Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws

by Janette Rallison

  On Monday, while I stood at my locker getting stuff out for first period, Ethan handed me a Snickers bar. "It's for Kevin. You know, payoff for telling me your deepest, darkest secrets."

  "Right. Like I 'm going to give him this for ratting on me about Jackie Chan." I opened the candy bar and took a bite.

  "Hey," Ethan said. "Now your brother will think I'm a deadbeat who doesn't pay his candy-bar debts."

  "Poor you." I took another bite.

  I didn't hear Josie walk up behind me until she stood right by my shoulder. "Hi, Cami. Hi, Ethan."

  I swallowed part of the Snickers bar wrong and started to choke.

  "Are you okay?" Josie asked me.

  I nodded and coughed.

  "That's what you get for eating someone else's ill-gotten gains," Ethan said.

  "What?" Josie asked.

  "It wasn't her candy bar," Ethan said. "It was Kevin's."

  I coughed harder, finally finding my voice. "Funny, Snickers just aren't as good when they go down your lungs. I'll have to try eating it next time."

  "So why do you have Kevin's candy bar?" Josie asked, smiling at Ethan and not at me.

  "Because you can never have too much chocolate in the morning." I had no idea what I was saying. I just wanted to keep Ethan from telling Josie anything, like the fact he'd called me. "That's why so many people enjoy Cocoa Puffs. A great cereal. Little sugar balls in chocolate milk. What more could you ask from a meal?"

  "Taste," Ethan said.

  "Nutrition," Josie said.

  I shoved the half-eaten candy bar into my locker. "Well, I guess if you're picky about your breakfast, then technically, yeah, you might want something with taste and nutrition. What did you two have for breakfast?"

  "Raisin Bran," Josie said.

  "Total," Ethan said.

  "Then you're both flaky people."

  Ethan swatted my shoulder with his notebook. "Who are you calling flaky?"

  "I mean people who eat flakes. Flake-eaters."

  He gave me a killer smile. "Yeah, I knew what you meant. See you later."

  Josie and I both watched him turn and walk down the hallway.

  "That doesn't count as my third conversation with Ethan, does it?" Josie asked.

  "Well, you talked to him, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, but I'm not sure telling him what I ate for breakfast actually constitutes a conversation." She sighed and held her books to her chest. "Ethan actually touched you with his notebook and then smiled at you. I wish I had thought to call him flaky."

  "You can tell him he's flaky another time."

  She walked slowly down the hallway, her long brown hair swishing against her back. "Ethan has the greatest smile. I would just die if he ever asked me out."

  That made two of us. I'd die if he asked out Josie too.

  I'd have to tell her sometime that he'd called me, and more important, I'd have to tell her I liked him, but I had no idea how. I just wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

  Josie

  It's hard to write poetry when you have siblings. I bet Shakespeare was an only child. Every time I put down three words, someone barges into my room to talk to me.

  First line of poetry: There's more than meets the eye to me.

  This was a good first line because it should have been a snap to come up with something to rhyme with me. I mean, the dictionary is full of words ending in the long e sound. Gee, see, be, free, key, he, knee, tree, we, and anything that has y or ly on the end, like really easy. Only it wasn't. Really easy, I mean.

  My homework session:

  Kristen pops into my room: Have you seen my blue shirt?

  Me: No. Go away. I'm composing poetry.

  Hopefully, happily, regretfully, casually, dramatically . . . Am I dramatic?

  Sadie comes into my room: Is Jack in here? He took my karaoke machine, and I'm going to kill him.

  Me: No. Go away. I'm composing poetry.

  I hear noises from a karaoke machine and Jack singing in the hallway. Jack is not singing any actual tune; he's just making things up.

  Jack: Sadie is ugly, and she's smelly too. If she could growl like an ape, we'd trade her to the zoo.

  It figures. My five-year-old brother wasn't having any trouble rhyming words, but I can't come up with something to rhyme with me.

  There's more than meets the eye to me,

  But will I ever be noticed by he?

  Nope. The words are in the wrong order—besides, it makes me sound pathetic, which maybe I am, but it's better not to admit it to my entire English class.

  Sadie screaming in the hallway: Jack, give me back my karaoke machine right now!

  Jack gives a shriek that is amplified by the microphone, then runs into my room.

  Jack: Save me!

  Me: No. Go away. I'm composing poetry.

  Jack holds on to the microphone with one hand and my bedpost with the other.

  Jack: Josie! Josie! Josie!

  Mom's voice from downstairs: Josie, leave your brother alone!

  Me yelling back: I'm not doing anything. I'm just trying to compose something for school, but I can't because everyone keeps bothering me!

  Mom: You're composting? I thought you were doing rockets for your science project. If you're going to compost, you'd better do it outside. I don't want you making a mess in your room.

  I toss down my notebook and go outside to shoot hoops. If I can't think of anything to write by the time the assignment is due, I'll ask Jack for help.

  Cami

  Over the next few days Ethan made a habit of speaking to me at my locker, especially if Ashley was around. I didn't mind that he became more talkative when she was nearby. It was sort of fun to see her lips contort into all sorts of grimaces while she pretended not to listen to us. I wanted to smile over at her and say, "I guess popularity can't buy you everything, can it? Your ex-boyfriend is interested in me now." But I never did—well, at least not out loud. Maybe Ashley had the psychic "gift" Caroline was trying to develop, though, because she glared at me like she knew what I was thinking.

  Ethan and I discussed our homework assignments, teachers—nothing important, and yet it all seemed so important to me. His opinions could have been carved in stone and set next to the Ten Commandments just because he was Ethan Lancaster.

  He called me on Tuesday night, and Wednesday night. I wanted to be home Thursday night, but I had an appointment to go stare at people at the library with Caroline.

  We sat at a table in the corner, notebooks open, a stopwatch between us, staring at the patrons. Some of them never looked over at us. Which was fine as far as I was concerned, because then I didn't have to look away quickly and pretend I'd been staring at something else. Half of our subjects glanced back at us in under a minute. Caroline was thrilled by this. "See, they're using their sixth sense."

  "Maybe they're just looking around."

  "You're such a cynic." She tilted her chin down at me. "I think this experiment would work better if you could put out a more positive aura."

  "And I think this experiment would work better if we took it somewhere else. The librarian is starting to look over at us even when we're not staring at her."

  Caroline flipped shut her notebook. "Fine. I'm getting hungry anyway. Let's ride our bikes to a fast-food place. There are always plenty of people at those."

  We rode three blocks to McDonald's, then chained our bikes together because there wasn't a bike rack around. I wasn't entirely comfortable with this solution, because I had a two-hundred-and-eighty-dollar Schwinn; so if someone wanted to steal my bike, it just meant they got to have Caroline's too, as a bonus. While we ordered, I kept glancing out the window to make sure no one was hefting them into the back of their truck. Caroline ordered a salad. She didn't eat meat because, as she told me, animals have consciousness too. I wanted a hamburger but didn't want to be lectured while I ate it, so I bought a large order of fries and a shake. We settled into the booth closest to the door and took ou
t the stopwatch and our notebooks.

  First subject: A child playing in the ball pit and on the slides. We timed her for three minutes. She never looked at us or, for that matter, at her mother, who kept calling to her that it was time to go.

  Second subject: The mother. She didn't look at us either. We timed her for five minutes, which was the amount of time it took for her to crawl into the ball pit and retrieve her daughter.

  Third subject: The remaining boy in the ball pit. He looked at the slides, the balls, the windows, the tables, but never at us. We stopped timing him after two and half minutes because he was picking his nose, and we didn't want to watch that.

  "See," I told Caroline. "It's not working. People can't tell when you stare at them."

  "That's because you're not really trying. You keep looking over at your bike. You're not concentrating."

  "Hey, it's not my psychic powers that are being tested, it's theirs. And apparently they don't have any."

  She took a bite of her salad and shook her head. "Maybe children aren't tuned into their sixth sense yet. Let's try those girls who just walked in."

  Three teenage girls picked up their order from the counter and sauntered back to the tables. They were probably high school dropouts, or gang members, or perhaps recent: parolees. One had dyed-black hair that spiked straight up. Another wore a necklace that looked like a dog collar; the third had purple lipstick and the beefy arms of a sumo wrestler.

  "Let's not stare at them," I said.

  Caroline took a bite of her salad. "What are you worried about? I thought you didn't think this stuff worked. If you're right, they won't notice us staring at all."

  I leaned over the table toward her and lowered my voice. "No, I'm pretty sure they're used to being stared at, and they probably don't like it."

  "Don't be ridiculous. People only dress that way because they want other people to stare at them. I'll start the stop­watch." She pressed the button, laid the watch down on the table, and took another bite of her salad.

  I slunk down in my seat and nibbled at my fries. I didn't want to stare at the girls, but I couldn't help myself. My gaze was riveted on them the same way it turned to car wrecks on the road.

  Spiky Hair lit up a cigarette. A guy behind the counter walked over and told them they couldn't smoke inside the restaurant. She dipped her fingers in her soda, then used them to snuff out her cigarette. As the guy walked back to the counter, she flipped him off.

  "Do you think she'll drink her soda after putting her fingers in it?" Caroline asked. "Gross."

  "Shhh. Keep your voice down."

  "Of course, she just had her lips on a cigarette, so I guess she's not too picky about what goes into her mouth. Smoking is so disgusting."

  "Shhh, Caroline."

  The girl with the purple lips and sumo-wrestler arms turned around in her seat to look at us. "Do you have something to say?" she barked out.

  "Who, us?" I asked. "No. We're just finishing up our meal."

  "Then why don't you put your eyes back where they belong and stop looking over here?"

  Caroline stopped the timer, then picked up her pencil and made a notation in her notebook. "We're doing a science project on the sixth sense, and staring at people is part of it. You're the first people at this sitting to realize we were staring, but it took you three minutes and forty-two seconds, so I'm not sure what that says about your psychic powers."

  Sumo Girl put one hand on the table and leaned forward, the muscles in her beefy arm flexing. "You want to see psychic powers? Then how about this—I'll think about what I'm going to do to your face thirty seconds from now, and you see if you can read my mind."

  Suddenly I realized I had psychic powers, or at least a very vivid imagination. I stood up and grabbed my backpack. "We're leaving now."

  Caroline didn't move. "You're going to let those girls chase you out of McDonald's?"

  "No, that's what's going to happen in thirty seconds if we don't leave now. Come on."

  She shoved the notebook and watch into her backpack, then followed me outside. "We had as much right to be in McDonald's as they did. And at least staring at people doesn't contribute to lung cancer."

  I undid my chain and got on my bike, glad it hadn't been stolen. This was the one bright moment in an afternoon spent with a partner who should have been concentrating on basic mind functions, such as self-preservation, instead of psychic powers. "Caroline, I think we should choose another science project to do. I don't want to stare at people anymore."

  She slipped onto her bike and snapped her helmet in place. "You know what your problem is?" She didn't give me time to answer, which was too bad because at that moment I could have given her quite a rundown. "Your problem is, you don't believe in ESP. You're too skeptical. Would Henry Ford have ever invented the car if he didn't believe it would work?"

  I pedaled my bike from the parking lot onto the sidewalk, with Caroline riding beside me. "Henry Ford didn't invent the car. He just mass-produced it."

  "Well, there you have it. Maybe he would have invented it if he had believed it would work in the first place."

  "Fine. I think you have a great point. Let's invent a car for our science project. I believe in those."

  She pulled ahead of me on her bike. "We're doing the sixth sense. You already agreed to it. We'll get together later to collect more data; right now I just want to go home, where the feng shui is better." She pedaled faster, going off down the sidewalk, and farther ahead.

  I stared at her, but she never looked back at me. Some sixth sense she had.

  Eight

  Josie

  I decided to help Cami with her science project by staring at Ethan in English class. It was easy to do, and if he looked back at me, I could tell him I wasn't a pathetic, love-struck groupie; I was a scientist.

  He didn't look back.

  Ashley must have seen me staring at him though, and she knew exactly what it meant. Girls always do.

  As I walked to the gym after school she came up beside me wearing one of her phony smiles. "So, Josie, are you ditching Frederick for Ethan?"

  I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about. "No—I didn't even know Ethan needed a science fair partner.

  "I meant as a boyfriend. I know Ethan pretty well, so if you're interested in him, I could give you some pointers."

  Yeah, right. The only thing with a point Ashley had ever wanted to give me was a knife in the back. She was just looking for some new way to bother me, and I didn't want to give her the satisfaction. I stared down the hall and judged the time it would take me to make it to the gym. Probably another minute. Could I completely ignore her until then?

  "Of course, you could ask Cami about Ethan if you wanted," Ashley went on. "She knows him really well. She's always flirting and throwing herself at him when they're at their lockers together."

  So Ashley's new way to bother me wasn't to razz me about Ethan, it was to try and turn me against Cami. Like that was going to work. Ashley should have known I'd never believe anything she told me.

  I put on a phony smile of my own. "Thanks, Ashley. If I ever need advice on how to attract a guy, I'll ask Cami. But if I need advice on how to dump one, I'll ask you. That's where your expertise lies."

  Ashley grunted, shook her head like she couldn't believe how immature I was, and pulled ahead of me so we weren't walking side by side anymore.

  Which all in all saved me about thirty seconds of having to put up with her. I didn't consider it a loss.

  That night, before our first game against Ajo, Coach Melbourne tried to hype us up in the locker room. We sat on the benches in crisp red and blue uniforms while she stood in front of us holding a new autographed Rebecca Lobo poster in a glass frame.

  "One day I could be putting a poster of you up," she told us, "but do you know what that will take on your part?"

  Growing three inches, and a good agent.

  "Work," Coach Melbourne said, "and then more work. I want to see some
of that work right now." She tapped the glass frame. "Do you know how I'll choose a girl to help Rebecca with her demonstration? She'll be the one out there working her legs, her arms, and her heart out." She gazed over the group of us, giving a moment for this emphasis to sink in. "It's a big honor. Not many girls will ever be able to say they met a WNBA player, let alone played with one." More tapping on the glass. For someone who didn't have long fingernails, Coach Melbourne could get a lot of noise out of a picture frame. "The whole town will be there. Your picture will be in the Sanchez Herald. Maybe some of the bigger papers like the East Valley Tribune and Arizona Republic will pick up the story. Maybe a news station or two. That's quite a nice souvenir for a little work, don't you think?"

  I hadn't considered the whole newspaper/TV aspect of this wager. I hadn't thought through the fact that our whole town would be watching the high scorer play with Rebecca Lobo.

  Suddenly it was so easy to see myself there in the gym, walking toward Rebecca while flash bulbs went off around me. The audience would explode with applause, and everyone would know that although I'm not sophisticated and "in," I'm good at something. I've got game.

  My parents would be so proud, they'd send out newspaper clippings to all of the relatives and brag about me in the next Christmas card. At school everyone would congratulate me and ask me what it was like to meet Rebecca Lobo. I'd be a celebrity. I bet even Ethan would come up and talk to me. That was the third conversation I wanted, wasn't it?

  I glanced over to where Cami sat, listening to Coach Mel bourne go on about the effort she expected from us when we played Ajo. Cami's face was utter concentration. She was probably already the ball, just waiting to spring toward the basket.

  But I could be the high-scoring player if I tried, and wouldn't that make Coach Melbourne choose me as the most valuable player?

  What exactly had been the wording of Cami's and my agreement? For me to try not to be high scorer, I was supposed to have three conversations with Ethan—but I hadn't. I mean, saying two words about breakfast cereal doesn't equal a conversation, and when you came right down to it, the time at the mall wasn't much of a conversation either. It had mostly been just Cami and I denying we were any relation to Jack.