17. Rivalry Weekend
“But that hardly matters,” Audre tells Coop as they stroll across camp toward the football field. “As long as we beat Old Bennington.”
“I’ve been hearing about it all week,” Coop says. “Pulverize the Poets.” He laughs. “As a longtime Vermonter, I have to say, I take the attack on Frost personally. Let me get you a hot cider, and I’ll meet you in the stands.”
No, Audre thinks. That’s a step too far.
She searches for Cordelia and spies her sitting with Rhode Rivera; they’ve grown chummier now that they see each other at the fitness center. Audre can’t tolerate Rhode for the length of a football game, and so she plunks down front and center, folding the blanket underneath her.
Coop appears with Audre’s cider and a cocoa for himself. When he sits down, Audre edges away ever so slightly. Are the kids behind them speculating? Audre laughs: She’s flattering herself by imagining the kids think about her at all.
But even so, when Audre sees the Head of School from Old Bennington, Mikayla Ekubo, walking around the track toward her, she’s relieved to have a reason to get up. “Be right back.”
Coop is chatting with Madison J. and Willow Levy, who have descended from the student section just to talk to him, it seems. That’s the sign of an outstanding teacher: Coop is someone the kids are drawn to, even outside of class.
As Audre approaches Mikayla, she remembers that she and Mikayla have beef. Mikayla was part of the coalition that investigated Tiffin’s number two ranking the year before. Audre had expected Mikayla’s unequivocal support, but she’d sided with heinous, awful, small-minded, envious Douglas Worth.
Now, however, Mikayla is all smiles. “You’re positively glowing, Audre,” she says. “Have you done something differently? A new skin care regimen?”
“Maybe my complexion responds favorably to extreme stress,” Audre says.
Mikayla laughs. “You think you’re stressed. Girl, I wish I could tell you.”
Audre grinds her back teeth. Of course Audre’s stress at the number six ranked boarding school in the country would be meager compared to the stress Mikayla endures while running the number one school. She’s been with Mikayla thirty seconds and is ready to be finished with her.
Mikayla leans in. “You didn’t move Tiffin’s accounts over to Oak Bellamy’s new company by any chance, did you?”
Audre nearly says, No, of course not. But she fears she’ll get caught in a lie. She considers telling Mikayla it’s none of her business where Tiffin is invested.
But instead, she hedges. “Why do you ask? Is something up with Oak Bellamy?”
“Oh my god,” Mikayla says. “Only that he is so thirsty for my business, he calls me twice a week, begging me to switch over. The most pathetic thing is how he left Everlast but then named his new company ‘Evermore.’” Mikayla’s leather-gloved hand grips Audre’s arm.
“You understand how bonkers that is? Naming your financial services company after a Taylor Swift album?”
Taylor Swift album? Audre thinks. “Was that his intention? I saw it as a kind of homage to Everlast.”
“You’re giving him more credit than I am,” Mikayla says. “I hear he’s positively bombing. His clients are losing millions.”
Despite the cold, Audre is burning up. She has to get away from Mikayla. She turns her body toward Tiffin’s bleachers, but unfortunately, Mikayla’s gaze follows.
“Is that John Coopersmith?” She turns to Audre with a devilish look. “Did you end up hiring him? He interviewed with us, but our history chair decided to stay another year.”
“We did hire Coop, yes…”
Mikayla sighs. “As the kids would say, I’m scheming him.”
Audre is familiar with the phrase, though she doesn’t like it in this context. She can’t believe Coop interviewed with Mikayla at Old Benn.
“He’s a wonderful teacher,” Audre says as neutrally as possible. “We feel quite lucky to—”
“I’ll say you’re lucky.” Mikayla fans herself. “That man is hotter than the cocoa.”
Audre is saved from having to respond when Ozzy Osbourne’s malevolent cackle comes blaring over the loudspeaker, followed by the bass riff of “Crazy Train.” The crowd cheers as the players run onto the field. Mikayla peels off with a wave: Good to see you, bye-bye.
Audre can’t wait to get back to the bleachers, where she’ll sit as close to Coop as she damn well pleases.
It’s not only Dub’s final Rivalry Weekend against Old Benn, it’s the final game of his high school career. And if a Div III school doesn’t come knocking on his door with a full scholarship, the final game of his life.
In the locker room, Coach Bosworth gives the team his usual pep talk: Go out there and play like your hair is on fire. Angle of pursuit. Head on a swivel. Above all, represent.
“This is a storied rivalry,” Coach says. “The first Tiffin–Old Benn game took place in 1913. I’d like you gentlemen to honor that tradition. No shit-talking, no dirty penalties. But for god’s sake, let’s try to win. Hands in, ‘Thoroughbreds’ on three.”
Dub tries to keep his composure during the national anthem, but all he can think is how, for the past four years, he has bled green and gold.
He started at quarterback as a freshman, and although he’d expected some hazing from the upperclassmen—Bengay in his jock strap, etc.
—the entire team had rallied behind him from the start.
“Finally,” the sixth-form captain then, Alex Odain, had said. “Someone who knows football.”
Dub had been lost when it came to the rites and rituals of East Coast boarding schools—he thought Roller Rabbits were something little kids wore—but he did know football. It was how he made his name here, how he fit in. It was how he became friends with Hakeem and won over Cinnamon Peters.
When the anthem ends, Dub and Hakeem trot out to the 50-yard line for the coin toss. Hakeem points to Dub and says to the ref, “QB1 will call it.” This takes Dub by surprise. All season long, Hakeem has been calling.
“Heads,” Dub says—but it’s tails, so Tiffin will be receiving first.
Fine, whatever, Dub thinks. As he jogs back to the sideline for kickoff, he gazes up at the bright blue November sky. He can’t help thinking Cinnamon is watching.
Tiffin returns the ball to the 37-yard line. Let’s fucking go, Dub thinks—and he runs out onto the field.
The first play Coach calls is a simple handoff to Reed Wheeler.
The kid is only five-foot-seven, but he’s got speed and, more importantly, confidence.
When the offense sets up, Dub hears a little chatter on the line; Coach telling them not to shit-talk is wishful thinking.
Dub is usually able to block it out, but for whatever reason on this first play of his final game, he locks eyes with one of the Old Benn defensive linemen, who sneers at him and says, “I’m going to knock you on your homo ass, faggot. ”
Dub hears a shout and sees a green flash on his left side—and then suddenly the defensive lineman is gone, like a tooth knocked out of a smile.
All the refs blow their whistles, the formations break.
It takes Dub a second to realize that a Tiffin player has tackled the lineman and is now on top of him, choking him out.
Benj, Dub thinks. Of course Benj would ride for him.
But it’s not Benj who the refs are pulling off the Old Benn kid. It’s Hakeem.
The field quickly becomes mayhem. Both sidelines clear, players run onto the field and start throwing punches. Suddenly, over the loudspeaker come the strains of “I Had Some Help” by Morgan Wallen and Post Malone.
Tilly Benbow, who has been a vacant-eyed zombie all semester, must have been reunited with her personality up in the broadcast booth, Dub thinks. Because she chose the perfect song.
He can’t help grinning. Hakeem came to his defense.
After the fight is broken up and both teams are assessed offsetting penalties, the game resumes. The players are all dialed up, but there’s no way Old Benn can compete against a quarterback and a wide receiver who have (finally, finally) locked in for the last game they’ll play on Tiffin’s campus.
Tiffin pulverizes the Poets, 24–0.
The bonfire at Jewel Pond after the game is a full-on function. Tiffin hadn’t beaten Old Bennington in eight years, which outspans the memory of every current student.
In the shadows just beyond the light and warmth of the flames, Dub and Hakeem have their first real conversation in months.
Dub says, “Can we finally talk about it?”
Taylor, who is at Hakeem’s side, says, “I’m going to find Willow.”
When she slips into the crowd, Hakeem smiles. “I can’t believe she’s electing to miss this.”
“It’s between me and you, bro.” Dub takes a breath. “First of all, thank you for flattening that guy.”
Hakeem flexes a bicep. “Just call me Freight Train. Nah, man, it felt good. I wasn’t going to let that motherfucker disrespect you.”
“But you’re weirded out by the whole gay thing,” Dub says. “Don’t tell me you aren’t. I know you, Hakeem. Things haven’t been right.”
“You know me… and I thought I knew you,” Hakeem says. “Then I find out I don’t know you at all. And I’m like, what the fuck? I’m your best friend, and you didn’t feel like I should know first? I have to find out along with everyone else during Chapel?”
“I get it, bro…”
“All last year, I thought you were getting with Tay. I had nightmares about it. Like yeah, I was with Cassie Lee for a while, but my mind was always on you and Taylor and what you were doing. I believed it right up until your senior speech. You should have told me last year, it would have made that whole thing go away. Tay and I would have supported you.”
“You haven’t supported me this year,” Dub says.
“Because I’ve been pissed off!” Hakeem says. “It’s like you didn’t trust me.”
“I trusted you,” Dub says. “But I was scared. It was a big thing. I didn’t want you to think—”
“What? That you had a crush on me?”
“I didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Yeah, I guess it would have been weird if you were into me.”
I was into you, Dub thinks—and he’s very glad it’s dark, because he’s sure Hakeem would be able to see it on his face.
“Then again, if you weren’t into me, why not?” Hakeem says. “What’s wrong with me?”
Dub laughs. “Nothing’s wrong with you, man. I’m just interested in someone else.”
“Someone here? Bro, don’t tell me it’s Royce. East? Mr. Maverick? Actually, Mav is so good-looking he makes me feel a little gay.”
This is what Dub wanted all along. He wanted them to make jokes, to be normal. “Nah, it’s someone from home.”
Hakeem holds out his hand. “Let me see him.”
Dub pulls out his phone and clicks on the picture of Cal and him in their zip-lining gear in front of one of the scenic viewpoints—deep green valley in the foreground with the Rocky Mountains behind. Dub has been too self-conscious to make this his screen saver, but he will now.
“Yeah, I get it,” Hakeem says, zooming in on Cal’s face so tightly that Dub feels a pang, missing him. “Come on, let’s show this boy to Taylor.” Hakeem throws an arm around Dub’s shoulders. “She’s definitely going to have opinions.”