Chapter 31: Do You Mall Here Often?

Rohit listened the heavy bass beat of "Staying Alive" as he walked into the Short Hills Mall. He knew without his cousin having said a word, that the two of them would would be dancing, flash mob dancing, for the rest of the afternoon. He further suspected that his mother had known this was Jairaj's plan hours before she suggested they leave for the afternoon.

Rohit shuffled through an excited crowd of girls wearing Irish step-dancing shoes -- all pointy toes and ribbons -- towards Mrs. Field's cookies. He bought two cookies and stacked them like an empty sandwich. Glaring at his cousin, he ate into both of them, hoping that Jairaj saw him NOT offer a cookie. Revenge is best served cold, and anger in small bites: Rohit began to cough loudly after inhaling a chocolate chip.

His eyes streaming with tears as he tried to clear his throat, Rohit sat on the edge of a fountain and stared glumly into the water streaming out of a clear globe. He looked at France, England, Thailand and wondered if there were flashmobs and difficult cousins in those places.

Yes, of course, he thought.

He stood and shuffled towards the crowd of dancers, nearly colliding with a girl whose long curly hair made her look like a Renaissance Madonna. The contrast with her Daisy Duke-style cutoffs, and two layered tank tops made her seem only prettier.  And then she looked at him.

"Rohit," she exclaimed, clutching his arm. "I didn't know you could dance." She turned to another girl who looked much like her. "This is Rohit, from my school.  Well, from middle school, I mean. Now he goes to Livingston Academy."

"Sophia," he said, grinning at her in spite of himself.  "Not much longer at Livingston Academy. I'm coming back to CHS in the fall."

She smiled, and Rohit felt as if the sun was shining on him, and on only him. 

"That's really good news," said Sophia. "So, do you dance? I didn't ever expect to you see at a dance mob."

"Sure, I dance," said Rohit. "And I'm not so bad at it." He looked around at the assembled dancers and then back at her.

She smiled and looked skeptical.

"No, really," said Rohit, moving slightly as two women in black started forming the group into lines. "I was raised on Bollywood and Indian weddings. Watch."

And Sophia watched as Rohit expertly spun on his heel and took the first steps of a practiced dance. She and her sister clapped as Jairaj, catching sight of his cousin, darted to Rohit's side and imitated him. Soon the two cousins were moving in unison, dancing to music only they could hear. 

Chapter 22: Cole and Bounce

Home from school that afternoon, Cole took milk and a sandwich to his room and closed the door. His cell phone and iPod remained downstairs, where their temptations were out of sight. Likewise, he yanked the cord that connected his computer to the virtual world, and started up a word-processing program. He lay on his bed to eat and contemplate the ceiling.

Cole reached under his bed for a book, a review copy he found on his father’s desk downstairs. Cole studied the yellow cover, and the red script that read “Bounce.”

He had picked up the book hoping for a racy read, but it wasn’t that: the book was written by Matthew Syed, medal-winning table tennis player who looked at the competition and realized that most of it came from the neighborhood where he grew up. Looking for an explanation, Syed concluded that much great success -- whether athletic or artistic -- resulted from opportunity meeting relentless practice. The author, read Cole, saw 10,000 hours of practice as a reasonable minimum for achieving success.

“No shit,” said Cole aloud, no stranger to long practice.

Cole learned years earlier that part of the secret of cool was focus, focus on one aspect of life at a time. He saw this in the athletes that his father profiled, boxers who worked on punch for a month, or a golfer who refined her swing for a season. The best athletes worked dispassionately, putting aside ego to focus on the task at hand. Then, once the swing was perfected, the same athlete would move onto the next technique. The very best strengthened one weakness at at time.

Likewise, Cole considered the skills for leadership success in high school, listing them aloud as he lay on his bed.

“Academics, social mobility, appearance, athletic prowess, knowing everybody’s name, doing good stuff like charity, and crazy self-confidence,” he said to the ceiling.

Sure, he saw other avenues to success, by way of writing, the arts, maybe running for an office. Those weren’t his skills, though, or his interests, so he put them aside, and focused on what he could do well.

What Cole also learned by observation was that without academic success, all other social gains in high school were like a castle built on quicksand; failure, especially public failure, could bring down the edifice. He did schoolwork and homework diligently, rarely complaining -- what was the point and who had the time? -- rarely passionate about the subject matter.

When Chemistry meant finding logarithms, he did so. He practiced a dozen at a time until he could effortlessly demonstrate in class. Spanish asked for the future subjunctive, so Cole did the exercises in the back of the workbook until he knew it cold, then tore the pages out. For part of his strategy was to keep such efforts under wraps.

Cole opened the book at random and read about David Beckham, now a supermodel as much as a soccer player, who spent days of his youth practicing the kick that made him famous. This made sense to Cole; how else could you convince the world watching that your achievements were effortless unless you worked hard and long hours? The trick to high school, thought Cole, was keeping those efforts a secret.

Daisy scratched on Cole’s bedroom door, so let her in and scratched her head. She licked the last sandwich crumbs from his hand.

“Here’s what I want to know,” he told the dog. “How did those guys know which thing to do? Which sport or whatever to pursue? Which is mine?”

The dog sniffed the floor, looking for more crumbs.

Cole turned to his computer and considered the list of assignments that he had posted. Calculus, check.
Spanish, not due for a week.
English, Act II of Hamlet, done.

What loomed was a History project, an architectural scavenger hunt, where the class had to find Ionic and Doric columns, Rosettes and even limestone artichokes in local buildings. The task included locating and photographing the elements, describing them fully, and connecting them to the ancient world. It was, as Cole told Daisy, “a shitload of work.”

But it had to be done, so Cole picked up the assignment sheet and walked downstairs. He took a digital camera from his father’s desk and headed to the end of Orange Heights Avenue, closely followed by Daisy.

“That shit-crazy house has all kinds of columns,” said Cole. “Let me get a couple of these checked off my list.”

Chapter 11: Love vs Sports. And the winner is...

Tuesdays, like this one, were slow mornings for Joe. He rose from bed after Cole was long gone to school, and made coffee in the kitchen. Joe put Cole’s cereal bowl in the sink and the milk in the refrigerator as he thought about his day. As a sportswriter, weekends were full of competitions and games. Later in the week, he had press conferences to attend – this Thursday he would learn which athletes were selected Prep B Conference First Team – and on Friday, he saw his weekly sports commentary piece into print. Joe knew that many of his younger colleagues at the Star-Ledger longer for seniority to relieve them of covering local sports, but Joe still attended high school games, and brought Cole along to scout the competition for Columbia High School. In writing, Joe described such meets, games and matches as “athletic contests.” He knew this was a formal term for sports writing, but he felt that it accurately described high school events, where luck and chance were as significant as any player on the team.

Joe had known snow in April that favored the underdog Piedmont High School track team, slow runners accustomed to rough terrain, and seen a powerhouse Seton Hall Prep quarterback derailed by the loss of a lucky sweatband. Like any serious sports fan, he appreciated the artistry of a well-executed play, but the athlete in him reveled in the joy of amateur sports, games played by kids who still knew how to play.

Still dressed in his robe, Joe walked to the living room and pulled back the curtains.

“What the hell is that?” he asked Daisy, who ran to the front door and barked at him.

“I’m guessing that you made your mess on the sunporch,” he said to the dog. “And that you’re looking for a meal.”

Joe patted the dog and looked out the window again. “What kind of project is that kid doing now?” he asked the dog, looking across the street at Rohit, now leaning on the side of the house staring into a wheelbarrow. He remembered science projects of past years and thought about the four rolls of toilet paper that Rohit had borrowed last night. Could this big pile of dirt and uneven rectangle be a school assignment? From what Joe could see, Rohit and another kid who looked just like him were spending a morning that most kids had school throwing yard equipment and dirt around the property. Now he watched as they began to measure the bare patch of earth.

“That’s stupid,” he heard Rohit shout.

“No, it’s metric,” replied the other boy, just as loudly.

“Metric is lame. No one uses it. How should I know how long a meter is?” Rohit threw a rake at the wheelbarrow.

Joe opened the door to reprimand Rohit or, more truthfully, to better listen to the conflict.

“Hey,” he called to Rohit across the street. “What’s all this?”


The boy looked embarrassed. “It’s a cricket pitch. Or it’s going to be.” After a long pause, he continued. “This is my cousin, Jairaj.” He turned to the other boy. “That’s Mr. Atkinson.

Jairaj nearly bounded across the street in his enthusiasm. “Call me Jay,” he said. “I understand that we have you to thank for the superior quality loo rolls that my aunt provided.”

Joe shook the boy’s hand. “Your cousin’s trying to brain himself with that hoe, it looks like,” he said, nodding in Rohit’s direction.

“He may prefer not to discuss lavatory issues,” said the boy in a whisper that carried across the street. “Do you play cricket?”

Joe nodded. “Let me get dressed and come over there to see what you’re doing.” He closed the door on Jay’s enthusiasm and walked up to his bedroom. He picked up yesterday’s jeans from the floor, pulled the belt from his straps and heard the thud of his Blackberry hit the carpeted floor.

When he picked it up, Joe turned it on to hear a series of noises, ping, ping, ping. He looked at the email log. You have a message from Match.com read a list of emails. He scrolled down further to see more of the same.

“Holy…” he said aloud, sitting on the edge of his bed in surprise. 172 messages. He clicked on the first, then another and another. He found messages from 172 women, women who collected Lucille Ball stamps and stock options; who played tennis and poker; who worked in finance and family farms. The emails were a virtual catalog of women, a collection of talent and beauty and, above all, thought Joe, words. He wondered how many words had been spilled in response to his advertisement, and he wished briefly that he had seen Cole’s final draft.

He heard the sound of raised voices again from the street. For an instant the pull of women competed with a sport. Joe pulled on his jeans and a t-shirt and switched off the Blackberry.

“Daisy, we’re going out, across the street,” he called, as he and the dog left the house, pulling the door closed behind them.