Two
Rilee
The Pirates crept up on us through the entire second quarter.
Their point guard was just too fast and they made good screens.
They played really organically, smoothly.
Maggie thought she recognized a couple of the Pirates from club ball.
I’d known this would be a tough game but it still hurt to see us getting out played.
During half-time Maggie told the girls to focus on what we do well, passing and shooting. Force the Pirates to pass instead of dribbling and try picking the pass off. Through the third we still bled but slower.
“Holding Jackie and Tina until the fourth quarter may have been a bad call,” Maggie muttered as the last period started. Maggie Velasquez had coached basketball longer than I’d played the game, and the line-up had been her decision.
“We’ll see. But everyone getting equal play time is important for team spirit, especially on JV.”
“That it is,” Maggie grinned at me before cheering our girls on as they sank a three pointer. Turning back to me she asked, “You okay? You look beat today.”
“I’m fine, just some trouble sleeping.”
“Happens to me before every game,” Maggie chuckled. “You’d think it would get easier.”
I nodded even though it wasn’t the game that kept me up. Every time I drifted off, I would have the same dream. It wasn’t disturbing, but it reminded me of my father which wasn’t pleasant. The fourth quarter buzzer sounded, bringing me back to my senses.
“Stay in that guard’s face,” I snapped at Tina as the small girl got up off the bench. To myself I muttered “Get your head in the game Rilee. You can’t coach from the bench.” Grim faced, Tina gave me a thumbs up as she faced off against the taller girl.
When the whistle blew, Tina stuck to the Pirate guard, slipping past the planned screen and penning her up against the sideline.
Stuck, the Pirate sneaked a pass over Tina but it was short and Jackie plucked it out of the air.
With a solid bounce pass Jackie returned the ball to Tina who was already at half court on the break.
The small girl ran it up for a clean layup.
“Yea, just like that,” Maggie clapped.
I threw Tina a thumbs up as she trotted back to half court. Good teamwork can solve almost any problem. Something my dad never figured out. Shaking my head I joined in the crowd’s cheering as we blocked another shot. We lost the rebound and they took it outside to sink it for two.
The game went back and forth, but we crept up, and everyone played really clean.
We didn’t draw a foul and the girls sensed we couldn’t afford to make any.
Just as the clock slipped under fifteen seconds that fast Pirate guard went inside for a shot and we fouled her.
We were down by one. I tried to stop chewing on my lip but couldn’t.
The Pirate guard took her first foul shot and bricked it, overshooting the basket.
The second went up and fell short, bouncing backward off the front rim.
Jackie Mace scooped the ball out of the air, out-reaching everyone else.
Landing with the ball in hand, her curly hair shook loose, and she faked a pass before making a break up the other side.
Pirate defenders were in front of her as the clock ran toward zero.
Pulling up short at the three-point line she jumped and the ball arched to the hoop and through with a swish.
Maggie knocked the breath from my lungs with her hug.
I screamed and the girls ran off the bench and out onto the court to surround Jackie.
My own memories of hot breathless after-game excitement made the congratulations showered on Jackie so sweet.
And she almost hadn’t played, just pulling that D up on Friday.
“That’s why we do it, Coach,” Maggie said, releasing me to watch our team rock in a group hug. “Doesn’t matter that it’s just a bunch of underclassmen with nothing on the line.”
When you’re on the court everything is always on the line, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. That would be giving Dad too much credit for where I was now. I just smiled back at her.
Parents came out of the stands and girls came back to check out. Mr. Lambert, our janitor, started stacking chairs. It was time to go.
“Coach Horner.” I turned to see Jackie trotting over, her hair now bouncing free. “I’m sorry I didn’t pass at the end like we practiced.”
What a good kid. “You made a call. It was right this time, next time it might not be,” I said, hands on my hips. “When you make that call you just have to live with the consequences, good or bad. And so does your team. Remember that. This time it was the right call.” I added with a smile.
“Jackie.” The voice was deep with a melodic but gravelly tone.
I looked past Jackie to see a sandy haired man approaching stiffly.
Despite his gait he looked fit, with wide shoulders, a firm jaw sprinkled with stubble and familiar broad forearms beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his button-up. “Great shot.”
“Uncle Craig, you came,” Jackie hugged him before her accustomed stoicism reasserted itself.
The man looked scared for a moment when she connected with him mid step causing a stumble.
Actual fear flashed through his brown eyes, tightening momentarily, allowing thin lined crow’s feet to bloom across his face.
The lines cut straight through me into my dreams and past. It was him.
The guy from my sleepless night, the guy with eyes like daddy.
“I told you I would,” he said.
“This is Coach Horner,” Jackie introduced me.
Reflexively, I raised my hand to shake his but at the last moment drew back, remembering the thrilling dream touch when our fingers connected.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, taking away the opportunity to find out if my memory of how his fingers felt was just in my head.
Of course it was all in my head, it was a dream. I’d never seen this man in my life.
“Craig Green. Nice to meet you. Good game.” Shifting his weight back and forth, he looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
I consciously removed my fingers from the lock of hair I was worrying. “Yes, it was. They played well.” Homeless, my hand drifted to my clavicle before I folded my arms across my chest to have somewhere to put them while I sized up this broad–chested man with eyes that I couldn’t quite meet.
Abruptly Craig said, “Well Jackie, I need to get you home.”
Before I could reach any conclusions about this man and my dream filled night Jackie waved her goodbye and they retreated across the court.
Even though he was gone, the shape of his eyes still cut me.
Measuring me. I’d never seen him before, and with eyes like that I would have remembered him.
What was he doing here in person, out of my restless night?
“You about done?” Maggie asked as she passed me. “I still have grades to enter.”
Shaking myself into motion, I picked up my play binder and water bottle. “Me too.” After a short detour to my classroom for my coat I headed home. I was tired and the experience with Jackie’s uncle unsettled me. I needed distance and could finish my classwork at home.
Home wasn’t much but it was all mine. And the bank’s.
But not Dad’s bank. When I saw the white clapboard house the first time, I knew I needed to live there.
The shutters, siding, and white paint reminded me of the coast, the freshness of the ocean air, and the energy of a new start.
Everything I needed at the time. It was small, just two bedrooms. The listing called it cozy and it was.
I threw my keys in the scallop shell on the counter and laid my laptop and folders on the kitchen table. Retrieving the leftover steak fajitas from the fridge I put a skillet on the stove to heat. Then I changed into something comfortable. Grading labs in fleece pajamas felt decadent.
The fajita filling crackled in the hot pan while I put the tortillas into the microwave to warm.
Stirring the crackling meat and peppers, I stared at my trimmed nails and fine fingers.
So very different from his hand in my dream, from the hand Jackie’s uncle put in his pocket out of my reach.
I was not thinking about that. Properly reheating food takes more attention than I was giving it.
You can’t just throw the whole mess into a microwave and expect it to be a taste worth eating.
Reassembling the fajitas I sat down to grade the labs.
The write ups measured biomagnification, which to non-biology teachers means how chemicals concentrate in apex predators through the consumption of smaller animals.
We used colored M&Ms. Taking a bite of my fajita, with the steak now hot with crispy edges, I was happy to give an A to someone who recognized that we were apex predators and should be concerned about chemicals farther down our food chain.
I was also happy to think about something other than my sleepless night.
Finished with dinner, I moved to the couch in the front room to input the grades into the school’s system.
Instead, I got lost in the photos on the wall, the one from Astoria with Mom after her divorce, the almost smiling one on the pier–not the one of us burning dad’s Audi.
There were the collages from spring break on Maui, and the road trip down highway 101 with Fiona.
Surrounding the photos were driftwood, a set of oars, and a red ring life preserver, all mounted around the room accenting the shells, bottles of sand, and sealife knick–knacks.
It was still months until spring break but I could use a vacation.
It had been a rude awakening to learn most teachers worked over the break to get caught up, and this year I probably would too unless something changed.
The evening was later than I’d planned when I finally finished up and went to bed.