead just shakes her head. "How many did you guys have left?"
"Five," she says. "I'll be up forever doing them."
"Do you want any help?" Gus asks. "I'm free all day after school."
Spinelli sighs and shakes her head as they start to climb the stairs.
"Thanks, but no thanks. I've got track and then ballet and then I have to edit TJ's paper," she tells him. "Last time I let him pass one in without checking it first, it was riddled with spelling mistakes. After all the hard work I put in getting him into this class, there's no way I'm letting him fail out of it."
He thinks she might be grinding her teeth. Her jaw is so tense as she tightens her arms around her. Spinelli has a busy schedule, most of his friends do. Mikey is in the musical and their rehearsals have just started to ramp up. Gretchen has her academic clubs, her own experiments in her bedroom lab, and she started helping out Third Street's science club that happens once a month, although he knows she spends much longer tailoring her experiments trying to intrigue the younger kids. Vince is easy enough to find – at one of the various city basketball courts typically – but he is never really free. Neither is TJ – if he isn't doing class president stuff or hanging around Spinelli, he's with some other friend or acquaintance doing something. Even Gus has his band practices and he's been helping out with the play since Mikey asked.
All of his friends are busy and, to be honest, they've all sort of thrived on it. Even growing up, there was never a day on the playground where they were just being lazy. But when he looks at Spinelli right now, she has bags under her eyes and she looks like she could use a nap.
"I'll save you a seat next to me at lunch and we can get those problems finished," he tells her.
She raises her eyebrows. "You'd really use your lunch break to help me do math homework?"
"I like math." She glares at him and he changes subject, not trying to make her upset. "But more importantly, you're my friend and I want to help you."
They reach the top of the staircase at the second floor and pause at the top of the landing. Spinelli gives him a tiny smile.
"Thanks, Jarhead," she mumbles. "See you at lunch."
He gives her a wave and heads up to the third floor to his biology class. When he arrives at class, Vince is already in his seat at their table, his head down staring at something in his notebook. Gus glances over his friend's shoulder as he sits down. Vince has drawn what must be basketball plays – all he sees are circles and squiggles, but it must mean something to Vince, who is using his finger to guide through the plays as he murmurs under his breath.
"Forward 1 to Guard 1 and then Guard 1 to Center."
Vince doesn't even react as Gus sits down, his focus on his notebook. Gus frowns. Maybe everyone is a lot busier than he even realized.
…
Vince knew when he passed in his essay that the grade he received on it wasn't going to be a good one. He had completely forgotten about the assignment if he was being perfectly honest. Over Thanksgiving break, they were supposed to read a novella and write an essay to be turned in on the day they returned. Vince finished his at three on Monday morning.
It wasn't that he disliked the book. He hadn't found it hard to understand and the assignment would not have been overly taxing if he hadn't waited to do it until the last minute. But he kept pushing it off in favor of basketball. Both the high school team and his travel team were involved in tournament play over the holiday weekend. When he had downtime, he could have written it, but he blew it off to hang out with his friends instead.
Besides, this one essay doesn't even matter in the grand scheme of things. It's worth only a few points, the teacher probably realizing students aren't as motivated over breaks as they think they'll be, and he has a solid A otherwise. By his calculation, even failing the essay would only bring his semester grade down to a B- and he figured he could probably pull a C on the paper for the book he started reading at midnight the night before.
When he flips over the paper and sees a C+, he is actually pleasantly surprised, even if his teacher wrote "not your best work" in the comments section on the last page.
He shrugs it off and sticks the paper in his folder. Even with this grade, if he keeps everything else up, he'll manage a low A. His straight As will appease his parents, maintain him as a high honor athlete, and one bogus paper won't bring him down.
After school he goes to practice, does so many suicide sprints he thinks he might throw up, and then stops at Third Street on his way home. Even after his long and grueling practice, he does his free throws. He made a promise to himself freshman year that he intends to keep. Today, his arms feel like jelly from exhaustion, but he still manages to complete the one hundred shots just as the streetlights turn on and he's not even late for dinner.
Which is good because he's starving. He eats twice as much as usual and his mother comments on it, unable to ignore the signs of another impending growth spurt. His father only laughs.
He sets his things on the dining room table after dinner and completes his math homework before taking a break for a shower. Before he steps under the water, he inspects himself in the mirror. He has gotten taller. He can tell because his jeans are just a touch too short compared to in the beginning of the year and he has been wearing shorts because of it, even when the temperature isn't quite warm enough.
He flexes his muscles in the mirror. He thinks the muscles in his arms have become more defined. Or maybe he's just seeing things he wants to see. He has never really had to worry about gaining weight before, able to eat anything and still stay lean, but since the beginning of his stint on varsity he has taken a little more care into what he puts into his body. That combined with the strenuous practices are changes he hopes will propel his body from lanky teenager to strong varsity athlete.
Baby Boy no more.
It's been nearly a month and he can't seem to shake the nickname the seniors bestowed on him the first day. They call him that so often that sometimes he wonders if they actually know his name. Maybe it would help if he saw more than five minutes of play time each game. He figured, as the lone sophomore on varsity, he would be the low man on the totem pole, but he knows he's a good player. He knows that Coach knows he's a good player. How is he supposed to become the best player if all he does is run suicides at practice and cheer on the others from the sidelines?
He steps into the shower and lets the water run over him.
He just doesn't get it. He plays nearly full games on his U-16 team, one of the most highly ranked travel teams in Arkansas. He wonders why Coach would put him on varsity just to sit him out, whereas he could dominate on the JV team again, fully preparing himself for actually playing varsity next year. Isn't that better than watching?
He is also a little perturbed by his coach's methods because he's supposed to be the best sophomore athlete and other sophomores in other sports are actually playing on their varsity teams. Vance Lombardi – Vince rolls his eyes at the thought of him – scored a goal in the hockey team's last game and even got a high five from the hockey captain, the former King Bob, on the ice. And don't even get him started on Spinelli playing varsity soccer. Her name was splattered all over the paper in the fall and even if it wasn't always positive it was more than Vince has ever been mentioned in the Grand Street Gazette.
Their basketball team isn't even that good. They're a fine team, with back-to-back appearances in the state semi-finals, but they aren't good enough in Vince's opinion to be only playing him sparingly here and there. It isn't fair.
He wants to play. He wants to feel the court under his sneakers. He wants his heart to beat rapidly with the intensity of a buzzer-beating shot soaring from his hands to the basket.
He turns off the water and starts to dry off. Maybe once they've secured a bid to the playoffs he'll see more playing time.
Dried off and wearing fresh sweats, he heads back downstairs to finish his homework. He did the easy stuff first. Now he has to outline a new paper for English and do a little research for his biology assignment. He takes his seat back at the dining room table and tries to decide what to do first. He only has to have a basic idea for his biology project tomorrow, so he whips out his textbook and starts to take notes in his notebook.
He is nearly finished when his mother calls him from the living room.
"Vincent? Can you come in here, please?"
He finishes the sentence he's writing and then walks into the other room. Both his parents turn to look at him with straight faces and fire in their eyes. For just a second, he curses that his mother calls him Vince and Vincent interchangeably. All the other guys have a fair warning sign for when they're in trouble. Mikey and Gus are never called by their full names unless they're in big trouble and while TJ's mother will do the same as his mother, the tone of her voice is a dead giveaway that he's toast. His mother didn't sound too mad when she called him just now.
Which makes him wonder why she's mad in the first place.
"What's going on?" he asks.
His father lifts a stapled couple of pages and Vince instantaneously knows it's his English essay. He grinds his teeth.
"What is this?" his father demands. "I know this is not the paper you had nearly a week to complete."
Vince crosses his arms. "What are you doing going through my stuff?"
It is the wrong thing to do. Going on the defensive has his parents crossing their own arms and taking the stance together. He is going to get it now.
"A C+?" his mother says in disbelief. "Vincent, this is not acceptable."
"It's one paper!" he insists. "And it's not even worth that much. I'll still get an A for the semester."
"That is not the point," his father says.
He pouts but doesn't correct his father. He knows his parents' expectations for his grades. They expect that he will try his hardest and if his hardest is a C+ so be it, but his parents know that isn't the case. His teacher, with her not your best work comment, didn't help him out either.
"It won't happen again."
"It better not," his father says, in the tone that parents use when the conversation is over. "You know our deal. You keep your grades up or you're off the team until you do."
His parents are strict, but this is the one area where they will never back down. Even though Vince will secure his place to college, and hopefully with a full-ride for basketball on top of that, his parents insist that he earn it just as much as Chad did. Chad is currently thriving at Stanford, his brother's dream school for as long as Vince can remember. He graduated as the high school valedictorian, with all 5s on his AP exams, and taking some college courses during his summers. He remembers Gretchen being so impressed when they were in middle school and how Chad would even humor her by talking science with her while Vince and the others played video games or saw how far they could blow spit balls through straws.
Not many people are like Chad, people who are nice and smart and utterly unathletic in every sense of the word but completely comfortable in their own skin. Chad, who had owned being a geek all through school, even when people made fun of him, and who will probably one day be a big name in Silicon Valley, perhaps the next Gates or Jobs.
Vince will never be like Chad and his parents understand that. He has other interests. But they value education and he respects that. He just wishes he didn't have such big shoes to fill and that his parents weren't so strict. His other friends don't have this problem, at least not to the extent he does. Mikey's parents are all about individual expression, so when he flounders in his non-arts classes, they're whatever about it. TJ's parents have to be the chillest parents he's ever met. They'd have to be with TJ's lackluster performance in the classroom.
"TJ is basically failing and his parents don't care. They let him play," he mutters under his breath.
He didn't actually mean for his parents to hear it, but they do. He thinks they must have some sort of super human hearing. They glance at each other, a flash of something in their eyes – fear? Worry? Anger? He isn't sure, but he knows whatever it is they're thinking isn't good.
"Really? You want to be like TJ Detweiler who only knows his left from his right because of his baseball glove?" his father asks, his voice gaining volume with each word.
He frowns and looks down at his feet. It isn't that his parents don't like TJ – he'd know if that was the case – but since starting high school there have been little comments here or there about his grades. But his parents only know one side to the story and Vince knows TJ well enough to know that TJ isn't just the ditzy kid his parents have just made him out to be. Yes, TJ may not put in the same levels of effort into school as Gretchen or Gus or even Spinelli and Mikey, but Vince also knows that at least some of that is because his brain just isn't wired that way. It isn't that he just stopped caring. He has had a hard time since Third Street. TJ is the cleverest kid he knows and that doesn't necessarily translate well to the classroom.
"That's not fair," he says, getting defensive of his best friend.
His mother sighs. "Vince, we only want what's best for you. Maybe you could have a couple study sessions with Gordy sometime. He does well in school, it might be a good influence."
He rolls his eyes. That will never happen. His parents may be friends with Gordy's parents at church, but he can't stand the kid. Gordy hasn't changed much from Third Street, walking around with his nose in the air, playing his hand-held video games, and bragging about how much he can't stand TJ. There is absolutely nothing the two have in common except what occurs by chance, in that they share a class or two and they go to the same church. In youth group, they always manage to find the two seats as far from each other as possible while both being equidistantly far away from Ashley Boulet. That may actually be the only thing they truly have in common, their mutual hatred of Ashley B.
So, instead, Vince offers up an alternative.
"Actually, Gretchen has mentioned possibly doing homework together," he says. He watches as their eyes perk up. His parents like Gretchen the most out of all of his friends, probably because she fit in so well with Chad. "She seems to think if I put in enough work, I could maybe beat the girl who is currently salutatorian. Yeah, so she's sort of hounding me about that."
It's not exactly a lie, just an exaggeration. Gretchen did mention once that she thought if Vince applied himself to school the same way he applied himself with his sports that he would have a shot of the number two spot since Greta Grobler left the district. If not that, she thought he could at least secure number three. Currently, Vince sits at number five, though this latest paper tanking his English grade from an A to an A- might bump him down a spot or two. He'd have to work hard to get that up.
Regardless of how accurate his compromise is, his parents take the bait, commenting on how studying with Gretchen may give Vince just enough accountability not to do what he did again. His mother even suggests that Gretchen come over after his practice tomorrow to study, since she knows they have a math test that Friday.
He smiles, hoping they don't notice that it doesn't reach his eyes, and turns around, saying he has to get to work on his homework. As soon as he turns around, he bites his lip. What has he gotten himself into now? This is just like in fourth grade, when he tried to tell his mother he was studying on Saturday instead of going to see the movie they forbade him from seeing, and then they caught him coming out of the movie theater later that day. He hadn't expected for them to actually want to see him studying with Gretchen. He thought the mere promise of it would be enough.
He sighs and picks up his phone from next to his biology book, typing out a message to Gretchen.
You want to study for the test tomorrow night? My parents said we could do it here
He figures that she'll say no. Gretchen has, and always will, have a very particular way of studying, claiming scientific studies about being in certain environments and doing a bunch of hogwash Vince doesn't think would actually help. But he at least needs to ask. That way, when his mother asks tomorrow why she isn't coming, she won't be able to see through his lie.
His phone alerts to an incoming message and he opens it up.
Sure! What time were you thinking?
Well, considering he figured she would say no, he hadn't been thinking about a time at all. He mentally runs through his schedule tomorrow and sends her another message.
I have bball til 4, then I've got my 100 shots, so after that? I can text you
Do you want me to meet you at Third Street? I did the majority of my studying tonight so I could quiz you while you do your free throws?
Of course she did her studying tonight, two days before the test instead of the night before like everyone else. But that sounds like a better idea than sitting in his dining room running through test prep. Maybe she won't make him abide by all her intense study habits if she has already completed her own studying. It'll be more of a hangout session and he enjoys hanging out with Gretchen.
Sounds good. I'll text if practice runs late
She sends him a message back almost immediately.
Perfect. I'll bring my flash cards and my outline. We can probably get through that at Third*Street, which would leave the problem sets and any additional questions we come- up with for later at your house. We can discuss strategies more tomorrow.
His eyes widen and he grinds his teeth, quickly reaching for his agenda to see what other homework he'll have tomorrow night that he can do tonight instead. So much for a hangout session. He has unwittingly thrust himself into Gretchen's crazy night-before routine and he isn't sure if he'll have time to do anything else.
What on Earth has he gotten himself into?
…
Notes
Episodes referenced: Me No Know (Season 4).
Little bit of a set-up chapter, but I hope you all enjoyed it nonetheless.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! Next chapter will bring us to 2008.