Over the End Line (8 page)

I heard Stephanie snapping her gum. "Must be feeling lucky today," I said.

"Lucky?" she said. "For what?"

"Your first day of high school and you get a ride with two seniors."

"Yeah, sure," Stephanie said. "I'll be the envy of all the sophomore girls. They'll say, 'Ohmygod, ohmygod, you rode to school with Jonny Fehey. Tell us, please please please, what's he like?'"

I looked over my shoulder.

Stephanie smirked, pulling down the top of her jeans with a long black fingernail. "Snap a pic, Jonny; it'll last longer."

Stephanie was going to fit in perfectly at Millburn High. That was a shame. She used to be a sweet girl living at the edge of her brother's world, as happy stomping in puddles after a summer downpour as she was prancing through leaf piles on fall afternoons. But by junior high, Stephanie had become a frequent visitor to detention hall. Now it was clear she wanted to step out from Kyle's shadow—at least as much as a sophomore girl could when her big brother was the school's star athlete—while Trinity would be right in front of her to lead the way.

Kyle turned into the school driveway, banking left in front of the main entrance, past the gymnasium. He lowered the stereo, and his fingers stopped tapping. I think he noticed Maako walk by; I certainly did. Kyle followed the line of cars into the parking lot, taking the best of the prime spaces set aside for seniors.

Stephanie reached her hand out. "I need money," she said. "For lunch."

"Mom didn't give you any?" Kyle said.

"Just give me some. You don't want me anorexic, do ya?"

Someone knocked on the trunk. Trinity and the girl from Redemption Bridge walked by. My stomach swirled.

"Who's that?" I said to Stephanie.

She shook her head, dismissively. "The sweet aroma of sophomore girls arousing the carnivores. Pathetic, just pathetic."

Kyle slapped a ten-dollar bill in her hand. "You owe me."

"As the younger sibling of the famous Kyle Saint-Claire, I owe you for every day of my life," Stephanie said. "I just thank God for being part of your gene pool."

"It's your first day," Kyle said. "Try not to get in tumble Mom and Dad don't need the hassle. Most important—and get this through your thick skull—don't embarrass me. Now leave, wiseass."

"Stephanie, who's that?" I said again.

She squeezed out from behind my seat, giving me another why-are-you-talking-to-me look. "The new girl."

"What's her name?"

"The. New. Girl. No need for you to know anything else, Jonny-boy," Stephanie said. She called out to Trinity, who offered a quick wave but never broke stride.

***

The school was loud and frenzied, churning with juniors and seniors seeing friends for the first time since last June, and sophomores, with their deer-in-the-headlights looks, searching for homerooms. Kyle and I moved along with the flow of traffic, then parted ways. He went down one hallway, high-fiving and slapping hands with guys on the team, while I went down another.

The fresh faces. The excitement. For a second, I thought something
did
feel different, like I was somehow taller, or more mature. Maybe my mom was right. I was a
senior.
Maybe that had more status than I realized. I'd play in most of our games and, hopefully, chalk up a few goals and assists. Some decent college would accept me. Fall and winter would pass, then spring, and before I knew it, my time at Millburn High would come to a quiet, if not pleasant, end.

Piece of cake.

But seeing Sloan Ruehl smacked me back to reality. She stood by an open locker, surrounded by the group of girls people at school called her "band of bitches." One of them would say something, then wait for Sloan to smile or frown, laugh or shake her head, smirk or roll her eyes. Then they'd all do the same.

Sloan was at the top of our class and the top of the ladder. She was pretty, privileged, and had a reputation for drinking like a fish. It was well known that she started last year's ritual of Friday liquid lunches—a can of Diet Coke spiked with Bacardi—that ended abruptly when one of her bitches passed out in chemistry class.

At the other end of the hallway, I noticed Abigail Blonski walking our way. People thought Abigail was fat. Most called her a dog. Last year, she and I were assigned an AP bio class project together. I thought she was quirky (in a good way) and kind of funny. She planned on going to FIT for fashion merchandising. But none of that mattered. Abigail surely hung from one of the lowest rungs.

Abigail must've seen Sloan, because she immediately moved to the opposite side of the hallway, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, eyes down. Yet when she got close, Sloan's bitches turned in her direction.

"Fatty," one of them sneered. Another hissed something about her clothes, or her acne, or whatever deficiency du jour they wanted to mock. Then they all burst out laughing. People stopped and stared.

Abigail hurried down the hallway past me.

"Are you all right?" I said to her, but she didn't look my way. I wanted to say something more, but she had already disappeared into the stairwell.

It was my turn to pass through the gauntlet.

I stared at Sloan, expecting a look of disgust to spread across her face as a very real indication that I had deluded myself into thinking this year would be any different from last year. Sloan looked at me, too. But, strangely, there wasn't contempt or nastiness on her face. Even her bitches seemed to quiet. As I walked by, Sloan's lips parted like she was going to say something—or maybe I just imagined it.

"I miss Ruby," I wanted to tell her.

But my mouth didn't move.

I don't know why.

I thought a lot about Ruby. All the time. I had just two photographs in my bedroom. One of my mom and me at Great Adventure on my twelfth birthday; the other, a Polaroid of Ruby the day I left for Denver's airport. I remembered everything about her—her voice, her laugh, her whisper, her scent. They would always be with me.

I wondered whether I really wanted to let Sloan know how much I missed her cousin, or if it was just something that needed to come from my mouth and be heard by the only person at Millburn who might understand what it meant.

I looked over my shoulder; she glanced over hers.

The distance between us increased.

From an arm's length, to a few yards.

To the length of the hallway.

A small scratch in the metal shelf marked where I had started.

I had thumbed through hundreds of books. Thick ones. Thin ones. Tall ones. Short ones. Sometimes I'd turn the pages slowly to make certain. Other times I'd fan the pages quickly because I just didn't care anymore (even though I really did). The rumor was the ladder had been drawn on a sheet of graph paper, then slipped inside a book's front cover. Or tucked inside a back cover. Or hidden somewhere in between.

One Sunday every month or so, I borrowed my mom's car to drive to the Millburn library. All the librarians knew me. I think they thought I was one of those responsible students spending his time finishing homework for the upcoming week, or diligently researching a term paper. They'd smile when I walked in. I'd say hello, then climb the spiral staircase to the stacks on the second floor.

I returned another handful of books to the shelf, then sat back. I heard the soft murmur of discussions at the reference desk, but otherwise, the library was quiet. I closed my eyes. So many damn books. Row upon row. Shelf upon shelf. Stacks upon stacks. It seemed like it would never end. There were tens of thousands of pages to thumb through, maybe hundreds of thousands. I wondered if this was all just a ridiculous waste of time. Maybe the ladder wasn't hidden here in the first place. Maybe that was the cruel joke—making our class believe the ladder existed when it never really did.

But yet, what if it did exist?

And I found it?

Would I throw it away?

That wouldn't fix much; the damage had been done a year and a half earlier. Or maybe it would. Maybe I'd burn the ladder in a ceremonial fire on the high school lawn so that everyone could see. I'd gladly deal with the consequences. Or maybe I'd change the ladder by mixing up the names—putting my own on one of the highest rungs—then make a hundred copies to spread out on the cafeteria tables, tack up in the hallways, and tape to classroom blackboards. I'd bet that would shatter our grade's hierarchy to smithereens.

I pulled more books from the shelf. I opened the first and flipped through the pages.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven...

And so on...

Soon, that book was done and I was on to the next. And the next after that. Until a pile of books sat at my side and a small scratch could be marked farther down the shelf for the next time.

A steady downpour kept the cafeteria crowded. A half-eaten turkey sandwich and a page of quadratic equations sat in front of me. I looked out the window, watching rain spill over the patio's cement tabletops. Our game against New Providence hadn't been called off; the weather was expected to pass. I hated playing on a soaked field. I hated even more watching the game from a wet bench.

A painted banner stretched across the cafeteria entrance.
GO MILLERS! STAY UNDEFEATED!
The
Millburn Item
was already making comparisons to the school's best-ever team. To open the season, we crushed Livingston, 5-1, and Dayton, 6-0, then turned a two-goal lead in the first half against West Orange into an 8-2 drubbing. After winning our first six games handily, we climbed to eighth in the state rankings. Against Verona last week, Kyle set the Essex County record for most hat tricks in a career. Afterward, Pennyweather awarded him the game ball—just another to put on the Saint-Claires' crowded living room mantel.

But there was still a long way to go. The significant part of the regular season didn't start until the middle of October—that's when we began play against our three rivals. I think the conference schedule-makers did that on purpose, trying to lull us with weaker opponents in the first two-thirds of the season, then leave win-or-die games for the final third. It wasn't a secret that teams in the conference were tired of seeing Millburn at the top of the standings year in and year out.

My focus returned to the math problems, at least momentarily. I vaguely heard talking around me, but not any particular conversation, and I noticed people moving about, but no one in particular. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the new girl, Annalisa Gianni, walk in.

She was still a curiosity in school; almost everybody knew her name. Her family had moved to Short Hills from Italy. The story was that whatever her father did for work was just a cover for ties to the Sicilian mob. I'd see her in the hallways and watch her coming and going at the SaintClaires' house. It seemed she'd found her place as Trinity and Stephanie's
protégé.
Unfortunately, they were going to mold her into someone just like them.

Annalisa brushed the hair off her face and searched for a place to sit. When space opened up at one of the tables in the back, she walked in that direction. I smiled and said, "
Ciao,
Annalisa," but the school intercom crackled, drowning out my voice.

Attention students ... Please mark your calendars ... The annual pep rally is scheduled for Friday, October twenty-fourth ... The varsity soccer team will play its final regular season game at Summit the next day ... The pep rally will begin at eight p.m., in the school parking lot...

Years ago, when Millburn football was king, the pep rally was held the night before the traditional Thanksgiving Day game against Madison. My dad took me once. I remembered the walk from the St. Rose of Lima Church parking lot, as I sat on his shoulders, his large hands tight on my ankles, holding me securely against the back of his head. So many people surrounded us, talking and laughing. We continued with them along Millburn Avenue, then down the high school driveway past the gymnasium.

My dad pointed. "Jonny, that's where we're going."

Excitement welled up inside me. Packed with more people than I'd ever seen in my life, the Millburn High football grandstand was alive with movement, and the white lines on the velvet green field seemed to glow under the massive stadium lights.

"Hurry, hurry," I said. "I don't wanna miss anything."

"We'll be there soon enough," my dad assured me.

The rest of the night was spectacular. The football players stood at the edge of the stage, while cheerleaders performed their dance routines silhouetted against an immense bonfire. The head coach gave a rousing speech, and the team captains addressed the fans, and the cheering seemed to go on all night.

It was the last time I was at a pep rally, the last time I was entranced by a bonfire, the last time I felt comfortable around so many people. Not long after, the Millburn football program became a shell of what it once was. Victories dropped from double digits to half that, and in some seasons even less. Then one year some idiot tossed a brick of firecrackers into the bonfire. The explosive
rat-a-tat-tat
scared children and pissed off enough parents that the board of education stepped in to cancel the pep rally indefinitely. And so, the Wednesday night before the Thanksgiving Day game against Madison became just a night before a holiday.

But, a few years ago, Millburn's newly appointed athletic director, Mr. Meiers, began a campaign to resurrect the tradition. He had been looking for a way to celebrate the town's athletic teams. Football was a past glory, and people in town certainly weren't going to gather on a chilly October evening to cheer on the field hockey or cross country teams. The present was soccer; the future was this prodigy in town—Kyle Saint-Claire. So the pep rally was reinstated for the Friday night before the soccer team's regular season finale against archrival Summit.

Even in its new incarnation, I never had a good reason to go to the pep rally. I wondered if I would this year.

I felt a thump on my shoulder. Kyle dropped his books on the table and sat down opposite me.