Even If You Get into Oxford
Meanwhile, in Leona Harris's office—
"Number one on the bestseller list?"
"Yes. It's held the top spot for three days now. The first printing is nearly gone, and requests for further reprints keep coming in."
Reprints. Print more copies and she would have to prepare just as many gifts to go with them. They had scraped together fifty thousand, somehow, but beyond that even she would be in difficulty.
"It isn't as though we'll only be selling them this week, is it? Tell them to wait for the next issue."
"I'll pass that along."
"And the coverage?"
"I was told it will run as today's lead story. They've confirmed it more than once, so it will certainly air."
"You've done well."
She ended the call and picked up the television remote. A commercial was playing. How much money, all told, had gone into indulging her son's whim? Start adding it up and her head reeled—and yet the thought of Carl walking about with his shoulders squared was no small comfort.
It did cost a pretty penny. But it became a bestseller, just as the boy said it would. Well then. That was enough.
She was adrift in thoughts of that sort when the news she had been waiting for finally came on.
The picture cut at once to the sold-out lines.
The report did not stop there.
The edit was so smooth it showed Carl's store down to the last corner. Well, she had stuffed the network quite generously, under the heading of advertising fees. From the color of the picture to the tone of the report, there was not a single thing to fault.
Yes. Take the money, and this is the least you can do.
Leona, thoroughly pleased, was just about to switch the set off.
What?
Why, of all things, was this on? And if they had to air it, why tack it directly onto her son's story? Cut together like that, Carl's success looked strictly domestic, and Queensman looked worldwide.
She snatched up the receiver at once.
"Get me the news director."
A moment later, a familiar voice came through.
"Yes, Chairman. Did you see the broadcast?"
"I saw it. I saw it very well."
"Ah... was it not to your liking?"
"If the money was too little, you might have said it was too little. Why lodge the complaint through the broadcast?"
"Too little? No, no. In recent memory it's nearly the highest sum we've taken in advertising fees..."
"And this is the treatment I get?"
"Er... which part, exactly, is the trouble..."
"Queensman! Why did you run it piggyback on my son's story? That's what I'm asking!"
"Ah. That. But Chairman, the two stories were so alike that it was difficult to pull one out and run it on its own."
"And even if people do compare him with Queensman, Carl Bernstein is still young, isn't he? There isn't a soul who would belittle the young man's achievement..."
Bang! Leona slammed the receiver down as if she meant to drive it through the desk, and the line went dead.
Because Carl was young, it was fine? Was that his point?
"Damn it."
She could not master the fury. The shout tore out of her loud enough to ring through the office.
Thanks to Lukashi, I was living through some exhausting days.
"Isn't that him?"
"Queensman?"
"Yeah. The one from the cover."
Walk down a street and people knew me more often than I liked. East Asians were hardly common here, so I stood out to begin with. Not that I could solve it by burying myself at the training ground and nowhere else.
"Ji-hoon Park!"
A few fans—if I could even call them that—had sprung up, which was why.
"You've got this!!!"
It was embarrassing, for no good reason at all.
I'm hardly some celebrity...
Not that a mood like this was likely to last many days. I scratched at my head.
Even so, it feels far too strange.
And so, with the weekend upon me, I decided to take the training on the road.
The destination was a private rugby ground, run by one man on his own. Out in the middle of the pitch Lukashi had a camera raised and was hammering the shutter at a single figure.
"One more, just one more. Good. Once more. Excellent. One last frame."
Lukashi's voice was more fervent than usual. I had handpicked a cover model for the first time, and he clearly meant to drag the best possible result out of the shoot.
"Don't mind the camera. Pretend you're on the Cambridge pitch. Easy. That's good. Beautiful! One more, the last one!"
The session had the air of something nearly finished. About ten minutes later—
"Okay, that's a wrap. Thank you for your work!"
As Lukashi lifted his voice, I stepped out of the car.
Tall, and handsome with it. The shoot done, Steve pulled on the coat he had set aside. Then, abruptly, he turned this way—and stopped dead. He seemed to find the car I had come in before he found me.
"...A Bugatti?"
Only then did his eyes move to me.
"Whoa. What brings you here?"
"I heard you were here, so I came running."
"And how did you know that?"
How did I know. I had told Lukashi to book him... ahem. After the piece on the training with Cambridge ran, interest in Steve had been exploding. There was nothing in the least strange about Steve gracing a cover.
"So you came to see me?"
"Yes."
The pleasure of it was brief. Steve looked from me to the Bugatti and back again. A car he had never seen was sitting there, and the only person who had come onto the ground was me. Which meant—
"Don't tell me... you drove that here?"
"You mentioned one before. I got to wondering whether it might be mine."
In that instant his Adam's apple plunged in a hard swallow.
"Your... car?"
I nodded.
"Not your dad's?"
I nodded again.
For a while Steve simply went blank. How long he stayed like that, I couldn't say, before he fumbled his mouth open.
"I—I did see the story that ran in the magazine... That you'd found a da Vinci."
He had more or less gathered that there was money. The look on his face, though, said he had never once imagined I would own a classic Bugatti of that price.
"S-still. Is it really all right to just drive that around?"
I didn't see the problem.
"A car like that belongs in an automobile museum. Taking it out on the road..."
"They built it to be driven. So."
Perhaps my tone was simply too matter-of-fact. Steve swallowed dry again.
"Do you... have other cars besides that one?"
"Of course."
"If it isn't rude, may I ask?"
"My memory's a little fuzzy..."
How many cars did a person have to own before the memory went fuzzy? That was precisely the look on Steve's face.
"Ah, it isn't so much that there are a lot. The names are all difficult, you know."
Even so, I told him what I could remember.
"Well, there's a 1948 Porsche 356, and..."
"Ghk—!"
He really shouldn't have been shocked already.
"And a 1931 Alfa Romeo 8C..."
"Gaaahk—!"
"There are a few more, but I don't really know them. Nothing that impressive, I'm sure."
If this was how he reacted to me, one visit to Chairman Dazai's house and he might actually stop breathing.
Anyway.
"Would you like to try it?"
"Hm?"
"The Bugatti."
He only stared.
"It's your dream car. Go on. Drive it once."
At the unexpected offer, his face became a portrait of the world's deepest deliberation. The question he finally managed to get out was this:
"This... is it insured?"
"At this level, insurance stops meaning anything."
"Then on the day there's an accident?"
"Don't worry. I can have it repaired with my own money."
"Nnngh."
The insurance must have haunted him the whole way. He drove for about five minutes, and very slowly at that, then hurried back. He cut the engine and laughed, awkward.
"Look it over for a scratch. I'll have to sell my car."
Telling him it was fine did nothing.
"But... you came to see me?"
I nodded.
"Why? To show me the car?"
"Not exactly."
I am not built for talking in circles.
"I wanted to learn how to kick."
"Kicking?"
"I want to take down the most insufferable player of them all. I have a feeling I'll need something in my feet to do it."
That alone would have been enough. Today, though, the Bugatti had sent his fondness climbing—up, up, up. And since the cover shoot had him already in his rugby kit, Steve began the lesson on the spot.
"The ball's a little different, that's all. The principle of the kick is basically the same as football."
He dropped the ball. It popped up, a small bounce.
"Watch."
Before it had even fallen he struck it, clean and sweet. The ball tore the air with a ripping shriek. I scratched my head. Wasn't this the sort of thing you had to be born able to do?
As if he had read the thought, he said, "There's a measure of talent in it. Not everyone can strike it like that. Absolutely not. But."
He bounced the ball small again. This time he took the force out of it and only laid his instep on the leather. The ball was slower, nothing more—and still it flew the exact same path, a long low whoosh.
"It's true you need an ankle you were born with if you want real power. But accuracy? Work at it, and you can build as much as you like."
"Ah."
"Your turn."
He bounced one up for me. I watched the ball as late as I possibly could, then drove my instep through it with everything I had. A great ripping sound burst out of the air.
Steve turned to look at me.
"You were born with quite a lot, weren't you?"
According to Steve's diagnosis, a considerable blessing resided in my ankle. The problem was this: born with the strength, and short on the technique.
"How long has it been since you started rugby?"
"I tried it for the first time after I enrolled."
"Then of course your technique's behind."
Hmm. If he put it that way... even when I played football, I'd never had any particular gift for kicking... ahem.
Anyway. Steve handed down a solution suited to me.
"Even a rough kick from you is going to fly, all right? So you don't need to hit it hard. Kick with nothing in your head except sending it exactly where it ought to go."
Right there, I had to drive more than five hundred kicks in a row.
"There's something a lot of people get wrong. What matters more than the kicking foot is the plant foot. Where you set it down, the kick changes completely."
Another five hundred, all my attention on the plant foot. Even when my instep began to throb, Steve told me to keep kicking—that it would be fine if I did. A rather fiery prescription.
The accuracy work had more or less come to an end when he asked:
"You all right?"
"...Yes."
"Go ice it and sleep. If you don't, you won't be walking tomorrow."
A minute ago he was very sure that if I kept kicking, I'd be fine...
In truth that was only a grumble with a joke folded in. Inside, I could not begin to measure how grateful I was.
And why shouldn't I be? A younger boy he was seeing for only the second time, asking to be taught rugby—and far from finding it a bother, he had taught me for hours. How could that be anything but something to be thankful for?
Should I pay him double the modeling fee?
I was drawing up plans for a little financial therapy when Steve came over.
"Repeat only what you learned today, and you'll be able to strike it in just about any situation."
I was on the point of thanking him.
"But if that insufferable one sticks a tackle on you."
I waited.
"You won't even get a single proper kick away."
At a glance he looked like a man who wanted to hand over know-how of the highest order, and yet something was caught on the way out. Sure enough, he fixed me with a serious eye.
"It might look trivial to other people. To me, it's a rather important problem."
"What is it?"
"If you get into Oxford—can you promise me you'll truly never play rugby?"
What was he on about now...