by Mike Lupica
The only person close to them, he saw, was his brother Ben.
Zeke didn’t know he was there yet, because Ben was behind him. There he was, anyway, wanting to see what was going on at the swings.
Billy put his eyes back on Zeke so that Zeke wouldn’t wonder what he was looking at behind him.
“Just so’s you know,” Zeke said. “This still isn’t over.”
“Boy, there’s pretty great news,” Lenny said.
“Shut up, DiNerdo.”
“Yeah,” the Ratner twins said, at the same time.
The twins turned to go. So did Zeke.
Who saw Ben now.
“Hey,” Zeke said, “it’s little Raynor.”
He walked right up to him, put out his hand, the way people did when they wanted you to shake it.
“How you doing, little Raynor?”
Don’t do it, Ben.
Don’t shake the guy’s hand.
Ben put his hand out.
Zeke took it.
Zeke didn’t have it long. Billy couldn’t hear what he was saying. And knew it didn’t matter. However hard he was squeezing Ben’s right hand, he didn’t let go until Ben yelled, the sound coming out of Billy’s brother and somehow just blending in with all the other yells from recess.
Monday night was now the official night of the week when they went out to dinner with their dad.
When their dad had first stopped living with them, their mom had assured them that they would work out some kind of schedule where all the kids would spend regular time with him on weekends. “Quality time,” she called it. When Eliza heard that one, she laughed, saying that if she started doing that, it would be the first time she had ever spent quality time with Dad on weekends in her life.
Billy knew something too:
Their dad had never spent much time with Ben on weekends, if you didn’t count when the two of them would go to a movie together. Billy had always sort of thought that the movies were their best time together, for both Ben and dad, because that was a couple of hours when they didn’t have to try talking to each other.
Joe Raynor would show up at some of Ben’s tennis clinics when Ben was still playing tennis. It was the same with soccer before Ben quit. Sometimes Billy would tag along to Ben’s games when his mom was working on a Saturday, just to keep his dad company. So Billy knew better than anybody in the family that Dad had no interest in tennis, even if one of his sons was playing it, and didn’t even know the names of the positions in soccer.
Billy had gotten the most of what Eliza called “Dad time.”
Lucky me, he thought.
Tonight they were sitting at their favorite table at Bobby Van’s, a restaurant all the Raynor kids liked as much for the desserts as for the burgers and chicken fingers, chicken fingers being the only thing Billy could ever remember his brother Ben ordering when they were out to dinner.
Billy and Ben had gotten into it with Zeke earlier in the day. Afterward, Ben swore that his hand was fine, but Billy wasn’t so sure. When they’d gotten home, he’d asked Ben to prove his hand was okay by playing something on the piano in the living room.
Ben said he had studying to do if they were going out with Dad, and to stop bugging him about his stupid hand.
Now they were waiting for their food and their dad was doing the same thing he did at every one of these dinners so far: going around the table and asking each of his children what they’d been doing since he saw them last.
Billy wondered if their dad wrote out what he wanted to do at dinner, the things he wanted to talk about, the way he wrote out what they were going to do at basketball practice.
Eliza went first, mostly because she always did, pretty much giving a play-by-play of her week, both in and out of school. Sometimes when Billy watched his big sister, he pictured her picturing herself in one of those real-life MTV shows she was always watching, just without any cameras around.
Billy knew his dad didn’t give a rip about what Eliza and her girlfriends had been talking about all week. He still tried to act interested, even throwing in a question once in a while when Eliza would actually stop to take a breath.
After Eliza, it was Ben’s turn. Their dad tried to make a joke of it when he explained why they were going out of order, age-wise, saying to Billy, “I know what you’ve been doing since last week’s family dinner—shooting.”
“Good one, Dad,” Billy said.
His old reliable. Like going to his favorite spot on the floor.
“How’s piano?” their dad said to Ben. “Getting ready for the big day?”
“I guess.”
Ben seemed more interested in the chicken fingers and fries on his plate, shoveling them in with his head down like the rest of them were timing him.
“C’mon, guy,” Joe Raynor said. “You gotta be more fired than that. This is what you’ve been working for.”
Still Ben didn’t look up. “Whatever,” he said.
Their dad, being their dad, wouldn’t let it go.
“You should be as fired up about this recital of yours as Billy is about the play-offs.”
Ben, like he was talking to his plate, mumbled, “I’m not Billy.”
“What did you say?”
Ben looked up, like his eyes were on fire all of a sudden. “I said I’m not Billy. Piano isn’t basketball. It’s not a team sport. It’s just something else I do alone.”
“But the principles are the same in anything you want to do well,” their dad said. “Hard work pays off in the end. You put the work in at practice—”
Ben tossed down his fork, and it hit an open spot on his plate, hard. And loud.
Like Ben’s voice now.
Ben said, “This isn’t basketball! So why are you pretending you care?”
“If one of my sons is playing the piano, then I care about it,” their dad said. “And I know you know that.”
But their dad didn’t seem so sure about it, at least not to Billy. Maybe this wasn’t the way dinner was supposed to go.
It wasn’t going like a practice.
“Talk to me, Ben,” their dad said.
“I am talking,” Ben said. “You guys always want me to talk, except when I say something you don’t like. Like about you not liking piano.”
“Sounds to me as though you’re the one who doesn’t like piano all of a sudden,” Joe Raynor said. “And you want it to be my fault.”
This was the stubborn dad really starting to come out now. Billy had seen it enough times himself.
“Why are you acting like this is such a big deal?” Ben said. Even he seemed surprised that he was still yelling this way, in a restaurant, and at his dad. “It’s never been a big deal to you, so don’t try to make it out like that now. Okay?”
“Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice,” their dad said, looking around to see if other people were listening. “I was just trying to have a conversation with my son.”
“Have it with Billy, then,” Ben said.
He pushed back his chair. The chair fell over behind him, nearly clipping a waiter carrying a full tray of plates. Ben didn’t even seem to notice. He just ran for the door.
When nobody else at the table moved, Billy got up and ran after him.
He didn’t know he had to be the man of the house even when they went out.
THIRTEEN
The next night Billy’s mom came home from work early, gave Peg the night off, made dinner for all three kids herself.
She hardly ever came home early from work and only seemed to be eating dinner with them a couple of nights a week now. Some weeks it was no nights at all. So this was like a special occasion, all the kids even helping to set the table.
Eliza just kept making jokes about their mom preparing the dinner, asking her stuff like, “You can still find the oven and the microwave, right, Mom?”
They had chicken and mashed potatoes and then chocolate ice cream sundaes for dessert. When everybody had helped clear the dishes, Billy annou
nced that he’d worked on his art project in free period and was going into the den to watch a basketball game. Eliza said she was going on her computer until her favorite show that wasn’t on MTV—The OC—came on at nine o’clock.
Ben actually said he was going to practice piano, maybe just as a way of showing Mom he was still into it, even if Billy couldn’t tell anymore whether he was or not.
Billy loved his brother, or he wouldn’t have stuck up for him the way he did with Zeke the Geek, and he sure wouldn’t have covered for him when he skipped piano without telling anybody. And Billy did feel kind of bad that Ben had been in such a grumpy mood lately, about almost everything, even a dinner out with Dad.
But it wasn’t his job to take care of Ben. It was his parents’ job, even if his parents weren’t living in the same house anymore.
He was never going to admit this, especially to his parents, but the only person Billy wanted to worry about right now was himself. He just wanted to play basketball and have everybody else in his family leave him alone.
What he really wanted to do?
Shoot a ball.
His dad was always going to think he shot too much. But as far as Billy was concerned, that was his dad’s problem. Billy knew his own game better than anyone. His game was shooting. And if their team was going to win the Rec League championship, he knew he had to keep shooting.
It was cold out tonight, but Billy didn’t care. He went and put on a sweatshirt and a knit cap and found his ball in the kitchen closet. Then he threw the switch next to the back door that lighted up his own little court at the end of the driveway.
As he was heading out the door, his mom came down the back stairs.
She smiled at Billy then, gave a little pull to his cap and got it away from his eyes. “So how’s it going, my big?”
“Fine.”
“Things better with your dad?”
The last thing he wanted to do right now was have Mom start one of her big talks with him, about Dad or anything else.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ve just gotta win three more games and then we’ll have what Dad’s been talking about all year: one perfect season.”
He thought his mom looked almost sad when she said, “It’s what we all want, kiddo. I hope you get it.”
Not as much as I do, Billy thought.
He went outside to shoot in the night, knowing there was nobody out there to tell him he was shooting too much, nothing else to worry about except putting the ball over the front of the rim just right and through the net.
When you were a shooter, the only person you really had to count on was yourself.
The schedule for the play-offs went like this:
If you won your first game in the quarterfinals, you played the semis the next afternoon. It was the only time you played on Sunday all season.
If you won that, the finals were the next Saturday morning. And the finals weren’t at the Y. The last game would be in the big gym at the high school.
“I’m in no rush to get to high school,” Lenny was saying before their game against the 76ers. “But next Saturday, high school is the only place I want to be.”
“One game at a time,” Billy said.
“You sound like a certain coach,” Lenny said.
Billy grinned at his best bud and said, “That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
They were the first ones at the gym. Mr. DiNardo had forgotten it was his day to bring snacks for halftime and for after the game, so he had dropped them at the gym early and then run to the store.
There were no nine o’clock games for the younger kids today, because the younger kids didn’t have play-offs. So for a few minutes, Billy and Lenny felt like they had the gym to themselves.
Billy would feed Lenny. Lenny would feed Billy, who couldn’t miss. Lenny made jokes. Billy laughed at them, like always, then made another shot, already feeling as if he were on fire.
Mostly he was happy.
He was happy to be here with Lenny DiNardo, happy to have him as a bud, happy that they had a big game coming up at ten o’clock.
Just plain happy for a change.
There was only one problem.
Even if they won their next two games, even if they made it to the finals, their season was over next Saturday.
Then what was going to make Billy feel this happy?
The Magic scored two points in the first quarter.
Two.
Jim Sarni scored a basket the first time they had the ball and then nobody on the team scored another one before the horn sounded ending the quarter.
They missed layups, missed outside shots, missed free throws. They couldn’t do anything against the 76ers’ zone, couldn’t do anything when the 76ers pressed them all over the court. Even Lenny DiNardo seemed to be trying to set a new personal record for turnovers.
Basically, they had forgotten how to play basketball at the worst possible time.
“This is not happening,” Lenny said when it was 12-2 for the 76ers.
Billy pointed to the boy sitting at the table with the portable electronic scoreboard in front of him.
“Better tell him that,” Billy said.
Billy had missed his first couple of shots. He thought he got fouled on the second and said something to the ref. But before the ref could say something back, Billy heard his dad say, “Hey! The ref’s not shooting the ball for us, and he’s not losing the game.”
It was 14-2 at the end of the quarter. Billy thought it should have been worse than that. He stopped shooting after he missed his second shot, just passed the ball and covered his man, promised himself he’d play better the second half. All ten players on the Magic were here today, nobody sick and nobody missing, so that meant he was only playing two quarters.
Meaning this: If he didn’t start playing better, if all the guys on the Magic didn’t start playing better, Billy had one more quarter left in his season.
When his dad got the whole team around him before the second quarter started, he looked at Billy and Lenny and said, “You guys and the rest of the so-called first unit take a seat. I need to talk to the guys who are going to get us back into the game.”
That’s just what the second unit did. As badly as Billy’s five had just played in falling way behind, the guys off the bench came out smoking, as if the first quarter had never happened.
Jake Lazar was the point guard, Ollie Brown the shooting guard for this unit. They played the way Billy and Lenny usually played together, had expected to play today. They played so well that Billy started to think that they might get to play the fourth quarter today, when the whole season would be on the line.
The score was 20-20 at the half. When they ripped into the orange slices and small Gatorade bottles Mr. DiNardo had brought, Billy noticed his mom taking a seat next to Peg in the stands.
No Ben.
Billy hoped he was at piano for a change but didn’t really care, not today. All he cared about was beating the 76ers.
His mom waved at him, held up a hand to show him she had her fingers crossed
Billy gave her a quick wave back, the kind you gave when you didn’t want anybody else to notice.
When they went back on the court to warm up for the second half, for what his dad called “a brand new ball game,” sounding like a TV announcer,
Billy still didn’t know which five guys were playing the third quarter and which guys were playing the fourth.
But the horn ending halftime sounded and Joe Raynor said, “Same group that ended the first half starts the second.”
Lenny made a motion like he was wiping sweat off his forehead. Despite the way they had played, they were still fourth-quarter guys.
Billy and Lenny were sitting next to Billy’s dad. Mr. DiNardo had moved down a few seats.
Without looking at them, Billy’s dad said, “I hope I’m not making a mistake having these guys on the bench in the fourth.”
“You’re not,” Billy said. “We won�
��t let you down.”
“We’ll see about that,” Joe Raynor said. “Won’t we?”
The second team didn’t play nearly as well in this quarter, and the Magic were behind again, by six points, starting the fourth. Billy expected his dad to give him one more big pep talk then, out of what Billy sometimes imagined was like a whole catalogue full of different pep talks for different situations.
But his dad fooled him.
All he said was this: “You guys have worked too hard to lose in the first round of the play-offs. Just go out there and play every single possession on offense and defense as if the whole season is riding on it.”
Then he said, “One guy can’t win this game. But a team can.”
It was probably Billy’s imagination, he was sure, that his dad was looking right at him when he said the last part.
FOURTEEN
Billy and Lenny brought the Magic back this time.
They brought them back like it was still just the two of them on this court, the way it had been before everybody showed up for the game.
The Y had painted an extra three-point line on their court this year, a much shorter distance than a regular three-point line, but something the coaches thought would be fun for guys their age. When Billy made one from behind that line to finally put the Magic ahead, Lenny did his best imitation of Walt Frazier, the Knicks TV commentator who was always coming up with funny rhymes.
“We are swishin’ and dishin’ now,” Lenny said.
The Magic kept the lead into the last minute of the game. But then Zack Fredman, the best player on the 76ers, their center and the tallest kid in their league, amazingly stepped back and made a three-pointer of his own, the first shot that long Billy had ever seen him make, to tie the game.
Forty-five seconds left.
On their way into the huddle for their last time-out, Lenny said to Billy, “You got one more from downtown in you?”
“You know it,” Billy said.
Except Billy’s dad drew up the last shot for Lenny.
Billy gave a quick look at Lenny, who mouthed the words Sorry, dude.
They were supposed to spread the floor, work the clock down the way they usually did in a situation like this. The only thing different this time, as a way of throwing the 76ers off, was that Jim Sarni, the Magic’s center, was supposed to do most of the ball-handling out near half-court. The 76ers had gone back to playing man-to-man for most of the second half, and this was the way Billy’s dad had come up with to get Zack Fredman away from the basket when Lenny made his move with about ten seconds left on the clock.
