Basketball Jones (29 page)

Authors: E. Lynn Harris

I closed my suitcase and prepared to leave my room. I was
_
lucky enough to book a seat on the last flight from Atlanta to Raleigh and couldn’t wait to surprise my mother and sister that night.

As I reached the elevator, I suddenly had a question for myself. Is first love the only love? And if so, what did the future really hold for me?

When I got to the lobby, I decided I’d check out by phone the next day so that when Dray called he’d at least get the hotel voice mail.

Walking into a winter night that felt like spring, I couldn’t help but notice a half moon hanging securely in the sky. The moon to me was one of God’s most romantic creations. I thought about all the times I’d looked at that moon with Dray and how I never would again. It was time to move on. I felt tears coming once more, but with equal speed my mother’s words of advice entered my head and I began smiling a smile as bright as the moon itself.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Epilogue

I woke up early one May morning, torn out of a dream about Dray. For the past four months, I’d been staying with my mother and sister, sleeping in my old room. When I woke up suddenly, everything around me felt as still and quiet as a dream itself. It took a second to adjust. In the dream Dray and I were alone on a beach that seemed endless. Nothing but ocean and sand for as far as the eye could see. Walking hand in hand, we didn’t say a word. We didn’t need to because we were so happy together—happier than I remember us being for a long time. As I lay staring at the ceiling, I wished I could force myself to sleep and return to the dream. But I knew that was impossible.

Love can be like a dream in that way. You’re all caught up in it and all about it and you think it will go on forever. You’re happier than you’ve ever been before. Sometimes you don’t realize just how happy until it’s too late. You wake up, and when that love is over, there’s no going back. You can close your eyes, remembering the best of times and maybe even convincing yourself that if you had it to do over again, you know you could make
it work, but ultimately none of that matters. You have no choice but to move forward, and moving forward can mean leaving love behind.

That’s how I felt without Dray. Leaving him was what I had to do. I knew I’d made the right decision, but that didn’t make it any easier. Although four months had passed since we’d last seen each other, I was reminded of him frequently. I couldn’t see a basketball in a sporting-goods store or pass a game on TV and not think of him. Occasionally something I saw or heard or read would send me into an especially bad funk that would take hours to get over. It could be something as simple as a song that would play randomly on my iPod or a newspaper ad with a great-looking man. The problem was that I seemed able to recall only our good times together, which made the funk that much worse. I’d begin to second-guess myself, asking if I’d chosen wisely. As difficult as it was to overcome such painful feelings, I learned to pull myself together at these moments.

But it wasn’t just obvious things like basketball that brought Dray to mind. Had it been only that, getting over him would have been a little smoother. No, there was also a bunch of stupid stuff that I’d never before associated with Dray but all of a sudden connected with him in his absence. It was a lot like when my grandmother died. Up until her death, peeling an orange was just peeling an orange. Once she was gone, however, I couldn’t help but remember how she used to peel one for me at breakfast whenever I spent the night in her home. Today I can’t cut open an orange and not think about her. The smell and taste of citrus reminds me of her every time. That’s how it was for me with Dray. Ordinary things like the feel of a pima cotton T-shirt or the automobile section of the Sunday newspaper he used to love reading or just some young dude bouncing into a fast-food
restaurant all happy could bring intense emotional flashbacks. Who’d have guessed? I hadn’t realized till then that the end of a relationship could feel so much like a death.

I found a small amount of solace in the fact that Dray was still worried about my well-being, and realized that I wasn’t going to jeopardize his career in the name of love. One day, soon after I arrived at my mother’s, a very handsome man dressed in an Italian navy-blue suit and a sky-blue striped shirt showed up on her doorstep while I was alone. I was startled when I opened the door and saw this clean-shaven man with some of the most glittering, cat-gray eyes I’d ever seen on a human being.

He asked if I was Aldridge, and when I said yes he told me his name was John Basil Henderson, and I immediately recognized the name of Dray’s longtime agent. My former lover never mentioned that his agent looked more like a highly successful male model.

John, as he told me to call him, went on to tell me that Dray told him about our little situation, and that Dray had instructed him to write me a check for whatever I asked for. At first I was insulted and angry, but I realized it was Dray’s nature to worry about how I would take care of myself.

As John stood in the foyer off of my mother’s living room, we eyed each other suspiciously, like players in a chess game, waiting on someone to make the next move. In the stillness and silence I was struck by the strangeness of the moment. I finally broke the silence and told him I didn’t want any more of Dray’s money.

“He really wants you to be taken care of,” John said.

“I can take care of myself,” I said confidently.

“I’m sure you can. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you
to give up what you two dudes had,” he said with a voice of understanding.

“Is that it, John?”

“Yep. I’m done.”

He gave me one of his cards and told me if I changed my mind or ever needed Dray’s help, to give him a call. I took the card and before I closed the door on John, and Dray, he looked at me and said, “I’m not new to this kind of relationship, and for what it’s worth, Dray told me he cares a great deal for you.” I started to tell him I knew that, but I remained silent as I very slowly shut the door.

To help take my mind off Dray as best I could, I threw myself into helping my mother prepare an unforgettable sweet-sixteen birthday party for Bella. It wasn’t a
My Super Sweet 16
type of party, but it was close. The quiet time I’d spent with my family had been good for all of us. We’d always been tight, but we hadn’t seen so much of one another in years. When I went away to college, we were different people. Bella was a little girl and I was scarcely old enough for my mother and me to share the kind of adult conversations we’d been having all week. I wasn’t willing to come out with my entire story—and I’m not sure I was yet emotionally equipped to do so even if I had been—but I offered up enough for her to understand that I’d lost a true love and been betrayed by a trusted friend. She listened patiently as I laid out my troubles. That’s one of the things I loved most about my mother: she was so smart that you could tell her only a little, but she could read between the lines and understand the big picture. It couldn’t have been easy for her to see her son heartbroken and betrayed, but she didn’t let on. Mothers are strong that way.

It was ironic that I would dream about Dray the day I was returning
to New Orleans. I’d debated for weeks whether it was the right city to start over in. I wasn’t concerned about running into him. I knew it was safe to return when I read online that Dray had been traded to the Detroit Pistons after a locker-room fight. Apparently he’d become combative with teammates following a nasty divorce. The article named his wife’s infidelity as the reason for their separation, which meant Judi was going to have one hard time cashing in on her ex. I wondered how Dray looked in his new uniform but was able to restrain myself from going to the Pistons’ Web site to look him up. No good would come of that.

Still, there were a number of solid reasons not to choose New Orleans. Apart from the memories of everything that had gone down between Dray and me, there was the fact that I knew virtually no one there. I had grown fond of the town, but wondered if that was enough for me to settle there permanently. My project had been selected by Make It Right to help with home design, but it was only a three-month engagement. When I explained this to Jade—who’d been pestering me to come back-she took the initiative and made a phone call to a friend at Xavier University, who helped me secure a teaching position in their design department. Jade, who was splitting her time between New Orleans and Cleveland, added for good measure that the friend happened to be gay and single and was a dead-ringer for Rockmond Dunbar. Although I’d hoped that teaching at a historically black college might lead to some new friendships, I wasn’t ready to date, even if the man in question was a knockout. I was carrying around too many unresolved issues that only time would heal.

However, I was surprised to find myself excited by the idea
of meeting a new set of people, and slowly I came to see that it wasn’t making friends that was exciting but the realization that for the first time in years I was about to live openly and honestly. No more secrets. But was the exchange worth it? Would I have traded this new openness and honesty for a chance to have the old Dray back? I can’t say, and I won’t know until I’ve experienced some of what lies ahead for me.

It seems Judi wasn’t the only one to fall on hard times. Maurice saw some bad luck as well. About three weeks ago, I went to Atlanta for the day and bumped into Bobby from the Christmas party outside a Midtown coffee shop. It turned out that Maurice had burned him too, and Bobby was therefore quite pleased to revel in the news that the Glitter and Be Gay Ball had been canceled. He must have noticed the look of surprise on my face because he paused to ask whether I’d heard the news. I shook my head no, adding that I’d been back in North Carolina. He laughed and said— wide-eyed with gossip—that the party being canceled was the least of Maurice’s worries. Apparently he’d suffered a spectacular downfall that had set the town buzzing. Dying to know all the details, I asked Bobby to join me for a cup of coffee.

Bobby went on to explain that Maurice had been busted in a sting operation. He’d been getting information on bids for city contractors. His archrival Austin Smith found out about it and alerted the FBI. When questioned by the grand jury about his actions, Maurice—true to his evil core—lied under oath. The perjury charge didn’t sit well with his party sponsors, Bobby assured me, and they wasted no time pulling out right and left. They all expressed public concern over how their money was being spent. We shared a good laugh over Maurice’s misfortune,
and said goodbye. My laugh was an uncomfortable one because despite what Maurice had done to me, I felt there was a person deep inside longing like us all to be really loved.

There was more to the story, I discovered after logging onto Tay’s blog for the first time in months. In a posting dated several weeks back, Tay disclosed his troubled past and how Maurice had used it to blackmail him into promoting the party and smearing Austin. Tay also wrote that he was not the first to be blackmailed. Without naming Dray or me, he alluded to Maurice blackmailing a former close friend who was dating a professional athlete. Fortunately the wording was so vague that one would assume he was talking about a heterosexual couple. When he heard about Maurice’s arrest, Tay said, he offered to cooperate with the prosecution in any way that might help their case. I pictured a line of cooperative witnesses waiting outside their door. If the prosecuting attorney gets her way, Maurice will be looking for another pen pal—only this time he’ll be the one sending letters from behind bars!

I smiled to myself. Well, Maurice, you were always running after notoriety, and you’ve finally got some. How does it feel, boi? What goes around really does come around.

Boo, child, boo.