by Mike Lupica
Colby liked Will as much as he liked her, at least according to Tess. It didn’t change the fact that she was the only person Danny knew about who could cause Will’s mouth to malfunction on a fairly regular basis.
The fact that he was able to concentrate on basketball when the two of them were playing basketball together was a minor miracle.
Tess would be at the meeting, too. Danny couldn’t believe they had ever tried having a team without her.
And his mom, who had come up so big, the last few days, especially.
“Point Mom,” is what she’d started calling herself.
“Point Mom?” Danny said.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ve got the lingo down now.”
This was on Tuesday, Ali Walker driving Danny over to St. Pat’s before going over to the hospital to visit his dad. Mrs. Stoddard had volunteered to be the team mom for tonight while Danny ran practice.
“Truth or dare,” he said to his mom from the backseat.
“Truth.”
“Can we really do this?”
They were in front of the gym, the engine idling, the heat going full blast. Ali Walker turned to face him. “It’s like I’ve been telling you your whole life,” she said. “You can do just about anything you set your mind to.”
“I set my mind on making the Vikings,” Danny said. “How’d that work out for me?”
“I never said it was a one hundred percent foolproof plan,” she said. “But it’s still a darn good one. And you know it.”
She faced front, but he could see her smiling, her reflection in the windshield lit by the dashboard lights.
Danny vaguely remembered some old song she liked to sing along to that had “dashboard light” in it. Another one of her oldies but goodies.
“As far as I’m concerned,” she said, “this all worked out the way it was supposed to.”
Then she told him to scoot, his team was waiting for him.
30
THE NEXT NIGHT. WEDNESDAY.
The small team meeting was over, the minipractice in the driveway had ended, the ice cream sundaes had been consumed by the unlikely group of kids and moms in the Walker kitchen.
Tess was the last to leave. Her parents had gone to the movies, then called to ask if it was all right if she stayed there a little longer while they stopped and had a quick bite at Fierro’s.
Tess and Danny sat on the two seats in the backyard swing set Ali Walker said she hadn’t taken down because she was never taking it down. It was cold out and getting colder by the minute, but neither one of them cared.
“Tonight, I finally figured out why you love it out here so much,” she said. “I mean, on your own private court.”
Danny said, “I’m just trying to get better, is all.”
“It’s more than that and you know it, Daniel Walker,” Tess said. “This is your own little basketball world back here, and nobody can screw things up.”
“My mom says it’s my own private Madison Square Garden.”
“More like a magic garden, if you ask me.”
She reached over and took his hand out of the big front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, and held it in her own hand. It made Danny feel as if he’d put a glove on.
They stayed that way for a minute and then, because neither one of them seemed to know how long you were supposed to hold hands, she let him go.
They kept rocking.
“It’s a really nice world back here,” Tess said.
“You always know what to say,” Danny said. “What would you call this? The quiet before the storm?”
“Works for me.”
“Whatever happens, we’re gonna give Middletown basketball a day it’s never going to forget,” Danny said.
“Like in your dad’s day,” she said.
“Not that big a day,” Danny said. “Nothing will ever be that big around here ever again.”
They went back to rocking in silence. Danny put his head back and stared at the stars. And suddenly, because Tess Hewitt was always full of surprises, because Danny knew in his heart, even at the age of twelve, that she would be full of surprises as long as the two of them knew each other—which he roughly hoped would be forever—she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“Don’t be so sure it won’t be that big, little guy,” she said.
It was all right for her, calling him little guy.
Because when he was with her like this, Danny felt like the biggest guy in town.
When he heard the Hewitts’ car in front, he walked Tess up the driveway, told her he’d see her tomorrow at school, then went back inside.
His mom was holding the phone out for him as soon as he got through the front door.
“Your father,” she said.
Danny put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Isn’t it a little late for him to be up?”
“He has some trouble sleeping sometimes, at least until the pills kick in.”
She pointed toward the phone. “Talk,” she said. “My two big talkers.”
Danny took the phone with him up the stairs, saying, “Yo.”
Which he’d never say to his mom.
“Hey, bud.”
He went into his room, turned on the light next to his bed, adjusted the shade so it shined up on John Stockton like a spotlight, lay down on his back staring up at it.
Waiting for his dad to say something now, on the other end of the phone.
Some parts of it between them, Danny knew, would never change. Even lately, with so much to talk about, they’d sit there in the hospital room with nothing but air between them.
Sometimes Danny compared the two of them starting a conversation to his mom trying to get her car engine to start up on one of these cold mornings.
“Well,” his dad said.
“Well.”
“Here you are.”
He sounded a little groggy. Danny had been with him a few times when the sleeping pills started to work, and it was like somebody had hit his dad with a knockout punch.
“No,” Danny said. “Here we are.”
“Nice try, bud. But it’s all you now.”
“I wouldn’t even have a game tomorrow if you hadn’t come back when you did,” Danny said. “And did what you did starting the team.”
Another long pause.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Which sounded more to Danny like: Lose the nerdy-weepy crap.
Danny didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything until his dad said, “Anyway, I was just calling to wish you luck. I told your mom not to stop by tomorrow, they’ve got a bunch of tests they want to run. And they’re going to put a smaller cast on my leg so I can get around a little better. Unless, of course, they decide they want to run me into the chop shop again.”
“The Vikings are really good,” Danny said, “even without Ty.”
“Big…frigging deal. You guys are better than ever.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, guess what? You better damn well know by tomorrow.”
Coming alive a little bit. Cracking the whip.
“Okay?” his dad said.
“Okay.”
“Hey, bud?”
“Yeah?”
“Get after it tomorrow, every minute you’re out there,” he said. “On account of, you never know which day is gonna be the best day of your whole life.”
The next thing Danny heard was a dial tone.
He shut off the phone, looked over at the clock next to his bed. Ten-fifteen.
Talking to his dad had made him want to play a little more before he went to bed.
He didn’t have to change, because he still had his sweatshirt on. He figured that if it wasn’t okay with his mom, going back out at this time of night, she’d come right outside and tell him once she heard the bounce of the ball.
He grabbed the Infusion ball from under his desk.
Slipped out the back door and switched the lights back on.
Wa
rmed up by shooting a few from the outside.
Made a little tricky-dribble move and then put up the shot he’d missed against Hanesboro in the first game, made at the end of the Kirkland game.
Nothing but net.
Feeling jazzed now, as if the night were just beginning, with all his dreams, and schemes.
Andy Mayne’s ankle was all better. He’d be playing tomorrow, at least according to Ty, which meant Danny would be going up against a point guard just as good as he was, and a lot bigger.
Nothing new with the part about bigger.
He thought to himself: Bring it on, Colorado boy.
He was ready to play the game right here, right now.
He stepped back until he was about twenty feet away from the basket, tried the double crossover a couple of times, back and forth, not putting the ball too low, just fooling around with it.
Then he was ready to try it for real, imagining he needed it to split Andy Mayne and another defender in the Vikings’ press, get himself into the open court in the last minute of the game.
Or even the last ten seconds.
Left hand, right hand.
Then the same move again, just slower this time.
Ready to make his move, right out of the last dribble, his body nearly as low to the ground as the ball.
He made his move, between the imaginary defenders, exploding at the basket like a toy rocket taking off.
And slipped as he did.
Slipped on the patch of black ice he didn’t know was there, his feet going straight out from under him like he’d slipped on a banana peel in a comic strip, flying backward through the air without even a dope like Teddy Moran around to break his fall.
31
HE DIDN’T TELL HIS MOM ABOUT HIS SHOULDER IN THE MORNING. HE WASN’T going to tell anybody about his shoulder, as sore as it was. He didn’t like tennis too much, it wasn’t his favorite, but sometimes when one of the big tournaments was on, he liked to listen to John McEnroe. And one time during the U.S. Open, he’d heard McEnroe talking about what some old Australian guy had told him about injuries when McEnroe was a junior player.
“If you’re hurt,” McEnroe said, “you don’t play. If you play, you’re not hurt.”
He was playing, case closed.
Even though he did want to call his dad and ask him if they made junior pain pills, preferably chewable.
He took a longer shower than usual, letting the hot water beat on his shoulder as long as possible. When he came downstairs, his mom was in the living room.
There was a big box in the middle of the floor.
“Whatcha got?” he said.
“Take a look for yourself.”
They were white basketball jerseys, packed in a zipped-up plastic bag. He unzippered the bag, and pulled one out.
“Middletown” was in blue letters on the back, above the numbers.
“From your father’s team,” she said.
“No way!”
“Way.”
“Was this Dad’s idea?”
“Nah,” she said, “this one came from the old point mom.”
The second jersey Danny pulled out of the plastic bag was Richie Walker’s Number 3.
Danny tried it on, careful pulling it over his head, knowing that if his face showed any pain, his mom would pounce; he tried not to even think about the shoulder, worried about her mutant mindreading powers.
His dad’s Number 3 fit him as if he’d special-ordered it out of a little-guy catalogue. He didn’t have to tuck half of it into the sweats he was wearing right now, didn’t lose half of the “3” in the front.
Didn’t feel like Stuart Little.
It fit him like a dream.
He looked at his mom. “How…?”
“From Mrs. Hayes. After Mr. Hayes died.”
There hadn’t been a dad coaching Middletown travel when Richie Walker’s team had won the national championship. Their coach had been a local basketball legend named Morgan Hayes, who’d coached basketball at Middletown High until being forced to retire at the age of seventy.
Danny said, “Dad always said Coach Hayes knew more about basketball than any coach he ever had after that.”
“I think the only reason Coach Hayes ever agreed to come out of retirement,” Ali Walker said, “I mean back then, was because he knew how special your father was, and he was a little sad he wasn’t going to be able to coach him in high school.”
His mom went on to say that after Mr. Hayes died three years ago, his wife found this box in their basement. In those days, his mom said, the kids didn’t get to keep the uniforms when the season was over, they went back to Middletown Basketball. But they’d allowed Morgan Hayes to keep these uniforms because his Vikings had won the title.
“Of course your father had left…town by then,” his mom said. “But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to throw these uniforms away. There wasn’t any Middletown Basketball Hall of Fame I could give them to. So I just kept them in the basement.”
She looked at Danny. “I think you should wear them today,” she said.
He went over and put out his fist. She put on a face that had some attitude in it, like she was saying uh-huh, and tapped it with her own.
“Very cool idea,” he said to his mom. “You think they have any magic in them?”
“The Vikings won’t know what these uniforms mean. But you guys will.”
They took the rest of the uniforms out of the box and folded them neatly. Danny said they could pass them out when everybody was at St. Pat’s. When they finished their folding, the two of them were still kneeling on the floor, facing each other. His mom took his hands.
Don’t pull too hard, he thought. Please.
“What started out with the worst day of your whole life is going to end up with the best,” she said.
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Everything’s all right with the league?”
“We sent over the new and improved Daniel Walker Play-off Roster yesterday.”
The doorbell rang then. Danny knew who it was.
More perfect timing between them.
Same as on the court.
He ran over and opened the front door for Ty and Mrs. Ross.
“Wait till you see what my mom has,” Danny said, not even bothering with hello or good morning. “The uniforms my dad’s team wore!” Danny caught himself. “And your dad’s team, too.”
Ty said, “Cool.”
“Well,” Ali Walker said from behind Danny. “Good morning to the newest member of the Warriors.”
“’Morning, Mrs. Walker,” Ty Ross said.
Lily Ross said to Ali, “He wanted to go to the game with Danny.”
Ali said, “Things any better at home?”
Lily Ross shrugged. “I told my husband at breakfast what I’ve been telling him all week: It’s just a basketball game. And it’s a game that was never supposed to be about him in the first place.” She pointed toward Danny and Ty, already moving into the living room, Danny asking Ty what number he wanted to wear. “It’s about them.”
Danny and Ty raced for the uniforms then, Ty telling him he wanted to see if Number 1 would fit him.
The whole thing had been Ty’s idea.
He had IM’d Danny the night after Mr. Ross called him out in front of the gym after the Kirkland game. It was the last message Danny had gotten before he went to bed.
TYBREAK1: I want to play with you guys.
Always a man of few words.
Like Richie Walker.
Danny remembered sitting there at his desk and laughing his head off, just at the craziness of it.
CROSSOVER2: You CANNOT be serious!
Another McEnroe line.
TYBREAK1: I wouldn’t be quitting something. You can’t quit something you never started.
CROSSOVER2: Can you? Play with us, I mean.
TYBREAK1: My mom says yes.
Moms rule, Danny thought.
Tryi
ng to slow down his brain from going a hundred miles an hour.
CROSSOVER2: Don’t tell anybody yet.
TYBREAK1: That include Tess?
Danny smiled to himself that night.
Everybody knew who the real boss was.
CROSSOVER2: First I want to talk to my mom. Then have her talk to your mom.
TYBREAK1: Deal.
CROSSOVER2: Dude?
TYBREAK1: Yeah?
CROSSOVER2: We are gonna rock their world.
He’d had to keep it a secret for more than a week, from Will and Tess and everybody, the longest he’d ever kept a secret his whole life. Because once the moms got involved—the conspiracy of moms, is what Ali Walker called it—they wanted Danny and Ty to take some time, think things through.
Danny knew that Ty and Mrs. Ross had finally told Mr. Ross the Tuesday night before the play-offs, while the Warriors were practicing at St. Pat’s. Ty said on the phone that night that his dad had hit the roof, got as mad as he’d ever seen him, which pretty much meant as mad as anybody had ever gotten.
But then, he said, something awesome had happened:
Ty’s mom had sat there across from him at the kitchen table when all the yelling stopped and then—Ty’s words—totally dominated him.
Mrs. Ross hit Mr. Ross with what she called his “little recruiting trip,” the one where he’d tried to get Danny to join the Vikings. She hit him with the scene between Mr. Ross and Ty after the Kirkland game.
Mr. Ross had finally looked at Ty and asked how he could turn his back on his own team?
“It was never my team, Dad,” Ty had told him. “It was always your team. I didn’t feel like I was part of anybody’s team till I helped Danny coach.”
And that, Ty said, was pretty much that.
Danny thinking to himself: Maybe Mrs. Ross was the biggest guy in Middletown now.
The next night, Danny couldn’t have gotten their full squad, plus Ty, together even if he’d wanted to. Though he didn’t mind very much that he couldn’t. Michael Harden had tutoring, the O’Brien twins had to go watch their younger sister’s ballet recital, and Oliver Towne had gone to a Knicks game with his neighbors, even though it was a school night. Danny had everybody else in his driveway, walking Ty through the Warriors’ basic plays with Colby, Will, and Bren.
