9. Friday Night Lights #3
Haz studies the kid: He’s good-looking with that dark hair, those hooded eyes, the lazy half smile.
The other kids worship him, especially the girls—Haz has heard the third- and fourth-formers whispering.
East’s superpower is that he holds himself aloof.
Haz is surprised there are eight or ten kids East would even want to hang out with.
“Why do this?” Haz asks. “Are you trying to get kicked out?”
“We both know that won’t happen,” East says. “I’m stuck here. I figured why not create something legendary, something Tiffin students will be talking about for generations to come?” East shrugs. “Plus, it’ll give me a sense of purpose. I’m fucking bored, man.”
This is as good an answer as any, Haz thinks.
He nods at the money in East’s hand, which in Haz’s mind has taken on a radioactive glow.
There, he thinks, is the start of his new life: With thirty grand, he can pay off both credit cards.
With the money he makes from supplying—he’ll tack on 50 percent, East will never know—he’ll have a down payment for a new truck.
Plus—and this is shameful as hell to admit—Haz feels the same rush that he gets when he bets on a game.
“Is that my deposit?” he asks.
“It is,” East says, holding the money out.
Haz occasionally imagines opening his own place, an elevated cocktail spot. Wouldn’t this, in some twisted way, scratch that itch? (If it doesn’t get him fired. If it doesn’t get him arrested. )
“I have conditions,” Haz says.
East nods. “I thought you might.”
“One, no phones.”
“Love that rule,” East says.
“Two,” Haz says. “No drugs. No weed, no blow, no Molly, no gummies, and no pills. If I get any inkling about drugs, I shut it down.”
“Obviously no drugs,” East says. “Not after what happened.”
“Exactly,” Haz says. Cinnamon Peters OD’d on a combination of Valium, Xanax, and Ambien.
A rumor went around the school that East sold her the drugs—because where else would she have gotten them?
But Audre Robinson quickly quashed that rumor.
Cinnamon had procured the drugs back in Wisconsin; the Peterses’ old-school family doctor had prescribed them for Cinnamon’s “mood swings,” and she’d been stockpiling.
“How are you proposing people sneak out?” Haz asks.
“Do you know who the dorm parents are this year?” East asks. “Rivera in North and Bergeron in South. Both newbies.”
“Right,” Haz says. He’d witnessed Bergeron drunk off her pretty little ass; Rivera had basically begged Haz not to mention it to anyone.
East is right: Sneaking out won’t be a problem.
Honey Vandermeid is a seasoned vet in South, but Haz has heard from old Jameson that Honey prowls around campus a bit herself at night.
Roy Ewanick is the other dorm parent in North, but he’s nearly seventy and it’s unclear how effective his hearing aids are.
This could work, Haz thinks. “If you do get caught, you don’t know me.”
“I’ll say I have a supplier in the city,” East says.
Haz takes the money and shakes East’s hand. “You’ve got a deal.”
Suddenly a tremendous cheer goes up. Tiffin must have scored, Haz thinks. Thank god he didn’t end up betting Jameson.
He’s taking a much bigger gamble instead. This, he thinks, is the definition of risking it all.
The play “Around the Apple Tree” works like this:
Dub hands the ball off to Teague Baldwin and the Northmeadow defense thinks it’s just another run play, but then Teague hands it off to Hakeem and Hakeem spirals a perfect pass to Dub—receiver throwing to quarterback—who is wide open in the end zone. Dub spikes the ball and the crowd goes bananas.
Hakeem leaps into Dub’s arms. “We’re legends, man!”
Charley Hicks loves Friday night lights.
The dorm empties out and she’s spared overhearing Olivia H-T trying to curry favor with Davi (Olivia’s Sephora order just arrived, does Davi want to film the unboxing?) or Madison R.
asking if anyone has seen her Theragun because it’s gone missing from its case on top of her dresser.
Charley sets herself up at her desk with a Buffalo Chicken Caesar wrap and a Milky Way milkshake from the Grille and the copy of Demon Copperhead that Mr. Rivera lent her.
It’s a reimagining of David Copperfield, he said.
When Charley admitted she hadn’t read David Copperfield, Mr. Rivera said, “Well, it’s just like the rest of Dickens.
Bleak.” Although it pained her, Charley said, “I haven’t read any Dickens at all.
I heard he used to get paid by the word and I like my fiction lean.
” Mr. Rivera threw his head back to laugh and told her she was a delight.
Her phone dings with a text but she ignores it because she’s certain it’s her mother. Fran has been blowing up Charley’s phone about Family Weekend. She’s insisting on coming.
Don’t, Charley responded when Fran first told her. Then, to soften the blow, she said, It’s not really a thing.
But of course it is a thing. The Head’s office just released the schedule: There’s a reception Friday afternoon followed by a steak dinner, and the girls’ field hockey game under the lights.
(This seems to be telegraphing that, at Tiffin, girls’ sports are given the same attention as boys’ sports, which isn’t true.) Saturday goes: breakfast, Chapel, then there are some seminars (applying to college as a student athlete; an exploration of diversity at Tiffin) and rare tours of the chapel (that end with a visit to the roof), then the football game, then most kids go out to dinner with their parents to the Hobgoblin or the Wooden Duck.
I’m coming anyway, Fran said. I want to see what I’m paying for.
Of course her mother would bring up money; purse strings are the strongest tie between them.
Mom, it’s actually nothing. My teachers can email you my progress reports.
I’m coming, Fran wrote. End of discussion.
Fine, Charley said. As long as you come alone.
What Charley meant was that Fran should not bring Joey.
Fran “liked” this text, and the conversation ended with a victory.
Charley could maybe tolerate Fran (it might even be nice to have her mother to herself for once), but she would not—could not—abide a visit from Joey.
She tries to imagine Fran and Joey on Tiffin’s campus with all the other parents.
Everyone would stare: Joey is fifteen years younger than Fran, he’s covered in tattoos, he’ll show up in cargo shorts and work boots wearing an Orioles cap over his man bun.
Everything about Joey is just wrong, starting with his name.
He’s twenty-nine years old and goes by “Joey,” like he’s a character on a ’90s sitcom or a singer in a boy band.
He doesn’t have a college degree and, as far as Charley knows, has never read a book.
He has been cursed with what Charley thinks of as a “Deep Dundalk” accent.
When he says, “down the ocean,” it sounds like “day-yoon the aeeyou-shunn.”
Once upon a time, Joey was Charley’s father’s project.
Joey had a misdemeanor charge for dealing psychedelics; Joey’s uncle was a big client of the law firm where Charley’s father, Thad Hicks, worked.
Thad got the charges dropped in exchange for thirty hours of community service, and then Thad invited Joey to the house for dinner, and over her famous homemade osso buco, Fran Hicks offered Joey a job at the garden center.
After Joey left, Charley remembers her parents kissing and then her father saying, “Thank you for doing that. He’s a nice kid, just a little misguided. ”
Little did her father know, three years later, Fran and Joey would be married. Joey still works for Fran: He now carries the title of project manager, on the landscaping side. His main job, Charley knows, is to drive the van around with deliveries and dig holes like a literal gopher.
Joey infiltrated all the spaces in their house where Charley’s father used to be.
He took over Thad Hicks’s home office; it was where he played video games.
Charley had caught him with his grass-stained bare feet on Thad’s desk, wearing giant headphones, screaming at someone named “Ant” as he jabbed at the controller.
Charley had started researching boarding schools the day after her mother and Joey’s wedding, but her mother refused to entertain the idea, even when Charley pointed out that Thad Hicks himself had gone to St. George’s.
Right, Fran said. He was the one who said he would never want to miss a single day of your high school years.
You’re at the top of your class at Loch Raven.
Hating Joey isn’t a good enough reason for you to leave.
The deadline for boarding school applications came and went. Charley refused to speak to Joey; she left a room when he entered; most evenings she ate dinner at her desk while she studied.
Then came a Saturday night in mid-April: Charley and her best friend, Beatrix, had been out at a party.
Beatrix had gotten wasted; she was sleeping over at Charley’s because that’s what she did on nights when they went out and Beatrix drank.
Apparently, Beatrix went downstairs for a glass of water in the middle of the night and discovered Joey in the kitchen eating ice cream straight from the container in front of the open freezer.
Beatrix said she was about to turn around and drink water from the bathroom tap, but then Joey saw Beatrix and engaged her in conversation.
He fixed her not only a glass of ice water but a grilled cheese sandwich as well.
As Beatrix ate, Joey asked her where she lived, how many siblings she had, when her birthday was, if she had a boyfriend.
I assume the answer is yes, Joey said. Since you’re smoking hot.
The next morning, Beatrix said, I’m pretty sure Joey is obsessed with me.
No, Charley thought. But yes, of course yes, because Joey was a lowlife!