Summer Ball (18 page)

That was exactly what he did.

He started breaking down the dark-haired kid guarding him off the dribble, getting into the lane, feeding Ben Coltrane and David Upshaw for easy buckets, even though both Ben and David had bigger guys guarding them. The dark-haired kid tried to press him all over the court, and Danny made him pay, even after made baskets, making it seem as if the Celtics were constantly on the break. The Nuggets coach—Tarik said he was from Manhattan College—switched Cole's guy over on him and that didn't help, either. Danny would keep pounding it inside or kicking it out to Will, who on this day was making threes as if he were back at McFeeley Park.

Today Danny played ball as if he still had the eye.

He played as if it was travel team all over again.

The Celtics got the lead by halftime. But the Nuggets hung in there in the second half, mostly because of their size advantage. Before long, the game was going back and forth, one lead change after another. Nobody had more than a three-point lead in the second half. One of those games. For once, even Coach Powers got out of the way and let them play. He still called out plays, just not every time down the court.

Ben Coltrane fouled out. The Celtics hung in, even with Tarik playing center now. David Upshaw fouled out. Still they hung in. Then Alex Westphal, their last real big guy, fouled out. They were going with four guards now, plus Tarik.

They were down two points with twenty seconds left when Coach Powers called their last time-out.

“Quick two and a stop,” he said.

Quick two and a stop, Danny knew, meant overtime. Tarik had four fouls. When he was gone, it would look like the Nuggets were playing Zach's team.

Their best chance was to win now.

“But Coach—”

That was as far as Danny got. Coach Powers glared away the rest of the thought.

“Cole, you set a back screen for Tarik,” he said. “Then go to a zone at the other end, pack it in, make them take the last shot from the outside. When they miss—and notice I said
when
—we'll get 'em in overtime.”

Danny nodded as if he agreed, as if this was the best idea anybody had ever had.

Only he didn't agree. Will was on fire, and Danny knew their best chance was to win the game right here.

The five in the game joined hands before breaking the huddle. As they did, Danny made eye contact with Rasheed, who was behind Coach Powers, shaking his head no, holding up three fingers, as if he'd channeled himself right into Danny's brain.

Now Danny was sure he was right. This was Will's day, too, his chance to show Coach he was wrong about him, same as it was Danny's. Will's chance to do something he hardly ever got to do in basketball:

Make the hero shot and win the game.

But he had to make the shot. If he didn't, if Danny busted the play, and then Will missed, and the Celtics lost their third in a row, Coach Powers would banish Danny to the end of the bench once and for all.

On the way out of the huddle, he said to Tarik, “Do me a favor?”

“Whatever you need,” Tarik said. “You've been makin' me look like a star today.”

“Don't get open,” Danny said. “Even if it means you don't get to take the last shot.”

Tarik smiled. “We gonna roll the dice with the funny man, right?”

“You got it,” Danny said. Then quickly told him the play they were going to run after they didn't run Coach Powers's play, right before he went over and told Will.

Cole set the back screen the way he'd been told, and it was a good one. Only Tarik cut the wrong way coming around it, giving his man a chance to pick him up.

Everybody was still covered.

There were still fifteen seconds left. All day. Danny looked over at Will and nodded. Telling him to make his move. The play was “Ohio.” A play they used to run all the time with the Warriors in travel. Will would run from the left corner to the right corner, Tarik screening for him right under the basket as Will blew past him.

It worked the way it always had, and Danny, still with his dribble, saw Will break into the clear.

He threw the pass before Will even got to his spot behind the three-point line, fired this high pass over the top of the defense that must have looked like it was headed for the next court over.

Threw it to the spot the way quarterbacks did before the receiver even made his cut.

The kind of pass you threw if you still had the eye.

Will had to jump to catch the ball. But he caught it cleanly, came down with it as his man, this stocky kid with a buzz cut, came tearing at him. The buzz-cut kid was a step late as Will squared his shoulders and let the ball go, and the only reason he didn't see that it was money all the way was because the buzz-cut kid was blocking his view.

Celtics 51, Nuggets 50.

“I am so wet,” Will said when Danny got to him, “my name should be Free Willie Stoddard.”

All around them, the whole team was happy, like they were finally one team, even on a day when their best player had been sitting next to the coach. Rasheed, forgetting he was supposed to have a sore leg, hugged Will and lifted him off the ground the way he had Lamar that night, only in a good way this time. They were all high-fiving each other and then a few of them were in this pig pile on the court. Danny thought about diving on top, but then he just walked up to Tarik, jumped as high as he could, and chest-bumped him.

“Needs work, dog,” Tarik said.

It was then that Danny noticed Coach Powers sitting in the same folding chair he'd sat in during the game, calmly motioning for Danny to come over.

Danny jogged to him.

“You ran your own play, didn't you?” Coach Powers said.

Danny looked off, to where the happy part of the team still was.

“Yes.”

No more lies.

Coach Powers didn't say anything right away, just got slowly up out of his chair, stood there towering over Danny until he said in his quiet voice, “Next year tell your father to send you to a camp where the boys get to coach the teams.”

Even when I win here
, Danny thought,
I lose
.

T
HEY WERE ALL AT THE END OF ONE OF THE LONG PICNIC-BENCH TABLES,
about two minutes into dinner, when Tess showed up.

Danny, Will, Ty, Tarik, Rasheed, Zach Fox: They were all there, ready to consume a record amount of camp pizza, planning the game of Texas Hold 'Em they were going to play later using poker chips Will had brought.

Then Tess was there, camera bag over her shoulder. She barely got out the words.

“Someone broke my camera!”

The girl who could handle herself in any situation was crying.

Will jumped up right away, sensing everybody in the mess hall was watching them and probably wondering what a girl was doing there. “Let's take this outside,” he said, and started walking Tess toward the door.

The rest of them followed her, not worrying about pizza night anymore, just wanting to get Tess outside as fast as they could. Keeping her in the middle of them as they walked out the door and around the corner, past the main building and out onto the lawn, not too far from where Danny had seen Tess with Lamar.

Lamar: Talking about what a fine piece of equipment Tess's camera was, then giving Danny that look.

“It was all my fault,” Tess said.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Will said.

Danny just kept staring at Tess, wanting to say or do something that would make her feel better. Her eyes were red, and there were those pink dots she got when she was upset, not just making her look sad, making her look younger. Tess Hewitt, who always looked, and acted, older than everybody else, certainly any guys she was hanging around with.

Who never cried in front of Danny or anybody else.

He stared at her and thought back now to how close she'd come that day at McFeeley. He felt more sure than ever that he was never going to be mean to her ever again if he could help it.

“What happened?” Danny said to her. “From the beginning.”

She took her bag off her shoulder and removed what was left of her prized camera, which looked as if it had been dropped out of a high window.

Or run over.

“This happened,” she said.

“We know,” Danny said. “What we want to know is how.”

She said that she'd shot some pictures of Danny's game, then decided to wander around for a little while, taking random shots for fun, finally stopping at a pickup game some older kids were playing at the court in front of Staples.

Her uncle had left her a text message on her cell phone saying he was going to be a little late picking her up in his boat, so when she heard the dinner horn sound, she figured she'd come find them and say good-bye before she walked down to the dock. So she headed up toward the mess hall. On her way, she ran into Mr. LeBow, who was going to dinner himself. She asked if there was a ladies' room she could use. He showed her the one next to Sue's office, on the other side of the main building, near the back door.

“I dropped my bag outside,” Tess said. “You know, the way you drop your backpack at school.”

She said she was in there for five minutes, tops, just washing up at the end of a day when she'd felt as sweaty as the players.

When she came back out, the camera was out of the bag, lying on the ground, looking the way it did now.

“Who'd do something like this?” she said, eyes big again, starting to fill up.

“Lamar, that's who,” Danny said.

“True that,” Will said. “Danny told us he was messing with the camera before.”

Ty said, “Was he in that pickup game you talked about?”

“No,” Tess said. “He was at the next court over, shooting around by himself.”

“Figures,” Tarik said.

“I need to go ask him something,” Danny said, and took one step before Will and Ty blocked his way. Both of them had their arms crossed.

Shaking their heads no.

“Bad idea,” Will said.

“The worst,” Ty said.

“But he did this. He's got it in for me now, and you guys know it.”

“We got no proof,” Rasheed said.

“We only got what we think we got,” Tarik said.

“You know,” Will said, “if this were TV, we could have them dust Tess's camera for fingerprints.”

“Dog,” Tarik said, “you watch way too much of that dang
CSI.
”

Danny asked Tess if there was anyone else around when she discovered what had happened to her camera. She said no. Did she report it to anybody? No again. “I did the only thing I could think of,” she said. “I came looking for you guys.”

“We gotta find Lamar and at least put it to him!” Danny said now. “Ask him why he'd do something to somebody who has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Well, nothing 'cept you,” Tarik said.

When Danny finally calmed down, it was decided they would go tell Mr. LeBow what happened. Only, when they got over to his office, it was locked up, probably for the night. So they got some paper out of the computer room, and Danny wrote a short note, trying to make his handwriting readable for once, telling Mr. LeBow what had happened, not putting anything in there about Lamar, just saying they'd tell him the rest of the story in the morning. Saying in the note that Tess was at camp for just this one day taking pictures and that whoever did this to her shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

Then Tess asked Danny if she'd walk him to the dock.

He reached up without saying anything and took the camera bag off her shoulder, surprised at how heavy it was.

There was nobody on the beach, maybe because it had gotten cold all of a sudden, like the total opposite of the day. It was darker than it should have been at eight o'clock in the summer, probably because of the storm predicted for later that night.

“I loved that stupid camera,” she said.

“I know.”

“When I called my uncle, he said he'd drive me to Portland tomorrow. There's a great camera store there,” Tess said.

“So you'll get a new one.”

“It just won't be this one.”

He saw the pink dots reappear on her face, saw her eyes getting big again. But then Tess gave a quick shake of her head, like she was telling herself that she was done crying, at least for tonight.

“You're sure it was Lamar,” she said.

“I'm sure.”

“It's got to be more than him just wanting to get at you through me,” she said. “Doesn't it?”

She really wanted to figure this out, understand it. By now, Danny knew Tess was curious about everything, even Incredibly Dumb Guy Stuff.

“He's a bully,” was the best Danny could do. “Bullies do stuff like this because they can. They do it even if they're as good at something as Lamar is at basketball. Heck, you see it all the time in pro sports.” Smiling now as he heard himself say that to her. “Well,
you
don't, but I do. Guys like Lamar get away with everything until teams finally decide they're not worth the trouble. And even after that,” Danny said, “they usually get a few last chances.”

“That doesn't make it right.”

“It's not right,” Danny said. “It's just sports.”

“But that's not the way it is with you in sports,” she said. “Or Will or Ty or Tarik or even Rasheed.”

“Nope,” he said, “you're right about that. Maybe most right about Rasheed, even if he's the one of us you know the least. He told me that people can't get past his looks, and maybe I couldn't either, at least at the start. But it turns out he's more old school than I am.”

“Impossible,” she said. “Whatever the oldest school in the world is, you're older than that.”

They heard two sounds, one after another. First, thunder in the distance, then the sound of the boat. Danny swiveled his head around and saw the floating water bed heading their way, Tess's uncle behind the wheel.

Danny handed Tess her camera bag and as he did, like it was all one motion, he got up on his tiptoes and gave her a hug. It didn't last long. But it was definitely a hug.

When he pulled back he said, “You okay for real?”

“I will be tomorrow,” she said, then pointed a finger at him. “And remember. No going looking for Lamar tonight. No payback. No more trouble. Promise?”

He nodded.

“Say it, mister.”

“I promise.”

She told him he didn't have to walk her the rest of the way, ran down toward the boat and tossed her bag to her uncle, no longer having to worry about damaging what was inside. Her uncle reached up to take her hand. As he did, Tess turned around and shouted to Danny at the other end of the dock.

“Do not even think about losing to that guy,” she said.

They both knew who she meant.

“Got it,” he said.

I just hope we get the chance in the play-offs
, he thought.

And if we do, I just hope I get
my
chance.

 

The rain started as the boat pulled away from the dock, and within about a minute was coming down hard. Danny ran up the hill, wondering if the guys might still be playing cards. But he didn't feel like cards tonight. He decided to go back to Gampel instead, read one of the actual books he'd brought with him to camp, an old-time book his dad had given him called
Championship Ball,
about a guy his dad always referred to as Chip Hilton, All-America. “When it comes to basketball,” Richie Walker said, “Chip Hilton, All-America, is just like you, only taller.”

Danny came out of the woods and took a hard right toward Gampel, walking now. There was no point in running—he was already soaking wet, the rain had become a storm that fast.

He was about fifty yards from Gampel when he saw Lamar standing alone in the rain between Danny and the front door, not wearing a Kobe jersey on this night, wearing a purple Lakers hoody instead, smiling at Danny like he'd been waiting for him.

Great.

Danny just put his head down and kept walking, remembering what he'd just said to Tess about no trouble. Even if trouble was standing right there in front of him.

Lamar, in a voice loud enough to be heard over the wind and rain, said, “Too bad there about your girl's camera.”

Danny didn't think Lamar would try anything. There were other kids all around, coming from different directions, running for shelter. So he just kept moving, thinking as he did about an expression his mom liked to use in class when one kid would say he'd only gotten into a beef because another kid was bothering him or her.

Next time, she'd say, do not engage.

“The things people do to other people's property,” Lamar said. “It's just a dang shame.”

Danny was past him now, not wanting to run, almost to the door.

“What?” Lamar said from behind him. “You don't want to talk to me tonight?”

Do not engage.

Danny was at the door now, starting to turn the handle. He was that close to being inside and out of the rain and away from the sound of Lamar Parrish, who wanted to trash talk you even in the middle of a rainstorm.

Danny turned around, not even sure why, looked right at Lamar, smiled at him now.

“Hey, Lamar,” he said.

“S'up, midget?”

Danny dribbled an imaginary ball, made a motion like he was shooting his new jump shot, showing him that perfect form he was working on, like he was putting one up over Lamar from the outside. When he was done, he held the pose in a way he never would in a game, right arm still high, the way Michael Jordan held the pose the night he made the shot in the Finals to beat the Utah Jazz that time.

As if the imaginary shot Danny'd just taken was money all the way.

Now
he walked into Gampel, not waiting to hear what else Lamar had to say, not caring, closing the door behind him, thinking to himself,
That's the way I want camp to end
.

At least in my dreams.