Light beer in a bottle. The same kind at high school parties. The waitress brought it out with a glass, which he did not want. The sweating brown bottle made the table feel lopsided somehow.
For the first course, it was mostly her parents and Coach who conversed, where Coach’s international travels this summer intersected with their past vacations, with Mel interjecting every so often to correct something her father had remembered wrongly.
Mel wanted Coach to try the things she liked, and she’d pushed him to order the calamari, but he was perplexed when it arrived to the table not breaded and fried, but smoked on a plank with a squeeze of lemon juice and snips of fresh parsley.
“That’s a little too adventurous for me,” Coach said, leaning back from the table as the waiter set it down.
Mel caught her mother making an amused face.
“Speaking of adventurous,” her father said, “Mel’s been hiking just about every trail in this part of the state with a friend from school. He was going to join us tonight, but I believe something came up.”
Coach took a sip of his beer but it was pantomime. Mel knew the bottle was already empty. “Oh? Who?”
“Gordy Ackerman.”
Coach blanched. “Gordy Ackerman? With the glasses?”
“He’s just a friend,” she stressed. But inside, Mel swooned. It was Coach’s turn to feel jealous. Long overdue. The first ever time she could recall.
Over entrees, the conversation shifted to Truman, the intersection of Coach’s past and Mel’s future, and there was never a lull. Mel’s future, Coach’s past. Many of his anecdotes were ones Mel had already heard, but she remained engaged and attentive nevertheless. Because she detected something new in his framing, a wistfulness, as his experiences and accomplishments became things that Mel herself would also have a chance at. They were not equals by any stretch, but the distance that had always been stubbornly between them, and which had vastly widened this summer, felt like it was collapsing at warp speed. She boldly ordered herself a mimosa—which did confuse the waiter, and also the bartender, since Park & Orchard was only open for dinner—but after a permissive nod from her mother, they obliged her. Coach got himself another beer.
The rest of the meal went too quickly. Coach passed on ordering dessert, no surprise to Mel, but she convinced her mother to get the flourless chocolate cake. And then she urged her father to get a second cappuccino. When the waiter delivered it, they were the last diners in the restaurant. She didn’t want it to end because she wasn’t sure what sort of ending it would be. Coach had avoided any reference to his future plans.
As he stirred in some sugar, her father said, “I think this is going to be Mel’s best year yet. Now that her future is set, she can take her foot off the gas. Have some fun.”
“Contractually speaking,” her mother added, “she doesn’t even have to play field hockey this year.”
“I’m still going to play,” Mel said. And, thanks to her newfound confidence, she mustered up the nerve to casually add, “I just don’t know who for.”
Coach fiddled with his napkin.
Her mother, harking back to their earlier conversation, deftly nudged a little harder. “Mel mentioned you might be joining the Junior National Team permanently?”
Coach pressed both palms on the table. “I’ve decided to stay at West Essex, actually. Don’t get me wrong. It was a great opportunity. Just not the right one at the right time. I know this might sound silly, but I’ve always had it in my head that I’d stay through Mel’s senior season. She’ll be one of the first players that I’ve gotten to coach all four years. I want to see this through with her.”
Mel put her hands to her water glass, then pressed the cold to her cheeks, while her parents gushed over the wonderful news.
And then Coach pulled something out of his interior blazer pocket.
Mel gasped audibly. The waitstaff looked over expecting a proposal, only to give a quizzical look when they saw Coach passing her the captain’s C.
“The only reason I didn’t give it to you sooner is because I wasn’t sure if I was coming back.”
“Please! It’s fine. You don’t have to explain. I’m just so happy you chose me.”
He grinned. “It wouldn’t look right on any other Wildcat.”
Her mother excused herself to the ladies’ room.
Her father, to pay the bill.
And then it was just them.
Mel had the urge to say so much to him but she