Play Makers

by Mike Lupica

  Making his move.

  So he was over there, Lily to his right and Jeb to his left. Molly Arcelus was on Lily’s right, Coop next to her and looking pretty happy to be there.

  Ben, Sam, and Shawn were across from them.

  Chase and Ben hadn’t said very much to each other when they’d all met in front of the theater, and then nothing once they were inside.

  But now Chase said, “Heard you guys lost a tough one yesterday.”

  Trying to sound as if he cared. Maybe for Lily’s benefit.

  “It was a great game,” Ben said. Trying not to act steamed that Chase was sitting where he was as he said, “Guy made a crazy shot at the end.”

  “Robbie Burnett,” Chase said.

  Ben said, “You ever see him play?”

  “Heard about him,” Chase said. “All the guys on our team who played against him in football say he’s the best guy in our league in two sports. They say he’s totally off the hook as a quarterback.”

  Ben was going to let that one go. Sam didn’t. His chair against the wall next to where he had his crutches. Wounded, but still a wingman.

  “Don’t know how that’s possible,” Sam said, “since everybody knows he isn’t even the best QB in our league because Ben is.”

  Sam hadn’t managed to knock the smile off Chase’s face. Before he could say anything, Ben said, “And I don’t see how he could be the best two-sport guy because Sam is.”

  “When he’s not stepping in holes playing one-on-one with you, right?” Chase said.

  Still smiling. Looking at Ben as he said it.

  Both of them knowing that the air around the table had changed now. Ben’s eyes shifted just enough to see Lily looking at Chase, then Ben, Lily knowing that there was definitely some chirp going on at Pinocchio’s. The only time Lily Wyatt missed anything was when she was sleeping, and Ben wasn’t sure she missed much then.

  She clapped her hands now, the sound loud, looking like a teacher decided to call a class to order, and said, “How about we order up some pies?”

  But as soon as they did, Chase said, “It must be weird for you guys after the way football ended, starting out hoops 0–2.”

  Shawn said, “We started out 0–2 in football. Long season, dude.”

  Chase looked at Shawn as if noticing him for the first time. “Lily said you started out the season as the quarterback, right?”

  Shawn nodded, said, “I was only the starter until we figured out who the best QB was.”

  “And that the best tight end was you,” Ben said.

  They bumped fists on that one.

  “Still, that must have been weird,” Chase said to Shawn. “Your dad being the coach and all.”

  Now Coop jumped in, saying to Chase, “What have you been doing, taking a course in Rockwell sports since you moved to Darby?”

  “Lily just filled me in on you guys, is all,” Chase said.

  “Well, only because you asked,” Lily said.

  “Just trying to learn as much as I can about the competition,” Chase said.

  Ben wasn’t sure if he meant in basketball, or some competition for Lily’s friendship.

  “Nothing wrong with that, right, Lily?” Chase said, turning to her.

  “Don’t try to drag me into one of these guys’ dramas,” Lily said. “Girls get called drama queens, but I’ve always sort of thought it was boys who were kings.”

  Chase wasn’t going to let it go.

  “What drama?” he said. “You were the one who told me that things were pretty awkward for a while between Ben and Shawn.”

  “Only until Shawn and I got to know each other,” Ben said.

  “Yeah,” Coop said, leaning forward, all the way into this conversation now. “Funny how that works out sometimes. Sometimes the more you get to know somebody the more you like them.” Now he smiled at Chase and said, “And sometimes you like them less.”

  The drinks were delivered to the table then and the two large pizzas were right behind them, Ben hoping that the food and drinks would change the subject. Whatever the subject really was.

  But all through lunch, he had to watch Chase talking quietly to Lily, like the rest of them had finished lunch and left, Chase seeming to laugh at every other thing Lily said. Giving a quick look over at Ben every couple of minutes, as if trying to make sure that Ben was watching.

  But Ben knew that as much as Chase had gone out of his way to annoy him, the day was almost over, that he was going to have survived a whole afternoon with the guy without telling him what an idiot he thought he was.

  Or acting like an idiot himself.

  Wrong.

  While they were all getting their money out, Chase said to Ben, “Must crush you, having given up the game-winner in the first two games of the season, right?”

  Ben smiled a smile he wasn’t feeling, shrugged, and said, “Not much to say.” Then went back to counting all the dollar bills everybody had tossed to the middle of the table like that was the most important job he was going to have all weekend. Or maybe ever.

  Like he was trying to run out the clock.

  “Funny thing about McBain,” Sam said. “He never says much. Win or lose.”

  Chase put on what Ben hoped was the last fake smile he’d have to look at until the next time they played.

  “Yeah, Ben’s the best, no doubt,” Chase said. “That’s what everybody says. Best QB. Best teammates. Best friend. Hey, even best boyfriend.”

  Lily looked as if she was about to say something, but didn’t.

  Ben said, “Stop.”

  “Stop what?” Chase said, trying to sound innocent.

  “Stop busting my bones,” Ben said. “About Robbie, about losing our first two games, about Sam’s ankle. About everything.”

  “Take a chill pill, dude,” Chase said. “You’re, like, way too sensitive.”

  “No,” Ben said, “I’m not.”

  Just him and Chase now, like at the end of another game. Everybody watching them, nobody else saying anything, maybe because they didn’t know what to say.

  Ben stood up, reached over and got Sam’s crutches from him, helped Sam out of his chair.

  Shawn and Coop were up, too.

  Lily was still sitting there, as if she didn’t know what her next move should be, since this had been her idea. This was her party.

  Then it just came out, Ben saying to her, “I can’t believe you wanted me to hang out with this guy. I can’t believe you want to hang out with this guy.”

  And now it had happened just the way Sam had joked that it would, even though this was no joke. Ben had become a better show than the movie, not able to stop himself before the clock did run out on this whole stupid afternoon, not knowing what else to do now except turn and walk out with Sam and Coop and Shawn.

  He walked into the front room at Pinocchio’s and past the counter, not looking back, feeling like he’d lost to Chase Braggs again.

  Ben tried calling Lily when he got home, got her machine, decided not to leave a message.

  He knew what he had to do and wanted to do it as soon as possible: Apologize for saying what he’d said about her and Chase, for walking out the way he did without even saying good-bye. He knew that Chase had gotten exactly what he wanted, for Ben to look like the jerk even though it was Chase who had been acting like one from the time he made sure he sat next to Lily at Pinocchio’s.

  But Ben knew it wasn’t the little comments Chase kept making that got him mad, he knew better than that because he knew himself better than that:

  It was seeing Chase with Lily on the other side of the table.

  The two of them laughing it up the way they were, like all of a sudden there was a new club that only included the two of them. Ben knew it was more Chase than Lily, obviously. Lily wasn’t really doing anything. Or encouraging Chase. Chase had just taken over, doing most of the talking, telling stories about his old hometown, about new teachers and his new teammates, the differences between the way kids
he’d grown up with talked in the Midwest and the way they talked here, saying he worried that he wasn’t cool enough to live in the east. Yeah, right, Ben thought, listening — and listening — to Chase be the big talker here the way he was on a basketball court. Lily was mostly listening, too.

  And doing a whole lot of laughing.

  But as far as Ben could tell, it wasn’t like she was being made to do any of it against her will.

  That bothered Ben a whole lot more than the way he’d acted on his way out the door.

  When they’d gotten outside, waiting for Shawn’s mom to come pick them up — Ben hoping that she showed up before Lily and the Darby kids came through the door — Coop had said, “I thought that went well.”

  Being Coop, trying to joke away the tension they were all feeling or at least joke it down.

  “Not now, Coop,” Sam said.

  Coop put up both hands and said, “Shutting up now.”

  Nobody said another word until they were inside Mrs. O’Brien’s big SUV.

  Now Ben was alone in his room, not ready to go downstairs and watch the second game of the NFL doubleheader with his dad.

  Out loud he said, “Things are going awesome these days.”

  He went through the list, one by one. Sam was hurt. Team was 0–2. Chase Braggs wasn’t just getting the better of him in basketball now, he showed he could do it just going for pizza. Lily was probably mad at Ben, really mad, something that hardly ever happened.

  And on top of all that? Ben was sure that somewhere Chase was smiling his stupid head off, feeling like he’d won something on a day when he hadn’t even played a game.

  Yeah. Totally awesome stretch Ben was having. The way things had turned out today, losing to Robbie Burnett and Parkerville yesterday was starting to look like the highlight of his weekend.

  Ben stared out the window for a while, last of the afternoon light, decided that there was still enough light to go shoot around at McBain. Grabbed his basketball, went down the stairs, out the door, pounding the ball hard as soon as he hit the sidewalk, pounding it even harder once he got out on the road.

  A funny thing happened then.

  Not funny like Mr. Funny, Chase Braggs.

  Funny in a different way.

  Ben got mad. Not just about today, not just about Chase.

  He got mad at himself, for the way he was starting to turn into Poor-Me McBain, the way he was feeling so sorry for himself. Like he really was the one who had gotten hurt.

  He got to the court and pulled up and put up a shot from three-point distance, made it, nothing but net.

  Enough, Ben told himself.

  Enough.

  Enough bad stuff had happened, on and off the court.

  Time to change that.

  He ran over, collected the ball, ran back outside, put up another shot.

  Buried that one.

  Ben was sure it probably didn’t look to anybody else at Rockwell Middle School — or the rest of the Core Four plus Shawn — as if anything had changed between Ben and Lily.

  But it had, at least for now.

  Ben knew Lily well enough, knew how true-blue she was, to know that what had happened at Pinocchio’s wasn’t going to mess them up forever.

  Just for now.

  When they walked home from school together on Monday, Ben apologized for the way he’d acted. Lily had said, “Apology accepted. Now shut up.” And he had.

  They still talked on the computer at night. Had lunch together in the cafeteria almost every day. Walked to classes together. Everything looking the same.

  Just different.

  Like there was more they needed to be talking about. Stuff. The kind of stuff girls loved to talk about and guys hated. And when there was stuff that Lily thought she needed to talk out with Ben, she was the one who always brought it up, not him.

  Sometimes it wasn’t anything bad going on between them, sometimes Lily liked to talk about the fact that boys didn’t.

  Like to talk.

  One day on the swings, way before Chase came into the picture, she’d said, “You know what the real Bro Code is for bros?”

  “Please educate me.”

  “The real Bro Code is only talking about whatever’s bothering you bros as a last resort. And you know who’s worse than anybody? You!”

  And Ben had said that day, “Maybe I’m better at it, that would be a more positive way of looking at things.”

  And Lily had sighed and said, “Guys.”

  So after he apologized, he went back to being a guy, not asking what was really bothering her even though he knew something was.

  Not because he didn’t think it was any of his business, because up until now he considered everything happening in Lily’s life to be part of his business.

  No, it wasn’t that.

  Ben knew the real reason he wasn’t asking the question is because he didn’t want to know the answer, at least for now. For now he wanted to focus all of his energy — good and bad — on the Rams’ next game, on the road, against the Kingsland Knights. Ben still didn’t know how the season was going to play out without Sam, if they could be anything more than some mediocre .500 team. Or worse. Even though he’d thrown himself into practice like a madman all week, there was a part of Ben worrying about playing as well as they all had against Robbie Burnett’s team and still losing.

  He just wasn’t going to tell his teammates that. He was going to Kingsland and he was coming back with the win that meant they didn’t start the season 0–3. His whole life his dad had found different ways of telling him the same story over and over again, about how you had to get back up after getting knocked down, in sports or anything else.

  Time to get up against Kingsland.

  The Knights had become one of Ben’s favorite basketball opponents last season because their best player, Jamal Warren, was a point guard, too.

  He was small the way Ben was, and fast, and smart, and good with the ball and fun and all of that made him fun to play against, Ben almost feeling as if he were going up against himself.

  Jamal Warren played the game with a smile the way Chase Braggs did, just not a phony smile, or a cocky one. Jamal was never woofing on you when he smiled at you on a basketball court, or acting like he thought he was better than you, or wanting to show you up. His smile was all about the ball he was playing against you, all about competing.

  After Ben and Jamal high-fived each other at halfcourt right before the game was supposed to start, Jamal said, “Heard about Sam, yo. Bad break.”

  Jamal was just about the only kid Ben knew who could carry off “yo” and not sound silly doing it.

  “About the only good part,” Ben said, “was that the bad break wasn’t in his ankle.”

  “Still not counting you out today,” Jamal said.

  “That would be a mistake,” Ben said, then grinning and adding, “Yo.”

  “Hope you have more game playing against me than you do trying to talk like me,” Jamal said, and then bumped him some fist and went to be with his team and Ben did the same.

  The game against Jamal and the Knights started out, first half, like the game the Rams had played the week before against Parkerville. They fell behind early because the other team’s star player — Jamal — came out hot. Then caught up before the second quarter was over because Shawn and Darrelle started making everything they looked at.

  Rams 28, Knights 28, at the half.

  Ben and Jamal had gotten after each other the way they had last season, Jamal with more points so far, Ben with more assists. Ben had gotten one steal off Jamal, Jamal had done the same to him. The only problem with Jamal’s steal was that Ben had made it worse by catching up with him, fouling him more out of dumb frustration than anything else when he should have just let him make the layup that would have tied the game with two seconds left in the half.

  Ben’s third foul of the game.

  Bonehead move, especially for somebody who prided himself on being a smart player. J
amal made the free throw, Ben fired up a shot at the buzzer from halfcourt that fell way short, game tied. Bad ending, good half, and Ben knew it. He was even smiling as he walked over to Sam and said, “Scale of one to ten, how dumb was that foul?”

  “Ten,” Sam said, smiling back. “Seriously? You were just trying way too hard to make up for a dumb mistake, is all. And you’ve played with three fouls plenty of times and never fouled out.”

  Ben knew Sam was right. He was steamed right now about the foul, but steamed in a good way, remembering the promise he’d made — to himself — about having a good attitude no matter what, even when things weren’t going his way.

  “I’m just down with winning this game,” he said.

  “And we’re gonna win,” Sam said. “You’re playing your butt off, you’ve got everybody involved today. For real. Just do us all a huge favor and don’t commit your fourth foul anytime soon.”

  “How about never?” Ben said.

  “Even better,” Sam said.

  Ben couldn’t pick up his fourth at the start of the third quarter because Coach sat him, not putting him back out there until there were two minutes left, the Knights up six by then. Ben immediately threw a perfect pass to Shawn on the wing, but Shawn missed, the Knights got a long rebound, suddenly it was Jamal and their shooting guard on a two-on-one.

  Ben was the one.

  Jamal passed the ball at the top of the key, but Ben was sure it was coming back to him. When it did, he had perfect position on him, Jamal already up in the air, Ben getting his feet set and his body squared up.

  Taking the charge as Jamal put a knee in his chest and they both went down hard, Ben looking up to see that somehow the shot Jamal had thrown up had gone in, the ref blowing his whistle on the offensive foul.

  Only he didn’t call it that way, he put both hands on his hips and called a block on Ben.

  Ben, who never questioned a ref’s call, ever, jumped to his feet and said, “I wasn’t moving!”

  “Son,” the ref said. “I make the calls. You play. That’s the way it works.”

  “But, ref …” Ben said.

  The ref came over, smiling at Ben, quietly saying, “Son, butt out.”