Defending the rush, p.7
Defending the Rush, page 7
Then Jory turned and looked at me. “You’re next,” he said, and pointed. Then he laughed.
I started to back up, moving faster as he loomed closer. “No, I just got dry. I put on all that sunscreen! I don’t want to lose my bikini top! I—” My next words got lost in an “oof” as he swung me up over his shoulder, walked back into the water, and heaved me through the air. I traveled for what felt like a mile and landed with a scream and a gigantic splash. Then Brendan swam after me with his arm in a shark fin on his head and all three of us played together, with a lot of shrieking from me as Jory kept tossing me around. He found it hilarious and actually, so did I. And I didn’t mind him grabbing me at all.
After a while, I had most of Lake Michigan up my nose and Bren got tired. Clearly, he needed a regular exercise program even more than I did. We all walked back up to the towels, where Brendan and I dried off. Then Jory took my towel and used it, too.
“I brought three,” I noted, and grabbed the clean one to lie on.
“I don’t mind sharing,” he told me. That made one of us.
I looked at what he was wearing. “We should have stopped at your house so you could change into a bathing suit. Isn’t it uncomfortable to swim in shorts?”
“Nah, they dry fast, and I’m not wearing underwear,” he told me matter-of-factly.
Well, Christ. I stared directly at his crotch, then quickly flipped onto my stomach so he couldn’t see my face. I had immediately pictured what was under his shorts and not covered by any underwear. I had grown up with a brother so I wasn’t a stranger to the concept of male anatomy, but the idea of Jory’s…
“Jory, if you like those country songs, what do you think about southern rock?” Brendan asked him. His mind never strayed far from his guitar but for once I was very glad to talk about music. It was much more appropriate than me lying there and imagining Jory naked. Because looking at the size of his hands and feet, I had to think—
“Mer, you need sunscreen too. Your face is all red,” my brother told me.
A while later, we packed up to head home. I looked wistfully back at the lake. “Your friend is lucky to live here. He’s nice to share it with you,” I said.
“Yeah,” Jory agreed. “I should thank him.” He carried most of the stuff to the truck and loaded up the bed, which looked like he had previously been hauling dirt in it. I figured that I could sponge clean my bag.
We pulled up in front of our house, and unfortunately, my dad’s car was already there. And there was no way that he wouldn’t have heard Jory’s truck rumbling, coughing, and making sounds like it was shooting at us. I braced a little for the argument that I thought would come when Bren and I went in, since my dad had asked me not to hang out with Jory when I had first invited him for breakfast. Or, not really invited, but when he’d shown up.
Brendan waved goodbye and ran inside, but I lingered in the driveway. “Thanks for taking us out today,” I told Jory. “It was so fun.”
He nodded. It was hard to see his face again and I wanted to pluck off his old baseball cap. If I did, I could read his expression better, and maybe I could wash that gross thing, too. “It was fun,” he echoed. “Your brother needs to get out of the house more often.”
“I agree.”
“Are you still running at night? You could take him,” Jory suggested.
“I can’t imagine that he would come,” I said.
“Make him.”
“Are you worried about Brendan or about me with the wolves?” I asked, laughing.
He shrugged and frowned. “Make him come. Don’t go by yourself so late,” was all he said. There was a pause. “I’m going to be busy for the next few weeks but I’ll see you around.”
My mood swung from happy to extremely disappointed. “Right, the preseason. You’ll be busy,” I said, trying not to sound sad.
He nodded and got into the truck.
“Uh, I could give you my number,” I called to him, and he leaned out of the window.
“I already have it. Bye, Marcy.”
I watched the truck drive off, covering my ears, choking a little from the exhaust, and smiling so big it hurt my jaw.
When I walked into the house and the door shut behind me, I lost the smile. My father stood in the middle of the kitchen, arms crossed and frowning. “Your brother ignored me, but I’d like an answer from you, Meredith. Did I just watch you two drive home with Jory Morin?
Here we went. “Yes,” I answered, but my dad started up again before I got to say anything more.
“I specifically told you that I didn’t want you to see him. To date him.”
“I’m not! We’re friends,” I protested. “He offered to take me and Brendan to the beach. He got Bren out of the house and we had a fun afternoon. I’m very grateful.”
“He had the afternoon off because he attacked one of his teammates. A potential teammate,” my father corrected himself. “You were there and saw it happen. He was kicked out of practice, and you celebrated with him by going swimming.”
“We weren’t celebrating, and he explained what happened in that Oklahoma drill. The other guy had tried to tackle the quarterback yesterday.”
My dad stared at me. “You’re defending how Jory acted?”
“No! Well, a little,” I admitted. “It sounds like you were following a Woodsmen tradition by letting them do that drill. And the quarterback wanted Jory to—”
“It’s my team,” my dad answered flatly. “He disrespected me by fighting and he injured that rookie. I never, never should have run the Oklahoma, and I’m very sorry I did. Now I have to deal with insurrection on my team and within my own house.”
“Dad, Bren and I aren’t taking up arms or anything! We just went to the beach with a friend!” I protested. “Calm down.”
He opened his mouth and closed it. “I do not want you and your brother around Jory Morin. Is that clear?”
“I’m twenty years old. Jory’s a nice person, and I like him,” I said.
“A nice…” My dad trailed off. He grabbed his shoes and left the kitchen. I watched him run down the driveway through the same window where he had seen Jory’s truck pull up and drop us off.
But I refused to feel guilty about this. My dad had been wanting me to get out and make myself at home here in Michigan, he had been wanting me to show an interest in football, wanting Bren to have a friend. He couldn’t be angry now—I had done what he asked, except not with the person he would have picked for us.
Brendan’s electric guitar amp was making my wall rattle so I put in earbuds to block it out somewhat when I went up to my bedroom. I checked my phone to see what my friends in California were up to, and I did have a message:
“Hi.”
It was from Jory. “Hi,” I wrote back, and smiled at the screen.
Chapter 5
“Meredith? Meredith Roberts? This is Austin DeJong, Northern Michigan’s Own Channel 67 Action News Investigative Reporter calling you. How are you today?”
“Uh, fine, thanks. Hi, Austin.” I paused in my efforts to de-gunk the bathtub and peeled off my rubber gloves. “How did you get my number?”
“From your father. He gave it to me when I interviewed him today. It was the Woodsmen head coach going head to head with Channel 67’s crack reporter. Yes, me and Jim Roberts.” He gave me a moment to let that information sink in. “Sure, sports are part of my investigative portfolio. I’m out in the field covering all the bases. Get it?” Austin laughed at his joke. “Sports, the arts, finance. Music, festivals, current events. I’ll dig deep into anything and find a story.”
“It sounds like you’re busy. How many field reporters do you have at Channel 67?” I asked curiously.
“There’s me and the station manager’s daughter, and she’s out a lot getting different beauty treatments. Like today, Arielle’s having her teeth whitened, again, and that’s why I’m calling you.”
“You have questions about tooth whitening?” I said, confused. “I don’t have much to say about that…”
“No, I’m all good with my teeth! We met, and you must remember my smile. I’m calling because I need help,” he said, and he suddenly sounded like he meant it—like he was a little desperate. His confident self-promotion had vanished in those words.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“I wanted to offer you a job with Channel 67, Northern Michigan’s Own Action News, as Northern Michigan’s Own Austin DeJong’s assistant!” The self-assurance had sprung right back.
“Really? A job in the newsroom?” I hesitated. “I don’t want to talk myself out of anything, but I don’t have any experience with that.” My employment history had mostly been in childcare, like, babysitting and nannying, and a brief stint in animal services when I was a dog nanny for three days before being fired. It was a long story.
“That’s ok, I can teach you! And it’s more like an internship, really.”
“Like an internship, in that it’s unpaid?”
“Well, yes, exactly like that,” he admitted.
“So you’re more offering me a volunteer opportunity—”
“It’s an excellent way to break into the news business. It’s how I myself started off! But it does take a long time to move up the newsroom ladder. In fact, I’ve only been getting paid for two months,” he confided. “And I’ve been learning here for about three years, since I graduated from college.”
“It’s quite an offer, but I think I’ll have to decline,” I told him. I had been working on getting a job that actually gave you money in exchange for the work you did, and it looked like one of the fliers on the employment bulletin board at Emelia Schaub College might pan out for me. “Thank you for thinking of me, though.”
“Or, we could go to dinner,” he suggested.
“Like, to discuss this job? Or the news business?” I asked doubtfully.
“Uh, sure. Or just to go out. Your dad said that you’re unattached,” Austin told me.
Oh. So this was what the call was about. Ever since our beach day, my dad had been encouraging me to do anything, everything—except seeing Jory Morin. He had also been watching me like a hawk when he was around and, for the first time in my life, he had stopped trying to get me to pay attention to football.
It had been easy to be defiant, the day that I had walked into the house from our fun trip to the lake, and to tell my father that I was going to do what I wanted and would keep hanging out with Jory. But now, I was less interested in fighting. Time had passed and made me understand my dad’s position a little better. He was a head coach for the first time and trying to get a grip on an organization already implementing a lot of changes, and on players who had come off a bad experience the season before and were resisting his leadership.
But what had really altered things was Jory’s absence. Over the last two weeks, his only communication with me had been a few texts that said “hi” or “what’s up” or random comments about the weather, and then recently, there had been a long period of radio silence. I got that he was busy, of course, since we were on the eve of the first preseason game. But his lack of interest in anything more than a “hi” meant that defying my dad to go out with him wouldn’t be an issue in the future. Obviously, Jory and I weren’t going to be a thing—I could already tell. He had gotten busy, like he’d said he would, but that was just an excuse to move on from me. The feelings of being forgotten and left behind were old, familiar ones, and I hated them.
“What else did my dad say to you?” I asked Austin.
“He said that you’re going to start your senior year of college soon and that you don’t know anyone up here yet. He said that you have no social life and mostly sit at home, alone. Definitely no boyfriend,” he added helpfully.
What? Ok, no, that wasn’t all true and I got mad. Bren and I hadn’t been sitting at home, because I had been making a huge, exhausting effort to get him out of the house and to explore the place where we now lived. We had done a ton of the things that my dad had been pushing at us, like the canoeing, the hiking, visiting lighthouses, going to art fairs and outdoor concerts, everything. I had been trying hard, and I didn’t like being mischaracterized as lazy or boring.
And also, it was very humiliating for your father to try to get you a date with a near-stranger by selling you as a sad, single misfit.
“That’s not accurate,” I heatedly told Austin. “My dad doesn’t know what I’ve been doing because he’s hardly ever around me.” His nine PM bedtime had gone out the window as he stayed later and later at the stadium and practice facility to get ready for the season. Brendan and I saw him less than we ever had before, and that was saying something.
“Oh, ok. So, was that a no to us going out?” Austin asked. “But if you are looking for volunteer opportunities, I do need help at work. I’m really disorganized and your dad said that you run a very tight ship at your house. My office…well, it’s not an office, but the desk I have…well, the folding card table I use at the station—”
“Yes,” I said firmly, having made up my mind.
“Yes, like you’ll help me organize my desk, or card table, as it were?”
“No, I won’t do that. But yes, I’ll go out with you. Not to discuss your lack of organization or whatever, but on a real date.”
“Really?” The reporter sounded shocked. “I mean, great! That’s great!” We stayed on the phone a little while longer to pin down details and then I went back to viciously scrubbing the tub. It needed it, and I needed the outlet. Things had been a little hard, lately.
Brendan was not good, not in any way, despite all the activities I had been forcing on him. And when I wasn’t pushing him to leave the house, he stayed in his room sleeping or playing his guitar with the curtains drawn. I did my best to make our excursions as fun as possible, but whenever we went out, he hated it, or thought it was boring or stupid, or he was embarrassed to be seen with me. He and my dad weren’t communicating at all except through the lists that Bren got every morning, lists of the stuff he was supposed to accomplish while my dad was with his team. The lists that I later found crumpled into tiny, angry balls in the garbage.
And to make matters worse, our mom was talking about coming to visit. She wrote to me that she wanted to be there when Brendan started his freshman year, and I had been shocked to read that she had remembered he was going to be in high school. She had gone on to say that she had looked up the school calendar and could make a reservation to fly in for one day, for 20 hours (she was a scientist and she was precise).
I was confused by the dates she mentioned, until I realized that she was talking about his old school back in California. I didn’t tell Brendan that his mother cared so little about him that she hadn’t realized that he had moved to a different state, and I told her not to bother to visit us in Michigan. He didn’t need to see her for 20 measly hours only to have her disappear back into her research in Germany again and forget about him for another few weeks, months.
The tub got the worst of my anger, but it did come out a lot cleaner for it.
When my dad got home, very late that night, I was waiting for him in the kitchen. I had his plate of dinner, like I usually did, but I usually left it in the refrigerator congealing or slowly drying out in the oven. Tonight, I handed it to him.
“Thank you, Meredith,” he said, and sat down and started to eat almost as fast as Jory did.
Jory. He was one of the issues I wanted to bring up tonight.
“How ready are you guys for the game?” I asked, and gradually brought the conversation from strategy for the first preseason game around to the players. But as much as I finagled, I couldn’t get my dad to say anything about anyone in particular. They were all doing “fine” and everyone was “as ready as they could be.”
I sighed inwardly. “We’ve been getting ready, too. Bren and I both start school next week. I have an interview for that nanny job.”
My dad nodded. “You should be working,” he agreed.
He meant, working beyond what I did to run our household, to take care of his son, to prepare our meals, and soon, to attend school. I frowned. “I heard from Austin DeJong today. The TV reporter,” I explained, when my dad clearly had no idea who he was. “He interviewed you, right?”
“Right, the reporter. The guy who stepped in front of my car as I was trying to leave the training facility.”
“Well, you must have had an involved conversation. You got him to ask me out,” I prompted, and my dad’s eyebrows raised. “You know, how you told him I was single and lonely, sitting at home all the time?”
“I don’t think I used those words,” he countered. “Wouldn’t you like to go out with someone, though? It could be fun. Is he handsome?” My dad could never judge that at all. “He has those blindingly white teeth.”
I just shrugged. He wasn’t my type, that was for sure. I had always liked surfer-style, California-classic guys, but I seemed to be veering away from that. I didn’t find Austin’s blonde coif and big smile very appealing at all.
My dad asked me about starting classes then, if I was all set, and if Brendan was ready. My brother’s new school had a fairly strict dress code so I had been shopping and ordering to enhance his wardrobe. He was really, really not excited to wear shirts with collars. “We’re good,” I answered. “I have it under control. But speaking of school, Mom said she wants to come for Bren’s first day. Did you hear anything about that from her?”
“I haven’t spoken to her in quite a while,” he said, his voice very measured.
“She wrote to me.” Most of the email had been about her work, but she’d managed to put her mind on her son in the last paragraph. “She didn’t seem to realize that we had moved to Michigan.” My own voice was not quite as careful as my father’s, and was rising a little. “She was going to buy a ticket to go to LA.”
My dad nodded, still very deliberate. “Did you let her know that she should come here, instead?”
