Summer Ball (17 page)

T
HE
C
ELTICS LOST BOTH GAMES THEY PLAYED WHILE
R
ASHEED AND
Danny were in the penalty box, which is how Rasheed described the bathrooms they had to clean.

The two losses did nothing to improve their coach's already crabby disposition. So even when they returned to practice, Coach Powers was still fixed on what had happened with Lamar that night and how it had cost the whole team.

How Danny had cost the whole team.

Coach Powers: “Because Mr. Walker here dragged Rasheed into his little drama, we have now lost two games and fallen to the bottom of our division and are on our way to having a bad seeding when the play-offs start.”

Rasheed stepped out of the line, saying, “But, Coach, I thought I explained to you—”

Danny got in front of him before he could say anything else.

He wasn't going to let Rasheed fight his fight every day.

“It's all my fault, definitely,” Danny said. “You're right, if I hadn't interfered in the first place, Rasheed wouldn't have had to.”

“You should have thought of that two days ago,” Coach Powers said. “But there's no point beating a dead horse.”

When they got on the court, Tarik whispered to Danny, “Usually the man don't stop beatin' the horse till it's already at the danged glue factory.”

Their game later that afternoon was on one of the outside courts, against the Nets. Rasheed dominated from start to finish, as if all the ball he'd kept inside of him for the last two days just exploded out of him. And Tarik had his best game by far, twelve points and twelve rebounds.

Danny played his usual one quarter, down to the second. But on this day he might as well have not played at all, because he was afraid to make any kind of mistake and get his coach any madder at him than he already was. He didn't take a single shot or make a single pass that anybody would have remembered. Was basically just out there, especially in the second half, when the Celtics were running off as much clock as possible by way of protecting the big lead they'd piled up in the first half.

On this day, he was back to being Mr. Spare Part.

It was after the game, when they were sitting on the grass while Coach Powers wore them out telling them what he'd liked in the game and what he hadn't, that Rasheed informed them all that he thought he might have tweaked his hamstring and might not be able to play tomorrow.

Coach Powers said for him to go ice it—it would probably feel a lot better in the morning.

Rasheed said he wasn't so sure and made a face as he stood up. Danny tried to remember when he might have hurt himself. But all he'd seen, all day long, was another game when Rasheed seemed to be playing at a different speed than everybody else, in a different league, even though the Nets had come into the game with the second-best record in the division.

“Don't want to take any chances, is all,” he said to Coach Powers. “I try to force it tomorrow and make it worse, I could end up missing the play-offs.”

Coach Powers said they sure wouldn't want that to happen, then reminded him about the ice. By now everybody on the team knew that in Ed Powers's world, ice could cure everything except chicken pox.

Rasheed left the court with Danny, Tarik and Will. Like the four of them had been hanging all along.
Being friends with somebody can seem like the hardest thing going
, Danny thought,
until it feels like the easiest thing in the world.

“When
did
your leg start acting up on you, dog?” Tarik said.

“Didn't.”

“But you said—”

“Know what I
said,
” Rasheed said. “It's just not exactly the same as what
is.
”

“I'm confused,” Will said.

Tarik grinned. “Tell me about it.”

“I mean about Rasheed,” Will said. To Rasheed he said, “Are you hurt or not?”

“I felt a little something pull when I lifted Lamar up off the ground,” he said. “That much is the truth. But it's not so bad that I can't play.”

“But you told Coach you're not playing,” Tarik said.

“I'm not,” Rasheed said, then nodded at Danny. “He is.”

“You're not taking a day off because of me,” Danny said. “Uh-uh. No way.”

“Way,” Rasheed said. “I'm not just doing it for you. I'm doing it for the team.”

“Okay,” Will said, “now I really don't get it.”

“We're never gonna be as good as we're supposed to be if Walker doesn't play more,” he said. “You'd think that man would have got past himself and figured that out by now. But he hasn't. So now I'm gonna help him out a little.”

Tarik said, “The way you'd help some real old person cross the street. Along the lines of that.”

“Yeah,” Rasheed said. “Along the lines of that.”

 

Danny was on his way to the game the next day when he saw Lamar Parrish talking to Tess. She'd said she was going to just show up one day and surprise them, take a few pictures. Danny had only thought it was a good idea because it meant he got to see her again before she left.

Now here she was.

With Lamar.

Surprise!
Danny thought.

There was nobody else around. It was just the two of them, in the middle of the great lawn at Right Way, where Jeff had greeted everybody the first day of camp.

There was a big old tree outside Jeff's office, and Danny stepped back to let it hide him, trying to decide whether to go over there or not, find out for himself what was going on.

He had managed to stay out of Lamar's way since the fight. Actually, he and Zach and Rasheed had been ordered to steer clear of Lamar until the end of camp. But Danny didn't need to be told that by Mr. LeBow or anybody else. He knew that if something else happened he'd only get blamed all over again. Or get kicked out of here. And even though that was something he had wanted to happen a few days ago, when he'd tried to weasel his way home, things had changed.

He'd promised himself he was going to stick it out. Get something out of these three weeks. It was like when you set your mind on getting a good grade in a class you stunk at, or just plain hated. He was going to do it, no matter what. A promise was a promise, even if it was one you made to yourself.

Only now there Lamar was with Tess.

Tess.

She didn't look as if he was bothering her, but that didn't mean anything. Maybe he just hadn't bothered her yet.

Should he go over or not?

Danny saw Tess hand Lamar her camera.

That's what happened across the lawn, anyway. Inside Danny's head, he couldn't help it, he saw Lamar taking Zach Fox's basketball.

That's when he came out from behind the tree, walking over there as fast as he could without it looking like he was running, like this was Danny to the rescue all over again.

“Hey,” he said, trying to make himself sound casual when he got to them. “What's doin'?”

“Hey, yourself,” Tess said. She smiled at Danny, the way she always did when she saw him, at school or at a game or just walking down the street in Middletown.

As nervous as he was, he smiled back. Then gave a quick look at Lamar, who was smiling himself. Only not because he was as happy to see Danny as Tess Hewitt was.

To Tess he said, “You're the one.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

Lamar was nodding now, saying, “The one we all heard about the night him and his boys took the boat. His girl from back home.”

Danny wasn't going to get into it with Lamar Parrish, of all people, about whether Tess was “his” girl or not.

Tess poked Danny and said, “Thanks for making me famous.”

Danny said, “So what're you guys doing?”

“Lamar wanted to take a look at my camera,” Tess said. “He's interested in photography.”

Danny wanted to say: Yeah, but only if somebody's taking a picture of
him.

“Cool,” Danny said, though feeling decidedly uncool at the moment, just wanting to get Tess away from this guy.

But Lamar seemed in no hurry to go anywhere.

He said to Tess, “Sure is a fine piece of equipment you got here.”

Now he turned and smiled at Danny, winked at him as he held Tess's camera high in the air, as if wanting to study it from all angles. “Yeah, no doubt, a fine piece of picture-taking equipment. Probably takes pictures a lot better than my cell phone.”

He was really playing with Danny now. They both knew it. Tess was too smart not to see it, too, hear it in his voice. Maybe that was why she put her hand out, like she wanted her camera back, and said, “Well, I've got to take off. I want to get some pictures of the other Middletown guys as long as I'm here.”

“I hear that,” Lamar said, and started to hand the camera back to her. “I gotta bounce, too. Almost game time.”

But as he started to hand over the camera, he fumbled it, like you did when you were playing Hot Potato, fumbled it like he was about to drop it.

Danny lunged and got his hands underneath it, the way you did when you tried to keep a ball from hitting the ground.

Lamar was just teasing them.

“No worries, little man,” he said. “I got it.”

He handed the camera back to Tess, gave her a small bow, said “nice talkin' at you” to her, ignoring Danny again. Then he left, walked away from them in the slouchy way he had, bopping his head, swaying a little from side to side, as though he knew they were watching him, as though he was the most awesome person in this whole camp.

“Well,” Tess said, “that certainly weirded me out.”

“That,” Danny said, “was just Lamar being Lamar. Wanting me to know that he knows about us.”

Tess smiled. “Us?”

Danny could feel himself blushing, so he looked away, like he was still trying to track Lamar. “Us being friends,” he said. “You know what I meant.”

“Always,” Tess said.

“You ought to stay away from that guy,” Danny said. “Everything that just happened, probably even talking to you in the first place, was for my benefit. There's something about me that makes him want to push my buttons. And I have a feeling it's going to get worse now that he sees Rasheed hanging around with me.”

“Don't worry, big fella. I can take care of myself,” Tess said. She slung her camera bag over her shoulder and looked like a total pro to Danny as she did. Danny knew how much she loved that camera, a gift from her parents last Christmas, probably her prize possession. It was why he had lunged for it the way he had. “You just worry about playing ball.”

Now, she said, she was going off to take some pictures, since this was her one afternoon to do that, and her uncle was picking her up at dinnertime. She asked Danny where his game was and he said Court 4, then asked where Ty was playing, and Danny told her that, too.

“If you see Lamar, head in the other direction,” Danny said. “That's my new policy.”

“If I see him again, I'll tell him not to mess with Tess,” she said, and laughed at her rhyme. Then she headed off across the lawn on those long legs, looking as if she didn't have a care in the world.

All these hotshot players at this camp, so many of them as stuck on themselves as Lamar was, and for this one day a girl was the most awesome person here.

 

Maybe it was seeing Tess right before the game, Tess who wasn't afraid of anything or anybody, that gave him the right kind of attitude adjustment. Whatever it was, he played his best game yet.

By far.

Even though Rasheed had said that Coach Powers would start him, Danny didn't believe it until it happened, until he was told right before the game against the Nuggets that it was going to be him and Cole in the backcourt. “They've got a couple of guys in the backcourt almost as small as you,” Coach Powers said. “You and Cole should be able to handle them.”

He told Cole to handle the ball. But in the first five minutes, Coach Powers could see what everybody else could, that the little guy guarding Cole was giving him fits, picking him up full-court, making him struggle just to advance the ball past half-court, much less get them into their offense.

They were down twelve when Coach Ed called a time-out and told Danny to go to the point.

“Your ball,” Rasheed whispered to Danny when they broke the huddle.

Danny knew Coach was only turning the team over to him this way as some kind of last resort. He didn't care. He wasn't going to overanalyze everything this time, especially if this was going to be the one start he got in Maine. He was just going to let it rip, the way he had when it had been him and Rasheed together in the backcourt.