Tim Green - The Big Time

That's when Troy noticed the evening crowd. Ordinary people-men, women, kids, and teenagers-all pressed to the glass, all pointing at them, the ones who swam with the sharks.

When Charlie signaled for them to head up, Troy felt a disappointment he couldn't have imagined a half hour before. Still, when they broke the surface, the exhilaration of it all made him whoop and slap a high five with his father before they even got out of the tank. They shed their gear and changed back into their clothes in the locker room, his father toweling off with brisk strokes. Before they left, Troy noticed his father slip folded bills of money to the people who had helped them, even Christine Swimmer. When they broke out into the evening light on the sidewalk, he asked about it.

"Did you have to pay them off?" Troy asked.

His father chuckled and said, "No. The aquarium did that as a favor to me. I helped set up G Money to do a charity event for them. Those people got the word from way up high to give us the VIP treatment. They do dives like that for other people, but it takes a long time to get in. I just gave them that money as a tip, just to say thanks."

"That's how they do it in the big time?" Troy asked.

"Exactly how," his father said. "When you make big, big money, you don't mind throwing it around a little. People appreciate it, and it comes back to you in ways you can't imagine."

"Do you have big money?"

His father gave him a knowing grin and waved to the orange Porsche on the street. "Big enough so I don't talk about it," he said.

"Sorry," Troy said.

"No, that's okay. You're my son."

They ate thick steaks at Chops and had lobster tails drenched in butter. Troy dug into a strawberry short-cake, while his father had a glass of thick purple wine called port. On the drive home, Troy begged to have the top down, even though the temperature had dropped sharply without the sun. As they got off the highway near Troy's home, he pointed at the clock on the dashboard.

"It's only nine," he said.

"I know," his father said. "I'll get you home early."

Troy's face fell, and his father reached over to muss his hair.

"Don't look like that," his father said. "It's not because I don't want to be with you. It's the exact opposite. I get you home early and it does two things. First, it puts your mom in a good mood; and second, it gives me time to explain to her why she needs to let you miss school tomorrow."

"To fly out to New York?" Troy asked, excited now. "You really think she'll let me?"

"I know her pretty well, Troy," Drew said, his eyes narrowing at the road ahead, "and, like I said, I haven't forgotten how to deal with her. Yeah, I think we got a pretty good chance she'll let you go, but we'll see. It's just like football. You never know for sure you've won until that final gun."

THEY PULLED UP INTOthe dirt patch in front of Troy's house, and Drew snuggled the Porsche right up next to the VW bug.

"Excellent," Drew said, his eyes scanning all around them. "Seth's got some manners."

"What do you mean?" Troy asked.

"A lot of guys in his shoes would be upset about all this," Drew said, sitting and looking at the small saltbox house. "The old boyfriend showing up. Father of the kid. Me and your mom? We've got some catching up to do, and we sure couldn't do it with Seth hanging around. I respect him."

"You mean, like, he'd be jealous?" Troy asked, his heart thumping. "Like you and my mom getting back together?"

"I doubt that," Drew said, chuckling softly until he looked at Troy's face, "but you never know, right?"

"That's what I was thinking," Troy said, following his father as he hopped out of the car, then trailing him up onto the porch.

"Okay," Drew said, taking hold of Troy's shoulder. "You let me do the talking in there. Just do what you normally do."

"Like get ready for bed and say good night?" Troy asked. "But how do I know if I'm going to New York with you?"

"You don't," Drew said, "but you trust me. If there's any way of you going, it won't happen unless you just go to bed like you're not expecting anything other than a day of algebra, or whatever it is you take in whatever grade you're in."

"Seventh," Troy said.

His dad shrugged and angled his head at the glow from the big front window.

Troy opened the door and wasn't surprised to see his mom reading a book on the couch with her feet curled up underneath her. Drew stepped inside but stayed on the mat.

"Okay if I come in?" Drew said in a voice Troy hadn't heard before.

"Sure," his mom said, closing the book but without getting up.

"Well," Troy said, extending a hand to his father, "thanks…"

Troy blushed, unsure of what to call him.

"Thanks, Dad?" Drew said, raising his eyebrows and then grinning as he shook Troy's hand. "You may as well get used to it."

"Thanks…Dad," Troy said, and it felt oh so good.

Even his mom smiled, and Troy kissed her and said good night. On his way into the hallway toward the bathroom, he heard his dad ask, "Mind if I sit?"

"No," his mom said. "Please."

From the corner of his eye, Troy saw his father sit on the couch, careful to leave an empty cushion between them before he turned and winked at Troy. Troy hurried out of sight.

When he was ready for bed, Troy moved slowly down the hall, his ears aching to decipher the low murmur of his parents' voices. He stopped and listened hard, until they went silent and his mom shot her voice his way.

"Troy? Get to bed."

Troy scuttled into his room, closing the door and plastering his ear to its smooth, cool surface.

Nothing.

For quite some time he paced his room, listening for something, anything. He considered slipping out through the window but knew better. He made up wizardly devices he wished he had, things that could snake silently through the air vents with a microphone or detect words from the vibrations of sound moving through walls. In the end he lay down on his bed, yawned, and waited for the sound of his mother's bath and the water groaning through the pipes. When she went to bed, he could sneak out to the kitchen phone and call his father to get the scoop. His mind whirled around the different possibilities between his parents, his contract, the TV interviews he would soon be doing, and his entire future.

The thirst to know what they were saying and doing battled with his drooping eyelids and the yawns that snuck up out of his throat. Eventually, he surrendered to exhaustion with the final thought that if he allowed himself to close his eyes, the next time they opened he would know his fate.

TROY AND HIS FATHERsped down not the interstate that led to the Atlanta airport but a back road that took them to the DeKalb Peachtree Airport, a place his dad said was less than a half hour from Troy's home.

"How'd you do it?" Troy asked.

His father shifted the sunglasses on his face, then smoothed the slicked-back hair that held its shape even with the top down.

"Magic," his father said.

"Come on," Troy said, stuffing a knuckle into his yawn. "My mom let me miss Home Ec yesterday and that went into the Guinness Book of World Records . She doesn't let me miss a day of school for anything."

"Anything except Seth Cole, who happens to own the New York Jets," his father said as he spun the wheel. They turned in through an open chain-link gate and came to rest outside a white concrete terminal with an air traffic control tower sprouting from one corner like the turret of a castle.

"It had to be more than that," Troy said.

"I can't teach you all my tricks," his father said, grinning.

Two glass doors yawned open as they stepped inside the terminal, following a red carpet to the desk where a young woman asked for their names. She showed them to a doorway where a man in a blue jumpsuit waited with a golf cart. They climbed into the backseat and the cart lurched forward, dodging through a jungle of jet airplanes whose tight white skins gleamed in the sunlight. Troy had to blink to study their different designs and the barrel-shaped engines each one of them sported in pairs.