The One & Only(7)
In high school, I grew tall, pretty, and slightly less tomboyish, getting something of my own life apart from Walker. Lucy led the charge for those four years, our priorities more in sync than they’d been in junior high. She was a cheerleader while I played soccer and ran track, but we hung with the same crowd, took the same classes, and both went a little boy crazy. The most popular girl in our class, Lucy had her pick of any guy from any clique, but she tended to reject those who were too impressed with her famous father, passing them off to me. For two years, we dated best friends, both baseball players named Scott, and the four of us became inseparable (until our joint breakup, when Lucy declared us Scott-free). Even amid all the boisterous normalcy of adolescence, though, I remained dedicated to the game of football, working as the sports editor of our paper. I covered our high school’s poorly coached and perpetually losing team, but also convinced our journalism teacher to let me write pieces on Walker—straight reporting of the games as well as lengthy features. I was the only high school reporter with press credentials and direct access to Coach Carr, peppering my pieces with insider nuggets on projected lineups or next year’s recruiting class. Lucy often tagged along on my assignments, even though the details bored her, explaining that it was the only real way to spend quality time with her dad.
When it came time to apply to college, there was never a question where I’d go, even when my grades slipped to a low B average. My parents pretended to be concerned, reminding me that Walker was practically Ivy League when it came to academic standards, but I knew that, short of a felony, it would only take one thirty-second phone call from our closest family friend to get me in. Fortunately, I didn’t have to resort to that, at least as far as I knew, my admissions essay about my passion for Walker football overshadowing my lackluster transcript. There was even a handwritten note on my acceptance letter that said: Go Broncos!
Then there was Lucy, who didn’t even apply to Walker, not even as a backstop. I was shocked at her decision to go to the University of Texas, our blood rival, and remember asking her how she could be so unsentimental. “I mean … you’re Coach Carr’s daughter!”
“It’s precisely because I’m Coach Carr’s daughter,” she tried to explain. “It’s like I don’t even have a say in the matter. You do.”
“Well, clearly you do, too,” I retorted. “You’re going to UT.”
“Oh, Lord. Get over it already,” she said, explaining for the fiftieth time that she’d picked her school because she wanted a break from our town. She said not everything revolved around football in Austin. She called it refreshing.
I told her I was over it, but I wasn’t really. Nor would I ever understand how she could have made such a traitorous choice—both to abandon me for four years and, more important, to align herself with our archenemy. Coach Carr was supportive, insisting that he wanted Lucy to live her life, but he also warned her that he better never hear the words Hook ’em, Horns from his daughter’s lips, or see her make that dreaded hand signal. And orange and white were banned colors in his zip code. Lucy said the rules were easy, but one day when we were both home from school for the weekend, she forgot to change out of a Texas T-shirt, a fairly harmless infraction but for the fact that we’d just lost to them the week before. I winced when I saw it, but it was her mother who made her change before her father came home. He had a thick skin—you couldn’t coach without one—but sometimes little things set him off. A stupid call on his radio show. (“Well, Jim from North County, maybe you should come down and call some plays next week?”) Or an insensitive question from the press. (“Am I disappointed? We lost on a fluke play and a phantom clip and our quarterback left the field on a damn stretcher. Nah, I’m not disappointed. I’m elated.”) And anytime he had to question someone’s loyalty. (“You’re either in or out. No fair-weather fans allowed.”)
In fact, if Lucy had any regrets on this terrible day—I thought, as her dad and I finally reached Myrtle Street, lined on both sides with cars—surely going to the University of Texas had to be it.
Once inside the Carrs’ three-story brick colonial, Coach headed straight for his office while I found Lucy in the kitchen, pushing potato salad across her plate. I knew she wasn’t going to eat—she hadn’t in days, losing pounds she couldn’t afford to lose, but it was progress at least to see a fork in her hand.
“How’re you doing?” I asked her as she stepped away from several ladies from her mother’s garden club who were busy arranging platters. There was more food than Coach could ever hope to eat, and I made a mental note to drop off a few casseroles at the homeless shelter where Mrs. Carr had volunteered.