The One And Only Part 46

I shrugged, steeling myself. "Sure."

"Maybe I followed my heart a little too much along the way," he said. "And your heart can definitely get you into trouble ... But, if I hadn't, then I wouldn't have you."

This wasn't the angle I'd expected, and I felt confused as I said, "Are you talking about Mom? That was following your heart?"

"Well, sure. Of course. What else would that have been?"

"What else? Well, it could have been a cheap affair with a woman you met on the road, then got knocked up before your wife divorced you ... So you married her to do the right thing. And because Mom has a way of talking people into stuff."

"Wow. That's quite a sordid spin on my life. And yours."

"Well? Tell me I'm wrong."

"You are wrong, actually. Believe it or not, I really loved your mom. Fell madly in love with her. But we just couldn't make it work. Oil and water. Square peg, round hole. So I gave up. And instead of starting over and potentially s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up a third situation, I went back to take care of Bronwyn and Astrid. Tried to fix some of my scorched earth."

It was the first time I'd seen the situation from his point of view, and also the first time I hadn't seen it as a head-to-head compet.i.tion between the respective mother-daughter teams.

"So are you comparing Coach to Mom? Or Astrid?"

"Neither," he said. "I'm just saying ... follow your heart. Even if it sometimes makes an absolute mess of your life ... And, for G.o.d's sake, you have to go to this bowl game. This is the girl who started making road trips with the team in the third grade."

"Second," I said.

"Exactly. It'd be nuts for you to miss this game."

I nodded, knowing he was right. "Are you going?"

"If you want me to. If you need me to. But if not, I'll just watch it at home."

"Not really the same as being there," I said. "The crowds ... the noise ... the energy. It's electric."

"Aha. You see? Listen to yourself. You'll regret it if you don't go. Separate your feelings about Clive and Lucy and go support your team," he said as we approached Wollman Rink.

I nodded but couldn't help thinking that Coach and Lucy were my team, at least they always had been, and, furthermore, it was absolutely impossible to separate my feelings for Coach from Walker and the biggest game of our lives. From anything in my life, really-which was the whole problem.

"Okay. I'll go," I said, glancing around the ice rink, comforted by the thought that very few people in the crowd probably cared two licks about the WalkerAlabama game.

"Good. Great," he said.

"But then I think I'll come back to the city and talk to your people," I said. "About those jobs."

"Really?" my dad said, surprised.

"Yes. Really," I said, thinking that this following-your-heart stuff was turning out to be pretty overrated-and that maybe it was time to try another approach.

Forty-six.

It is 5:20 P.M. Pacific Time, ten minutes until kickoff inside the Rose Bowl. I am in the stands with Lucy, Lawton, my mother, and Miller, who came to Pasadena without a ticket. Up until two hours ago, he had been searching for one from scalpers, but at the last minute he inherited Neil's ticket when Caroline got a stomach bug and Lucy decided she couldn't be left in a hotel room with a random sitter. Lucy still made him beg for it.

"This ticket's worth all the groveling. So freakin' sweet!" Miller shouts over the din of two manic marching bands and ninety-two thousand frenzied fans, all wearing either red or teal.

I nod in agreement. Our seats are insane, what you'd expect for the head coach's family-right on the fifty-yard line, twenty-some rows back, with a sweeping view of the western hills rising above the stadium. Even the weather is scripted-warm with gentle breezes and clear skies. A perfect night for a national championship game.

Miller offers me a bite of his foot-long hot dog smothered with mustard and relish, and I shake my head, wondering how he could possibly eat at a time like this. Glancing around the stadium, I try to soak up the atmosphere, but am too gripped by fear to really appreciate the pageantry. My palms are sweaty, my stomach is queasy, and my heart is racing. Bottom line, I know that nothing about this game will be fun-and the best I can hope for is the absence of misery.

I feel Lucy tap me on the shoulder and turn to look at her in the row behind us, sandwiched between my mom and Lawton. "Will you please talk to me? I'm bored."

"I can't, Lucy," I say, mystified by the mere notion of boredom with the countdown now at six minutes and twenty seconds.

"Are you getting sick, too?" she asks, adjusting the big loopy bow on her teal silk blouse. "Maybe you picked it up from Caroline?"

"No. I'm not sick. It's just the game, Luce," I say, trying to suppress a fresh wave of resentment, not the first since I arrived in Pasadena last night. It isn't only that she quashed a relationship before it ever really began but that she acts as if nothing ever happened.

"Oh, c'mon!" she says, slapping my arm. "Have a little faith. We're going to win! I just know we are!"

"Yeah, I have a good feeling about this, too," Lawton says. "And would you believe it? Dad actually found a cricket out at some random park yesterday afternoon."

I smile, picturing him with his Mason jar. "Really?"

"True story," Lawton says, holding his fingers up in a scout's pledge. "I was with him."

I nod, as if rea.s.sured, even though my usual pessimism has taken root. Fortunately, I'm not the coach, because I'd likely advise my team not to lose, rather than to win, always a recipe for defeat. I try to imagine what Coach is saying now in the locker room, and although I can conjure his words and the fire in them, I'm having trouble remembering the sound of his voice. I have not heard it since the night we ended things, which feels like a lifetime ago.

"You still look like you're going to throw up," Lucy says to me.

"That's because I might," I say, as I wave to a group of former Walker colleagues sitting one section over, many of whom I chatted with last night at the hotel lobby bar. They'd all heard about me getting fired, of course, and a.s.sumed that it was because I wouldn't write negative things about our program and the ongoing investigation.

Do you think the rumors are true? I was asked repeatedly. Was an official notice of inquiry coming? Would we ultimately be slapped with sanctions?

I said I didn't know, that it often took years for these things to be resolved. I am still clinging to the hope that we'll ultimately be cleared, at least of the big charges, and that Coach will be vindicated. I no longer hold him to mythic standards, and instead see him as a flawed man and a fallible leader. But, in an unexpected way, this only makes my faith and trust in him stronger.

"Tell Shea we're going to win," Lucy instructs my mother now, as if any of our predictions actually matter.

"We're going to win!" my mother says, clapping along with our cheerleaders. She, too, has blithely ignored everything that happened before Christmas, not once mentioning Coach despite ample opportunity in our shared hotel room. The implication is that she is doing me a favor, instead of the other way around, which only intensifies my bitterness.

Miller informs us all that even Vegas has changed its mind, the line moving to one point in our favor after two injuries. .h.i.t the Crimson Tide. You never want anyone to get seriously hurt, but well-timed minor injuries are another story, and I'm not-so-secretly grateful for the sprained wrist and hip contusion within the Alabama ranks. I'm even more grateful that I'm not up in the press box right now, pretending that this is just another day at the office.

"Did you bet on the game?" my mom asks Miller.

With a mouthful of hot dog, Miller says, "h.e.l.l, yeah, I bet on the game. Five hundred bucks. Easy money!"

My mother says, "Is it too late for me?"

"Nope." Miller pulls his phone out of his pocket and says, "I can call my guy!"

I can't keep myself from shouting, "Enough! Both of you! Would you please shut up?"

"Jeezy-peasy, sorry!" my mom says. "Forgot who we're dealing with. Miss Doom and Gloom."

I roll my eyes and stare straight ahead, bracing myself for a painful few hours of college football. And that's if the game goes well.

But the first half goes anything but well. We come out flat and totally unprepared for Alabama's physical play, quickly trailing by ten. Obviously it's not an insurmountable deficit, but a hard gap to close against a team as good as Bama. While my mother and Lucy resort to Walker chants and cheers, and Miller and Lawton opt for cursing a blue streak at the refs, I pray and barter and promise, appealing to the football G.o.ds-and even G.o.d Himself. If we can pull off a comeback, I will settle for a dozen utterly forgettable, lackl.u.s.ter seasons. I'll even take a few losing seasons, including humiliating losses to the Longhorns. I will never text Coach again. I will take a job in New York, leave Texas, and never look back.

None of our strategies work, and as the sun begins to set over the hills of Pasadena, we head to the locker room down 237. Halftime is unbearable with the endless chants of Roll, Tide, Roll, giddy performances by both marching bands, and more optimistic banter among my mom, Lucy, Lawton, and Miller. Meanwhile, I try to stay calm and put all my faith in Coach. I remind myself that he does his best work on the ropes, and is back there now, regrouping, reconfiguring, and reinvigorating our troops. Telling them that it's now or never.

And then the second and final half of the college football season begins under a vibrant teal sky that I can't resist pointing out to Lucy. "I know!" she says, staring up at it, her hand over her heart and the gold pin we are all wearing in memory of her mother. "I was just thinking the same thing. It's amazing ... I've never seen a sky like this before."

One beat later, we nail a thirty-one-yard pa.s.s to the Bama forty-nine-yard line.

"Yeah! f.u.c.k, yeah! That's more like it!" Miller yells, pumping his fist in the air, then high-fiving Lawton.

I clap for the first time all night, as we go deep once again, covering another twenty-five yards to our backup wide receiver. Coach definitely has the Tide off balance with his hurry-up offense, and I watch with satisfaction as they begin shuffling personnel to try to contain the sudden explosion. On the next play, they focus on our deep threat, but we mix things up, rushing to the line and calling an audible before Everclear takes the ball sixteen yards on a bootleg.

I turn and shout, "Your dad's a friggin' genius!" at Lucy and Lawton.

On second down, Everclear fakes to Rhodes and connects with our tight end in the back of the end zone. There it is. Touchdown! In one minute and twelve seconds of flawless execution, we are back in the hunt. As Mike Green, our kicker, nails the extra point, I crack a small smile and high-five Miller.

On the ensuing possession, we load the box and blitz, looking much more confident on defense, too. Alabama is still able to convert a couple first downs, but the drive proves ultimately unfruitful as they punt from midfield, pinning us deep in our own territory. Coach plays it more conservatively from there, and the remainder of the third quarter becomes a battle for field position with an exchange of field goals.

"All right! All right, boys!" Miller shouts as we begin the fourth quarter with the ball on our twelve. "We'll take it!"

I stare at the scoreboard, even though I have the 2617 score emblazoned in my mind, telling myself it is entirely possible to erase a nine-point deficit in the final quarter of play. Over the next six and half minutes, we capitalize on a fatigued Bama defense by relentlessly attacking the line of scrimmage, only to be stopped short on the five-yard line. But Green nails another field goal, closing the gap to six with eight minutes and change remaining.

Alabama does us no favors on their next series, grinding out yards and ticking off seconds in a sustained drive that forces us to burn two time-outs. We manage to shut them down on a fourth and long, but by now they are on our fifteen, in easy field goal range for any kicker, let alone one who has been perfect on the night.

I drop my head to my hands, a gesture that alarms Lucy. "What?" she demands, jabbing me in the back. "Why are you doing that?"

I break it down for her. "They're going to make this kick. Then we'll be down nine-which is a two-possession game. And we only have one time-out left."

"Which means?" Lucy asks.

"Which means we don't have f.u.c.king time to win," Miller says, finally exasperated with her, too.

"But he has to make the field goal first, right?" she asks.

"He hasn't missed yet," Lawton says, as the players line up on the field.

I drop my face to my hands again, unable to watch the inevitable, but a few seconds later, Miller grabs my arm and starts yelling, "He hooked it! He hooked it! He f.u.c.kin' hooked it!"

I look up to see the Walker offense taking the field. "He missed it?" I say, with a shocked sputter of laughter.

"He f.u.c.kin' missed it!" Miller crows.

"Choke city!" Lawton chimes in.

"Now can we win?" Lucy yells over the din. She definitely has a mental block when it comes to basic football math.

"Now we have a shot!" I tell her, then break it down for her, explaining that all we have to do is cover eighty-five yards in one hundred and ninety seconds. It is plenty of time; it is almost too much time, because the last thing we want is for Alabama to have the final possession.

I turn my gaze back to the field as Coach begins to drain the clock with running plays and short pa.s.ses, working his way to midfield while using up a minute and forty seconds. After that, we break into our two-minute offense, starting with a very long pa.s.s that Rhodes can't quite reach. Incompletion. On second down, Coach goes deep again, but this time it works, putting us on the Alabama thirty-two.

Miller and I stare at each other, wide-eyed, as the chains are moved and Everclear rushes the team to the line. I hold my breath as he goes with a surprise draw play for a gain of eight. The clock is still ticking, and my heart is in my throat, as he snaps the ball, keeps it, and picks up three more yards for another first down.

The next few plays are a blur that I can only watch in replay on the jumbo screen. Everclear throws it away to avoid a sack ... A completion to the eighteen ... First down at the ten ... A loss of two with the clock still running ... A mad scramble for a miracle gain of seven, safely out of bounds at the five, with four seconds left on the clock.

Suddenly, it all comes down to this. Our dream season-the whole awful, amazing year-whittled down to four measly seconds. We are one play and five yards away from a national championship.

Then, something bizarre happens inside of me. Something I never expected to feel, not in a thousand Walker games. A quiet sense of perspective washes over me. I know that whatever euphoric or devastating result follows will be indelibly inscribed, replayed in perpetuity in the hearts and minds of every Walker-loving man, woman, and child. But I also realize that it doesn't really matter what happens on this last snap. I still want to win, madly and deeply, but it's not the most I've ever wanted anything. Not even close.

The next four seconds unfold in slow motion. Everclear rolls out ... dodges a defender ... aims and fires, off balance ... the ball spirals high into the end zone ... Rhodes leaps with outstretched arms ... so does an Alabama safety ... the ball is tipped, disappearing into a heap of teal and red jerseys ... A collective hush falls over the stadium as men are peeled off the pile, one by one, until the last remains. It is Rhodes, clutching the ball, then holding it up with an outstretched hand as the ref raises his arms high over his head, signaling a touchdown. One beat later, the kick is good, and Walker wins. Walker wins! Oh my G.o.d, Walker wins!

The stadium erupts with fans shouting and hugging and dancing and crying and snapping photos all around me. But I hold perfectly still, in utter disbelief, doing my best to memorize the moment, keeping my eyes fixed on just one man down on the field, tracing his every move, as he's embraced by his players, then doused with the customary cooler of Gatorade.

More pandemonium ensues, the stadium filling with teal streamers and confetti and the light from thousands of flashes as Miller never stops shouting in my ear, his voice hoa.r.s.e and crazed. Something finally breaks my trance, and I start to hug Lucy, but she is hugging Lawton, so I settle for Miller, who reciprocates with a wet kiss on my mouth. I give him a startled look, and he retorts, "Don't worry. I'm going to kiss your mother like that, too!" Then he does. I laugh as Lawton jumps onto Miller's back, toppling both my mother and me. Then Lucy piles on top of us as if re-creating the final play of the game, shouting how much she loves me.

"I love you, too," I say, laughing and crying at once, then struggling to get up so I can watch Coach some more. Seconds later, J.J. appears, out of breath, with VIP all-access pa.s.ses, telling Lucy and Lawton to come with him. They need to get down to the field for the trophy ceremony.

"Not without Shea," Lucy says.

"Well, come on then! All three of you!" he yells.

I shake my head in protest, but I can tell right away that I have no choice in the matter. So I allow myself to be whisked down the rows of metal stands, hugging friends, acquaintances, and strangers along the way. Right as I'm about to step onto the field, I see a little boy, about ten years old, sobbing, the red A's painted onto his cheeks now streaked by tears. I pause, kneel, and tell him that it's going to be okay.

"You'll get us next year," I say.

He is inconsolable, but, in a strange way, I am happy for him. One day, the memory of this night will return to him, making the taste of victory all the sweeter.

We keep walking, in circles, until we find Coach. He is drenched from sweat and Gatorade, but I can tell that he's also been crying, the whites of his eyes pink. I watch him hug Lucy and hear him say, "This is for her, Luce."

"I know, Daddy," she says, now sobbing. "She'd be so proud of you. I'm so proud of you."

Then it's Lawton's turn, and he starts crying like a baby, too, and I can't help remembering his face at his mother's funeral. "I wish she were here," he tells his only parent. "So much."

"She is here," Coach says, comforting his son, as I realize how much true grief can resemble pure joy.

I start to tremble, just as I feel Lucy's hand on my back. She is pushing me toward her father, right into his arms. I give her a confused look, thinking surely she doesn't mean for me to hug him, but she nods and says, "I was wrong, Shea. Go to him. You belong with him."

I stare at her, processing what she's told me, realizing that I've never heard her say those words before: I was wrong.

"Go," she says, smiling through tears, pushing me again.