Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) (20 page)

“And pay that person out of what funding source? Everyone in this community seems to think the school is made of money. We aren’t.”

“But…”

“The long and short of it is, there is no woman currently employed at the high school, who understands women’s basketball, and whom I would feel comfortable asking, on a purely volunteer basis, to coach this team.”

“I’ll coach them,” said Nina.

All eyes turned to her.

All of them asked:

“What?”

“I’ll coach them.”

April van Osdale leaned forward:

“You’re the principal! You don’t have time to do this!”

“Yes, I do.”

“But Nina—you don’t know anything about basketball.”

“I was an all district point guard for the Bay St Lucy Mariners my last three years in high school.”

Silence for a time.

Finally, April rose, saying:

“Well. Let me think about it.”

“That’s all I ask,” said Nina.

“All right then. I’m sorry for the events of this day. I wish none of it had happened.”

And so saying, she left the room.

“Nina,” said Jackson. “You never played basketball a day in your life.”

Nina nodded, then replied:

“No. But April van Osdale doesn’t know that.”

Then someone smiled.

It might have been Nina.

CHAPTER 13: THE PLAY BOOK

The following day winter returned to Bay St. Lucy.

The balmy breezes and improbable January picnics on the beach were replaced by north winds, scudding clouds, and pelicans that sat shivering on pier posts, their gray feathers ruffling and their implacable eyes staring toward the sea.

Things at school had gotten somewhat better.

At least no more state patrolmen showed up.

Classes resumed.

A substitute was found to teach Health and Wellness.

The parents who visited the school, faces flushed, fists pumping, and obscene comments either muffled or not muffled, were divided into those who hated April van Osdale for labeling their children as retarded and those who hated her for firing a winning basketball coach.

Just things as usual, things as usual.

At three PM, Nina—having left school a bit early––found herself in the living room of Meg Brennan and Jennifer Warren, a cup of steamy hot chocolate in front of her, a picture window rattling in the north wind at her elbow.

“This is not that bad,” Jennifer was saying. “We’re going to deal with it.”

The newlywed couple had for several years rented an old frame house only blocks from the city center, and, consequently, Jenny’s Art Treasures. Rental property was easily found in Bay St. Lucy, most of the older houses being owned by shop owners, who liked the ability to walk or bicycle to work. Nina had walked through the area on several occasions, always remembering the neighborhood, a mile or so distant, where she and Frank had spent so many years. She always found herself wandering wistfully from block to block, gazing at flower boxes on the dormer windows and remembering a former life.

“The shop is not doing that badly. We have some savings.”

Jennifer was tall and slender. Her page boy haircut glistened black in the yellow light cast by an overhead ceiling light.

She wore a sweater and jeans, and thus was dressed exactly as her spouse was dressed, except her gray sweater bore an image of Bob Dylan, and the sweatshirt of Meg Brennan bore an image of Goofy.

A small fire crackled and sputtered blue-orange in the fireplace.

Tiny marshmallows floated in the chocolate, resembling mini-icebergs adrift in a kelp-brown sea.

“I’m sorry I overreacted yesterday, Nina,” Meg was saying between slurps. “It was all just so unexpected.”

“You can’t let that bother you. Anyone would have been thrown off balance.”

There was a movement from a glassed-in front porch. Nina turned and saw a white form lumbering toward them, its tongue, like an obscenely red garden hose, hanging halfway to the ground and spraying saliva as though it were an extremely slow flying crop dusting plane with short, white fur.

The animal looked occasionally from side to side but kept its attention riveted for the most part on Nina’s knee, until that bodily part was directly beneath It and needed slobbering on.

She put her hand upon the dog’s broad back, the effect being something like a small Cessna landing on an aircraft carrier.

“Borg,” said Jennifer. “Don’t bother Nina.”

Borg remained implacable, lying at Nina’s feet with as much restlessness and potential movement as The Spitsbergen Ice Glacier.

Borg wasn’t going anywhere.

“Oh, he’s all right,” said Nina, quietly, sipping her hot chocolate and waiting while warm moist dog-drool soaked its way through her skirt and turned cold, which she knew it would, upon contacting her skin.

“He’s a good dog.”

A big dog
, she found herself thinking.

An exceptionally big dog to be an indoor dog.

But a good dog
.

He owned her now, had taken possession of her, and would not let her move a step without planting his toad frog-sized front paw upon her brown leather pump.

“Yes, Borg’s a good dog.”

Pat pat pat along the back white fur.

Ecstasy, thought Borg, his eyes now tightly closed, his heart chugging along at perhaps two beats per half hour.

“I can’t believe,” Meg said, “that she wanted to close down the team.”

“It was that close, Meg.”

“All that work…”

“Well, it didn’t happen. That’s the main thing.”

“You saved us.”

“I was desperate.”

“And you really don’t know anything about basketball, Nina?”

“I like it.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“And I know…”

She paused.

The fire continued to crackle.

The wind continued to howl, rattling the window.

Borg continued to exist.

“…well, that’s all I know. I like it.”

“Okay. That’s something. You’ll be meeting the team for practice today?”

“I guess so. Three thirty, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. I’ve got a copy of the playbook I need to give you.”

“It probably won’t make much sense to me, Meg.”

“Still, I want you to have it. It’s got clear diagrams as well as a step-by-step narrative describing the various formations and plays. I’ve also got a practice schedule. First, we do laps, then bleachers, then layups, then free throw drills, then dribbling practice, then five on five, and finally wind sprints.”

“Okay, that’s clear.”

The two women sitting across from her smiled.

“The players,” Meg said, quietly, “should know this stuff by now. They won’t expect too much from you. Just be a calm presence.”

“That’s me all over.”

They sat for a time.

Finally, Jennifer asked:

“Nina, why did this woman fire Meg?”

“Because Meg’s gay.”

Nina was surprised at the forthrightness of her statement.

But there it was.

“If it had been any other coach, there would have been a reprimand.”

“So all of this story van Osdale told you about various disciplinary committees…”

“Bullshit.”

Jennifer and Meg looked at each other over the coffee table and smiled.

“You know that for sure?” asked Meg.

“No. I just like saying ‘bullshit.’ It relieves me.”

“Well,” said Jennifer, “if that’s the way of things, then it seems we’re all being covered by tons and tons of pure relief.”

They all laughed at this.

“What?” asked Borg, looking up.

They did not answer him.

By the time Nina had Vespa’ed back to the gym, the players had already changed into their practice jerseys and were doing shoot arounds on the south court. There was the pum-pum-pummeling of dribbled basketballs, the odor that is only found in gymnasiums and locker rooms and that cannot be described (it being the only smell of its kind in the world and thus comparable to nothing), the quiet banter of athletes going about their business, the rattle/whirr of huge ceiling fans in the high, vaguely transparent ceiling above, and the grim-visaged back and forth of one custodian and two male student helpers polishing the gym floor with six foot wide mops.

She stood in the gym door, watching.

She felt like she needed a ticket.

Where were the guys from the Rotary Club?

Why wasn’t it all light and bright and festive and aroma-filled and party-down?

Where was all that, huh?

Nowhere to be found, of course.

Because this was the nuts and bolts of sports. Gray dust floating in the soft-filtered light of a weekday afternoon. Empty stands. A jump shot from the corner; a jump shot from the free throw line; dribble with the left hand dribble with the left hand dribble with the left hand…

…now switch and…

dribble with the right hand dribble with the right hand dribble with the right hand …

NOW STOP AND SHOOT!

Clang.

So do it again.

“Way to look, Sonia!”

“You the girl, Alyssha!”

“Go, Amanda!”

“Haley Haley Haley HAY! Haley Haley Haley Hay!”

For possibly the first time in her adult life, Nina Bannister walked into a gymnasium without a ticket.

She walked to the bench area, took off her Land’s End dark red jacket, placed upon the flat surface beside her the playbook and practice schedule she’d been given, and looked out at the court.

The players had stopped; they were now standing stock still, all eleven of them, their faces glistening and sweat covered.

“Come on; huddle up!” she shouted.

Wow.

They did so!

Here they all were, circled tight around her.

She was a coach!

Damned straight!

“You probably all know I’m Nina Bannister.”

Nods.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We know, Ms. Bannister.”

More nods.

Okay, so that went all right.

Probably need to say something more though.

So here goes.

“I’m going to be your coach for a while.”

More nods.

“We know that, too,” said Alyssha Bennett.

“Did Meg email you?”

Because Meg was now forbidden to have contact with any of the girls.

“No, ma’am. We haven’t heard anything from co—from Me—from…”

“…we haven’t heard anything that’s, like, official or anything.”

“So where did you hear that I was going to be your coach?”

“The Coffee Niche.”

“McDonalds.”

“My boyfriend told me.”

“That’s all right,” Nina said. “I get it.”

She took a deep breath.

Haley Stephens, young, fresh-faced, hair pulled back––

––of course, they were all young and fresh-faced and hair pulled back, so why bother even to mention that?

––asked:

“Is Coach Brennan really fired?”