That was an amazing time. Everything seemed possible. Josh was living out his dream; I was getting ready to live out mine. I look back at those days now and wonder if I somehow could have stopped what happened later, if I should have seen it coming and done something about it. But the little things seem harmless. Who can know where they will lead?
Take the lunchroom tables’ being pushed together. I didn’t see it happen. I came into the cafeteria the Monday after we’d beaten Lakeside 49–0 and it was done: three long tables right in a row. Every senior and most of the juniors on the football team were sitting at one of those tables. Josh was at the center of them all.
Moving tables is against the rules. It’s got to do with gangs—with keeping large groups from forming. Whenever anybody else had pushed even two tables together, Mr. Phelps, the cafeteria supervisor, had pulled them apart. But Phelps looked the other way when the football players did it. You win six games and you get to bend the rules.
It was strange what pushing those tables together did. Josh and Jamaal and Bethel and Colby and Brandon had sat at that center table all through the winning streak. Nobody would have called them quiet, but they weren’t out of control, or anywhere near it. But once three tables were pushed together, once five guys had become fifteen or twenty, everything changed.
There was some arguing, and a little food throwing, but it was girls mainly. Every time one walked by, guys would whistle or stomp their feet or hang their tongues out. Sometimes one of them would fake-grab for her as she passed, or maybe even grab at her a little, depending on who he was or who she was.
Once in a while a girl would complain to Phelps. Then he’d go over and tell them to settle down. He’d always talk to Josh. Josh would talk to the other guys, who would be quieter for a little while. But only for a little while.
Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Josh threw three more touchdown passes as we crushed Blanchet 41–12 to go 8–0. That set up the showdown game with O’Dea, the season-ending finale. The winner would be the league champion and would go to the state tournament as the favorite. The loser would go home.
Monday morning the halls and classrooms were buzzing with football talk. The football players roared to one another in the halls, roared and banged forearms and chanted: “Beat O’Dea!” Other kids took up the chant. All you heard was how we were going to swamp O’Dea, how this was our year, how nothing could stop us.
In the cafeteria, Josh and the other football players started a whole new thing. Whenever a girl walked by, they would rate her, screaming “Nine!” or “Eight!” if she was nice looking. If she wasn’t, they’d get nasty. “Minus Two!” “Minus Six!” It wasn’t that funny, but the whole bunch of them would howl and pound on the tables with their fists.
I was just bussing my dishes when Celeste Honor began her little walk. She was wearing one of those tops that are half a top, a little white thing that barely covered her. As she neared the football players, they started whistling and laughing and chanting “Ten! Ten! Ten!” and calling out other things too.
Celeste didn’t blink. She strolled by, chin up, chest out, a little smile playing on her lips. As she passed him, Josh stood and tiptoed up behind her, his eyes wide with excitement. He grinned at the other football players, and he put his index finger to his lips in the classic “Shhhh!” gesture. His buddies all went quiet. The whole place went quiet. Josh slowly reached forward, gently taking hold of the sides of Celeste’s little top in his fingertips. In an instant he pulled it up. I saw a splash of pink bra before she jerked her arms downward, sending her tray and all the food on it crashing to the floor. She wheeled around and looked at Josh for an instant. Then her face turned bright red and she ran out of the cafeteria. The football players exploded in riotous laughter. Josh grinned back at them.
A second later Monica Roby was up in his face. “That was a real jerk thing to do,” she shouted.
“Really?” Josh said, laughing and looking back over his shoulder at his friends.
“Yeah, really,” Monica answered scornfully.
“I thought it was pretty funny,” he said, finally looking at her.
“Well, you’re wrong,” she snapped, and her eyes bore into him, fixing him the way a hunter fixes his prey.
“Oh, is that right?” he shot back at her.
“Yeah,” she said, still burning him up with those eyes. “That’s right.” Then she walked past him and out of the cafeteria, leaving him alone with Celeste’s spilled tray of food at his feet and the eyes of the school on him.
Phelps finally showed up. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “What happened?”
Josh shook his head. “Nothing’s going on,” he said. “Nothing happened.”