Power Play

Chapter 4-3

When Dante gets home, his mother is already

in the kitchen, warming up a pot of soup. Another late day at the

office—he didn’t even get to see her the day before, she came home

well after he was already in bed—but they need the money, that’s

why she works the way she does. At the da’s during the week, part

time at the mall on weekends, she rushes around the apartment in

the mornings when Dante wakes up and comes home most nights just as

the bus drops him off in front of the complex. No free time for

herself—Dante hopes the bastard who left her saddled with an infant

boy eighteen years ago has to work twice as hard as she does just

to make ends meet. He prays his own life isn’t so hectic down the

road.

It won’t be, he’ll make sure of that. He has

his skating, that dream will never die, it’ll take him out of this

tiny apartment complex, out of this small town, that’s one thing he

knows. And maybe somewhere along the way he’ll find a boy to keep

him company, someone to hold him nights and cheer him on in the

races, someone who understands his love of the ice and knows how

free the skates make him feel. Maybe he’s even already found that

boy, who knows? He doesn’t want to push it but in the back of his

mind he has an image of Ryan in the stands as he crosses the finish

line first for an Olympic medal.

Closing the door to the apartment behind

him, he kicks off his shoes and drapes his coat over the back of a

nearby chair. From the other room, his mother calls out, “Tay, is

that you?”

With a laugh, Dante leans over the counter

that divides the small living room from the kitchen. “You’re

expecting someone else?” he teases.

His mother gives him a tired smile. She

looks like him, same wavy dark hair, same dusky skin, but now her

hair is tied back from her face with a broken shoelace and her skin

has an ashy, worn out look in the bright lights above the stove.

Stirring the pot of soup as it comes to a boil, she asks, “You want

some of this? I can open another can.”

“I’m fine,” he tells her. He sees a

loaf of white sandwich bread on the counter and settles for a few

slices of that instead. “How was work?”

She sighs—that’s answer enough. As she

dishes out the soup, her voice is weary and thick. “I’m getting too

old for this crap.”

A heavy silence envelops them. Dante pulls

out one of the chairs at the bar and sits down, watching as she

sets her bowl down on the counter and blows on it to cool the soup

off. When she takes a tentative sip, he tells her, “I made the

quarterfinals. They’re on Saturday.”

“Congrats.” She’s not overly enthused,

but he doesn’t expect her to be—she thinks his skating is just

another distraction, she sees no reason to waste good money on

practice time and heats and finals. A good solid job, that’s what

she thinks he needs. All the money he’s spending on the ice, he

could save up to take courses at the community college—she’s told

him that before.

But he would like some support, would that

be too much to ask? He knows it’s just the way she is—if he were a

musician or a writer, she’d call such pursuits silly dreams as

well, gossamer webs spun to keep him from hard work. Many times

she’s mentioned the man who fathered him, said he thought

basketball would make him rich, and sure he had a great hook shot

but he was barely six feet tall and the game never got him anywhere

in life. “You see him on tv?” she asked. “No. Playing in the nba?

No. That was his problem, Tay, always thinking of his balls, on and

off the court. You’d do best to get a job and put an end to this

skating nonsense.”

But it’s not nonsense to him, it’s life, as

much as breathing and eating and sleeping. Even though he already

knows the answer, he crumbles the bread between his fingers and

asks, “Maybe you can come by and see me race? In the quarters—”

“I have to work, honey,” she says, in

a voice that tells him no without her having to say the word. “You

know that.”

Dante nods. “I know.” He lets his hair fall

in front of his face so she can’t see the disappointment in his

eyes. He should get to bed—Ryan’s going to call him in the morning.

He’ll be at the races on Saturday. At least there will be

someone in the crowd that Dante knows, someone more than just

another smitten fan calling his name as he speeds around the

track.

As if reading his thoughts, she asks, “Your

friends will be there, won’t they?”

His mother has no concept of his life beyond

this apartment. She uses the term friends as if he’s

popular, which he’s not. He could be, if he weren’t so

dedicated to his sport—he’s got the looks, he knows that, and he

likes to have a good time, he’s friendly, he meets people easily

enough. Look at Ryan, he thinks as an example. He just

walked right up to that boy and now he’s the only thing on Dante’s

mind. But he doesn’t know anyone really, just the few regular

customers he talks to at the shop, Bobby, the girls in the skate

club. Ryan now, and he’s the only one who Dante’s talked with on

the phone, the only one he’s wanted to talk with outside of

brief niceties. Carefully, he tells his mother, “I met a boy at the

rink. Yesterday. His name is Ryan.”

She takes another sip of her soup and

doesn’t answer right away. He thinks maybe she’s ignoring him or

she doesn’t want to know and he stands up, about to head into his

room for the night. “Ryan,” she echoes, startling him. Without

meeting his gaze, she asks, “He skates?”

“He did.” Eager to talk about him,

Dante sits back down on the edge of the stool and grins. Just

thinking about Ryan makes him giddy. “He plays hockey for the

college team but he got hurt before this season started, so he’s

off the ice until his legs heal up.”

His mother nods. “A college boy,” she says,

and Dante can tell from the tone of her voice that she’s impressed.

“Cute?”

That makes Dante’s grin widen. “I think so.

He’s making me a web site, so I can get sponsors and stuff.” He

thinks of Ryan’s reddish-blonde hair, the way it covers the tops of

his ears, the single hoop earring he wears, those freckles. “Yeah,

he’s cute.”

“He knows you’re…” She gives him a

pointed look—she doesn’t like to say the word gay. Dante

doesn’t think he’s ever heard her admit it out loud. When he told

her back in high school, he simply said he was into guys. “Like

that?” she asked, flipping her wrist in a stereotypical gesture

that he didn’t care for at all. But he nodded, yes, and that was

the end of the discussion.

Now Dante laughs. “He better know,”

he tells her. Then, because he’s still not sure if Ryan is on the

same wavelength as himself, he adds, “I hope he knows. I

mean, I just met him but I think he likes me. I hope he

does.”

His mother stands and turns away—this

conversation is over as far as she’s concerned. “Well, that’s good,

Tay,” she says, and Dante knows she won’t say anything else about

Ryan tonight. She’s never come out and said she doesn’t like him

with other guys, but it’s in the set of her jaw, the way she

doesn’t quite look at him when she says, “You should get to

bed.”

Dante slips down off the stool and walks

around the counter to kiss her cheek. Her skin feels like crushed

satin beneath his lips, old and worn and soft. A stray curl has

slipped free from her ponytail and Dante tucks it behind her ear.

“I’m going over his place tomorrow,” he says softly. “Bobby cut my

hours back the rest of this week.”

With a slight frown, she scrapes the soup

from her bowl into the sink and asks, “Why?”

He doesn’t like me seeing someone,

Dante should say. He’s jealous, and he doesn’t even have any

reason to be, because I’m not interested in him anyway. But

that would make her angry and he doesn’t want that, it’s late and

he’s not up for an argument right now. So he simply shrugs and

mumbles, “I don’t know.”

She looks at him sharply—she knows when he’s

not being fully honest with her, it’s almost an odd superpower of

hers, it’s eerie. But then she nods and asks, “Did you pay the

rent?”

“Yesterday.” She nods again and Dante

heads down the hall. “Night, Mama.”

He doesn’t turn on the light in his room,

just closes the door behind himself and pulls his shirt off over

his head as he stumbles to the bed. His sweatpants and underwear

come down in one fluid motion and are left in a heap on the floor,

the shirt discarded somewhere along the way. The sheets are cold on

his naked skin as he crawls between them and he imagines Ryan

staying the night, curling up behind him, warming him. He imagines

arms around him again, lips on his, whispers and giggles in the

dark. Closing his eyes, he pictures himself in Ryan’s bedroom

tomorrow, which looks suspiciously like his own—he’s on the edge of

the bed, Ryan beside him. He doesn’t know what he says but it makes

his friend lean close, closer, and the kiss is so sweet that Dante

replays the scene in his mind over and over again until he finally

falls asleep.