Long Shot (7 page)

It was
there.

But Pedro waited too long, held the ball, even though he could feel Bobby’s eyes burning into him the whole time. Finally he just swung the ball over to Clarence, who seemed so surprised to get it that he fired up a shot that banged high off the backboard.

As they were running down the court getting back on defense, Bobby made sure to run past Pedro. “Dude,” he said, “what just happened there?”

“Thought Alex was reading my eyes,” Pedro said.

“But I
had
him,” Bobby said.

“Just couldn’t pull the trigger,” Pedro said, then acted as if he were looking around for his man.

Bobby wouldn’t let it go.

“I saw that,” Bobby said. “What I’m not getting here is why.”

The half ended with the Knights still comfortably ahead, 36-20. Out of the corner of his eye Pedro could see his dad stand up as the Knights ran past that part of the bleachers toward their locker room. Pedro could even hear him clapping harder than anybody around him.

He kept his head down and kept running, thinking that if Luis Morales was cheering the way Pedro had just played, then it really was official that he could do no wrong in his dad’s eyes.

 

The second half felt more like a scrimmage than a real game. The Knights’ lead got back to twenty points and pretty much stayed there no matter who Coach Cory had in the game.

He pulled Ned and Dave about four minutes into the third quarter, and put Pedro back in. He told him to make sure to work the ball on offense, and even to run through plays twice sometimes as a way of not running up the score.

In one huddle he told the guys, “There’s a way to take it easy on them without making it look as if we are. You hearing me on this?”

Everybody nodded.

“This isn’t college football,” he said, grinning. “We’re not trying to win by fifty so we can move up in the polls.”

Even if he could find his old game somehow, Pedro knew he couldn’t really play it. Couldn’t be what Steve Nash was, what Chris Paul was, what all the great point guards were: creators.

The Knights were making the extra pass now as a way of
not
getting an easy basket, passing just to keep passing. It was basketball about as much fun as diagramming sentences in English class.

Pedro scored a couple of baskets on layups, and got a couple of assists to Joe when he would have looked stupid not passing him the ball underneath the basket. He even played the last two minutes of the game with Ned, both of them having been told by Coach Cory to feed the ball to Jamal, the one guy on the Knights who’d had a terrible shooting day.

“I don’t want J walking out of here feeling bad about himself on a day when we had such a good win,” Coach said.

So Ned passed it to Jamal for a baby hook which he made, and Pedro fed him a bounce pass that produced a layup.

On their last possession, Jamal got a rebound and kicked it out to Ned on the left side. Pedro, going on instinct, cut toward the middle. Like they were starting one of their three-man weaves. And for one moment, basketball felt fun again for him.

They hadn’t been running fast breaks the whole fourth quarter, but as Pedro caught the pass from Ned, he was running right at Coach Cory, who made a waving motion with his hand, like he was telling them to go ahead and let it rip one last time.

Pedro did.

He led the break now. Ned had cut behind him and gotten out on his right. Jamal was on his left. Pedro threw it to Ned, who threw it back to him. Then Pedro gave it back to Jamal.

Now I’m playing,
Pedro thought.
Even if it’s just one play.

Pedro’s plan was to let Jamal finish, have him go hard to the basket and finish strong. He threw it to Ned one more time, knowing he would throw it back, as the two Camden kids who were back on defense pinched over toward him when he got the ball again.

Only the ball didn’t make it back to Pedro, even though Ned was eyeballing him the whole time.

Grinning at him, even.

His eyes stayed on Pedro as he put the ball down on a right-hand dribble, then whipped this amazing bounce pass off the dribble and past the defenders, the ball catching Jamal in perfect stride, and Jamal laying it up with his left hand as the horn ending the game sounded.

Everybody in the Knights’ cheering section jumped up, and the Knights on the court went running for Ned as if his assist had won the game by a single basket.

Pedro went over and joined them, because the whole team was over there now. He was still a team guy, even though the game had ended the way it had begun for him—with him feeling like a spectator.

 

 

 

“Legit now,” Pedro said to Joe. “You really don’t see what’s been going on?”

It was an hour after the Camden game and they were at Carinor Park, both Pedro and Joe still in the Knights hoodies they’d been given as part of this year’s uniforms. They were shooting around, trying to get a little more ball in before it got too dark, neither one of them feeling as if they’d played a full game.

“All I’m seeing,” Joe said, “is that you’re not playing your game.”

“Because I
can’t
,” Pedro said. “That’s the thing.”

“Dude,” Joe said, “you’re starting to sound totally wack about Ned. Like, I get it that you’re running against him for president, but that doesn’t mean he’s turned into a
Saw
movie all by himself.”

They had started a game of Around the World and Pedro couldn’t even get past the right corner, his first stop. He missed his first shot, then chanced it and missed his second.

“Great,” he said, slamming the ball down after he retrieved it. “I’m gonna do as good here as I did in the game.”

“We did
win
the game, right?” Joe said.

“No thanks to me.”

“You act like you missed ten shots and had ten turnovers,” Joe said. “And like Ned never passed you the rock once, only that’s not the way it was.”

“He wants Dave to start and he wants me on the bench, whether you see that or not.”

“I’m not telling you this as just your teammate now,” Joe said. “I’m telling you as your friend. You gotta let this go.”

Joe was moving around the court as they talked, moving from point to point in their game, making one shot after another even though shooting was never his best thing. Usually on days like this Pedro loved coming over to Carinor, just goofing around, replaying the game they’d just played, not wanting the basketball part of the day to end until it absolutely had to.

But today was different.

Pedro sensed it, and he knew Joe sensed it. They were just going through the motions. And Pedro couldn’t help himself. He was getting madder and madder that Joe was either too blind to see what was really going on with Ned, or too stubborn to admit it.

“You say you’re my friend,” Pedro said. “So why don’t you start acting like it?”

Joe was in the left corner now, two shots from winning the game, but instead of shooting, he just put the ball down and walked over to Pedro.

When he was close, in that quiet voice of his, he said, “What did you just say?”

Joe had walked over, but Pedro knew he was the one who had crossed a line.

Joe Sutter liked to say that the best thing about best friends was that they could say just about any stupid thing that came into their heads.

Just not this stupid.

“All I meant is, you know me,” Pedro said, “and you know I don’t make stuff up.”

“I don’t know you today,” Joe said, staring at him.

Pedro didn’t say anything.

“I
am
your friend,” Joe said. “And you know it. You’re big on telling the truth. Me too, and so here it is. If you don’t stop blaming Ned for the way you’re playing, you can forget about ever getting your starting job back.”

Pedro could feel the back of his neck getting hot all over again.

“I’m out of here,” he said.

“Fine with me,” Joe said.

He started walking toward the street, the ball in the corner where he’d left it. Pedro went over and picked it up. He couldn’t help himself, so he fired up one last shot.

Air ball.

 

After dinner he went down to the basement to watch the Suns play the Hornets on ESPN, knowing that at least down there basketball would still be fun, just because Nash and Paul were in the same game.

It was always a high score when these two teams played, both of them acting as if there was a ten-second shot clock in the pros instead of a twenty-four-second clock, both teams pushing the ball every chance they got.

Luis Morales had gotten TiVo for the big screen in the basement, and sometimes Pedro felt like he was wearing it out, rewinding one fast break after another, just to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him when Nash or Paul had the ball.

But even his favorite point guards couldn’t get him out of his bad mood tonight. Pedro kept replaying his whole day, felt like he was using TiVo on everything that had happened to him—not just in the Knights-Cavaliers game, but also with him and Joe at Carinor Park.

I don’t know you
, Joe had said.

It made Pedro mad all over again, but not because Joe was wrong.

Pedro didn’t even know himself right now.

“Hey.”

He turned around and saw his mom standing at the bottom of the stairs, a big bowl of popcorn in her hands.

She was smiling.

“Since Dad’s working late,” she said, “I decided to send myself into the game.”

Pedro said, “You always tell me that the only basketball game you’re interested in is one I’m playing.”

“Well,” she said, taking the other end of the couch, placing the bowl on the coffee table, “that
is
technically true. But tonight your old mom just got the feeling that you could use a little company down here in the boys club.”

His mom didn’t miss much.

“Mom,” Pedro said, “you don’t have to keep me company. I’m okay.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

On the TV screen, the announcers were all excited because Chris Paul had just dribbled down the baseline, gone underneath the basket, then somehow wheeled when he got into the deep corner and threw a pass out to the opposite wing, where David West was standing all alone to make a three-pointer.

“How did he see the other player all the way over there?” Anna Morales said.

“Chris Paul has eyes in the back of his head,” Pedro said.

“You know what
my
eyes are telling me?” she said.

That was the way it worked with her. Pedro knew this was coming from the time she’d showed up with the popcorn. She was closing in like a slick defender cutting off the court on him.

“What?” he said.

“That my boy isn’t acting like someone whose team won the game today.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is.”

He turned around so he was facing her. “I just feel like I got worse between last season and now,” he said. “And when I got out there today . . . ” He reached up with his right hand like he was trying to find the right words in the air between them. “When I got out there today I was just . . .
lost
.”

“Is it because you didn’t get to start?”

Pedro sighed. “Not being in the starting lineup, that was just the start of it. Even when I was in the game I didn’t really feel like I was in it.”

“Your dad said the same thing.”

“He did?”

“He said you weren’t . . . something.” Now she was the one searching for the right word, until she smiled again, in triumph. “
Involved!
He said you weren’t involved and he said you weren’t getting the other players involved the way you usually do.”

“Papa was right. As usual.”

“But he said he wasn’t worried about you, that you’d figure it out.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Your dad says that when a door closes in front of you, you find a way to get it open. Or you just kick it down.”

“I feel more like a door got slammed in my face today.”

He knew he had to stop now, because if he tried to tell her more he would have to tell her all of it. And if Joe didn’t get what was going on, how could his mom?

He said, “Tell Dad not to worry, I’ll figure it out.”

He turned himself back so he was facing the television set, hoping that would be a sign to her that they were done talking about this for now.

Only he had said the wrong thing.

“Your dad’s got enough to worry about these days,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Pedro said. “Is something wrong at the restaurant?”

“Nothing he can’t fix,” she said. “You know your dad. He thinks he can fix everything except the weather.”

“That’s because he can.”

“It’s just that the owner of his old restaurant isn’t being so nice these days,” she said. “Your dad thought everybody at Miller’s would be happy for him. But now as he gets closer to his opening, he doesn’t think they’re so happy to have the competition. Too many people come in and ask him when Luis’s place is going to open.”

Pedro hit the mute button on the remote.

“So what are they doing?”

“One of the waiters who was going to come with your dad, Mr. Miller raised his salary and made him maitre d’. And he raised the salary of one of the bartenders. When your dad asked Mr. Miller about it, he said, ‘That’s business,’ and hung up the phone. And then one of the carpenters he was using suddenly stopped showing up for work.”

“Papa will find other people.”

“He will,” she said. “This has still hurt him, I can tell.” She paused and a sad look came into her eyes. “Someday you’ll find out for yourself, how sometimes you think you know people when you really don’t know them at all.”