Playing The Game

by Jeff Shelby

  “So he's gonna fight crime and shit?”

  Jake shrugged. “Maybe. Or attack jackholes.”

  I laughed. “Nice.”

  He laid the notebook on his desk, stared at it for a second, then twisted in his seat toward Amy and held it out. “I gave it more than one horn and eliminated the unicornal tendencies. What do you think?”

  Her eyes flitted in his direction. They moved past him to me for a moment, then back to Jake's notebook.

  “It's good,” she finally said, her chin still tucked into her chest.

  “Just good?” Jake asked.

  She stared at it for a moment. “Make the horns sharper. Pointier.”

  Jake looked at his notebook, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. Good idea. But what do you think about the crime fighting thing?”

  Her mouth twisted one way, then the other. “Jackholes.”

  Jake scratched at his ear. “What?”

  Amy glanced at me, then back at Jake. “Have them attack jackholes.”

  FORTY

  “I'm not stupid,” Amy said.

  The bell rang at the end of history and Jake had just peeled off for his next class when she'd come up alongside of me.

  “What?”

  “I'm not stupid,” she repeated.

  “I didn't think you were.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and her chin was down, but not all the way in her chest. “I tell you what happened at the party and the next thing you know, you're breaking up with your Barbie doll girlfriend. I can put two and two together.”

  I wasn't sure what she wanted from me. “Okay.”

  “So the whole 'just shit' explanation for Jake back there didn't fly with me,” she said, glancing at me. “And if you think I feel bad about it, you're wrong.”

  “Why would you feel bad about it?” I asked.

  “It's not my fault you broke up with her,” she continued. “As far as I'm concerned, you guys can all rot together.”

  There it was again. Lumping me in with everyone else. It was apparently becoming very easy for everyone to do. And I didn't like it.

  I stopped and grabbed her by the elbow. “Hey. I never said it was your fault. I never—”

  She jerked her arm away from me, her face a mask of both anger and fear. Her hand was balled into a fist.

  I was an idiot. “Sorry,” I said, holding both hands up, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. “Sorry.”

  She stared at me, her shoulders bunched in close to her neck, her fist hanging in the air. Finally, she dropped her hand to her side. But her fist didn't unclench.

  “It's not your fault I broke up with Cameron,” I said, finding my voice again. “I never said it was or told anyone it was. I broke up with her because I was pissed at her. Period.”

  Her fist slowly unclenched and she stretched her fingers, like they ached. “I'm just saying. Don't hang that on me.”

  “Why would I?”

  She didn't have an answer for that and we stood there, people glancing at us as they walked by.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  Tiny lines formed at the corner of her eyes. She didn't say anything, but I took the fact that she was still standing there as a yes.

  “Are you going to do anything?” I asked.

  She stared at me for a moment, then snorted. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What exactly would you like me to do?” she asked, shaking her head at me like I was an idiot.

  I glanced around, aware that people were trying to look at us without actually looking at us. “There are a couple of things you could do. Aren't there?”

  She gave me a look of disgust. “It's not that easy.”

  “No?”

  “No,” she said. “This isn't TV. It's not some shitty episode of Law and Order, where the good guys win, alright?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And you think things aren't bad enough for me right now?” she continued. “You think doing something about it will make everything better?” She shook her head again. “And who is gonna believe me, anyway?”

  The lines around her eyes softened and she suddenly seemed like she was on the verge of tears.

  “I do,” I said. “I believe you.”

  She smirked. “You don't even know me.”

  I thought I did know her. I knew that she gave shit to Jake and me, and had no problem doing it. I knew that she didn’t think chupacabras should have unicorn horns. I knew she was smart and funny. I knew she liked Lois Duncan books. And I knew—at least, I was pretty sure of it—that she hadn’t bailed on me at that stupid party.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” I said instead.

  She stuck her hands in the front pocked of her sweatshirt and stared at me. “It has everything to do with anything. Everything.”

  She walked off before I could ask her what that meant.

  FORTY ONE

  “Why?” Jake asked, holding his lunch tray and looking at me like I was insane.

  “Because,” I said.

  “That's not an answer, dude,” he said.

  “You can come with me or not,” I said, glancing at him. “Up to you. But I don't give a shit what anyone thinks.”

  We were at lunch. Amy was sitting in her new regular place—alone, in the back corner, avoiding the stares and whispers. I was bothered by our conversation in between classes, and I didn't understand what she was trying to tell me, other than it was pretty obvious that she felt alone. Maybe there wasn't anything I could do about what had happened to her, but I didn't think she had to eat alone.

  I purposely avoided looking at the basketball table, taking the long way to the back of the lunchroom. She looked up as I slid onto the bench across from her. Jake set his tray down next to mine and stepped over the bench to sit down.

  She had a book in her hand, an old paperback, and a bunch of carrots and celery with some ranch dressing on her tray.

  She closed the book. “What are you doing?”

  “Eating lunch,” I said.

  She made a face, then looked at Jake. He just shrugged.

  “Why are you eating lunch with me?” she asked.

  “Jake is crappy company,” I said. “I'm tired of all of his comics and chupacabra talk.”

  “Whatever,” he muttered, inspecting his hamburger.

  “You know what I mean,” she whispered, her eyes darting around.

  I ripped open the ketchup packet and squirted it on the bun. “You want us to leave?”

  She didn't say anything.

  “Do you only eat rabbit food?” I asked, putting the top of the bun on the meat. “Aren't you hungry?”

  She stared at the tray like she was seeing it for the first time. “I haven't been hungry for a while.”

  Jake tore into his hamburger. “I'm always hungry. Even for this crap food.”

  Amy looked up from her tray. Her short hair was scraped back into a ponytail again but tiny strands escaped, sprouting around her head like an unruly crown. Before the party, she wasn't high-maintenance looking, but she'd been put together, like she'd cared about her appearance without really thinking about it. Now, what she looked like seemed to be the last thing on her mind. Which was understandable.

  She looked past me, then drummed her fingers on the table. “You guys don't have to do this.”

  “Eat lunch?” I asked. “Yeah, we really do. We're growing boys. And you heard Jake. He'll pass out if he doesn't eat every hour.”

  She frowned again. She wasn't finding anything I said funny. Which was okay because I wasn't sure I was funny to begin with.

  “Your teammates seem to be a little baffled at your location,” she said, her lips twitching.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  I could've turned around and looked at them, tried to interpret their expressions, but I didn't really see the point. I knew I'd be hearing about it later on.

  I took a bite of the hamburger.
It tasted just as bad as the last one I’d tried to eat. “They're easily baffled.”

  “Truth,” Jake said, finishing his burger, his cheeks stuffed full. He nodded at her book. “What are you reading?”

  Amy glanced at the book on the table. “It's a mystery.”

  “Why can't you tell me?”

  “No. It's literally a mystery, jackass,” she said. “Like, figure-out-what-happens kind of thing.”

  Jake laughed at himself. “Gotcha.” He looked at his empty soda can, then stood. “I'm gonna get another drink.” He stepped over the bench and headed toward the vending machines on the other side of the room.

  I glanced at the book. “Megan Abbot. Cool. Have you read Dare Me?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “It's contemporary,” I said. “Not like the period stuff. Just as good, though.”

  Amy looked at me for a long moment. “I'm fine.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean, I'm fine,” she repeated. “I don't need a bodyguard or fake friend or some stupid shit like that.”

  “I'm not a fake friend,” I said. “I just told you about a really good book I read.”

  Her lips tightened into a line and she stared at me like she couldn't figure me out. “I don't wanna talk about it.”

  “I know,” I said, finishing the burger. “I got that. I'm just eating lunch. With my not-fake friend.”

  “No, you're not,” she said, her eyes on fire. “You're here, thinking you're doing something noble. Sitting with the chick who got gang-banged by the basketball team. There is nothing noble about sitting here. Nothing.”

  “I'm not trying to be noble,” I said, unsure if that was entire truthful. “We're friends. Jake and I came over to have lunch with you. That's it.”

  Her cheeks colored and she stood, grabbing her tray. “I don't need any friends, Brady. Remember what I said? Before all this happened?”

  I remembered but she repeated it, anyway.

  “No one has any real friends here. No one.”

  FORTY TWO

  “Dude,” Ty Hammerling said. “You must've pissed Cameron off good to have her cut you loose.”

  We were waiting to start practice and he was beneath the hoop, bouncing the ball off the bottom corner of the backboard, his arms stretched out above his head, flicking the ball back up with his wrists toward the glass.

  I was on the floor, my legs stretched out in front of me, trying to loosen my back. “I guess.”

  “You don't sound too upset.”

  “I'm not.”

  He caught the ball and squeezed it between his hands. “What happened?”

  I pulled my knees to my chest. “What did she say happened?”

  He spun the ball on his index finger and eyed me carefully. “Just that she broke up with you.”

  I shrugged. “There you go.”

  He shook his head. “Bullshit. I don't buy it. Cam's a hoop groupie, dude. No way she's giving up that train.”

  I let go of my legs and stood. It stung me to hear that. Hoop groupie. In the back of my mind, I'd probably known that the most attractive thing about me—to her, anyway—was that I was on the team. But I hadn't thought about it too much. Hearing it out loud, though, made it a little more real. And it made me wonder if she'd used me in the way she'd accused me of using her.

  Maybe I was the conquest.

  “Don't know what to tell you,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe if you'd quit hanging around with Amy Mitchell, she'd take you back.”

  It was a subtle statement, just to let me know he'd seen me sitting with Amy at lunch and to remind me that I wasn't supposed to be doing that.

  I grabbed a ball from the rack and spun it in my hands. “Not interested.”

  I dribbled away from him toward the other basket, and I could feel Ty's eyes on me as I crossed midcourt. Ken was on the block, working on a back to the basket move. He spun to the middle and clanged a short hook off the back of the rim. The ball bounced to me, and I sent it back to him.

  “Don't listen to him,” Ken said, lowering his voice and dribbling back to the block. “He's wanted Cam for two years and she’s not interested.”

  “He can have her.”

  “He wishes.” He spun again to the middle and the ball again smacked off the back of the rim.

  I bounced it back to him. “Fingertips.”

  “What?”

  “You're releasing the ball from the palm of your hand,” I said. “Let it come off your fingertips.”

  He fiddled with the ball, placing it in his hand and mimicked taking the shot. Then he set himself on the block, spun to the middle, and released the ball, higher, off his fingertips this time. The ball disappeared over the front of the rim and dropped through the net.

  He glanced at his hand, then the rim, then me. “It worked.”

  I shrugged and didn't say anything.

  He collected the ball. “Thanks.”

  “Yep.”

  “And I'm sorry about Cam, dude,” he said, making a face. “I mean, if you are. She's always been cool to me. But half the girls in this school are full of shit and now I guess she's on the list. No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said. “And I'm not sorry.”

  He looked down the floor, then back at me. “They're pissed at you. Just so you know.”

  “Yeah, I'm getting that,” I said. “But thanks for the heads up.”

  He took another shot and the ball dropped through the net. “They think you're picking Amy over them. That you believe her and that everything isn't cool.”

  I bounced my ball from my left hand to my right and rolled my shoulders. “Why are you telling me this? Aren't you in with them?”

  He shook his head, then looked up at the rim. “I transferred in here two years ago. I may not look like an outsider, but to them? I am. It's why I'm not a captain.”

  I nodded, thinking. “What do you think? About what happened?”

  His mouth flattened into a line and he made the same move again, the ball finding the bottom of the net. He picked it up and glanced down the floor again, then turned to me, making sure his back was to the other end of the floor.

  “Look, I don't know,” he said, his voice low. “I've seen it each of the last two years and with those girls...those girls seemed down with it. Weird, but whatever.” He paused, staring at the ball in his hands. “But Amy seems pretty messed up. So I don't know, man. It all seems a little fucked up.” He looked up from the ball. “Just watch your back, dude. These guys don't like it when somebody doesn't kiss their ass.”

  I'd already figured that out, but I appreciated the warning.

  Coach blew the whistle and we started running the drills we always ran to start practice, mostly fast break stuff to get us warmed up. Then we broke into the half-court and ran shell drills on defense before we switched to running our offensive sets. Which is a really fancy way of saying we finally started doing something that looked like basketball.

  We ran a play designed to get me the ball on the wing, where I ran off a couple of screens from the other side of the floor. Ty was late setting the second screen, but I still came free on the wing. Derek glanced at me, then drove past his guy to the basket, missing the lay-up.

  Coach called the same play again but to the opposite side. Ty was on time this time with the screen but set it so low I had to sweep beneath the basket, taking me longer to get to my spot on the wing. By the time I got there, Derek had reversed the ball to the other side to Blake, who had his shot blocked when he took a fifteen-foot jumper.

  The second stringers on defense clapped and encouraged one another. Two stops in a row were hard to come by and they'd done it. One more stop and our group would be awarded a suicide, which was like being awarded a stomach punch.

  “Well done, defense,” Coach yelled. “Let's see if they can finally get it right this time.”

  Derek took a deep breath at the top and called the play again, back to the o
riginal side of the floor. I jab-stepped toward the baseline and my defender took off in that direction. I cut above him and on the high side of Ty's screen, sprinting across the lane to my spot on the wing, clapping hard for the ball because my guy was tangled up in traffic in the key.

  Derek took one dribble, picked it up, faked like it was coming to me, then whipped a pass down to where Ty was setting the screen.

  Only he missed him by two feet and the ball smacked the wall six feet beyond the baseline.

  “Line it up!” Coach yelled.

  The second stringers high-fived as they jogged to the sideline so they could watch us haul our asses up and down the court.

  “Fucking celebrating?” Ty said, eyeing the guys on the sideline. “Seriously?”

  “Maybe we should've just ran the play so they wouldn't have shit to celebrate about,” I muttered, taking my place on the baseline.

  “Maybe you should shut the fuck up, Mickelson,” Derek said, taking a spot next to me. “You weren't open.”

  “On what planet?” I asked. “Or was the wall just more open than I was? I mean, I know the wall was open...”

  “Fuck you.”

  The whistle blew and I took off, pissed off. I knew what was going down. They were going to freeze me out. A very simple message. If you're not with us, then fuck you. Good luck seeing the ball. I leaned down to touch the lines, pivoting hard each time. By the time I'd done the length of the court, I was a good four feet in front of Derek. I smacked the padded wall with an open hand.

  “You ladies wanna try it again?” Coach yelled. “Maybe see if we need to switch up jerseys and starting lineups?”

  We took our spots and ran the play again. I rubbed shoulders with Ty on the baseline, and I heard my defender grunt as Ty laid into him with the screen. I cut hard up to the wing and Derek made a face, but fired the ball at me. It was higher and harder than normal, but I was ready. I snatched the ball, squared to the basket, and waited for my guy to come charging at me off the screen. I set my feet and gave him a head fake. He left the ground and whispered, “Shit” as I took two dribbles to my right to get clear of him flying by me. I released the ball and it dropped softly through the net.