Tim Green - The Big Time

"And it's a good thing, right?" Troy asked.

"Ha!" his father said, shaking his head. "Good? It's great. Look at you: a normal kid, but you can predict plays in an NFL game? Troy, my biggest concern is that no one takes advantage of you."

"Who'd do that?" Troy asked.

His father sighed and shook his head, the wind ruffling his shaggy brown hair, the strong bones in his face carving out shadows even in the weak starlight. "The world is a vicious place, Troy. Trust me. The things I've seen."

"But you can help me, right?" Troy asked. "I mean, you want to, right?"

His father tightened the grip on Troy's shoulder and said, "Of course I want to, and I'm the perfect person to do it, with everything I've seen, knowing sports, knowing the entertainment industry.

"But there's just one problem."

" I DOUBT YOUR MOTHERwill let me help," Drew said.

"Why wouldn't she?" Troy asked, searching his father's face in the shadows.

"You see the way she thinks of me," Drew said. "It's hard for people to blame themselves, and anyway, I'm sure Seth Halloway is going to push you to use his agent."

"He actually mentioned it already," Troy said under his breath.

"See?" Drew said. "That's how these things work. Clients know if they do their agent a favor, they get a favor back. That's one of the things I'm worried about for you. You don't know how long this is going to last, and you need a long-term deal that gets you the most you can possibly get."

"What do you mean, 'last'?" Troy asked.

"You see patterns that let you predict the outcome," his father said. "The way I see it, it's all about tendencies. Well, people can break tendencies. Go against the pattern."

Troy thought for a minute, then said, "But if they go against one pattern, wouldn't that just make another pattern?"

"In theory," Drew said. "But what if they just randomize the play calling?"

"Well," Troy said, "they might end up running a quarterback sneak on third and twelve. That wouldn't make sense, right?"

"I understand that," Drew said. "Look, I don't know all the possibilities. I'm just saying that, right now, you're worth a lot of money, and I'd like to make sure that you get it. I don't want to see you pawned off to some agent just because he knows Seth Halloway."

"Well, Seth's not my dad. He's my friend, but not my dad. Why can't you just do the deal for me?" Troy said, his heart galloping now. "You're a lawyer, and lawyers are even better than agents, right?"

"Believe me, I'd love to," Drew said.

"Great," Troy said. "Perfect."

"I'm telling you, Troy," Drew said, shaking his head. "She's not going to go for it. If I am going to help, we'll have to be smart about it."

"We can do that," Troy said. "You file the papers you need to tomorrow and then she has to let me see you. That's the deal."

"I thought you said if I told her I'd sue her she'd let you see me," Drew said.

"Well," Troy said, "she kind of figured out that I tipped you off. She wants to make sure you follow through."

"That's easy," Drew said. "I can draw up the papers in the morning."

"Then I can tell her that I want you to do the deal for me," Troy said, his voice rising up toward the stars. "She can't say no. It's my deal. I'm the football genius, right? What do you think?"

"I think that if we're going to have a chance," his father said, patting Troy's shoulder and then standing up, "then we'd better get you back. I like your plan. It's smart. So, let's not give her an excuse to stop us before we even get started."

They walked back down the tracks, and Troy assured his father he could get the ladder back on his own. Troy watched him climb up to the top of the wall and give him a salute before crouching down and lowering himself over the other side. Troy heard his father drop to the earth with a thud, and he flattened his hands against the cool concrete wall, sad to be alone.

"You okay?" he asked, shouting so his voice would carry up and over the wall.

"Yeah," his father said, sounding far away. "I'll see you soon."

"Tomorrow," Troy said, nodding to himself.

"Don't worry," Troy's father said, his voice moving away, "I'm not going anywhere."

Troy grabbed the ladder. He lowered it slowly, then balanced it on his shoulders. By the time he dumped the ladder down behind the shed, he'd worked up a sweat. Using a thick piece of firewood as a step, he climbed inside through his bedroom window. After removing his sweaty clothes, Troy lay panting in his underwear. The wind in the pines and the dull thump of his own heartbeat did nothing to help him sleep.

He thought of all the important things that had happened to him in the past few months: the excitement of working for the Atlanta Falcons, winning a state championship, appearing on TV, the money he'd made already, and the huge money he was about to make. None of it compared to tomorrow, though. The thought of having his own father be an official part of his life-spending time together, taking trips, throwing a football, or even just talking-made everything else seem like Halloween candy compared to a Christmas present. The other stuff was good and seemed really exciting when he got it, but this was something deep. This was something he'd dreamed about so hard for so long that he felt something had shifted in his core.

The change was so dramatic that the very world around him seemed a different place.

The only problem was that, despite his father's words of assurance and despite the deal he had with his mom, something gnawed at him, telling him that nothing was for sure. Maybe it was his mom's own doubts about his dad. She hadn't been shy about showing her dislike and even her contempt for him.

Troy sighed and rolled over in the sheets, knowing that if sleep came, it wouldn't come easy.

Everything hinged on tomorrow.

TROY LAY COMFORTABLY INhis dream on a sandy beach with the wind slipping past. He knew it was a dream, and he didn't want to wake up, despite the sound of his mom's insistent voice. Finally, when he knew for certain she wasn't going away, Troy opened his eyes and realized that his finger felt better even though it was swollen and stiff.

"Wake up," she said again. "I let you sleep late."

"You did?" Troy asked, swinging his legs out of bed.

"Home Economics first period, right?" she said. "I'm sorry, but learning to bake a cake from a box when the kids in this country rank twenty-fourth in the world in math scores? That's ridiculous."

Troy grinned but felt a pang of guilt for plotting with his father to trick a mom cool enough to let him skip Home Ec.

"What? You like cake from a box?" she asked.

"No, I'm glad," he said. "I was just thinking about everything."

"Your father?" she said with a sigh. "I know. Come on, I made oatmeal."

"Everything else, too," he said, following her into the hallway. "The TV shows. A big contract. The agents."

"I've been thinking about that," she said. "The TV shows aren't going to go away. I think we get the agent thing worked out first. Whoever we choose will probably have some specific ideas on how we can work this to our best advantage. We need to use the media in this to help our negotiations. We need to get you the best deal we can, Troy. This is serious business."

Troy followed her into the kitchen in his boxer shorts. At the stove, she took a metal spoon and began stirring a pot of oatmeal with vicious intensity. He was dying to tell her that she and his father were now thinking along the exact same lines, but for some unknown reason the harsh, scraping sound made him hold his tongue.

"What are you doing?" she asked, turning to dollop out the oatmeal into the pair of bowls she'd put on the table but stopping to stare. "Get dressed. It's going to be beautiful today, so you can wear shorts if you want. What, Troy? You're acting strange."