Coach Nichols looked up from his desk at the tapping on his door.
"Enter." The door opened to reveal a familiar canine face. "Hi John, what can I do for you?"
"Coach, you might want to come watch the senior gym class. We've got a new transfer this year and he's good, Coach. Really good."
"Oh? Tell me about him."
"Terry Marks, but most folks are already calling him 'Tom' because those are his initials. No idea what the O stands for. Equine guy, built like a racer, was held back a grade in 7th so he's a year older than the rest of us but his grades must be back up there by now. He's working out with routines that I'd not use for practice. You might have a hot one for the varsity squad, even if adding him might cost me my slot." The doberman shook his head. "You know me, Coach, I always call it like I see it and he's better than I am by a long way."
"Don't sell yourself short, John. You may not be the best we've got on any individual rotation but you're a better all-rounder than most of the squad. You're also one hell of a talent scout. If it wasn't for you pointing out Jack and Mike for me we might not have a competitive squad at all - that's why you're the captain. So you're keeping your slot no matter what, but I'll come take a look at the fresh meat."
-----=====-----
Terry craned his neck as he flipped through a great-circle on the rings, spotting the far wall to prevent disorientation then brought the rotation to a stop in a perfect handstand. He flexed his legs into a further half turn, ending up poised vertically with his hands supporting his body. He brought up his legs, feeling the burn in his core and then slowly let himself down until his arms were straight out from his sides. The burn shifted to his shoulders as he held the position. Careful, he thought, don't push it.
"Marks, take ten." The voice from beside the apparatus came as a surprise. "I want to talk with you a bit."
Letting his arms relax, Terry guided the momentum of his falling body into a rotation that became a backflip dismount, flexing his knees to stick the landing precisely below the center of the two rings. Then he looked around to see who had spoken.
"That was a pretty hardcore routine for a practice."
Standing beside the rings was a bobcat wearing sweats and a faculty ID around his neck on a worn lanyard.
"Not a practice, a workout... err... is it 'Coach' by any chance?"
"It is indeed, Son. Nichols. I coach the football and gym teams here at Cole Valley"
"What can I do for you, Coach?"
"I'd like a moment in my office after gym class, if you would. Who do you have for next period?"
"Nobody. My last of the afternoon is a study period. Where would I find your office, Sir?"
"By the football field, in the corridor under the main stand."
"I'll be there right after I hit the showers then, Coach."
The bobcat laughed.
"Son, I've been a coach too long to be offended by some jock strolling into my office soaked in sweat and stinking out the place, but the courtesy is appreciated. I'll let you get back to your workout, Son, but be careful. I could see you were pushing it some."
"That's what I was telling myself just before you called me over, Coach."
"Smart lad."
-----=====-----
Coach Nichols did not believe in beating around the bush.
"Son, I think you should try out for the gym squad. From what I saw earlier you'd make the varsity team real easy, and we're in with a shot at state or regional this year. I think you could go to the nationals."
Nichols was used to seeing kids look shocked when he made his pitch, but he wasn't used to seeing a look of regret.
"I was afraid you were going to say something like that, Coach. I can't. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm wimping out or anything, I just can't commit the time to being on a team. If I joined I'd end up letting you, and my teammates, down. I simply cannot commit to practice - or even to events - without dropping an existing commitment that I'm not prepared to let go."
"I've been looking at your record, Son. Your grades say you're going to college and an athletic scholarship will make that a lot easier. You're good enough to get one."
Quietly, Coach Nichols reflected on the fact that Cole Valley was not a particularly prosperous town. Pretty much all the kids that made it to college did it on athletic scholarships, the rest, whatever their academic qualities, simply couldn't afford it. There just weren't enough bursaries and grants to go around in this state and the cost of college had been rising fast enough that the way he had done it himself, working his way through it and paying for his studies from a part-time job, just wouldn't cut it these days. This line of thought was still echoing through his head when Terry replied, which made the response he heard come as a bit of a surprise.
"I do intend to go to college, Coach. I already have a job and perhaps the beginning of a career and I've been saving for college for a few years. If it goes according to plan I should be able to afford most of my first two years by the time I get to applying, and maybe earn the rest before those first two years are up. That's actually why I can't commit to the gym team, why I won't be trying out. Somebody who can make the time commitment to being a good team-member can have the slot I'd have taken and maybe they get to see their dream come true the same way mine looks like it might."
"That's a mighty mature attitude for a kid your age, Terry. I respect that. All I ask is that you think on it, OK? If you change your mind I'd want you on my team."
"I'll do that, Coach. My word on it. But, being completely honest here, I wouldn't hold your breath."
Coach Nichols laughed.
"Remember what I said about jocks stinking up my office? I hold my breath pretty good sometimes. But fair enough. My door's always open, Son."
-----=====-----
Danette loved the library. She'd been working as an aide to the school librarian since she was a freshman and she could never explain to anyone why it felt so good. She'd have felt awkward trying to tell anyone that being surrounded by books, remembering the ones she'd read and anticipating the words of the ones she hadn't was so satisfying.
The library was part of the oldest building in the school. It had high ceilings and tall windows, completely unlike the more squat and utilitarian buildings that housed most of the classrooms. The remainder of the "old building", as it was called, housed offices, the faculty breakroom and the nurse’s room. Towards the end of her freshman year, Danette had found a history of Cole Valley in the stacks that talked about the original Cole Valley High, the campus all constructed like the "old building" and funded by a local coal baron who believed in educating the children of his workers. The mine had run dry, the descendants of the coal baron had squandered his fortune and the school had become progressively more run-down until the fire that consumed most of the campus. The town had purchased the school, vowing to rebuild it, but without the revenues from the mine all they could provide was simple and uninspiring concrete boxes to house the needed rooms. Every year the school held a bake sale or other fundraising event to slap another Band-Aid on the growing list of repairs the "old building" needed and although nobody spoke of it in the school itself, Danette knew that every so often somebody on the school board had proposed demolishing the old building and replacing it with something "more modern and easier to maintain." She hoped it would never happen.
Hopes aside, one of the consequences of the continued existence of the library in the old building was that some shelves were taped off, not to be used because when it rained, books in those shelves would be ruined. In Danette's freshman year there were two such shelves. Now there were five. This meant that some of the books had to be stacked on higher levels in the remaining shelves which made Danette's current task, returning a trolley full of books to their proper places, a little more arduous than it might have otherwise been.
Classical literature in particular was shelved higher than most, so with a literature class approaching their first real test of the semester she was spending more time up a ladder than she would like.
Danette had never heard of OHSA, and they had never heard of the old rickety "library ladder" that hooked onto rails at the top of a row of shelves. If they had, that afternoon might have ended differently.
As it was, she was in the process of re-shelving a book of poetry when a startled exclamation was instantly followed by a sudden impact on the ladder. She had barely enough time to realize she was falling and yelp when a pair of arms snatched her out of the air and set her feet on the floor.
"I'm so sorry, miss. Are you OK?"
"What? How did you....?" Danette knew almost every equine boy in the school by sight. In the darkness of her bedroom she'd admit to herself that at some point she'd had a crush on most of them. Fortunately, she thought, she'd had the good sense to know they'd never be interested in her before she made a fool of herself trying to attract their attention. They'd never go for the gawky, awkward appaloosa girl that she saw herself as. Not with graceful Monica or curvy Bridget around, anyway. She'd never seen this boy before, though.
"I'm so sorry, I was hurrying because I'm late and I just didn't see the ladder. Are you hurt at all? Should I get the nurse?"
"I'm fine I think. Who are you? I've not seen you around before."
"Terry Marks. Transferred in at the start of this year. Other than the faculty, most folks call me Tom, though, because of my initials."
"Middle name Orville, like the aviator?"
"Nope. Oscar, like the poet."
"Oh! You know Wilde?"
"Not as well as I will by the end of the semester. Mrs. Callahan has just set us an assignment on him. I was reading through some of his work when I realized I'd spent longer here than I should and was hurrying to put the book back."
"We've a returns trolley by the front desk, you know - anything you leave there we'll make sure is properly re-shelved."
"My grandmother was a librarian, Miss....?"
"Clarke. Danette Clarke."
"Well, Miss Clarke, I have a certain respect for a library and prefer not to make work for a librarian if I can spare them it." He shook his head. "I'm afraid I've made more work for you than I saved. I think one of the hooks on that ladder has had it."
"I'll just grab the one from the next aisle over. The shop teacher fixes them for us when they need it."
"I don't mean to be rude but I really am late for something. Would you mind re-shelving this for me?"
She just nodded and he handed over a battered copy of Wilde's poems and epigrams before starting to hurry off.
"How did you manage to catch me like that?"
He looked over his shoulder for a brief moment, his mane falling across his face not quite fast enough to mask a twinkle in his eye.
"I've had a little practice catching ladies, Miss Clarke. Now I'm afraid you must excuse me... "
And just like that he was gone.
-----=====-----
When a librarian - even an apprentice librarian - puts her mind to discovering something, Danette thought, information flows. Terrence Oscar Marks, aka Tom, seemed perfectly ordinary. His schedule was heavy on bio and other sciences but he'd picked an elective in literature. In school he tended to hang with the jocks, mostly the gym-rats. What didn't make sense was his comment in the library about catching ladies. He didn't hang out with the guys who acted as throwers or catchers for the cheer team at all - although from the look of things in the lunchroom a couple of the cheerleaders wished he would. Danette wasn't a gossip, but she knew who was and could easily put herself where she could overhear the chatter in the girls’ locker room. A new boy in the school, and a good-looking one at that. There was bound to be at least some gossip.
Danette mentally filtered out the speculation on his "male dimensions" - he was a horse. All the non-equine girls focused on that first.
"He's got some muscles on him." that was Brandy, the cheer team captain. "Look natural though, not like he was building or juicing."
"That's for sure, Brandy." Sandra, newest member of the cheer squad. "He just works out hard. Saw him running a floor routine yesterday while we were practicing at the other end of the gym. No juicer could be that smooth."
"Oh he works out hard all right. So hard Coach Nichols practically laid out the red carpet to get him on the varsity squad - and he turned it down!"
"You're kidding me. A jock turns down a varsity squad place?"
"No shit. Got it straight from John. Just as well, though - if he'd agreed then Coach would have had to drop someone, and that would be either your man or mine."
"Hey, if Ian got dropped from the squad I'd have to console him and find some way for him to work off all the excess energy..."
"Yeah, like maybe plowing you like forty acres of corn."
"A girl can hope, can't she? Wonder what Tom does with his excess energy?"
"Nothing with anyone at school - he's outta here in the evenings like his mane was on fire, always lugging that gym bag even if he hasn't had a gym class that day."
The gossip tailed off as the two other girls headed for the showers. He probably has a girl somewhere else was the first thought in Danette's mind, rapidly followed by or a job, or a family member to take care of. Not every jock is a hormone-addled meathead, and he didn't talk like one. None of the others are signed up for a literature class.
-----=====-----
Terry wasn’t sure why he decided to pick that particular table for lunch but he was honest enough with himself to admit that the vacant seat next to the appaloosa girl he’d met in the library was a factor in the choice. Yeah, right. “Met” – as in “knocked off a ladder and nearly got her badly hurt.” She probably thinks you’re a typical meathead jock.
“Is this seat taken, Miss Clarke?”
Danette looked up in surprise. “No, not at all.” As the boy settled himself in to the seat she heard herself asking “So, how goes the study on Mr. Wilde?”
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “The paper is only rough-drafted but I’m drawing some parallels between Wilde and Byron, then highlighting the differences. Byron was the better poet but Wilde the sharper satirist.”
“You’re not like the others.”
“Not like the other what?”
“Athletes. You’re the only one signed up for a literature class.”
“I think you’re right, but how did you know?”
“The notes from the semesters scheduling meeting are in the library, if you know where to look.”
“Ah. And if I may be so forward, Miss Clarke, is there a reason you found it worth your time to look?”
“Well, you know how high school is. Gossip everywhere. New boy in school, particularly in the senior class, the girls gossip about him. I don’t take part but I can’t help hearing it. Half of the gossip is complete rubbish, of course. I was curious as to which half.”
“Anything juicy?”
“Well, some of the sophomores think you transferred in here from your previous school – wherever that was - because you got a girl in trouble and her dad was looking for you with a shotgun.”
He laughed. “That would be a no. There is a girl involved in the reason I transferred here but we’ve never been an item like that. It’s actually more to do with an older couple.”
“Your parents?”
“Nope. Anything else?”
“Brandy, the cheer captain, says you turned down an offer of a place on the varsity gym squad.”
“That one’s true enough. I don’t have the time to turn out reliably for the team so it wouldn’t be fair to sign up.”
“So are you working somewhere?”
“Yep. Trying to stash enough for college. It’s a really physically demanding job though, which is why I train so hard in the gym, to keep in shape.”
“That’s another piece of gossip. A couple of the senior girls think you might be working as a bouncer at Gabe’s, but I know that’s wrong. The cheer squad and half the other jocks here are regulars there and they’d have seen you.”
“You got that right. Never set foot in the place.”
“So, you’re not into the dance club scene?”
“Not at Gabe’s, for sure. A sweaty club with all the girls dancing around their handbags and the beer costing five times the price of the bar down the street isn’t my idea of fun.”
“So what do you do to feed your college fund?”
Danette noticed him giving her an appraising look.
“If you promise to keep it to yourself, I can show you. Not this evening though, tomorrow if you want.”
“Why so secretive?”
“You’ll understand when I show you – If I have your promise.”
Danette smiled. “Ok, you have it. Where and when?”
“I’ll meet you at the library after last period, Miss Clarke.”
“Mr. Man of Mystery, if you are trusting me with a secret you might at least be prepared to use my name.”
“Danette, then, now that you have invited me to use it. My grandma would have had me chewing on a bar of soap if I’d used a lady’s first name without her permission.”
“I’m flattered you think of me as a lady. So, do you prefer Terry or Tom?”
“Tom will do. It’s what all my friends call me.”
-----=====-----
Leaving the library the following evening, Terry led Danette to a bus-stop that ran uptown. From the exchange with the driver, Danette realized that Terry was a regular passenger on this route and the driver knew him. After about twenty minutes Terry led them off the bus in a part of town Danette was not familiar with. A few minute’s walking, and Terry was turning down an alleyway. At the end of the alley was a door. Terry fumbled for a key and then led Danette up a dimly lit stair to the first landing. He opened a door into a darkened room and then smiled at her.
“Last chance to back out. The answer to your question lies within.”
Danette stepped past him, her footsteps echoing in what was clearly a large space. “Show me.”
Terry flipped a switch by the door and the lights came on. The room was indeed quite large, with a wooden floor and one wall completely faced with mirrors.
“This is where I work, Danette. I’m a semi-pro dancer and teacher. I make money for my college fund teaching Ballroom and Latin dance and competing in professional contests. I have a key to the front door too but the secret would have been out the moment you saw me walking up to Ostrakov’s Dance Studio. Mikhail Ostrakov and his wife own the place, they are my dance coaches and I teach under their supervision.”
“Ostrakov, that’s a Russian name.”
“It is. Mikhail Ostrakov is a former instructor at the Kirov Ballet School. Natalia Ostrakova is a former Eastern European champion Ballroom and Latin dancer.”
“Why keep it secret, Tom?”
“At my last school, it got… ugly. The other kids decided that as a dancer I had to be gay and all the other jocks started in on me. I got suspended for fighting more than once, just for trying to defend myself. When Mikhail and Natalia moved here to take care of Natalia’s mother, they offered to continue as my coaches if I could come too, so I asked – and got – my grandma’s permission to move with them. I live on the top floor here, with them.”
“Why would it matter even if you were gay? I take it you’re not, but…”
“Smaller town than even Cole Valley. Redneck as hell, and I say that as an honest mountain boy. Attitudes from about two centuries ago. I know Cole Valley High isn’t like that, but I don’t want to take the risk. And no, I’m not. Heck, if I were I’d not be confessing my secret to a pretty girl now, would I?”
“You’re not doing that now. I’m not pretty.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately, Danette?”
Danette felt flustered and needed to find some way to cover it. She said the first thing that came into her head.
“Would you teach me?”
“If you want, sure.”
“Can we start right now?”
He looked at her for a moment.
“Ok. The first dance I always teach is the basic twostep. You can dance it to any tune in 4 time. Come up beside me here and look in the mirror. Watch my feet and try and do the same… I’m showing you the lady’s steps, for real I’d be facing you and mirroring them…”
Fifteen minutes later, Terry smiled at Danette.
“You’ve got the basic steps – that’s the bottom half. You up for trying it in hold now? With me partnering you rather than stepping alongside you?”
“I think so…”
“OK. Take my right hand. I’m going to hold it out here… Now, my left rests on your back here, and you lay your arm on the top of mine… stand up real straight, relax your shoulders, if you tense up they’ll be up somewhere around your ears and that doesn’t look good. Lean back a little from the waist, I’ve got you, you can’t fall…. Now we just do those basic steps without changing our upper body positions... here’s the count... 2, 3, 4…”
-----=====-----
My God Danette crawled out of her shower, still aching a little. I just spent three hours dancing with the hottest boy in the school! It was HARD work and I loved every minute of it! He said we could try it to music next time….
…and he said I was pretty…
