Page 53 of Playworld
Naomi and I waited silently on the line until my mother picked up. She said, “Hey, Naomi, what’s going on?” and I replaced the receiver.
That night, before bed, while I was sucking on an ice cube, Mom appeared in our room. I could hear the television on in hers. Ted Koppel began,It is day four hundred thirty of the hostage crisis.She was wearing her nightgown. When she opened our door, the light from the hallway reflected against our window, and her silhouette was visible in it. She stood by my bed and let her eyes wander over my face. She placed her palm against my cheek. “Naomi said she ran into you earlier.”
When I told her that was true, Mom said, “Are you feeling okay? She said you didn’t look so hot.”
When I told her I felt fine, she said, “Griffin, is there something you want to tell me?”
I shook my head with her hand still on my face and said, “No.”
“Nothing at school?”
“Uh-uh.”
She said, “Because if there is, you know you can, yes?”
There was nothing she could do to help me, so I said, “All right.”
“All right, or you know?”
“I know.”
“All right,” she said.
She left and closed the door. In the dark, I heard her close hers, which lowered the TV’s volume. My ice cube was the size of a coin, and in my mind’s eye I watched it disappear.
“That was close,” Oren said.
—
At five, when my alarm sounded, I climbed down my bunk, walked across the cold parquet, and shut the window, which whistled in protest. I went to the closet, yanked the light’s chain, and dropped my pajama pants. I slid the poises along the beam until it balanced: 124.
Morning of the match, and I was still three pounds overweight.
Oren stood at my side, rubbing his eyes. His breath was bad and his hair insane. After considering my predicament, he said, “We’re going for a run.”
It was still dark as night. We bundled in our warmest clothes. Oren rode his bike alongside me. There were more runners in the park at this hour than I expected. I felt as if I were running uphill and downhill at the same time. It was more like a slow-motion impression of running, robotic and powerless. Sometimes I slowed to barely a jog. Because of my pace, Oren rode as if we were on a crowded boardwalk; he barely pedaled, one hand on the handlebars and an elbow resting on his knee. Occasionally he got ahead of me and then circled back. We hugged Central Park South and then bore north along the east drive, past the carousel. We took the Seventy-Second Street hill, past the boathouse and up the hill past the obelisk and then behind the Met. I ran parallel to Fifth Avenue, past the Guggenheim on my right, past the reservoir on my left, the sky just purpling above the trees. We wound down the snaking descent to 110th Street, and on the west drive Oren had to stand on his pedals to pump up Heartbreak Hill. The tennis courts came into view. The nets were down. We passed the reservoir again and then the lake wasvisible on our left. Oren waited at the top of the hill as I walked the slow incline toward Sheep Meadow. Now the skyscrapers’ background had blued. Bearing west, I resumed my shuffle past the Tavern on the Green, and soon we were home.
Mom and Dad had still not woken. I disrobed as if I’d fallen through ice and my wet clothes might freeze me to death. Oren watched me step on the scale.
I had lost just under two pounds.
Oren breathed a deep sigh I could not read and consulted his calculator watch. “You’ve got eight hours to lose a pound and a half,” he said.
Kepplemen was waiting for me in Boyd’s front hallway. He was the rock around which the morning’s river of students streamed. He looked as disheveled and as stressed as I felt. He said, “Follow me, please.”
In the locker room, after weighing me, Kepplemen, furious, showed me the lineup on his clipboard. He’d left my weight class blank.
“You’re on your own,” he said, and left.
In science class, I was the blackened base of a test tube. My mouth felt like the dusty plains of Tatooine. In English, Miss Sullens read aloud fromDarkness at Noon:“ ‘History has taught us that often lies serve her better than the truth; for man is sluggish and has to be led through the desert for forty years before each step in his development.’ Do we agree or disagree with that?” I raised my hand and, when she called on me, asked if I could go to the bathroom. In the stall I sat on the lid and thought of nothing. In Spanish, Miss Daniel asked, “¿Qué les gustaría ordenar?” to which I replied, “Un helado y dos cervezas.” Math may as well have been taught in Spanish. In American government, it occurred to me that I forgot to thank Oren for his help, and when I wept I could not shed a tear.
In the locker room, right before the team was to depart for our match, I weighed myself. I was still a half pound over.
Kepplemen had parked the team bus at the upper school’s entrance. Our dual meet was a little over a mile away, at Collegiate, so it seemed odd to drive there. He was formally dressed, in a blue blazer, blue button-down, and navy-blue tie with the Boyd Bruin dotting it. I was the last to board. Kepplemen appeared on the black treads of the steps. Tanner and Cliffnotes lowered their windows; so did the team captains. “Well?”Cliffnotes asked. Beneath my jacket, I was wearing my warm-ups, with my singlet underneath. My gloves and stocking hat.
Kepplemen said, “Don’t get on this bus if you haven’t made weight.”
“I’ll see you there,” I said, and ran.