Beyond Lucky Read Free Page A

anything can happen.
    That doesn’t mean what happened next was premeditated. Mac would never take out another guy intentionally. He isn’t like that. The truth is, it was a freak accident.
    Or maybe it was fate.
    As I got out of the way, Mac charged the net. He slipped in the mud and took off. Really, he flew. Top speed. For a second, he looked like a human airplane.
    A missile.
    On target.
    Headfirst.
    I will never forget that sound.
    Like wood on fire or my uncle Leo’s old air gun.
    The impact of Mac’s head on Mischelotti’s leg sounded like shin guards snapping. An explosion.
    Crack!
    When I had the nerve to look up, Mac was heaving into the mud and Mischelotti was lying on his back. Everyone was crying.
    Mischelotti’s leg bone was sticking out of his leg.
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    The rest happened in slow motion.
    Coach fainted. Mac wouldn’t stop crying. I tried not to look at Mischelotti.
    This was nothing like my dream.
    In my dream, Coach stays upright. Mischelotti walks off the field. Coach tells the entire team, “Ari Fish will be our starter,” and he says it like he’s beyond happy, like I had always been part of his master plan.
    In reality, Mischelotti was in surgery for three and a half hours. When Coach called, he said, “It looks like Abel will miss the entire season.”
    He did not say, “Get ready to start.”
    He did not say, “You are the man.”
    He did not say, “I have confidence in you.”
    Instead, he sounded like his season was going to be one of missed opportunity—over before it began. He sounded like, if he had the chance, he’d take anyone over me.
    Even a girl.

THREE
    â€œYou can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his
way of eating jelly beans.”
    â€”Ronald Reagan
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    When I get home, a plate of cookies sits on the kitchen table. They are my favorite cookies—black and whites—with thick icing, half chocolate and half vanilla—and white cakey bottoms. They are arranged in a circle with one in the middle. They look a whole lot like a soccer ball.
    There is popcorn, too, and I bet a million dollars and a two-goal lead that there are glasses frosting in the freezer and a pot of homemade chicken soup in the fridge, the kind with lima beans, onions, and carrots, and little flecks of fresh parsley floating on the top.
    Dad is the chef and owner of Central Station Fish and Steaks, home of the forty-two-ounce sirloin. He has always been a firm believer in the healing effects of food.
    My favorite book, Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents, sits on the table. It is open to Gerald Ford, the only president not to be elected. His most controversial decision was granting a presidential pardon to Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal.
    â€œHey, champ.” Dad points to the plate of cookies and digs his thumbs into the muscles right below my neck. “Try one out. They’re from the new bakery. Fresh.”
    Only a fool would let a fresh cookie go to waste. I take a bite. White side first.
    He says, “We’re thinking of ordering them for the cookie table at the oneg.”
    The oneg is the reception immediately following my bar mitzvah. My big day. The day I become a man. It is kind of like a big Jewish birthday party, except in my case, I will already be thirteen. My birthday is in February. My bar mitzvah’s in May. This is because at Temple Emanu-El, the rabbi tells all the people with birthdays in winter to choose a date in spring. He says the travel is too iffy. For such an important occasion, God will understand.
    I take another bite.
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    I think the white side should be slightly more lemony, but the texture of the cookie is perfect. “Isn’t it a little early to start thinking about the lunch?” I have barely begun learning to chant Hebrew from the Torah.
    Dad digs into the popcorn bowl for the partially popped kernels at