anything with anybody. She worried only that Trey’s unswerving trust in Cathy and John made him vulnerable to disappointment—and her granddaughter and John open to its consequences. All human beings were subject to falling below others’ expectations, and Trey was of the particular bent that, once betrayed, there would be no rescuing of the ties that once bound. Still, despite awakening hormones and developing figures, their union continued unmarred and unbroken.
And then the spring of their sixteenth year arrived.
Chapter Eleven
H e was sick. There was no doubt about it. He was running a fever, and his jaws had swollen. Trey couldn’t imagine what was wrong with him, but he mustn’t tell Coach Turner. Coach would send him home. It was the first day of spring football practice, and he might miss the scrimmage Friday night when he could give his coach something to look forward to over the coming summer: a starting quarterback with a wide receiver who just might over the next two years lead the team to state. Coach needed something to lighten up his life, with a sick wife at home and a daughter who gave him fits. Besides, a recruiter from the University of Miami in Florida would be in the stands Friday to watch him and John strut their stuff, and without sufficient practice he might flub their chances of a scholarship offer to play for the Miami Hurricanes.
He could beat this; he knew he could. Drink lots of water and other fluids, get rest. It was a virus or something that had settled in his teeth. His gums were red and irritated. Or it could be an abscessed wisdom tooth like Cathy had extracted last year. He’d take aspirin and swish his teeth with mouthwash to give him some relief, and at the end of the week he’d go to the dentist.
This was one period on the calendar he’d never forget. For starters,it was one of the few times in his life he’d been sick. He’d missed most of the childhood diseases and wasn’t prone to catching colds or flu or getting upset stomachs, and Friday, last day before spring break, he’d asked Catherine Ann to be his girl. He’d always felt something different toward her from just friendship, ever since his first sight of her that freezing January day when she ran out of her house to check on her snow queen, but never anything like the moment that particular feeling became something else—when he wanted her to be more than a special best friend. It had happened one day in early spring when she walked into English class. She was wearing a new sweater in “azure blue,” so he was told, a color that set off her hair and skin and the irises of her eyes, and his heart had stalled in mid-beat. The smile she’d flashed him had faded in concern, and she asked as she took her seat, “What’s wrong?” He had no breath to answer. The way he’d always thought of her had vanished as suddenly and completely as the boy’s make-believe playmate in the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” His once-upon-a-time feeling for her was simply over. The Catherine Ann he knew had disappeared.
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
… or little girls.
He hadn’t known what to do with his new way of thinking about her. It saddened him really. If he did anything about it, he believed he’d be giving up something that would not come to him again. The special world he and John and Cathy had created just for the three of them would never be the same.
He’d thought it over for some time, weighing what he would lose and what he would gain, but she grew prettier by the day, and the upper-class boys were sniffing around her—guys he had no sway over—and he knew he must act.
“I want to ask Catherine Ann to go steady with me,” he told John.
“You already are going steady with her, TD.”
“No-no. That’s not how I mean.”
“You mean you want Cathy all to yourself—without me in the equation.”
The word
equation
, spoken in John’s quiet, serious way, leaped out from
And then the spring of their sixteenth year arrived.
Chapter Eleven
H e was sick. There was no doubt about it. He was running a fever, and his jaws had swollen. Trey couldn’t imagine what was wrong with him, but he mustn’t tell Coach Turner. Coach would send him home. It was the first day of spring football practice, and he might miss the scrimmage Friday night when he could give his coach something to look forward to over the coming summer: a starting quarterback with a wide receiver who just might over the next two years lead the team to state. Coach needed something to lighten up his life, with a sick wife at home and a daughter who gave him fits. Besides, a recruiter from the University of Miami in Florida would be in the stands Friday to watch him and John strut their stuff, and without sufficient practice he might flub their chances of a scholarship offer to play for the Miami Hurricanes.
He could beat this; he knew he could. Drink lots of water and other fluids, get rest. It was a virus or something that had settled in his teeth. His gums were red and irritated. Or it could be an abscessed wisdom tooth like Cathy had extracted last year. He’d take aspirin and swish his teeth with mouthwash to give him some relief, and at the end of the week he’d go to the dentist.
This was one period on the calendar he’d never forget. For starters,it was one of the few times in his life he’d been sick. He’d missed most of the childhood diseases and wasn’t prone to catching colds or flu or getting upset stomachs, and Friday, last day before spring break, he’d asked Catherine Ann to be his girl. He’d always felt something different toward her from just friendship, ever since his first sight of her that freezing January day when she ran out of her house to check on her snow queen, but never anything like the moment that particular feeling became something else—when he wanted her to be more than a special best friend. It had happened one day in early spring when she walked into English class. She was wearing a new sweater in “azure blue,” so he was told, a color that set off her hair and skin and the irises of her eyes, and his heart had stalled in mid-beat. The smile she’d flashed him had faded in concern, and she asked as she took her seat, “What’s wrong?” He had no breath to answer. The way he’d always thought of her had vanished as suddenly and completely as the boy’s make-believe playmate in the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” His once-upon-a-time feeling for her was simply over. The Catherine Ann he knew had disappeared.
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
… or little girls.
He hadn’t known what to do with his new way of thinking about her. It saddened him really. If he did anything about it, he believed he’d be giving up something that would not come to him again. The special world he and John and Cathy had created just for the three of them would never be the same.
He’d thought it over for some time, weighing what he would lose and what he would gain, but she grew prettier by the day, and the upper-class boys were sniffing around her—guys he had no sway over—and he knew he must act.
“I want to ask Catherine Ann to go steady with me,” he told John.
“You already are going steady with her, TD.”
“No-no. That’s not how I mean.”
“You mean you want Cathy all to yourself—without me in the equation.”
The word
equation
, spoken in John’s quiet, serious way, leaped out from
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