“Did you see the heads turn when we walked in?” I asked.
“I know why the heads turned.”
“Really, was it because I look so great in this frilly shirt and burgundy tux? I look like a frigging red-eyed waiter in a Las Vegas Denny’s.”
Mickie grinned.
“They turned because you look beautiful, Mickie, because you are beautiful. And Lark just did what every guy in that room wanted to do. I felt like I was escorting a movie star, and I’ll tell you something else—”
But I didn’t, because I didn’t get the chance. Mickie had leaped across the seat and pressed her lips against mine. Unlike Donna Ashby’s kiss, no tongue probed my mouth, just the warmth of Mickie’s lips. She pulled back and curled beside me. “I love you, Sam Hill,” she said.
And this time I got the chance to reply. “I love you, too, Michaela Kennedy,” I said, and she did not even protest that I’d used her real name.
12
As our senior year wound down, Ernie was mulling scholarship offers from all over the United States. I was debating between a few colleges, trying to determine what my parents could afford. I had received a $2,000 journalism scholarship for a feature article I’d written about Ernie, and the organization that gave me the award held a luncheon to honor me. My mother and I drove to Monterey and sat at a table with the president of the association, a man named Howard Rice. My father couldn’t attend because of work. Rice was a 1944 Stanford University graduate and prominent booster, and he seemed intrigued by what I had accomplished, probably because I’d done so despite my “condition.” At the luncheon, Rice was seated beside my mother and said, “I hope your son is considering Stanford.”
Stanford was $14,000 per year in tuition and room and board, more than I felt fair to ask of my parents even with my scholarship money and what I’d saved working at the store.
“He’s considering several different choices,” my mother said diplomatically.
“Sam,” Mr. Rice said, turning to me, “I want you to apply. I’ll have an application sent to you tomorrow, and I want you to put me down as a reference. I will write you a letter of recommendation.”
Mr. Rice was a man of his word. A week after the luncheon, an admissions packet arrived in the mail. I wasn’t going to fill it out, but my mother insisted, saying, “We don’t know God’s will, Samuel. Have faith. Besides, it would be rude to Mr. Rice not to fill it out. He went to the trouble to send it, after all.”
More to appease my mother, and because Mr. Rice had gone to the effort, I filled out the application. I prepared my essay the night before the application deadline, writing about my life with ocular albinism. I mailed off the packet the following morning and promptly dismissed it.
About that same time, I wrote an article on Ernie Cantwell’s college recruiting experience for the final issue of the school paper. The Times liked the article so much they ran it on the front page of the sports section. I was thrilled. As I sat reading my article in the journalism trailer, my editor from the Times called.
“You’re famous, Hill. The Associated Press picked up your article and ran it on their wire service. Your name is atop the article in hundreds of newspapers in dozens of cities.”
The following day, as Ernie toweled off after track practice and I waited in the locker room to drive him home, Coach Moran—who had become the athletic director, in addition to the varsity basketball coach—burst into the locker room looking like he might have a heart attack. “Cantwell! My office.”
“Okay, Coach, let me get dressed—”
“Now!”
“Coach, let me put on my—”
“Stanford is on the phone, Cantwell. Coach Christiansen wants to talk to you about playing football at Stanford University next fall. Or do you want me to tell him you’re too busy toweling off your ass?” As Ernie sprinted past him, tucking a towel around his waist, Coach Moran spied me. “You come, too, Hell.”