True Legend

by Mike Lupica

  Looking right at Drew now, not Lee.

  “How he threw it all away like he did, I guess.”

  “How, or why?”

  “Either way,” Drew said.

  “Only he knew the answer to that,” the old man said. “I kept hoping he’d figure it out before it was too late.”

  Drew said, “Coach DiGregorio said that you told him you started losing Legend—”

  The old man said in a sharp voice, “I never called him that, not one single time.”

  “Coach said you thought you started losing Urban Sellers when he started to believe he was a legend.”

  “I said that, yes.”

  “But if he was as good as everybody says, he was—”

  “He was better.”

  “If he was that good, couldn’t somebody stop him?”

  “Make him see what he was throwing away?” the old man said. “Make him realize what a gift he had?”

  “Yes,” Drew said.

  “You mean like you realize?”

  “I’m not saying I’m him,” Drew said.

  “Let me ask you something,” Fred Holman said, angling his chair more toward Drew, focusing those eyes on him harder than ever. “You spend as much time in the gym as you used to?”

  Drew said, “Yeah. I guess so. Sure.”

  “Don’t sound sure to me.”

  “I put in the time,” Drew said. “Nobody ever handed me anything.”

  Feeling as defensive as he had in the park with Donald.

  “Nobody ever handed you anything until now,” Holman said.

  “I’m not sure what you mean by that . . . Coach.”

  Hadn’t they come here to ask him the questions?

  “There’s all sorts of ways for people to lose their way, no matter how good they are. And you are good, son. I’ve seen that with my own eyes.”

  “You’ve come to watch me play?”

  “Three or four times,” he said. “I can still get around.”

  “Coach didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t tell him,” Coach Holman said. “I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about.”

  Drew waited and then finally said, “So how am I doing?”

  “You don’t need to wait for college,” the old man said. “You’re already there. It’s not about the game anymore. It’s all about you.”

  Drew felt the way he did when he ran into a pick nobody had called out. Getting slammed like this from some old coach who used to be somebody.

  I didn’t come here to talk about me, he thought. But he didn’t say that, just cleared his throat instead and said, “’Scuse me?”

  There had been nothing mean in the way Coach Holman had said it, no change Drew could see in his manner. But he wasn’t looking to be some kind of good host now. “You heard me, son,” Holman said. “When you get to be my age, you got more important things to worry about than hurting somebody’s feelings.”

  He smiled as he kept saying mean things. “If I just went by what I see, you’re just another knucklehead who thinks his teammates are what Jordan used to call them: his supporting cast.”

  Drew said, “But I’m averaging a double double, points and assists—”

  Now the old coach snapped at him. “Don’t give me numbers, kid. Don’t ever give me numbers. What do they call you—True? If you want to be true to your talent, you’ll listen to what I’m telling you.”

  He was, what, twice the age of Donald in the park? Being twice as hard on Drew.

  Lee jumped in now, trying to change the subject. “About Legend,” he said.

  The old man looked back out at the water, like he was trying to see something in the distance.

  “Mr. Sellers was another one who stopped working at being the best player he could be about this same time in his life,” the old man said. “Decided he didn’t have anything more to learn on the court, the way he didn’t need to learn anything in the classroom. He used to always tell me, ‘I worked hard to get here. Why can’t I have some fun?’ And I’d say to the boy, ‘To get here? You’re not anywhere yet.’”

  “But he wouldn’t listen?” Lee said.

  “Not until it was too late.”

  “Did you stay in touch with him?”

  “You mean until he died?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did stay in touch with him, as a way of keeping a promise I made to him.”

  “What promise?” Lee said.

  “I used to tell him that he’d hear my voice in his ear, no matter which one of us died first.”

  Just like that, he stood up.

  “Nice to meet you boys,” he said.

  He was telling them that the interview—not that it had been much of one—was over. Like class being dismissed.

  Drew stood up, too. He was close enough to reach out, offer the man his hand. But didn’t.

  He just looked at him and said, “Not that you care. But I’m not him.”

  “Didn’t say you were, son. I’m just trying to tell you I see a lot of him in you. Or vice versa.”

  “You don’t know me,” Drew said, standing his ground.

  “Better than you think.”

  “Off a handful of games?”

  “No,” Fred Holman said. “Off all the games I’ve ever seen.”

  One last time, Lee tried to lighten the atmosphere on the deck. “You know, we really didn’t get a lot out of you about Urban Legend.”

  “Nobody ever really has,” the old man said, and led them back to the front door.

  Neither one of them spoke until they were on the freeway, when Lee reached over and turned down the volume on the satellite radio.

  “Don’t let him wreck your whole day,” Lee said.

  “I’m not.”

  “What you said to him right before we left is right,” Lee said. “He doesn’t know you.”

  Drew had been staring out the window. Now he turned and faced Lee.

  “Why do you suppose so many people think they do all of a sudden?” he asked.

  NINETEEN

  His mom was in the sunroom at the front of the house on Forest Cove Lane when he came in. She asked him how it had gone in Santa Monica.

  “Learned some stuff,” he said, “even if it was from a mean old man.”

  “No love?” she said, grinning at him over her reading glasses.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said, knowing he sounded testy, “I don’t need the whole world to love me.”

  “Easy there, tiger. I was just playing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “My boy home for dinner?”

  “Probably not,” he said. “No school tomorrow, remember?”

  “You have plans?”

  He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, knowing she wasn’t going to like the answer to that one any more than she usually did. But he knew better than to lie. Doing that with Darlene Robinson was a way of opening himself up to house arrest, no matter how big a basketball star he was.

  “Robbie’s throwing a party.”

  “You don’t even like Robbie.”

  “Make my life go easier, ’specially with his dad, if he would like me a little more. Lee’s gonna pick me up in a while.”

  “Lee’s going to a party at Robbie’s? I thought Lee really didn’t like Robbie.”

  Over his shoulder, not wanting to talk about this anymore, he said, “Who’s researching a paper today—me or you?”

  The last thing he heard from the sunroom was the sarcastic voice of his mom, saying, “Party at Robbie’s. Good times.”

  Drew hoped.

  He hadn’t told his mom that the real reason he was going to Robbie Gilbert’s party wasn’t to get Robbie to like
him more, just Callie Mason.

  • • •

  Robbie Gilbert was tall enough to be a basketball player, taller than Drew, and had played some with Lee growing up in Thousand Oaks. But he’d stopped when he got to Oakley.

  “Sports have rules,” Lee said on the way over to the Gilbert house. “And Robbie wasn’t much better at rules than he was at basketball. He’s always sort of known his best talent was being Mr. Gilbert’s son, from the time I first met him, in first grade.”

  “You know the deal,” Drew said. “I just don’t want the guy hating on me.”

  “You ever think there’s some things you can’t control?” Lee said.

  “Nah,” Drew said.

  When they arrived, Drew was surprised to see there were more people tonight than there had been for Mr. Gilbert’s party after the Park Prep game. But that was Mr. Gilbert’s show, not Robbie’s. Drew knew from previous experience that if this was anything like Robbie’s other parties at the house, Mr. Gilbert was probably upstairs in his soundproof study, hiding.

  Robbie spotted Drew and Lee from across the swimming pool when they had made their way out back. He was wearing what he usually did, a black T-shirt and old-looking jeans with holes in the knees. Drew knew the jeans cost a couple of hundred dollars at least to look that way.

  “Hey,” Robbie said to Lee, without even looking at him, as he gave Drew a lean-in hug.

  It was then, over Robbie’s shoulder, that Drew saw Callie, in a crowd of girls near the diving board, looking back at him.

  “What’s good?” Robbie yelled at Drew over the music.

  His mood seemed different, better than it had been at the breakfast table the other day. Maybe he was trying to make things better with Drew. Or maybe it was just part of the show. It was hard with Robbie sometimes, trying to figure out what was a pose, what was real, when he was messing with you, when he was just having fun.

  “Check you out later,” he said to Drew. “Right now, gotta go do my host thang.”

  Drew watched him make his way to the end of the pool where Callie was and put his arm around her shoulder. Watched as Robbie leaned over and said something into her ear that made her laugh.

  Lee saw, too.

  “Funny guy, that Robbie,” he said.

  “Just doing his host thang,” Drew said. “Like he said.”

  “Really?”

  Drew’s eyes were still on Robbie and Callie, on Robbie’s arm around her shoulder.

  “They’re just talking at a party is all.”

  “Really.” Lee drew the word out, not even trying to make it sound like he was asking a question this time.

  As if Robbie could feel them staring at him now, he looked across the water, smiled and waved with his free hand.

  Lee said, “He’s using Callie to mess with you.”

  “I got no claim to Callie Mason,” Drew said. “Dude, you’re reading way too much into it.”

  Lee said, “Sometimes I think you forget how well I can read you.”

  They walked around a little bit after that. The party was catered—of course, it was the Gilberts’—and Drew and Lee found the stations where they were serving cheeseburger sliders, filled a plate with those, found an empty table, and ate. Some other seniors from Robbie’s rich-boy crowd spotted them, pulled up chairs for a while, talked basketball with them like they actually cared.

  Beyond where the DJ was set up and a temporary dance floor had been laid down, Drew saw the lighted basketball court, nobody on it tonight, not even fooling around. For a second, even on a night when he’d said he wanted to get away from thinking about basketball, Drew imagined himself out there by himself, the party over, everybody else gone.

  Maybe just Callie watching him shoot around.

  He got up from the table, walked around the edges of the party, trying to see where she was, if she was still with Robbie. Wanting somehow to get a few minutes with her, find a way to act as comfortable with her as Robbie had.

  He had made it look as easy as Drew made things on the court.

  When Drew couldn’t find her in the crowd or on the dance floor, he went to get himself a soda at the bar next to the cheeseburger station.

  He waited to get to the front of the line.

  When he had his drink, he turned around and there she was. Startled, Drew nearly spilled his soda on her blue shirt.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey, Drew.” She looked around. “Where’s Lee? I never see one of you without the other.”

  He didn’t know whether she meant it as a dig or not, but he took it that way.

  “Where’s Robbie?” he said.

  Idiot, he thought as soon as he said it.

  “No clue,” Callie said. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “You look nice tonight,” Drew said.

  She was wearing a white dress that showed off her figure, her long legs.

  “Not lookin’ fine?” But she was smiling as she spoke. No harm, no foul.

  Drew put out his hand, saying, “Peace?”

  She shook it.

  “Peace,” she said.

  “Thank you so much.” He felt like you do when you get a do-over on the playground. “You want me to get you something to drink?”

  “I’m fine.”

  They both just stood there, Drew not knowing what to say, hoping Lee would come back and rescue him, start talking so he didn’t have to.

  Except it wasn’t Lee who showed up.

  It was Robbie.

  Robbie with his loud voice, like he was trying to be heard over Kanye, over the whole party. No volume switch on his voice you could turn down, ever.

  “Wait a second. You trying to hit on my date?”

  Drew knew he was imagining it, but felt all the eyes at the party on him, just like that.

  “Just saying hi,” Drew said.

  Which was about all he really had said to Callie.

  “I don’t know,” Robbie said. “I heard you might be sweet on Miss Callie.”

  Callie said, “Robbie, mind your own business.”

  He does know, Drew thought. He didn’t know how. But Robbie knew.

  “I should’ve seen this coming,” Robbie said, not letting it go. “The two best basketball players in the school, like, in the same backcourt”—turning to the crowd—“if you know what I mean.”

  Drew said, “C’mon, man, give it a rest, okay?”

  But Robbie was enjoying himself. Like he was on stage, just without his band. Drew noticed that there were more kids in the immediate area than there had been a couple of minutes ago.

  “Wow,” Robbie said. “My man True has a freak on for Callie.”

  He was trying harder than ever—trying too hard, Drew thought—to be the show at his own party. Or just trying to show Drew up.

  “Shut it,” Drew said.

  Drew was tired of this. Robbie Gilbert didn’t get to embarrass him, not even at his own house, at his own party.

  “I’m just having a little fun.”

  “Maybe you are,” Drew said. “I’m not.”

  “If you can’t take a joke—”

  “Shut it now,” Drew said.

  “And I’m going to do that . . . because?”

  “Because I’m telling you to.”

  “Oh, I forgot,” Robbie said. “Everybody’s supposed to do what True Robinson wants. Did you know that, Callie?”

  “Leave Callie out of it,” Drew said.

  This was another way of looking bad in front of her, Drew knew it. But couldn’t stop himself. A bad day that had started with the mean old coach was ending worse.

  “I can speak for myself, thank you,” Callie said. “Though I can’t imagine why I’d want to speak to either one of
you at this particular moment.”

  She was the cool one, even now.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Drew said. “I just . . .”

  It was like his words just dropped out of the air.

  “Can’t talk to the girl?” Robbie said. “I thought you could do anything.”

  Was he drunk, acting this way?

  “This is the last time I’m going to tell you to shut it,” Drew said.

  “Or what?” Robbie said. “You gonna take me to the basket?” For some reason, Robbie laughed now, like he’d cracked himself up.

  Drew took it as if he were laughing at him.

  He stepped forward, but that was as far as he got, because Lee was there now, a death grip on Drew’s right arm.

  It had turned into a scene, and Lee was trying to get him out of it.

  “Hey,” Lee said, “I thought parties were supposed to be fun.”

  Robbie said, “Looks like the only one not having fun here is Number One.”

  Before Drew could respond, Lee was walking him away, back toward the main house, keeping that firm grip on his arm.

  Drew didn’t turn around all the way to the house, but he didn’t have to. He could feel Callie’s eyes on him the whole time.

  TWENTY

  Drew was tired of listening to people who thought they were experts on him or his game, as if they thought looking at him on a basketball court gave them the ability to see right inside him.

  The season had been going along fine; everything had been going along fine. But now, just like that, he was sick of just about everybody: old coaches, dead legends, ghosts in the park. Girls. And especially guys like Robbie Gilbert, who thought his daddy liked Drew better. Boo hoo.

  Drew was just going to tune out all the noise and play his game. What, there was a problem with it all of a sudden? Really? If there was so much wrong with it, if he was such a bad guy and a bad teammate, then why did everybody in the world want him to come play his one-and-done year of college basketball for them?

  How many other juniors in high school who weren’t even sixteen years old yet, who didn’t even have their driver’s license yet, could say that?

  So he made up his mind: in two nights, he was going to take everything out on Conejo Valley Christian, Oakley’s next opponent.