Travel Team

by Mike Lupica

  Her heart never seemed to be in that, the same way it never seemed to be in dating the guys who would come to the house to pick her up sometimes.

  There were some subjects Danny tried to avoid at all costs, and one of them was this: Whether his mom would ever get married again.

  “What?” she said when they talked about that one from time to time. “And give up our life on Easy Street?”

  Then she would fake-laugh again.

  Danny could never figure out, on Christmas Day or any other day of the year, why they weren’t on Easy Street. His dad had made it to the NBA, even if his career hadn’t lasted very long. Those salaries he did know something about, even if he didn’t know squat about what teachers made. And he knew that if you were a first-round pick, even back when his dad was a first-round pick, you got a three-year contract, guaranteed.

  So there had to have been some money in the family once, right after he was born, when his mom and dad were married and they were a real family more than one day a year.

  Where had it all gone?

  That was one he never asked either of his parents about, how it worked out that his dad didn’t seem to have any money left and why he and his mom were living in the Flats, at 422 Easy Street….

  Tess had helped him shop for his mom. She had asked him exactly how much money he’d saved up from allowance and birthdays, and he told her.

  Tess said, “I just need to establish our price range.”

  “I’ll give you the money and you get her something,” Danny said. “I hate to shop. You know I hate to shop.”

  “You’ll love it,” she said. “Shopping with me is like playing a round of golf with Tiger.”

  She took him to Wright’s, the only jewelry store in Middletown, and helped him pick out a silver charm bracelet. Done, Danny said when they’d agreed on the one they both liked, thinking how quick and painless the process had been, jewelry shopping with a girl four days before Christmas.

  Tess said they weren’t quite done, and then somehow talked the woman behind the counter into throwing in a single silver charm—a basketball—for an extra five dollars.

  The bracelet, with the tiny ball hanging from it, made his mom cry after he insisted she open her present first, really cry, as he helped her fasten it on her wrist, his mom telling him it was the most beautiful piece of jewelry anybody had ever given her, ever.

  Then she hugged him and started crying all over again.

  He was never going to understand girls of any age as long as he lived, he was sure of that. But he was going to run upstairs the first chance he got and IM Tess and tell her that they’d hit the stinking jackpot with the charm bracelet.

  It was his turn to open then.

  Real jackpot.

  His mom had bought him a new laptop, the first brand-new laptop he’d ever had in his life, a Sony VAIO.

  And even a dope about money knew it was way out of their price range.

  Way, way out of their price range.

  “Mom,” he said, when he was able to get some words out, imagining how buggy his eyes must have looked to her as he stared at the inside of the box, afraid to even lift the unit out of there. “You can’t…we can’t…”

  “Can,” she said. “Did. Done deal. Merry Christmas.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” she said, helping him get the white Styrofoam out of the box so they could gently remove the computer. “Been doing a little extra tutoring on the side.”

  “You ask me, it must have been a whole lot of extra tutoring—”

  “Whatever,” she said in her dippy mall-girl voice, as a way of ending the conversation.

  Then, in her real voice, about as soft, Danny thought, as the snow starting to hit the ground outside the living-room window, the Christmas snow she seemed to have ordered, his mom said, “I knew that if I made enough money on the side I could buy myself the kind of Christmas-morning face I’m looking at right now.”

  She hugged him again and then had him open another box, the one that had the new LeBron James Nikes in it, the ones like Ty’s he had described to her after he got home from McFeeley that day.

  The sneaks were so cool, coming right on top of the laptop, that he managed to act excited while he opened the remaining boxes, the ones with the shirts and sweaters and new school khakis in them. Then the two of them went upstairs to his room and unplugged and unhooked the old computer, somehow managed to follow the directions—the two of them giggling their way through the whole thing—until they had the Sony up and running with Microsoft Word and e-mail and IM and passwords and codes and all the rest of it.

  When they were done with that, they attached his old speakers to it.

  His mom kept telling him, Do not lose anything.

  He said he was being careful.

  She asked where he was going to put the box and the directions and the warranty. His closet, he said. “Oh no!” she said in Freddy vs. Jason fright. “Anywhere but there!”

  She left him alone then, knowing he was twitchy to IM Tess and Will and the rest of the Danny Walker Network, telling them about his stuff and asking about theirs.

  Then he could hear the Christmas music coming from downstairs as she went to work in the kitchen; nobody liked Christmas music more than his mom, she started playing it in the house and in the car the day after Thanksgiving. Always telling him that if Christmas shopping had started, it was time for Elvis to start singing “Blue Christmas.”

  Even when the presents weren’t as jackpot big as they were today, even when Christmas wasn’t as big as it felt like today, his mom loved Christmas as much as he did.

  New laptop on the desk. New LeBrons on his feet. Snow coming down. His dad coming over for Christmas dinner at a soft two in the afternoon.

  The Warriors might still suck.

  Today didn’t.

  His dad showed up early, saying the roads were getting bad as the snow came down harder, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

  “You were the one who always wanted a white Christmas,” his dad said to his mom when he was inside, brushing the snow out of his hair. “This white enough for you?”

  “There can never be enough snow on Christmas to suit me,” she said, taking the old Syracuse letter jacket he was wearing, navy with orange trim, and leather sleeves.

  “Enough to you always meant snowed in.”

  “I’ll take that deal,” she said.

  He was carrying a big paper bag, set it down near the tree and just left it there. He didn’t say anything about it, so neither did Danny.

  His mom had a fire going in their small fireplace. She made popcorn for everybody, and said she’d whip up some eggnog while Danny took his dad up to show him his new computer. That didn’t take long, his dad not being a computer guy, so Danny challenged him to a game of NBA ’05 instead. His dad said he was almost as bad at video games as he was with computers, where he was the absolute world’s worst, but he’d give it a shot.

  “I haven’t even whipped your butt yet and you’re already making excuses,” Danny said.

  He showed him how to work the controllers. They each got into a beanbag chair, even though Richie said that once he settled in it might take a forklift to get him out.

  Richie Walker wasn’t the world’s worst at video ball, as it turned out.

  “Ringer,” Danny said.

  “Is that what you kids call a guy trying to get the most out of his ability?”

  “Ringer,” Danny said.

  He was either a ringer or the fastest learner Danny had ever met, because it was 112–112 with ten seconds to go.

  Both of them clicking away like madmen.

  “Don’t let me win,” Danny said.

  “Wasn’t planning to,” Richie said.

  McGrady, who was on Danny’s team, made one over Vince Carter at the buzzer and Danny’s team won, 114–112.

  “Yes!” He jumped up and made one of those dance motions with his arms like he was stirring some h
uge pot.

  “You cheated,” his dad said, still clicking away even though the screen was frozen. “There was one second left!”

  “Was not.”

  “Was so.”

  A much calmer voice from the doorway said, “Dinner, children.”

  They turned their heads at the same time and saw Ali Walker in her Santa apron, smiling at them, hands on hips.

  “What’s so funny?” Danny said.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  Richie said, “There was one second left.”

  “Was not,” Danny said.

  The three of them went down to have Christmas dinner.

  As soon as Danny picked up the bag, he knew it was another ball.

  “You didn’t need to get me a new ball,” he said. “You got me a cool ball last Christmas.”

  “Not this ball. Open it.”

  The Spurs were playing the Nets on television. The fire was still going strong. The snow was coming down even harder, making it hard to see across Earl Avenue. Richie had just announced that he better be going soon.

  It was an official Spalding NBA game ball.

  Danny twirled it slowly in his hands, then ran his right hand over the surface of it.

  “Leather,” he said.

  “Full grain,” Richie said.

  From the couch, Ali Walker said, “You say that like it’s pure gold.”

  Danny looked at his dad and they both shook their heads sadly, that one person could be this ignorant about something as important as an official leather ball.

  “Sorry,” she said, and went back to reading Vanity Fair.

  Richie said, “I think you ought to check it out a little more closely,” and pointed to where “NBA” was.

  There were autographs on either side, so neat and legible you could have thought the ball came with them.

  Jason Kidd.

  John Stockton.

  “Your two poster guys,” Richie said.

  “The two you say were the best.”

  Richie corrected him. “The best lately.”

  “How did you get them both to sign it?”

  “I just told them it was for a point guard they ought to be rooting for the way people always rooted for them.”

  Danny went over and hugged his dad. No man hug here. The real thing.

  Richie hugged him back. “Merry Christmas, kiddo,” he said.

  They were both on the floor. When Danny pulled back, Richie pulled himself up on his second try.

  “I sound like a pocketful of loose change,” he said.

  To Ali he said, “I didn’t know what to get you.”

  “You got me all you needed to get, Rich.”

  To Danny he said, “First game back, we’re going to use this ball as our gamer. I have a feeling it’s going to change our luck. Then if it works, we’ll save it for the next time we need our stinking luck changed.”

  Danny put out a closed fist. His dad touched it lightly with one of his own.

  Richie said, “On account of, our luck is due to change.”

  They all stood near the front door while he put on his Syracuse jacket. Ali said that he should drive carefully. He smiled at her. “I always do,” he said.

  “Now, anyway,” he said, with that shy duck of the head he gave you sometimes.

  He opened the door, turned around.

  “This was a good Christmas,” he said to both of them. “Been a long time since I had a good Christmas.”

  “Drive carefully,” Ali Walker said again.

  “See you at practice,” Richie said to Danny, and then walked slowly on the slippery walk toward his car, looking more like an old man than ever.

  Danny and his mom went and stood on the porch in the snow, watched the car pull away from in front of the house, watched it until it made the turn on Cleveland Avenue and disappeared.

  He had the basketball under his arm.

  When they got back inside, she took it from him.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  She grinned at him and dribbled the ball twice on the floor in the foyer. Not really dribbling it so much as slapping at it, as though trying to squash some bug sitting on top of it.

  “Go ahead,” she said, handing the ball back to him.

  Danny tricky-dribbled around her and then past her down the hall and through the kitchen and into the dining room.

  Dribbling through the house like he was a young Richie Walker.

  20

  HAVING THE NAMES OF STOCKTON AND KIDD ON THE BALL DIDN’T HELP.

  “Stockton and Kidd handling the ball, now that would help,” Bren Darcy was saying.

  “We need that Kidd, not the kids we’ve got,” Will Stoddard said.

  “No kidding,” Danny said. “Get it?”

  Will said, “Okay, we have to stop now.”

  They tried the new ball in the first game back, against Kirkland, and lost by six points. Tried it again the next day, played well for three quarters against Piping Rock, the best team in the Tri-Valley with a record of 8-0 coming in, but ended up losing by ten.

  Colby missed a couple of shots in the last two minutes, and after the second one, Bren made a face. Danny called a time-out, and when they got to the huddle, Will told Bren that he could make faces when people missed as long as he never missed, and Bren said that Will should be worrying more about winning the game than sticking up for Colby. Before Danny knew it, they were nose-to-nose and Danny had to get between them.

  “You guys have been buds as long as I’ve been buds with you guys,” he said. “So cut it out.”

  Will said, “Tell him to stop making faces.”

  Bren said, “Tell him to mind his own freaking business.”

  “Hey!” Danny said. “Both of you. Zip it now. We’re getting better, let’s not blow it now.”

  They were getting better.

  Matt Fitzgerald, in particular, was starting to look like a real center, the private work he’d been doing with Richie finally starting to pay off. Colby got better every game. Will was taking basketball seriously—or as seriously as Will could take anything—for the first time in his life.

  No team, no matter how big, wanted Danny and Bren Darcy harassing them in the backcourt.

  “It’s like being chased by freaking bees,” one of the Kirkland guards had said the day before.

  They just couldn’t win a freaking game to save their lives.

  It was the middle weekend in January now, about a month from the start of the play-offs, and their record was 0–9. They were kidding about Jason Kidd in the layup line, getting ready to play Seekonk at St. Pat’s.

  Colby showed up a little late, and the minute she walked through the door, everybody spotted her new kicks:

  Old-school Converse high-tops, white, yellow toward the heel, some purple in there, too; even guys their age knew these were the ones Magic Johnson used to wear for the Lakers.

  Danny had known from the start how cool Colby Danes was, not that he would have admitted that to his buddies. Now it was official.

  A girl in Magic’s Cons.

  “Girlfriend is stylin’,” Will Stoddard said.

  Bren slapped him five on that, their fight at the end of the Piping Rock game already ancient history.

  Oliver Towne, their only black kid, said, “Stoddard, you are, like, pathetically white.”

  “Oh,” Will said, trying to act hurt, “like you have to rub my pasty face in it.”

  Colby, who was now one of the guys on the Warriors, because she was cool and could play, said, “You are all sooooooo jealous that a girl has cooler sneaks than you.”

  Will couldn’t let her have the last word. Will would sooner leave town before he’d let somebody have the last word.

  “Maybe I can borrow them someday,” he said. “If I ever grow into them, of course. Like, when I’m in college.”

  But this time, Colby got him.

  “You’re right,” she said. “This is, like, totally messed-up
. Isn’t it the boys who’re supposed to have big feet and the girls who are supposed to have big hair?”

  The rest of the guys whooped as she took her place in line, casually high-fiving Danny as she passed.

  Danny looked around and thought: We act like a team, we have fun like a team.

  When do we play all four quarters like a team?

  It turned out to be against Seekonk.

  The Seekonk Sailors—they were the next town up from Port Madison, on the Sound—were even smaller than the Warriors. And not nearly as well coached. They didn’t have anybody who could get in front of either Danny or Bren, anybody who could stay with Colby, anybody who could keep Matt Fitzgerald off the boards.

  When they tried going with a two-one-two zone, Will made five outside shots in a row, an all-time personal best.

  The 0–9 Middletown Warriors were ahead 18–4 after the first quarter.

  They were ahead 26–10 at halftime.

  They were ahead twenty points by the fourth quarter, and Richie had them making ten passes before they were even allowed to look at the basket. By then, he had the O’Brien twins in the backcourt, Michael Harden playing center, Will and Oliver Towne at forward.

  Richie had taken Danny out halfway through the third quarter.

  “I think your work here is done,” Richie said.

  Danny took a seat next to him. “Somebody said these guys have won two games,” he said. “I don’t know how they did that, but they’re not going to win another one the rest of the season.”

  “Don’t worry about them,” his dad said. “You were worried we weren’t going to win a game the rest of the season.”

  “Excellent point.”

  “And when it’s over? You make sure the rest of the guys—and girls—act like they’ve won before.”

  “Even though we haven’t?”