Opposite of Always: List 3

I don’t know why I’m back here.
Why time has once again backed its behemoth...

I know, Jack + anything that requires “winning” typically = terrible idea.
Except if I do it just right, if it pans out the way I think it can, it won’t really be gambling.
Which, when said out loud, does appear to be hinged to some significant caveats.

I take a monetary survey. Which basically involves surveying every nook and cranny for money that I may have overlooked.
This is a very expedient survey.

Between installing carpet the last two summers and accrued birthday money, I’ve done a decent job in maximizing my limited revenue streams.

Even more fortunate, Mandrake University isn’t even expected to make the tourney, let alone win the entire thing.

I approach my plan not without reservation.

Mom tried to stem the disappointment of waiting another entire year to start school by telling me that I’d have the distinct advantage of experiencing everything so much earlier than my fellow classmates.

“Oh,” I say, feeling the slightest trepidation in telling her the truth.

“So, The Coupon is going to crash elsewhere for a while,” Franny interjects.

“I had decided not to. That if she wanted him around, it’s her house, you know. But now it’s a moot point because once again he’s choosing to be somewhere where I’m not.”

I just don’t see it, he contends, flailing his arms.

“I can’t promise you anything. We’re still in the early clinical stages.”

“Tell me everything’s going to be okay, Jack.”
“Franny,” I say with all of the hope and faith that I can muster. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Under normal circumstances, Franny’s the epitome of clutch. Take, for instance, his last regular season must-win road game: he was cool, calm, collected on his way to a team-high twenty-four points, sinking the go-ahead free throw with time expired to ice the victory and advance to the playoffs.

The Coupon steps inside the threshold, Abuela standing quietly beside him.

The Coupon makes Franny, tall and muscular in his own right, seem small, like a marionette version of himself.

“You still doing the poetry thing?”
“Not really. I’m more into prose these days.”

I clap my agreement, but Franny isn’t in a charitable mood.

Franny’s bedroom is a hodgepodge of familiar comforts.

On his desk, where he’s sitting now, is what we’ve started calling The Stack. The Stack is as precarious as the last few moves in Jenga. A steadily growing pile of scholarship offers to schools all over the country; letters and packets boasting about each school’s advantages, falling over themselves to recruit one of the nation’s top athletes.

And then Franny shouts a war cry, covers his eyes, and dives into the fray.

“Say ‘live foreverrrrrrrr,”’ the lead singer croons, as we all crowd into the selfie.

...the guitarist had chided us.

And then suddenly you meet THE ONE.
And you fall completely out of the orbit you’ve been spinning in.
And now you’re doing laps around this new world.
And you’re hoping gravity can sustain you.

Mandrake’s defense is smothering, the other team struggles to even get the ball across half-court, and that insurmountable lead shrinks.

You can see their opponents fading, their poise dissolving.

“Collecting two hundred Gs? Trouble? Naw,” he says, with a dismissive wave, and I’m at a loss if he’s being serious or sarcastic.

“You wouldn’t understand, man,” Franny’s dad says, as the surly-looking bartender sets down another set of shots in front of us.

I slip into my bedroom undetected, which given my slightly inebriated state feels like a win.

After pillaging two bottles of wine from Jillian’s mom’s stash, Jillian drives us to her grandparents’ summer cottage out on Lake Erie.

Confusion contorts her face, her black curls wiggling around her ears. “You’re being so weird this morning. You’ve been weird the last few days actually.”

I hesitate to stand, because I don’t want to be presumptuous, though I’d really like to go in with her.

But Dr. Sowunmi and his team can use these, uh, enzymes, called zinc-finger nucleases, which they’ll zap into her genes, and with any luck they’ll correct the mutation that causes Kate’s cells to sickle.

Granted, Reggie is three years younger than me, and a good four inches shorter, but still his threat really resonates.

Maybe Mr. Edwards doesn’t have to waste his time loathing anyone, though. What with Reggie so able and eager.

In spite of Mrs. Edwards’s threats to maim Reggie, the way the Edwards family looks over at me after this last question makes me feel as if they wouldn’t mind an answer from me.

Reggie sinks in his chair, shakes his head almost imperceptibly, as if to say, Don’t do this, don’t.

Last night he sat at the kitchen island cleaning his fourteen different lenses with his specially designed cloths, checking and rechecking his apertures, much the way a hunter inspects his rifle before a hunt.

“You came,” I say to Kate, my parents looking on behind me. I can sense them, their I can’t believe our son has a bona fide girlfriend in our house right now energy.

I set down a platter of fancy cracker thingies, and get there in time to see Mom hugging someone with bone-crushing exuberance.