kitchen and seated himself at the table, Mark felt his father staring at him with silent disapprobation.
“Is that the way you dress for school on the first day?” Blake Tanner asked, his low voice edged with sarcasm.
Mark tried to ignore the tone. “Everybody wears jeans,” he countered, and shot a warning look at his nine-year-old sister, who was grinning wickedly at him, obviously hoping he was going to get into trouble.
“If everybody wears jeans,” Blake replied, leaning back in his chair, and folding his arms across the massive expanse of his chest in a gesture that invariably presaged his intention to demolish Mark’s arguments with cool logic, “then why did your mother spend nearly two hundred dollars to buy you new clothes?”
Mark shrugged, and concentrated on cutting the segments loose from the half grapefruit that sat on the table. He could feel his father’s eyes still on him. Even before Blake spoke, he knew what was coming next.
“Joe Melendez likes the guys on the team to look good,” Blake said, as if on cue. “He thinks the team should set a good example for everyone else.”
Mark took a deep breath and met his father’s eyes. “I’m not on the team,” he said.
“You might be after this afternoon,” Blake reminded him. “You’re a better place kicker than I was.”
“I was a better place kicker than you were,” Sharon Tanner interrupted, sliding her husband’s invariable stack of pancakes in front of him and wondering yet again why they never seemed to affect his athletic figure. “And Mark’s right—everybody wears jeans to school. I knew that perfectly well when I bought him those clothes.” She winked at her son, and Mark felt himself blush, embarrassed that his mother thought she had to defend him.
“It doesn’t matter how good you say I am, Dad. I’m not any good, and even if I were, it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m too small for the team.”
“Kickers don’t have to be big,” Blake began, but Mark shook his head.
“We don’t have kickers, Dad,” he said. “This isn’t a pro team—it’s only San Marcos High School. And Mr. Melendez is only going to take the big guys who can do a lot more than kick. Besides, I can’t be on the team and take pictures at the same time,” he added, the idea that had been forming in the back of his mind surfacing before he’d fully thought it out.
His father looked at him in confusion. “Take pictures?” he echoed. “What are you talking about?”
“For the school paper,” Mark said, his words coming faster now that he’d broached the idea. “I’m good with a camera—Mr. Hemmerling said I was better than almost anyone else last year. If I shoot the games for the paper, how can I be on the team? Anyway, isn’t it better if I’m at least on the field doing something instead of just sitting on the bench?”
Blake’s eyes narrowed darkly, but before he could say anything, Sharon spoke again. “Before you get into an argument, you might want to look at the clock.”
Seizing his opportunity, Mark finished off the grapefruit, gulped down his cup of cocoa, and scuttled out of the kitchen. Only when Kelly, too, had gone, her face falling when the fight she’d been looking forward to didn’t develop, did Blake turn his attention to his wife.
“We already decided,” he said. “He was going out for the team this year. We talked about it all summer.”
Sharon shook her head. “You talked about it all summer,” she corrected him. “You’ve been talking about it ever since he was born. But it isn’t going to happen, Blake.” Her voice turned gentle. “I know how much it meant to you, darling. But Mark isn’t you, and he never will be. Maybe if he hadn’t gotten sick …” She fell silent, her eyes clouding at the memory of the illness that had nearly killed her son and destroyed all Blake’s dreams that Mark would repeat his own glory on the football field. Then she took a deep breath, and finished the thought. “Maybe if he hadn’t gotten sick, things would have been different. But they might not have been. Mark just isn’t cut out for football. It’s not just his size—it’s his temperament, too. Can’t you see it?”
Blake Tanner’s face darkened as he lumbered to his feet. “I can see a lot, Sharon. I can see that I’ve got a son that’s a wimp and a misfit, who has a mother who lets him get away