Away Running

I remember the day I decided to come to Paris. Decided? I’m not sure that’s the right word for it, exactly. It started on a January afternoon like any other. I’d popped over to my school to see if class lists had been posted for the coming semester (my last!), hoping I’d run into friends (I didn’t). I was walking down Sainte-Catherine toward my mom’s condo. It was snowy and cold, the wind cutting—a typical Montreal winter.

Jean-Michel opened the door as I approached. “Congratu-freakin-lations!” he said. He wore a full-length dark wool coat against the cold, and one of those funny hats doormen always wear. “I saw your name in Le Journal de Montréal. Laval University, huh?”

I knew an article was coming out, announcing the university’s football recruits, but I didn’t know it would be that day.

My dad always said it was unseemly to boast. Act like you’ve been there before, he’d say. So I said, “Yep,” trying to keep cool, but I found it impossible not to smile. “I’ll be joining the number-one team in the country.”

“I’m a McGill fan myself,” Jean-Michel said, stepping into the lobby behind me. “And hockey more than football, frankly.”

“No way! Hockey is just body checks and brawling. Football is ballet by comparison.”

He pushed the call button for the lift and handed me our mail. The doors slid open, I walked into the glass elevator and entered our five-digit code, and the doors slid shut. My dad would tell me I was lucky to be living at the Crystal Towers, but I found the place so tacky, everything gilded and gaudy and shiny new, that I was embarrassed to invite friends over. My mom had moved us there after she and my dad split up, pretending she’d chosen it with me in mind, to be closer to my school. Right.

The lift shot up the outside wall of the building. Snow wafted down over the already white city. The giant Christmas tree across the street beside Air France’s Canadian headquarters was still up. Two blocks away, I could see the Bell Centre, home of the Montreal Canadiens.

I was looking forward to seeing the newspaper article, but I felt uneasy too. I mean, would I even see any playing time at Laval? The coach had told me they were bringing in three other quarterbacks, and I knew that one, this kid from Plattsburgh, New York, was supposed to be a stud. I’d googled him. The article called him “Laval’s #1 prospect,” and his stats were studly, that was for sure.

The elevator opened onto our penthouse, and I headed toward the kitchen, where I dropped the mail onto the quartz countertop. The newspaper wasn’t there, but the answering machine blinked red. “You. Have. Three. New. Messages,” the android voice said.

The first was from that morning, from Jean-Michel. “Matt, we’ve received a special delivery for you. From France.” It was the large beige envelope I’d just dropped onto the counter. It felt like a magazine, and by the return address—Club Villeneuvien de Football Américain—I recognized that it was from Moose, whom I’d met the summer before.

The second message was from my girlfriend, Céline. “What’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you on your cell all day. You ignoring my calls? Caaaall me.” Later, I thought. I just didn’t have the energy for her right then.

The third message was the one that got to me. It was for my mom, but it was from the dean of Orford University, and it was about me. “Bonjour, Madame Tremblay,” the machine said. “This is Pierre Cartier. I wanted to let you know I’ve followed up personally on your son’s case. Mathieu should receive the official letter in the next few days; I’ve posted it Express Mail. I’ll see you at our next board meeting.”

I replayed the message twice before it sank in. My mom had been pulling strings again in her push for me to attend Orford. And my mom got what she wanted. She’d wanted to be a journalist, and she became the editor of one of Canada’s most popular women’s magazines. She’d wanted to leave my dad, and here we were in our tacky penthouse. Now Mom wanted me to go to Orford, which had no football team, not even a bad one, but was the top business program in the country; she wanted me to major in business administration like my brother Marc and sister Manon had, and to get an MBA or a law degree after.

Marc is a corporate lawyer who works in Shanghai for China National Petroleum. Manon makes tons of dough as a stockbroker in Toronto. Making money, that’s what they wanted. Me, I wanted to play football.

“You’re home early,” Claude said, scaring the hell out of me.

“Don’t sneak up on me,” I told him.

His laugh was more like a cackle. “Just passing through,” he said, heading toward the elevator. He had the folded newspaper under his arm. “Your mother asked me to pick up the invitations for the fundraiser tonight. She also told me to tell you there’s lasagna in the fridge.”

I didn’t know if my mom had met Claude before or after the divorce, but I did know he was spending more and more time at the penthouse. Fine, just as long as he quit acting all buddy-buddy with me. And as long as he didn’t try to play dad.

He waved goodnight and got in the lift. I flipped through the rest of the mail, thinking, There’d better not be anything addressed to Claude…

I had one more letter, this one from the Northern Bank of Canada. I took it and the manila envelope from Moose to my room and sat on my bed. (A king, of course. It was so huge I’d had to leave my NFL-team-helmet sheets at the old house, with Dad.)

Moose (his real name is Moussa Oussekine) had sent the most recent issue of US Football Magazine, a French version of Sports Illustrated that reported exclusively on American-style football. On the cover was a great shot of the Diables Rouges quarterback. The QB stood tall in the pocket, arm cocked, ready to dart a pass, as defenders in black and gold swarmed around. The Diables unis looked like vintage Arizona Cardinals gear but with a trident on the helmets instead of the bird. There was a huge crowd in the stands.

Moose was the captain of the Junior Diables Rouges, the Under-20s side. I’d met him during two-a-days the summer before, when he came with a group of other French players to take part in my team’s preseason training camp. The French guys stayed with host families. My dad is our head coach, and Moose stayed at my old house with him the entire two weeks. I’d go over after practices, and Moose and I would watch game film in my dad’s office and play Madden NFL for hours.

Flipping through the pages of the magazine, I stumbled on a Post-it note on the opening page of the Under-20s season preview. Moose had scribbled: Oueche, Matt! Yo, the season kicks off in a few weeks. You need to get your ass to France and throw some long bombs for us.

I laughed. Moose had been harping at me about going there to play for the Diables since the day I met him, but, of course, I’d never taken it seriously.

The French played their season in the winter and spring. The article described the twenty-five Under-20s teams across the country, focusing mostly on the seven in the Premier Division. Of those seven, US Football ranked the Diables Rouges sixth. They’d finish first with me as quarterback, I thought. Not boasting, just saying.

I put the magazine down and turned on the flat-screen TV on the wall across from my bed. Along with the giant bed, my mom had bought me the TV and a new iMac. Like that would make this place home. I zapped from channel to channel while the snow fell steadily outside my window. Nasty weather, all slush and cold.

I booted up the iMac and checked my emails. I had two new ones. The first was a mass-mail about women’s rights in Afghanistan from my cousin Juliette, who was doing her doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris. The other was from my dad. Going ice fishing for a few days, he’d written in French. No cell reception. Call the village store if something comes up. They’ll know where to find me.

Since my parents split up, every chance he got he headed up to the cottage he inherited from my grandfather, to bow-hunt or fly-fish or chop wood or whatever. He just needed the time alone in the wilderness. And I understood why: I needed my own wilderness too—what with the Orford/Laval thing, with my mom and all her expectations.

I’d forgotten about the second envelope, from Northern Bank of Canada. It looked real official. At the top of the letter, it said RE: Mathieu Dumas RÉGIMES D’ÉPARGNE-ÉTUDES. My “Education Savings Plan”? I skimmed all the banky kind of stuff but stopped when I got to the last line: Fonds disponibles (funds available): $84,900.

Eighty-four thousand dollars!

I went back over the letter more slowly, looking for the catch. I knew my mom had a notecard in her desk drawer with our bank information on it. I got it, googled the bank’s website and entered the client-card number, user name and password. It took a few seconds to get to my personal page, but there it was: Education Savings Plan.

I didn’t even know I had one.

I clicked and a new window opened, identical to the letter I was holding in my hand. Yep, $84,900.

I looked at the magazine beside me on the bed, at the Diables Rouges QB in his flashy red uni, the trident on the helmet and the roaring crowd. I didn’t usually talk to myself—I mean, who does?—but I heard myself saying aloud, “Seriously, Matt? Are you going to do this?”

I clicked on the link to transfer or withdraw funds.

It asked me to enter the amount. I typed my two favorite jersey numbers, 88 and 15.

A window popped up that said the maximum daily withdrawal amount was $2,000.

I typed 2,000 instead.

The pop-up showed a tiny clock, the second hand ticking. Then, Confirmer la transaction?

I swiveled my desk chair left and right, left and right.

“Matt, seriously?”

Left and right, left and right.

I clicked on the link to confirm the withdrawal.

Fifteen minutes later, Jean-Michel held the door open for me as I headed outside. “You look like a man on a mission,” he said.

I didn’t answer. I was carrying my backpack, and I crossed the boulevard, heading for the Air France building. Northern Bank had a branch there, beside the airline office. The snow kept falling, and my footsteps erased themselves behind me.