The Big Time

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

TROY'S MOM SLAMMED THE door and turned to him with an angry face.

"What?" Troy asked.

His mom's anger melted away. Her face fell, hopeless and pained.

"I am so sorry," she said, putting her arms around his neck and pulling him close.

Troy didn't know what to think, and certainly not what to say. Even though he let her hold him, he couldn't bring himself to hold her back.

Finally he asked, "Mom? Can I just go to practice?"

"Of course you can," she said. She sniffed and let him go. "Let me fix you something first, though. I'll call Seth to tell him you're coming. We didn't even know if you'd make it back."

"I almost didn't," Troy said.

"I can get John Marchiano to tell us what he thinks about all this," his mom said, digging through the refrigerator while he washed his hands in the kitchen sink. "How about spaghetti?"

"Great," he said, "but, Mom, shouldn't we really just do this deal with the Jets?"

His mom dumped a container of cooked noodles onto a plate and doused them with sauce and meatballs from a bowl before sticking it all inside the microwave. She dusted her hands and looked at him.

"New York?" she said, her lip curled with disgust. "You really want to move to that place?"

Troy shrugged. "It's the big time, Mom. The money is huge. New York is the center of the world."

"Don't listen to him," his mom said, shaking her head. "Don't let him poison you, Troy."

"No one's poisoning me, Mom," he said. "That's his job. He's supposed to get me the best deal. Shouldn't we think about this? Think if maybe it's really the best thing?"

"What do you want, Troy?" she asked softly.

"A lot of things," he said, his eyes finding the checkered tablecloth on the kitchen table. "I want to play in the NFL. I want to make a lot of money. I want to help the Falcons win the Super Bowl, but then I want to buy you a big new house and a fancy car."

"I don't care about all that," she said bitterly.

"Mom," he said, looking up. "You asked me what I wanted. I told you."

"I thought you and Gramps were the biggest Falcons fans on the planet," she said, her smile weak. "You think you could be okay with helping another team?"

"I know you don't want to hear this, Mom," Troy said, taking his seat, "but it's a business. Everyone says so, not just my dad. Seth Halloway. Mr. Langan. Everyone, Mom. It just is."

The microwave beeped, telling them his dinner had grown hot. She took it out with a pot holder and set it on the table along with a glass and a gallon jug of milk. She went to the bread box and took out some white bread and brought that over along with the butter dish before sitting down across from him and resting her face in her hands.

"You're right," she said. "Let's think about it. Go ahead, Troy. Eat."

He did eat, and when he finished, he changed into his practice gear and climbed into the VW bug. When they pulled into the Georgia Tech stadium, Troy couldn't help but remember the feeling of becoming a state champ only a few days ago right there, on the same field, under the same glow of lights.

From the parking lot, Troy could see that the all-star team wore a rainbow of colors. Each player was wearing his own junior league jersey. Troy saw a wide receiver and a running back from Valdosta, the team the Duluth Tigers had played against in the championship. One of the linemen wore the bright red of the Dunwoody Dragons, another Atlanta area team they'd defeated during the playoffs. There were lots of parents, too, since almost half of the players had to travel in from different regions all over the state.

As Troy trotted through the gates and out under the shadow of the goalposts, he heard Seth on the far end of the field calling his team together in the night air. The parents meandered toward the stands. Troy broke into a jog as Seth began passing out red pinnies to the defense and blue ones to the offense. When Troy pulled up to a stop at the back of the group, he looked expectantly at Seth.

Seth frowned at him and bent down into his bag, crumpling a blue pinnie and tossing it over the other players' heads for Troy to catch.

"You're late," Seth said.

Troy smiled, but Seth's mouth remained a flat line until he returned to his team speech, thanking them all for coming, especially those from far away who'd be staying at the nearby Courtyard Atlanta. Seth checked his clipboard and ran through his practice plan so everyone would know what to expect for the next few days, including a big team Thanksgiving dinner at the Ritz-Carlton downtown.

Seth hadn't finished speaking before Tate and Nathan sidled up to Troy and began pumping him with whispered questions about his absence from school and his reason for being late.

Troy only shook his head.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said. "My dad's working on a deal. That's all."

"Come on, man," Nathan said, leaning Troy's way but with his eyes fixed firmly on Seth. "You can't clam up on us. If it wasn't for us, Coach Krock would still be running the Falcons' defense and you'd be out on the street."

"He's right, you know," Tate said, chiming in.

Troy studied Seth's face, knowing that his mom must have let him in on the sudden trip to New York. The star linebacker had a smile plastered across his face like a piece of wallpaper, joyless and unmoving, but a smile all the same. Troy felt a pang of guilt.

"Don't you guys get it?" Troy asked, cranking his head around to glare at them. "I can't talk about it. I don't know what's going on."

"Sheesh, don't be so grumpy," Nathan said.

"Yeah, save it for the team from Florida," Tate said.

"Okay," Seth said, letting the clipboard drop to his side, "now, we're here to win this thing. I'm the head coach, and we'll do things my way. I know each one of you is a star, but forget that. For the next five days you guys are just a bunch of scrubs trying to win a starting job. Florida has been whipping our butts for the past five years. I watched the film. Our all-stars were just that, a bunch of stars floating around in space. Well, not this year. We're a machine. We're an army. There's no favorites, no sure starters. Each one of you will win or lose a starting job on this team in the next four days based on your performance.

"Now, I had to start out with something, so I've watched some film and made some quick evaluations. Let's just line up to get this thing started. I'll call out the starting defense and the starting offense. If you're a backup, stand behind your position and pay attention as we go through our base plays. Okay…"

Seth read off the defensive players, giving Nathan the nod as starting left tackle. Tate, everyone knew, was the kicker, because they didn't even have another. When Seth called out the offensive positions, quarterback was last. Troy buckled his helmet and started to jog for his spot behind the center and the rest of the linemen who stood waiting over the ball.

"Hey," Seth said, his voice cracking out over the field and echoing off the concrete stands, "Troy. Who said you were the starting quarterback?

"You're not."