Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws

by Janette Rallison

  Besides, it wouldn't be right for me to try not to score during a game. Our team depended on me. Certainly Cami understood that. I would feed the ball to her when I could, but: it was my duty to make as many points for the team as I could.

  Ten minutes later we ran out into the gym while the cheerleaders chanted, "Go, Sanchez Eagles!" and the few rows of parents clapped.

  It was time to play.

  Cami

  Coach Melbourne stood on the sidelines for most of the game, clapping her hands at us as we ran by, yelling, "Hustle, girls!"

  So I hustled.

  I haven't run so hard since that day when I was ten years old walking home from school with Kevin. He told me a busload of insane criminals had escaped somewhere near Sanchez—and then his best friend, Carson, jumped out from the bushes at me, waving his arms and screaming.

  Probably no ten-year-old has ever run so fast—and that was running after, not away from, Carson and Kevin. I might have caught them if I hadn't been wearing flip-flops.

  Anyway, by the end of the game I almost expected my lungs to crawl out of my throat and surrender. And I still wasn't high scorer. I made a good number of rebounds and assists, but my layups were off, and my free throws were pathetic.

  Josie made twenty points, and Ashley made twelve. I'd only made nine. I knew, because during the game I kept better track of our points than I did of the Red Raiders' score. It only vaguely sank in we'd won. Winning somehow didn't matter, just being high scorer did.

  Afterward, I lay down on one of the benches in the locker room with a wet towel across my forehead while I tried to convince my lungs to stay put. Josie walked by me, head tipped back, a water bottle to her lips. She drank so quickly some of the water drizzled down her chin. Smiling, she waved the water bottle in my direction. "Good game, Camilla. I think your free throws are getting better. You actually made one today."

  "Yeah, but I missed the other one."

  She shrugged. "Nobody's perfect."

  "You came pretty close." I moved the towel from my forehead to my neck and checked to make sure no one else was close by. "Twenty points. You really took my directions about not letting Ashley be high scorer to heart, didn't you?"

  She nodded and took another drink of water. "Oh, sure. I know how much Ashley bugs you."

  "Right. Thanks."

  "No problem."

  I moved the towel from my neck back to my forehead. "Next game you could pass me a few more balls."

  "I'll try, but you'll have to run faster to get open."

  I put my hand on my chest to make sure my lungs were still there. "I'll run faster."

  I pictured myself walking up to Rebecca Lobo, just like I had pictured the scene a hundred times before, but this time Rebecca didn't look at me. This time Rebecca looked over my shoulder at Josie.

  Josie

  I changed into my normal clothes and shoved my sweaty basketball uniform into my duffel bag. Ideally, I would remember to wash it before the next game. Last year I hardly ever remembered to unpack my duffel bag, and then a couple of hours before the game I was washing out my uniform in the sink and hoping I didn't have to start the game wearing damp shorts.

  Out on the court, my parents stood talking to Cami's parents as they waited for us to come out of the locker room. My dad saw me first and waved. "There's my superstar. Twenty points." He turned to my mom. "She's a chip off the old block, exactly like me."

  "Definitely," Mom said. "Except I think twenty points was what you scored during your entire basketball career."

  Mom and Dad both laughed at this. Come to think of it, they laugh at a lot of things, which is probably where I got my tendency to giggle for no reason. I inherited their laughing disorder.

  Cami's mother smiled over at me. "You did very well tonight, Josie."

  "Thanks." I felt pinpricks of guilt and couldn't look at her. It was supposed to be Cami who did well tonight—and maybe she would have if I'd passed the ball to her more. Instead I'd kept the ball and made the shots myself.

  Cami's dad said, "Great three-pointer in the second half. You scored more than anyone."

  "Yeah, um, Cami will be right out. She wanted to cool down a little before she dressed." I couldn't stay here another moment and talk with Cami's parents. I handed my duffel bag to Mom. "Can you take this? I want to get another drink before we leave."

  Halfway to the drinking fountain, Caroline intercepted me. "Hey, Josie, did Cami leave already?"

  "No, she's still in the locker room."

  "Oh, good. I want to talk to her. I decided to come to the game and stare at people. I got some great data, plus this cute guy asked for my phone number." She fingered her notebook and smiled wistfully. "He saw me staring and figured I was interested. Did I pick the greatest science project, or what?"

  "It beats my rocket project. So far, the only guy who's asked for my phone number is Frederick."

  She tucked her notebook into her backpack. "You can learn a lot by staring at people, by studying their karma. I'm practicing to be a psychic, you know." Then Caroline looked at me with a penetrating gaze.

  She was trying to see into my mind—to see how I was planning to take away Rebecca Lobo from my best friend.

  I wanted to bolt away from her, to bolt out of the gym altogether. "Great. Well, see you later." I hurried past her to the drinking fountain.

  I was a bad friend.

  A very bad friend.

  Next game I'd pass the ball to Cami every chance I got. I'd make sure she was the high-scoring player if I had to rip the ball out of Ashley's hands to do so.

  Cami

  List of bad things that happened at the basketball game:

  1. Josie was high scorer.

  2. Ashley was second high scorer.

  3. My lungs have probably been permanently scarred from panting so hard.

  4. My brother asked Caroline for her phone number. If they start going out and I have to watch her snuggle up to Kevin and murmur things about good karma, I will become physically ill.

  It doesn't matter to him that she's considering spending her adult life trying to communicate with canaries or that she's trying to force me into staring at people for our science project. He thinks she's "hot."

  What strange and warped criteria do guys use when they decide to like a girl?

  Ethan didn't call me over the weekend, but on both Monday and Tuesday he brought me a Snickers bar to give to Kevin. I took a bite out of them in front of Ethan just to show him I wouldn't let my brother be his informant. When Ethan brought me another one on Wednesday, I told him, "Kevin would like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup for a change."

  Ethan leaned around his locker and smiled at me. "For Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I need to know more secrets. I need to know the mysteries of womanhood, like why they take so long in the bathroom every morning."

  "That's when we go over our handbooks for how to take over the world."

  "I thought so."

  On Thursday he brought me Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I shared one with him, but still felt guilty he'd given me so many candy bars. After practice I rode my bike to Wal-greens and bought him five Snickers bars. I figured I would sneak one a day into his locker.

  I spent twenty minutes trying to write the perfect note to go along with the first candy bar. Something cute, but not pushy.

  Ethan,

  This is for your older sister as payment for telling me all your deep, dark secrets. If you don't have any deep, dark secrets, I'll settle for a few shallow, dimly lit secrets. Have her give me a call. You already know the number,

  Cami

  Fifteen of the twenty minutes were spent deciding whether to write "Love, Cami" or just "Cami." I decided to skip the "love" because we weren't officially going out. Yet. But certainly he'd ask me out soon. I mean, you didn't bring a girl candy bars every day and then not ask her out.

  I wanted him to ask me out almost as badly as I didn't want him to ask me out. Once he asked me out, I'd have to tell Josie
about it, and I dreaded that.

  The next morning I put the candy bar and note on the top of my books in my backpack so it wouldn't get squashed, and wondered if he'd eat it in front of me when he found it.

  When I got to school, Josie came through the front door the same time I did, and we walked up to my locker together. As I spun my combination, she leaned against the locker next to mine and tossed her hair off her shoulder. She'd been trying to copy Ashley's "sophisticated moves" lately. Josie nearly had it down, though I couldn't see why she wanted to copy Ashley in the first place. If you ask me, Ashley looks like some sort of horse when she swings her hair everywhere.

  Josie ran her hand across her hair to smooth it down from where she'd messed it up. "Did you get your poem done for English?"

  "Well, I wrote one entitled 'The Science Fair Project, a Near-Death Experience,' but I'm not sure I want to recite it in front of everybody. It isn't very good. You know, everything sounds stupid when you rhyme it."

  "You didn't really do a poem about staring at people in McDonalds, did you?"

  "Yes, I did." I cleared my throat, then realized I couldn't think of my opening stanza. I opened my locker and waved one hand at her. "Okay, I forget the first part, but the last part goes,

  'Then sumo girl got in my face,

  and told me Yd better leave this place.

  Adios, Ronald. Good-bye, McFry

  I'm Mc-splitting before I die.' "

  Josie laughed, but tried to stop herself by covering her mouth with her hand. "I don't think the rhyming had much to do with it sounding stupid."

  "Hey, I never claimed to be Robert Frost."

  "Which is a good thing, since you can be arrested for identify theft these days."

  I opened my backpack to unload my books, and as I did, the candy bar fell out. It rolled over on the ground and lay at Josie's feet like a stick of dynamite. Josie picked it up, started to hand it back to me, and then saw the name on the note.

  "Ethan? What's this?"

  I grabbed the candy bar from her. With trembling hands I thrust it into my locker. "Nothing. I was just going to put this in his locker, you know, because he's given me some candy bars."

  "Why has he given you candy bars?"

  I had to tell her sooner or later about Ethan and me, and later was very quickly becoming now, but I still didn't want to do it. I stood in front of my locker, feeling shaky, and looked at my books, not her.

  "What's going on between you two?" she asked.

  I took out my math book for first period, then shut the locker door. "Listen, Josie, I've been meaning to talk to you about this, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings. Ethan has called me a few times. I think he's going to ask me to go out with him, at least I hope he is. I've liked him for a long time."

  She took a step backward, as though I'd hit her. The color drained from her face. "You stole Ethan from me?"

  "No, I didn't steal him, because it's not like he was ever going out with you."

  "Oh, that makes it okay then, doesn't it?" She spun around and hurried away without letting me answer.

  "Josie!" I called after her, but she walked faster, until her backpack blended into the stream of students flowing down the hallway.

  I'd meant to explain it more gently to her. I'd meant to give her my entire list of reasons why it wasn't my fault Ethan had been calling me.

  But then perhaps it was for the best I didn't give her my reasons. After seeing her face, none of them seemed like good reasons anyway.

  Nine

  Josie

  I felt numb. My feet were slapping against the floor, but they didn't feel connected to me. Tears pressed against the back of my eyes. I tried to keep them from coming. A person just didn't cry walking down the hallway to first period. Crying was something you did alone in your room when you were a little kid. I couldn't cry now.

  I walked into the bathroom, went into a stall, and leaned against the wall, taking small shallow breaths, but the tears came down my cheeks anyway.

  It wasn't that Ethan didn't like me, although that hurt too. I just couldn't believe Cami had gone behind my back and taken him. She knew I liked him. She was supposed to be helping me attract him, not sabotaging me so she could have him. What had she done?

  Ashley told me Cami had been flirting and throwing herself at him. Who would have ever thought Ashley told me the truth and Cami deceived me? How long had this been going on, and who else knew about it?

  In my mind I saw the entire student body watching me, whispering about it. They'd all seen me run into the bathroom, and now they were saying to one another, "Well, Cami finally broke the news to her. Did you see her face? How pathetic."

  The bell for first period rang. I stood in the stall, fingering my backpack strap. I couldn't go to class. It would be obvious to everyone I'd been crying. I would just stay here till my eyes cleared up, then I'd go down to the office and tell them I was sick and needed to go home.

  I listened to the few remaining footsteps hurrying off down the hallway until the school was silent.

  If I left now, what would Cami think? She would know how upset I'd been. She'd tell Ethan about it.

  I took a wad of toilet paper from the dispenser and wiped my cheeks. I wasn't going home. Cami would never know how I felt about this, or anything else. She wasn't my friend anymore. Apparently she hadn't been for a long time. She'd traded my friendship for Ethan's.

  I hoped he would dump her as soon as possible. In fact, if I could do anything to hurry that event along, I would.

  I left the stall and walked to the sink. Turning on the faucet, I splashed cold water on my face until my eyes didn't feel like they were burning anymore. I practiced smiling in the mirror, shrugging my shoulders as though I was talking to someone. No one would know how I felt if I could fake being normal until this stopped hurting. I smiled again. I'd do it. I had to.

  Cami

  I waited outside of Josie's first-period class until the bell rang. She never came. I walked slowly to my math class, repeating over and over all the things I wanted to say to her. I've liked him for nearly as long as you have. I just never went on and on about it because Ym the type of person who keeps those things inside. So how come your liking him takes precedence over my liking him? Are you the only one who's allowed to have crushes on guys? Just because I got lucky this time and you didn't, that somehow makes me the bad one? I didn't run off and not speak to you when you got put in honors math and science and I didn't. I didn't run off in eighth grade when you made the A basketball team and I only made the B squad. Where is it written that you get everything you want, and I have to be content to stay in your shadow?

  But mostly I wanted to tell her, Look, I didn't mean to hurt you.

  As I took the last few steps to class, my head felt like it had cracked open. I wished I had some Tylenol in my locker, but I didn't. No one did. With our school's zero-tolerance drug policy, we couldn't even bring Tic Tacs into the building for fear a teacher would see us pop one into our mouth and drag us down to see the principal.

  I didn't have time to go to the health office, so I'd just have to live with the pain until I could talk to Josie. Once I made her see things my way, I'd feel better.

  Josie

  I did a good job of faking happy when I went to first period. Perhaps too good of a job. I just smiled when the algebra teacher gave me a tardy pass and told me I'd have to go down to the office and have myself un-marked absent.

  I smiled all through the hallway and at the office staff. I smiled so much they started looking at me suspiciously. Students are supposed to look penitent when they have a tardy pass in their hands.

  On the way back to class, I passed Ethan's locker. He was standing in front of it, getting his books out. His hair was even more mussed than usual. All the nervousness I'd felt around him before evaporated. He didn't like me, so what did it matter how I acted? Without knowing exactly why I was doing it, I stopped in front of his locker, the fake smile still plaster
ed on my lips. "You're even later than I am." I waved my tardy pass at him and mimicked the attendance secretary's voice. "It's time to start taking your education seriously."

  He grabbed a pencil from his locker shelf. "I slept through my alarm. I've been up for about three minutes."

  "That would explain why your shirt is on backward."

  He looked down at his shirt with panic, then saw I was joking and let out a sigh. "You had me going there. I ran out of the house so quickly, anything is possible. I had bread for breakfast. I didn't even have time to toast it. I'm going to be starving by second period."

  No, he wouldn't. Cami had brought him a candy bar. She must not have put it in his locker yet, or he'd know. The thought of that candy bar gave me a sharp pain in my stomach. I wanted to get even with her, and I could.

  He shut his locker door and walked alongside me as we went down the hallway. "I think it's great that you're going out with Cami," I said. "It's important for her to have people who support her now."

  "We're not going out. We're just friends." His gaze swung over to me. "And what do you mean, support her?"

  "You know, through her probation." I tilted my head at him. "You did know she's a kleptomaniac, didn't you?"

  "A klepto-what?"

  I waved one hand as though it were nothing. "Someone who compulsively steals things. Only she's trying to work through it, and her probation officer says it's important for her to build healthy relationships, so it's great the two of you are going out."

  "We're not going out."

  I giggled and patted him on the arm reassuringly. "Now don't let what I've said bother you. She's a great person, really, and she's only stolen from me once, so you probably have nothing to worry about."

  He stopped walking. "She's stolen from you?"

  "Just once." I shrugged. "Well, that I know of, anyway. You probably shouldn't give her the combination to your locker, to be on the safe side." I started walking down the hallway again, and he followed. "And when you go out on dates, I wouldn't go anywhere you could be arrested for shoplifting."