8
WORLD RECORD FOR HAVING THE BEST SECRET
THANKFULLY, IT DIDN’T take too long to get to the Chinese restaurant. After we finished staring at the big orange-and-white fish swimming around in a giant tank in the waiting area, we found out Coach had our seats prearranged. He and Sunny sat on one side of the booth, and me, Lu and Patty sat on the other side. The weird red vinyl seats oinked as we all shuffled in.
“Okay, so you guys, pick anything you want on the menu,” Coach unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “Anything at all. We’re here to celebrate the newbies.”
I didn’t know how anybody else felt about picking anything on the menu, but I almost flipped out, I was so excited. I mean, I had been eating hospital food almost every day during the week for, I don’t even know how long. I guess, since my dad had been gone. So this was going to be heaven.
We all checked out our menus. Way more than what I usually see when me, Mom, King, and Aunt Sophie order in on the weekends. Me and Mom always get shrimp fried rice, Aunt Sophie gets crab sticks, which I always thought was a weird choice, and King nine times out of ten orders a cheeseburger with two egg rolls. And when the food comes, me and King always throw the fortune cookies at each other and try to whack them to pieces with the chopsticks.
“Is everyone ready to order?” A waitress had come over, pad in hand, to scribble whatever we said.
“I am,” Coach said.
“Me too,” Patty said, closing her menu.
I was ready too. Lu looked like he was still thinking about it, but we figured he’d be ready by the time the waitress got to him.
“I’ll have the shrimp lo mein,” Coach said. “With a Sprite.”
“Sesame chicken,” from Patty. “And to drink, do you have Cherry Coke?”
“Cherry Coke?” Lu bawked. “Who drinks Cherry Coke?”
“I do,” Patty said, holding her hand in front of his face to shut him up.
“Ummm.” The waitress thought about it. “I can put some cherry juice in a regular Coke. How about that?”
“Perfect,” Patty said, smiling.
Lu moved her hand away. “And for you?” The waitress was talking to him now.
“Oh, I’m not ready,” he said, picking up his menu again. “Go ’head, Ghost.”
“I’m gonna have the Peking duck, please. And a lemonade.”
“Peekin’ duck?” Lu, again.
“Not peeking,” Sunny said. “Pe-king. I’ll have that too, please.”
“And to drink?”
“Sparkling water, please.”
“Y’all are the fanciest newbies I ever met,” Coach said. He moved his silverware and chopsticks off his napkin, then put the napkin in his lap.
“Are you ready now?” the waitress asked Lu. Again.
“Yeah, you ready?” Patty repeated, way harder than the super soft-spoken waitress.
“There’s just so many options, but I think I’m just going to have shrimp fried rice,” Lu said.
“Shrimp fried rice?” from Coach.
“After all that, you order shrimp fried rice?” from Patty.
“Good choice,” from Sunny, nice-ing it up as usual.
The waitress disappeared with our menus. That’s when Coach started his boring speech about how proud he was to have us on the team, and how great the season was going to be. He said we all showed promise. Well, that was something I had never heard before. That I was showing promise. Then he started dishing dirt about some of other teammates. Not really dirt. Just funny stuff they’d never tell us. Like how Krystal Speed used to be Krystal “No Speed.” He said she used to run like her feet were made of cement. Now she’s better. He also said Mikey has always been kinda tough. Comes from a military family. Coach said his father makes him salute and everything. Aaron is the oldest of a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. So he’s always annoyed at everybody on the track team but can’t help but take care of everyone, which is why he’s the captain. Right when he was telling us about how Curron Outlaw was the king of the false start last year, our waitress returned to the table with our food. Yes! It was go time. And I was so ready. I had even made up in my mind that no matter how good the food was, I would save some for Ma. I mean, it wasn’t every day we ate duck. Matter fact, we never ate duck. So, yeah. I was definitely going to save her some.
We all put our napkins in our laps like Coach did. And as the lady set the plates in front of us, piled up with Chinese goodness, Coach quickly gathered all our forks and knives. He even snatched our chopsticks.
“Okay, newbies. Here’s the deal,” he said, clenching the utensils. “In order for you to get your silverware back so that you can enjoy this amazing food, you have to tell everybody one thing about yourself that most people don’t know. Something good.”
“Wait. What?” Patty said, looking longingly at her sesame chicken.
I stared at my duck, the smell of it doing all kinds of cartwheels and backflips in my nostrils. Oh, man.
“It’s tradition,” Coach explained. “So, who’s first?”
“Me!” Lu offered, staring at his fried rice like it wasn’t . . . fried rice. “I’m starving, so I’ll go first.”
Coach shifted one fork, one spoon, one knife, and one set of chopsticks in his right hand. The rest were in his left. He held Lu’s utensils up and smiled. “Let’s hear it.”
Lu looked off, as if his secret was on the other side of the restaurant. Or in the big fish tank.
“Well,” he started, giving us his attention again. “I’m albino.”
“Duh!” Patty groaned, slapping her hand on her forehead. “He said a secret, fool!”
I wanted to chime in and say that if he had told me that a few days earlier, it actually would’ve been a secret to me. But then I would’ve had to admit that I thought he might’ve been an alien, and that wasn’t exactly the secret I was wanting to share.
“Yeah, I already knew that,” Sunny said softly.
“So did I,” Coach said, putting the silverware in his right hand back in his left.
“Wait,” Lu said, clearly fearing that his meal would be held up. That fried rice must’ve been calling his name. “Okay, okay. For real this time.” He took a deep breath. “I always wanted a brother. But my mom can’t have no more kids. And the reason why I wish I had one is because then I could’ve seen what I would’ve looked like if I wasn’t . . . albino.”
Me, Patty, Sunny, and even Coach went dead quiet. Nobody said nothing. Like, whoa! Plus, I could relate to wanting a brother too. It would be nice to have somebody to hang with during the week. I had King on the weekends, but on the weekdays it was just me and Ma, so mainly just me, because she’s Ma, and Ma ain’t bro. Plus, I probably would’ve had less altercations because my brother could’ve talked me out of some of them. He probably would’ve talked me out of cutting my shoes up and stealing the silver bullets from the sports store too. So I was totally with Lu on this one.
Coach handed Lu his utensils and even slid the soy sauce over.
“Don’t wait for us, son,” Coach told him. “Dig in. You earned it.”
Lu went for it. As he shoveled rice into his trap, Sunny spoke up.
“So, I don’t have a mom,” Sunny said. “I mean, I do, but she’s gone. She passed away giving birth to me.”
Patty’s eyes instantly began to shine. I could feel mine wetting up too, but I didn’t want to cry. Not at our special newbie dinner. But I felt for Sunny. My mother isn’t always the happiest lady on earth, but that’s just because times have been tough. But I’d rather have tough times with her than no times at all. Sunny ain’t never even met his mom. Never even had her cooking, and all moms can cook (when they’re not too tired).
“That’s so sad,” Patty said, reaching across the table for Sunny’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nah, it’s okay. It’s the reason I run. Well, I didn’t really have a choice. My father made me. See, he did everything right. Got good grades, went to college, became a big-time businessman, and found the perfect wife. They had the big house, and the nice cars, but my mother wasn’t into any of that stuff. At least this is what my father says. He says that even though he gave her everything, she wanted to accomplish her own goals. And the biggest one was, she wanted to win a marathon.”
“That’s it? She wanted to run a marathon?” Lu asked with a full mouth.
“No. She ran a lot of them. She wanted to win one,” Sunny clarified. “And she was planning to rev up her training after the pregnancy. But she died. So my father made me run. He felt like I owed it to her. I hated it at first, but I didn’t have a choice. But now because I’ve been running for so long, I don’t even think about it anymore and kinda feel like I can somehow connect to her this way.”
“So your daddy used to run you?” I asked.
“Pretty much.”
“But was it to punish you?” I darted my eyes from Sunny to Coach, who sat listening closely.
Sunny’s face started to pale. “I guess.”
“But ain’t that child ab—”
“Ghost,” Patty cut me off, still holding Sunny’s hand.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I backed off. “I was just saying, you know there’s someone else at this table who might be guilty of doing the same thing. Running kids for punishment.” I gave Coach a dramatic glare and everybody laughed, lightening the mood.
“Hey.” Patty focused back on Sunny. She let go of his hand and readjusted herself in the booth. “I totally understand. I mean, I get it. Not the punishment part, but the part about your mom. My secret is sorta like that too.”
Sliding Sunny’s utensils over to him, Coach nodded but didn’t say nothing. He just listened and doled out the eating tools. He put another set in his right hand. Those were going to be Patty’s.
“Really?” Sunny said encouragingly.
“Yeah. I’m adopted, as all y’all already know,” Patty continued. “But I’m not like most adopted kids. Most don’t know their folks. But I know my mom.”
“You do?” Lu asked, with a mouth full of rice this time. He looked so surprised, like he should’ve known this about Patty since they had been friends for so many years.
“Yep. Me and my little sister, Maddy, go see her all the time,” Patty said. “She’s cool.”
“So why she give you up then?” Lu said stupidly.
“Lu!” Coach snapped. Lu stopped chewing. Coach pointed at me and Lu—why was he pointing at me!—and said, “Thing One and Thing Two, what y’all do before I picked y’all up? Study the world’s most inappropriate questions?”
“No, it’s okay, Coach,” Patty said. “It’s actually a good question.” She rested her hands on the table. “She actually gave us up because she doesn’t have legs. They had to get cut off because she got the sugar.” Patty paused to make sure we knew what she meant by the sugar. I guess our faces made it clear that we didn’t, because she continued, “Diabetes.”
“But who takes care of her?” I asked.
“She takes care of herself, mainly. But she couldn’t take care of us, y’know,” Patty explained, now fingering the corners of her eyes.
“So you run . . . for her,” Sunny said, now understanding how Patty could somehow relate to his story.
“Yeah.” Patty swallowed. “I run for her.”
Coach handed Patty her silverware. “That leaves you, Ghost,” he said. And let me tell you, I still wasn’t sure what my secret was going to be, but I definitely knew I had to think of it quick, because my duck was getting cold, and cold duck didn’t sound too good. At first I was going to tell them about the shoes. That I stole them. But then I figured Coach would not be okay with that, and even though he said we were telling secrets that we all were going to keep, I had learned a long time ago that adults play by different rules. So that was out. But I only had one other real secret. And I didn’t know if it was okay to tell, especially over Chinese food. But I couldn’t make up a good lie, despite the good job I had been doing lying over the past few days. I just didn’t want them to look at me different or give anybody anything to pick on me about. I mean, I technically was still getting to know them, but I didn’t know them know them yet. I didn’t know know anybody besides my family. I never even told Red and Dre stuff like this. Matter fact, I hadn’t even mentioned to them that I was on a track team, just because I didn’t wanna have to go through the whole, You? You on a track team?
But then I looked around the table. Everybody had told such personal stories about their families, so maybe my family story wouldn’t be so bad after all. Plus, um, my duck . . . it was getting cold. So . . .
“My dad’s in jail for trying to shoot me and my mother,” I blurted. And before anyone could say anything, I held my hand out for my utensils.
Lu dropped his fork.
Patty dropped her knife.
Sunny stopped drinking.
Coach’s mouth hung open as he pressed everything into my hand.
And I felt . . . good. Different. Like, even though they were all stunned by what I said, I felt like they could see me. Like we were all running the same race at the same speed. But I was also feeling pretty hungry.
“Thanks,” I said, taking my fork and stabbing the duck with it. I twisted meat off the bone and stuffed it in my mouth like nothing was wrong. Like I hadn’t just dropped the atomic bomb of secrets. But I didn’t really want to make a big deal of it. I just wanted to say it and eat.
“So what about you, Coach?” I asked through my chewing of the best food I had ever had. Ever. Duck. Who knew? Charlotte Lee could collect all the rubber ones she wanted. I was gonna set the record for eating the most real ones. I mean, it’s basically like the world’s greatest chicken or something.
Everybody else had started back digging in their plates, even though now things were definitely a little awkward. Just a little.
“Uh, what about me?” Coach replied at last.
“Well, what’s your secret?” I asked, pointing the fork at him.
“No, no, no, this is about y’all. Not me.”
“Come on, Coach,” said Patty. “Don’t be like that.”
“Yeah, I thought coaches were supposed to set an example,” said Lu.
“Watch it,” Coach snipped, but jokingly.
“No offense, Coach,” Sunny said. “But Lu’s right.”
“And Lu’s never right!” Patty teased, reaching over and snatching Coach’s chopsticks and fork.
Coach shook his head. “I can’t believe this. You dirty little rats. But I like the fact that y’all are ganging up on me. That means my plan is working.” He put his hands together like an evil villain. “You’re bonding.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Patty scoffed. “Just get to the secret, or kiss your noodles good-bye.”
Coach sniggered. “Okay, okay,” he started. “Well, it’s true, Lu. I did run in the Olympics. And I won a gold medal.” Coach looked pointedly at each of us, one by one. “Okay? So, there,” he said, snatching his fork and chopsticks back from Patty.
And the conversation for the rest of the night was pretty much all about the Olympics. Coach didn’t really say too much more about it. It was mainly just us talking about what it must’ve been like and all that. But I was glad that we were off my secret—it was like I had never even said anything about what happened with my dad, even though I did. I did. And it seemed like everybody at the table cared and didn’t care at the same time. And that made me feel, for the first time, like I was one of them. They even asked me if I needed to borrow some practice gear, which I thought was nice, but I told them I was cool. That my mother was going to get me some soon, even though I hadn’t even asked for none yet. Plus, I kinda wanted my first jersey and shorts to be the ones I ran my first race in. Which, I hadn’t really even thought about until just then. But I appreciated them offering to look out for me. Not many people do that. I could add them to the list of my mother, Mr. Charles, and, well, Coach. And it felt good to feel like one of the teammates. Like I was there—really, really there—as me, but without as much scream inside.