Going for the Record Read online

  Text © 2004 Julie A. Swanson

  First edition 2004

  This edition 2021

  Published in the United States in 2021

  by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers,

  an imprint of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

  Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.eerdmans.com/youngreaders

  Manufactured in the United States

  29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

  ISBN 978-08028-5273-2

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition of this book as follows:

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Swanson, Julie A.

  Going for the record / written by Julie A. Swanson.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Leah’s chance to make the U.S. national soccer team does not seem so important when she learns that her father has cancer and may only have months to live.

  ISBN 978-0-8028-5268-8 (paper ; alk. Paper)

  [1. Cancer:Fiction. 2. Soccer:Fiction. 3. Fathers and daughters:Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S9717Go 2004

  [Fic]—dc22

  2003013031

  For my Pops, Ronald Jude Polakowski, and my mom, Carol, who was every bit as inspirational before, during, and after his death. And for my grandma Helen, who has always been our family’s Rock.

  —J.A.S

  CHAPTER 1

  Friday, June 20

  This must be what it feels like after you win a battle in war, or reach the summit of Mt. Everest, or give birth to a baby. The part in my hair is burnt. My feet are blistered. Everything in between is sore. I’m tired and I stink, but I’ve never felt better.

  Last year I could barely keep from crying in front of everybody, walking across this soccer field to the parking lot. I was one of the lowly who got cut and sent home. I skittered across this field fast as I could, head down. This year, I’m one of the lucky twenty who made the Region II U-18 ODP team, and I’m taking my time, limping my way slowly towards some shade.

  Gram says all those letters and numbers sound like Greek to her, and I always have to explain—the Region II U-18 ODP team is the Olympic Developmental Program’s team for the best soccer players in the Midwest region of the country under eighteen. I guess it is a mouthful.

  Walking across midfield, I stop. This is one of those scenes I want to preserve forever: ODP camp, summer before my senior year. I turn a slow three-sixty, soaking it in. Pony-tailed girls in their silky uniforms, red and blue jerseys, baggy white shorts. Six green velvet fields, crisply lined in white.

  I start walking again, towards the trees by the parking lot. I know it sounds stupid, but I feel kind of heroic in my limp. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a strut. All the girls nod as I pass. Even Bree Holland congratulates me. Imagine that. I’ve finally earned some respect down here.

  From now on when people see me walking down the street they won’t say, “There goes that girl … what’s her name?” They’ll say, “There goes that soccer player, Leah Weiczynkowski.” And, for once, they’ll know how to pronounce it: Wee-zin-kowski. Traverse City is a small town. If you get your name in the Record Eagle, most of the locals will have heard of you.

  I imagine the guys at the restaurant sitting at the bar, placing bets on which scholarship offer I’ll take—Notre Dame, North Carolina, Virginia …

  I can’t wait to go home. It’s been a great week, but I’ve had enough of Ann Arbor. Get me back to my lake. And my bed. I could sleep for days.

  Plopping down under a tree—oh, it’s good to get off my feet—I pry off my cleats and peel down my socks. My toes are pickled, their tips molded squarely together. I wiggle them unstuck and rip off my shin guards. Bruises spot my legs from the knees down. I don’t know why I even bother to wear them. All they give me is a bad tan.

  I’d be truly comfortable now if I could just take this shirt off. My IWBTBWSPITW shirt. I got it in seventh grade when we were on vacation in Florida. I had it made up at one of those T-shirt shops. I picked out a shirt in Traverse City Trojan gold and asked the sales woman to iron on the letters IWBTB-WSPITW across the chest, in black. I didn’t tell her what it meant and she didn’t ask. But Mom and Dad did. “What do those letters stand for, honey?” asked Mom.

  IWBTBWSPITW stands for I Will Be The Best Women’s Soccer Player In The World, but I wasn’t telling. “I don’t want to say,” I said.

  “Well, if you’re going to wear that shirt, you’d better expect people are going to ask what it means,” said Dad. “You’re going to get a lot of questions about it.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Guess I won’t be wearing it much, I remember thinking. It would have to be my secret shirt, something to wear under my jersey on cold days.

  Well, I ended up wearing it for every game. Five years in a row now.

  It’s pretty tattered. The gold has faded and the letters are peeling up. It’s been washed and dried so many times it fits like a cropped Lycra top. But that’s okay. It’s less noticeable under my jersey now. I wear it inside out under whites so the letters won’t show through. I’m not trying to make a statement to anyone with it, just to myself.

  I love this shirt.

  Come on, Dad. Come on.

  I watch the other girls greet their parents, and it strikes me funny how many different kinds of hugs I see.

  Lots of I’m-so-proud-of-you-anyway hugs.

  A dad’s giant bear hug that lifts the girl right off the ground.

  Maggie Burns—she made it to the final pool of twenty-five before she got cut—she just buries her face in her mom’s neck. That was me last year.

  Then there’s the mad, stiff, pulling away hug. This is so unfair. All politics. Get me out of here.

  Bree Holland’s dad slaps her on the rump like a football coach. This is old hat for them.

  I wonder what my dad will do. He’s going to be so excited.

  Come on, Dad. Come on.

  Everyone’s gone now. It’s just me under this tree and a couple of staff coaches sitting in a golf cart across the field. I think they’re waiting for me.

  This isn’t like Dad; he’s never late. I’ve been sitting here in this sweat-drenched shirt so long I’m actually getting cold.

  I’m just about to strip down to my sports bra and go sit in the sun—I could warm up and get rid of this farmer’s tan at the same time—when Coach Sobek from the University of Michigan comes buzzing up in a golf cart.

  “Leah? Do you have a ride?”

  “Yeah, my dad’s coming.” Dad’s my chauffeur. I got my driver’s license last year, but I don’t have my own car. He insists on driving me. He enjoys it. He tries out all the restaurants along the way, looking for ideas.

  Dad loves watching me play, too. I think he kind of lives through me. Mom says he was a good athlete in high school—he’s still a great golfer—but my brother and sister never amounted to much in sports, so he was glad when I came along to show what kind of genes he’d passed down.

  Sometimes I hear him bragging about me in his restaurant. “She’s the toughest little thing you’ve ever seen. And fast? She’s so fast they call her Weasel, the way she darts about.” It’s so embarrassing.

  Coach Sobek drives back to the other coach. They both look down at their watches and talk for a minute. I look towards the parking lot. Still empty.

  “Leah,” calls Coach Sobek, buzzing back over to me, “why don’t you climb in? I’ll give you a ride up to the dorms so you can call home and find out if your dad’s on his way.”

  “Oh, he’s coming. You don’t have to wait here with me.”

  “Yes, I do. We can’t leave you. Where’s your dad coming from?”

  “Home.
Traverse City.” It’s a five-hour drive.

  “Well, maybe he got stuck in traffic. I tell you what. We’ll wait here another ten minutes, and if he doesn’t show I’ll take you up to the dorms.”

  “Okay.”

  What can I say? I am starting to worry now.

  “You had a great week, Leah,” says Coach Sobek.

  “Thanks,” I say, blushing stupidly.

  “There were quite a few college coaches here today. Your phone’s going to be ringing off the hook.” He laughs like he’s beating them all to it. “What are you looking for in a school?”

  “I’m looking for one that has a strong soccer program … ” Gently as I can, I try to tell him, no, I’m not interested in U of M. It’s a great school, but everyone knows what a joke Coach Sobek is.

  But he’s persistent if nothing else. “We’re an up-and-coming team at U of M. Eleven and nine last year, first time in the program’s history we broke five hundred.”

  Right, with all those wins coming against a bunch of pansy non-conference teams. They lost every single game in the Big Ten.

  “And this year we’ve got all our starters coming back. But of course you could come in and play right away, Leah, and I’d have to bench one of them.” He lets loose a dirty laugh, and I’m glad I’m not one of those eleven starters.

  “We could really use a new midfielder,” he continues. “I know you play up front, but how would you feel about playing midfield? I think you’d be terrific there. Heck, you could play anywhere on the field.”

  He raises his eyebrows like, how about it?

  I look to the parking lot, hoping Dad is there to come to my rescue.

  I nod. It’s easier to go along with him than to tell him the truth. Part of me is enjoying his attention, anyway. He’s the first major college coach who’s ever talked to me like this.

  Coach Sobek takes a look at his watch. “So what do you say we take a ride up to the dorms? It’s been at least ten minutes.”

  I get up, already stiff, and gather my stuff into my bag.

  As I slide in the cart next to Coach Sobek, I take one last look over my shoulder for Dad.

  The jeep!

  “There he is!” I hop out of the cart and start running for Dad, a week’s worth of sweaty laundry thumping against my back.

  “Sorry I kept you waiting,” I yell back to Coach Sobek.

  “Pops!” I shout. He breaks into a tilt-headed grin. I can always make him smile.

  “Hey, Weez!” he says, opening the door for me. “How you doing, kiddo? Missed you.”

  “Pops, I did it! I made the regional team!”

  His eyebrows lift over his glasses and his whole face lights into a smile.

  “Well!” He reaches over and ruffles my hair. “That’s my Weez! I knew you would do it this time. Give me a special on it.”

  I lean over and give him a kiss. He slaps me on the thigh and squeezes my knee.

  “Colorado Springs, here I come!”

  He’s beaming, staring at me like the proudest papa ever. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was crying, the way his face is so red and his smile all tight-lipped. I can’t see through those dark glasses, though.

  Dad shakes his head like he can’t believe it. “So, they finally came to their senses. It’s about time. Just for that I’ll buy you lunch. Anything you want.”

  “I’m not hungry. I drank half the water cooler after our last match.”

  Dad shrugs. “Okay.” He puts the jeep in gear. “Not even an ice cream?”

  And then it occurs to me. “I’m sorry. You didn’t eat yet? That’s where I thought you were—gorging on some gourmet lunch and trying to squeeze the recipe out of the chef.”

  He doesn’t even smile. “No, no. That’s not what kept me.”

  “If you’re hungry, let’s stop somewhere,” I say.

  “No, I’m fine,” he says quietly.

  It isn’t like Dad to play the martyr. That’s Mom.

  We pull out of the parking lot, stiffened by an awkward silence. I don’t get it. This isn’t like him at all.

  We’re halfway across campus and neither one of us has said a thing.

  “Well, Pops, this is it,” I say, trying to sound cheerful. “The first step towards the Olympics! The Notre Dame coach was there watching, too.”

  Dad still doesn’t say anything. He’s hard to read sometimes, especially with those photo grays hiding his eyes.

  “Did you hear me? I said the Notre Dame coach was watching.”

  “No, I heard you, Weez.”

  “Aren’t you happy? You’ve been dying for me to go to Notre Dame.”

  Dad forces a weak smile. “Yeah, I’m real happy for you, Weez.”

  Happy for me? We’re in this together. All the trips we’ve taken. Driving through the night to get home. He’s done it all gladly, always as excited as I am about what might come of it.

  Dad doesn’t take his eyes off the road, not even at the stoplight.

  “What then, Pops?”

  “It’s just that I have some bad news. That’s why I’m late. I’ve been driving around thinking about how I’m going to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” Mom isn’t going to make me go to the family reunion and miss Colorado Springs, is she?

  “Leah.”

  He only uses my real name when he’s dead serious. Maybe the restaurant lost its liquor license—

  “I have cancer.”

  It knocks the wind out of me. From the inside out, a coldness seeps through my body, as if something at my very core has burst and is releasing itself, like one of those first-aid cool packs.

  I stare at him, open-mouthed; he won’t even look at me.

  “I haven’t been feeling too well, terrible stomach pains. So I went in for a checkup. And they found cancer.”

  He says it so matter-of-factly.

  “I didn’t know you weren’t feeling well.”

  “Remember the stomachache I had on the way down here?”

  “You said it was from the Big Macs we ate.”

  “It got worse, wouldn’t go away. It got so bad I couldn’t sleep that night. Your mom made me go see the doctor the next day.”

  “But you’re not going to die.” Surely he’s going to tell me no, that they caught it early and it’s a highly treatable form of cancer.

  “We all die, Weez.”

  “I know, but you’re not going to die on account of this. It’s not like the doctor gave you so many months to live or anything, right?”

  “Three.”

  “Three? Three what?” I ask, my skin prickling with goose bumps.

  “Three months to live. I have pancreatic cancer. There’s no cure. The doctor says it’s the fastest kind. It’s already spread to my liver.”

  My teeth start chattering, my knees knocking together, my elbows vibrating against my ribs.

  “Well, maybe the doctor’s wrong!” I blurt out. “You look fine. You don’t look sick at all. You’re too young. It’s not fair!” I can’t tell if I’m screaming or mouthing the words. My ears are ringing. And I’m cold, so cold.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dad pulls over. He hugs me for a long time. Rocks me back and forth.

  When I stop shaking I peel his arms off and put my head in his lap. I lay there, crying softly. Dad smoothes my hair back, over and over.

  We don’t say anything. Cars whiz by on the highway. A semi roars past, its wind shaking us.

  Finally I’m done. I get up and wipe my eyes and stare out my window. I don’t feel cold anymore, just numb.

  Dad starts up the jeep and gets back on the highway.

  “Come on,” he says quietly, offering me his hand, “let’s go for the record.”

  When I was little, I used to hold Dad’s hand all the time. Walking, driving, sitting next to him in church. When I got too old for it, he teased me about it. He’d keep putting his hand out and say, “Well, aren’t you going to hold my hand? What’s the matter? Think you’re too old? Co
me on.” And he’d grab for my hand. He still does that. He’ll try to be sneaky and reach over when I’m not looking, but I’ll catch him out the corner of my eye and pull my hand away.

  “Oh, come on,” he’ll say, “let’s go for the record. You like to break records. You broke the state scoring record, didn’t you? Let’s see if you can set a new one and hold my hand all the way home. You’ve never done that before.”

  “Cut it out, Dad,” I moan. “You’re not even funny. Just drive.”

  Going for the record. It’s a standing joke now. I can always count on his hand sliding across the seat at some point. I see it coming and shake my head. Once in a while, if I’m in a really great mood, I’ll slap him five and he’ll be satisfied with that and leave me alone for the rest of the ride.

  Seeing Dad’s hand palm up on the seat between us, I slip my mine into his. Today I’ll go for the record with him.

  It’s been a long silence, but not an empty one. Dad and I exchange looks, even smiles. We squeeze each other’s hands.

  “Can’t they operate and take it out?”

  Dad shakes his head.

  “No chemotherapy or radiation?”

  “No. The doctor says there are experimental things we could try, but nothing that’s got a very good track record.”

  “But you’re going to try the experimental stuff, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” My jaw drops. Dad buys a lottery ticket every day. He bets on golf, football, basketball, baseball, the Kentucky Derby. Why isn’t he willing to gamble now, when he has everything to gain and nothing to lose?

  “Why not?” I almost shout it at him.

  “Well,” Dad sighs, his grip tightening on the steering wheel, “before I’d jump into anything, I’d need to know what it would involve, where I’d have to go for treatments, what the side effects would be.”

  “Where you’d go? The side effects? Who cares? What could possibly be worse than dying?”

  “Weez, even if experimental treatments could buy me time, the doctor says we’d be talking weeks or months, not years. If I’ve only got a short time to live, I might as well enjoy it and be at home with you rather than lying in some hospital bed hooked up to a machine.”