Pick-Up Game

by Marc Aronson

  “Mind your business!” Papú yells.

  “C’mon, Mira Mira. Game ain’t over yet. You can talk to your pigeon later,” ESPN says.

  “That’s a dove, you fake-ass baller,” I say.

  It’s our ball. Rick passes it to me, and ESPN tries to hem me up. I start talking mad shit in like a crazy whisper. “That’s right, it’s me, Mira Mira. C’mon, let Mira Mira make you look stupid.” I dribble while I look at him. Going left, going right, then I put it between my legs.

  “See, you can never get something that beautiful, something that sweet because you a fake one, and I ain’t got time for fake ones. You just look good. C’mon, it’s Mira Mira. Oh, watch it, watch it.” I see LD about to set a pick at the top of the key. I cross over with a mean first step. ESPN is so caught up in my trash-talking that he doesn’t hear Fish yell, “Pick!” And bam! ESPN runs right into LD, and I hear the breath come out of ESPN’s mouth when he goes, “Uhhh . . .” The crowd goes, “Ohhhhh . . .” I pull up at the top of the key, and fwip! The pill goes through and the net barely moves.

  Sweat-covered sinew

  shines in cage, attracting eyes;

  predators stalk prey.

  “There he go.”

  “Don’t let him see me!”

  I duck behind my cousin. “Is he looking?” I jump up, look over her shoulders, up and down the court, and then duck back down like she’s wide enough to hide me. “Don’t introduce me. I can’t meet him today.”

  “What?”

  “Act like I didn’t come.”

  “Naw. Naw. You wanted to meet him, and now . . .”

  “I told you. My period’s on.”

  She stares at my white shorts. I bought them especially for today, especially for him. I forgot I was gonna have company. And none of my friends wear my size, so I had to wear ’em. Now I’m sorry.

  We quit talking and watch the court. They’re running up and down, slapping the ball, grabbing the ball, losing the ball, moving and sweating and making us sweat, too.

  “All those legs,” my cousin says, even though she has a boyfriend. “All those fine guys with them wet, sweaty legs — yum.” She licks her lips full circle, like buttercream icing is on ’em, then pulls at one of my long curls. “You better meet him while he wants to meet you.” She looks around at all the girls and women doing just like us — watching them. Hoping they watching us too.

  He dribbles the ball and passes, then smiles at my cousin, who yells his name, and then points to me. A guy from the other team knocks the ball out of his hand and heads in the other direction.

  I tell my cousin Ly-nette that it’s bad luck to meet a boy when you’re on. Her eyes roll, then she points high and low. “See her. And her. And them. They all wanna meet him, but you gonna meet him. So quit it.”

  I look at her, then I look at him. “OK,” I say, thinking about what Ly-nette said yesterday, that a guy like him and a girl like me was meant to be together.

  Some of these guys play every girl they meet. Then some like him keep to themselves. They come to play, then leave. But when you fine like him, leaving ain’t so easy. People follow you, girls mainly, grown women sometimes, and kids and men who ain’t interested in your looks but your hands and jump shots and moves. If he was from around here, he’d have a reputation by now. And maybe a baby or two. But he’s from way across town. His mother drives him to the court and then stays the whole day. She don’t sit in the car waiting, either. She sits in a lawn chair by the fence, knitting, paying bills, and watching the game, and the girls, until he’s done.

  I hear he goes to an all-boys Catholic school and spends his summers in the country, and not Atlanta, either, but the sure-nuff country where they got chickens and cows and cotton fields too, I bet.

  My cousin’s fingers slide through my hair. Then she pushes one of my sleeves off my shoulder, just a little. “Show something.” She steps back. “They your competition,” she says, pointing, “So act like you know.”

  I stare down at myself. I’m wearing all white. I don’t mind saying it: white sure does look good on me. I mean when you put caramel on vanilla ice cream, how can it not look good enough to eat? Only I shoulda picked something else to wear today. Black, maybe.

  A guy passing by stops, but his eyes don’t. They go up and down me three times.

  My cousin is older than I am: nineteen. She’s been with the same guy for four years —“So I know how to get and keep ’em,” she says. She asks the dude if she can help him.

  He smiles. “Sure. What’s her name?”

  She smacks her lips, and holds on to her hips. “I wasn’t asking you that question for real.” Her arms go over my shoulder. “She’s sixteen. A baby. A virgin . . .”

  I push her. “Don’t put my business in the street!”

  His smile gets as big as the McDonald’s arch across the street.

  “And she’s gonna stay that way,” she says, walking off with me.

  My cousin Ly-nette says being a virgin ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. It’s just that virgins don’t know how to market themselves. “It’s like having a courtside seat at the Lakers game and not wanting nobody to know you there.”

  I think if you tell a guy that you’re a virgin he’s gonna try his best to make sure you don’t stay one. Ly-nette doesn’t see it that way. “It’s just a way to advertise,” she says, “not give out free samples.”

  So she’s been advertising me — not with flyers or nothing, and not to just everybody and anybody. Just to him, Chester, the guy I’m supposed to meet. This is what she did — walked up to him one day in the middle of a game and told him he needed to meet me. Of course she almost got slapped by one of them guys. “She’s smart, pretty, petite, and a virgin,” she told Chester. “You’re gonna like her.” Her boyfriend, Marques, was in that game. I think that’s the only reason she didn’t get hurt.

  My cousin is in sales. “You got a product; you gotta show people how it’s different than the other products.” Then of course she told him that me being a virgin was not an invitation for him to change my status but just to see how unique I am.

  The good thing is that he and I ain’t that different. He’s a virgin too. He didn’t tell Ly-nette that. She found out. She knows somebody who knows somebody who knew him when he was young and that woman called the neighbor up the street from him who talked to a woman at his church whose daughter goes to the school across the street from him.

  Basketball players can get any girl they want. And they never keep just one for long because, well, there’s all them other cookies out there for them to taste, my cousin likes to say. But Chester’s mother makes sure he doesn’t taste anything, and she’s trying to keep it that way. It’s just him and his mother at home. And they do everything together, I hear. Girls and babies are not a part of his mother’s plan, people say; a two-hundred-and-forty-million-dollar contract is, or him playing ball for Italy as soon as high school’s done. So she holds him as tight as gums hold teeth, and nothing’s gonna spoil her plans.

  Chester’s seventeen and fine. Every girl who sees him wants him. Sometimes after he’s done playing, thongs fly. He never stops to pick them up like some of them do. He steps over them like wet tar. So I thought he was gay for a minute. So did my cousin. But Ly-nette got to asking questions, and she watched him like he was free cable TV. She hit him up whenever he was leaving the court, always asking if he wanted to meet me someplace, sometime. Then Wednesday, Marques calls her and says it’s on. Chester’s mom is outta town on business. “So he’s all yours,” Ly-nette’s been saying.

  I walk over to the hole in the fence and watch him play. He jumps and shoots. Everyone claps when he scores. I jump and clap and smile like he’s mine already. Then I get to thinking: A boy who’s a virgin and plays basketball — how’d that happen? Does his mom go to his away games too? Does he date, ever? Or is he a virgin because he wants to be one, like me?

  Ly-nette hasn’t stopped yelling since Marques got in the game. “Mar
ques! Get that ball. Yes! Run, baby — make that shot. Yeah! He is so good. The best,” she says, hugging me.

  Marques’s game’s not so hot, but even I’m surprised that they don’t pick him up for the next game. Ly-nette says he’s tired from working a double shift last night. But I know the truth. He just can’t play all that well.

  “I love that boy,” she says once their game is done, and he’s walking off the court.

  I ask Ly-nette about Chester’s status — him being a virgin, I mean. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to meet him. Plus it gives us something in common. It’ll make me feel like he won’t be pressuring me. Besides, a guy who’s a virgin has gotta have a lot of discipline and self-control, which means he’s probably got his head on straight too, I tell her.

  Chester walks in circles, waiting for the next game to start. Him and his boys slap each other five, bump fists, and get ready to do their thing again. “Ly-nette,” I say, holding out my hand, “I need to change.” I lower my voice. “Get my tampon out of your purse.”

  Right then, Marques walks up. “That’s nasty.” He wipes sweat off his forehead. “Guys don’t wanna hear that.” A whole bottle of water is down his throat and running down his chest in two seconds flat. “Ahhh . . .” Then he’s standing behind her, holding her tight and kissing her behind the ears, on the neck and shoulders too. “Chester’s gonna quit early. He’ll be here in a minute.”

  Ly-nette faces him, stands on her tippy toes and wiggles her lips. Marques bends down kissing her forehead. When they’re done, she opens his hand and kisses his palm, then licks the sweat, just once. “You gotta get the game in you,” she always says, “so you remember why they love it almost more than you.”

  I am not swallowing anybody’s sweat. But I would like a boyfriend, a kiss — something. I’m pretty — guys always tell me that. Only girls like me — virgins — have a hard time getting a guy. Most guys like doors that open fast and easy. The ones they gotta pull on or can’t open up at all are just too much trouble for ’em, I guess.

  I walk over to McDonald’s by myself. I need to take care of my business. I stay awhile, drinking orange soda and eating fries. As soon as I’m back, Marques points Chester’s way. “Hey . . . here he comes.” Then he tells Ly-nette, “Right after you introduce ’em, we’re leaving.”

  Ly-nette wants to stick around awhile.

  “No. They’re gonna be fine. What else two virgins gonna do but talk?”

  Chester walks over to us. My stomach knots up and my hands shake, so I hold them behind my back.

  He’s tall and dark brown from the summer sun beating down on him all day long, and wet — from his forehead to his shirt and down to his sneakers. “Hey.”

  He speaks to Ly-nette and Marques first, then smiles when he looks at me. “I’m Chester.” His hand goes out. It’s soaked, sweating like everything else on him. “Sorry.”

  “I’m Irene. Ly-nette’s cousin.”

  Chester and Irene sound like an old, white couple, I think.

  “Nice game,” Marques says, slapping him five.

  Chester’s team won. I bet that’s why he’s still smiling. He leans against the fence, yelling at someone on the court before he gets back to me. “I’d play in my sleep if I could.”

  I don’t like basketball that much, but I’d never say that to him. I come because of my cousin. She comes because of Marques. Him and Chester talk about the game for a while. Ly-nette asks him how he made those last few shots. I wasn’t here, so I don’t know what she’s talking about. But I notice the girls not far from us. They stare at him and lick their lips a lot. I pull my cousin aside. “Don’t leave. I don’t know what to say to him.”

  She’s not leaving. She promises.

  “Yeah, she is,” Marques butts in.

  She points. “We’ll be over there.”

  “No. We’ll be in my ride, in the air-conditioning, cruising and chilling.”

  My cousin starts to complain.

  He whispers, “She’s sixteen. Quit babying her.”

  And before I can say anything else, they leave.

  As soon as my cousin goes, so does my tongue. Ly-nette told me this would happen. “So talk about the game, or golf or anything you saw on CNN,” she said. Only as soon as I open my mouth to ask him a question, the fence shakes like the guy on the other side is trying to pull it down.

  “We won and you quit? Walk off? Just like that! Naw . . . that ain’t happening,” the guy says. He’s taller than Chester, maybe six eleven or so. But he don’t have Chester’s nice muscles or moves when he’s on the court.

  “Look. I told you: I had something to do.” Chester never raises his voice, but another guy from his team does. He’s Asian, with blond streaks in his hair, complaining about having to pick up somebody else when nobody’s as good as Chester.

  “Talk to her some other time,” he says, sending the ball into the fence.

  I jump back, staring at the missing tooth on the side of his mouth when he comes for the ball. The other guys on his team yell for these two to come on so they can get started. They look like giants, his team. No one is shorter than Chester, who the newspapers say is six eight.

  Chester smiles when he looks down at me, asking if I play sports or know his cousin, who has a barbershop near my house. We talk about church — only not too long, because my cousin says that can be a conversation killer. School. Sisters and brothers. Movies. TV. Twittering and videos on YouTube. We talk about all that. But then our conversation dries up fast. He’s watching the game again. I’m wiping my forehead and looking up at the sun. He stares at the game like he wants back in. I stare at my feet like I need to be someplace else. The girls not far from us stare too. And whisper.

  Some girls don’t wait for a guy to make a move. They do like this girl is doing right now; they step up and take over. She’s short, tiny. Her eyes are big, and her lashes are thick and long. I like how she’s dressed, so I bet he loves it, the hills and the short, tight beige skirt; the light brown hair, real hair, past her shoulders, straight and shiny. And the perfume she’s wearing, it’s the good stuff, the best — you can tell. “Hey. I saw you play. You’re good.”

  He introduces hisself. And the girl sort of pushes me out the way. Then another girl comes over, and then three more. He looks up the street every once in a while, like maybe he thinks his mother might show up. Then he smiles and gives someone an autograph and forgets I’m here. I try to get into the conversation, but those girls aren’t having it.

  “You got a girlfriend?” someone asks.

  “I’m his girlfriend,” one girl says with a laugh.

  They are cute. Tall and short, with long hair, short hair, no hair, fake hair. They have on pink or red lip gloss that makes their lips look thicker, juicier, softer. Even those four white girls — the ones standing with the Korean girl — check him out and try to get to him too. They’re almost all dressed alike. Their shorts give him a peek at their cheeks, and their chests don’t stay inside their tops; they pop out on the sides or just about jump out their bras and halter tops introducing themselves to him. I wonder if any of them are virgins, or if he even cares.

  I back up and let them have at him, then I walk away. I’ll call my cousin and have her meet me. Then I’ll call my girls and hang out with them. Wait till they hear he dumped me even before he dated me.

  “Hold up. Take my number.”

  I turn around to see who Chester’s talking to now. He walks up to me, with those girls right behind. Then he leans over and whispers in my ear. I feel my toes get warm. And then it’s like I’m a tree — growing ten feet tall right in front of those girls. I say his number over again in my head.

  One girl asks him for a kiss on the cheek. He says sure. Only her lips don’t stay on his cheek; they find his mouth. And when he finally pulls away, he’s breathing hard and looking around like he could use seconds or thirds or fifths even.

  “Chester!”

  We all back up.

  “Da
ng,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What’s she doing here?”

  His mother is wearing a gray dress and black heels. But she’s moving like she’s wearing flats. “Get over here.”

  Chester whips grown men on that court. But he walks over to his momma with his head down like a little boy afraid he’s about to be spanked.

  She says it so we’ll all hear. “Didn’t I say stay away from girls?”

  “Yes, Ma’me. Sorry, Ma’me.”

  “We got it all planned out, you and me. No distractions, right?”

  I hear him say yes, but this time he don’t sound so sure.

  Some of the girls start to complain.

  His mother stops. “Venus and Serena. Michael Jackson. LeBron James. What do they all have in common? They kept their eye on the ball — their parents made sure they did too. You’re the best around, Chester. Don’t get off course.” She looks over at us. “Well, I guess he won’t be playing here on Saturdays anymore. Y’all can’t be trusted!”

  The girls follow them, throwing numbers his way. Guys inside the Cage jump and yell and pass the ball. A few of the girls stop chasing and cheer them on. “He’s almost a man,” someone yells. “He not gonna stay underneath your thumb forever.”

  I guess he likes what she said, ’cause he turns around and smiles, winking too. Those girls go crazy. Everybody says he was winking at them. I think about his number. How I bet they wish they had it too.

  Chester and his mom get into their ride, and then pull into traffic, beeping at a Cadillac his mom almost hits. I walk up the street and pull out my cell to ask my cousin to come and get me. But then I put it away and stand outside of McDonald’s for almost an hour, wondering if things woulda been different if I wasn’t a virgin, or if things might change for me if I go home and give him a call.

  My friend Whitney says that virgins are lucky. They don’t have to worry about AIDS or STDs. And they don’t have to worry about bad reputations. But all virgins ain’t the same, I guess. Some like it the way they are. Others, like him, are maybe stuck that way because they can’t do nothing about it. He won’t be stuck for long, I figure. His mother better be ready for that.