by Nina Revoyr
I didn't look at her, and my stomach felt funny again. "He's never come to one of my games," I said.
Raina was silent for a moment. "Oh," she said finally. "Well, um, you don't really wanna go there anyway, do you? I mean, it's Texas, you know? All those cowboys and Alamos and shit."
"No, you're right," I said. I didn't want to go to Texas, but this did nothing to make me feel better just then. "Listen, I think I'm gonna skip the park today. I wanna conserve my energy for the game tomorrow."
"Me too," Raina said, to my disappointment. "Maybe I'll get some homework done tonight."
We both stayed in all evening, and she continued to annoy me. When Claudia came home from work, Raina gave her a hug, and I thought this slightly nauseating, an obvious attempt to be endearing. When the Clippers game came on at six, Raina talked to the players on the screen, and it took a great effort to stop myself from telling her to please shut up. At dinner that night, which was pork chops, peas, mashed potatoes, and corn bread, Raina ate each course in succession. She consumed her entire pork chop, then all of her potatoes, then all of her peas, and finally cleaned off her plate with two pieces of corn bread. Raina always ate her meals course by course, and it had never bothered me before; that night, though, I found it unbearable. She asked later if I wanted to do homework with her, and I begged off, saying I needed to be alone so I could concentrate. When I was in my room, though, I did nothing but make a paperclip chain. The phone rang a couple of times—the Oregon coach, for Raina, and the Utah coach, for me—but otherwise, nothing happened, which was fine with me. I needed a good night's sleep, so I went to bed early. I could hear Raina making noise, though—it sounded like she was throwing furniture around—so finally, at midnight, I went into her room and asked her to be quiet. "Sorry," she said lightly, holding the Nerf ball in her hand. The plastic rim was still vibrating from her latest dunk. I wanted to ask why the hell she was playing Nerf basketball so late on a weeknight—and with her door open, even—but I just turned and went back to my room.
The next day, we played Dorsey, which was a fairly good team. They had a 6'4" center, who was surprisingly agile for her height; Q kept turning into her and then bouncing back, as if off of a wall. Because Q couldn't score much—she did get a few layups, but only when the center left her to help on weak-side defense—the rest of us had to step up our game. Pam had a career-high eighteen points; I scored twenty-eight points and pulled down thirteen rebounds; Telisa passed off for nine assists. The game was close through three quarters and then we pulled away in the fourth, winning by a margin of ten points. After walking to the market down the street from our school, we all came back to watch the JV game. I joked around with my teammates, absently, wondering if Raina's team had beaten Compton that day, and wondering how Raina had done.
Telisa took me home a little after six o'clock, and we agreed to meet later to do our homework—I was even going to her house, for once, because her mother was staying over at her boyfriend's. No one else was back yet, and Ann went berserk, as if she'd been left alone for a month. I looked through the mail, and felt a little better—I'd gotten six pieces of mail from colleges that day, and Raina only four. After I read all of mine, I showered, and by the time I got dressed, both Claudia and my father had come home.
"Hello, my favorite wild child," said my father when I walked into the kitchen. Claudia, who was sitting in the breakfast nook, waved.
"Hey," I said, taking the seat next to Claudia.
"Did you win today?"
"Yup."
The dog, without warning, started sprinting toward the door, which meant that someone was on the doorstep, or was about to be. We heard the key in the lock, the sound of the door opening, then Raina coming into the house. She turned the corner and walked toward us, and I could tell by the way she moved—her feet were dragging and her shoulders slumped—that they'd lost.
"Welcome," said my father in a slow, deep voice; he sounded like a maître d' on Quaaludes.
"Hi," Claudia said. "How'd you do?"
Raina leaned over, let the sports bag slip off her shoulder and onto the floor. Then she sat down at the table. "We lost," she said, sounding dejected. "But barely. We stayed real close to 'em the whole game, the lead kept going back and forth. But then they went up by four, and we had to foul 'em, and they hit all their free throws. The game was tied with 1:27 left, but we ended up losing by nine."
Claudia nodded, looking sympathetic. "But Compton's one of the top teams in the state, aren't they? It's great that you came so close."
Raina sighed. "But that's worse than if they'd killed us, you know? We got so close, which means we could of beat 'em, and we didn't."
My father took a bottle out of the refrigerator and held it out to her with a flourish. "That's too bad," he said. "Here, have a beer."
Raina shook her head, waved off the bottle. "No thanks. I think I just want some water. How did you guys do?" she asked, turning to me.
"We won," I said.
She smiled, looked briefly happy. "Good for you."
Claudia, though, wasn't finished with her yet. "Well, did you have a good game?" she asked.
Raina shrugged. "I guess."
"What'd you score?"
"Yeah," said my father, looking at me. "And what did you score?"
"Twenty-eight," I said.
Raina looked down at her hands. "Twenty-nine."
She had done it again. I tried to keep my expression neutral, but I don't know if I succeeded. I wanted to go outside and scream as loud as I could.
"Well, at least you played well," Claudia said to her daughter. Raina looked at her mother wearily, as if this was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard.
My father swooped around the table and jostled each of us on the shoulder; this was his way of telling us that he was tired of everyone being so serious. "Nancy," he said to me, but winking at Raina, "you let yourself be outscored by a guard." I didn't respond—he didn't need to remind me of this, and I wasn't able to go along with his mood. "And Raina," he continued, "why are you scoring that much, anyway? Guards are supposed to distribute the ball, not shoot it."
Raina smiled now, and my dad smiled too; his strategy was working. "I'm a shooting guard, not a point guard," she said. "I can score as much as I want. You gonna tell Michael Jordan he shouldn't shoot?"
They continued to banter affectionately, and Raina's mood began to lighten. My father started dinner, and I left them, going upstairs to gather my math book and notes. As I drove over to Telisa's, I thought about the fact that Raina had outscored me again. I was angry and confused; I didn't know what to feel. On the one hand, it made sense that Raina should score more. She didn't have another recruit on her team, the way that I had Q; and besides, I'd already conceded that she was the stronger player. Still, I hated that she'd outshone me; I wanted desperately to do better than her, or at least to do as well. I didn't know how I was going to survive the season; how I'd be able to deal with coming home after games and always being second to Raina. And I was sure she was conscious of the gap between us. She probably loved knowing that she could outdo me; that she was the real star; that I could practice every day for the rest of my life and never reach the place she already was.
The next day, after we got home from school, Raina and I went down to the park. I wanted to play against her in a pickup game. It didn't happen, though—there were a couple dozen people waiting to play; we ended up with different groups; and both our teams lost badly to the team that was reigning that day. The logjam of players was even worse than usual, because there was only one game going on—one of the hoops on the second court had somehow disappeared. So instead of waiting an hour for the chance to play again, Raina and I moved over to the partnerless hoop on the other court and played Horse, then Twenty-One. Twenty-One was somewhat tricky, since there were other people shooting around, but we ended up incorporating them into our game by using them as screens. Raina was low-key about the whole thing—she was tired, and di
sappointed at not being able to play full court—but I took it very seriously. Normally we split these kinds of games pretty evenly, and it didn't matter much, but that day, those games were as important to me as the CIF finals. I beat her at Horse, which, theoretically, she should have won, since she was more of an outside shooter, and then killed her in two games of Twenty-One. I'd expected to feel better, but didn't. These victories weren't particularly satisfying, because she didn't seem to care, which, in turn, made me all the more angry. I couldn't understand what was wrong with her. She'd just lost to me, badly—why wasn't she mad? Maybe it was because she hadn't tried hard, and therefore had an excuse. Or maybe she considered me so far beneath her, such a nonthreat, that it meant nothing if she occasionally let me win. After we'd finished for the night, we walked home, Raina chatting cheerfully about a party she and Toni had gone to, while I dribbled along next to her, silent.
* * *
The next day we played Redondo, which was a rival of sorts. For one thing, Redondo was the high school I would have attended if I'd stayed in Redondo Beach. For another—and I didn't know if this was related—the first game I'd played against them, my sophomore year, had erupted into a fight. Although they weren't a very good team, and should have been easy to beat, there was enough bitterness on both sides to make the games interesting. That year, we were playing at our place, and I wanted, as always, to demolish them. I also wanted to have a great game individually, of course, so I'd have impressive stats to take home to Raina.
We succeeded on both counts. We won by eighteen, although it wasn't even that close, and I got a triple-double for the first time in my career. I had twenty-one points, which was nothing spectacular, and ten blocked shots, my career high. Most impressively, I'd collected just about every possible rebound. Part of it was anticipation—I was good at judging how a missed shot would fall, and I always blocked out well. But the bigger part was that the ball seemed to chase me that day, as if I had been dipped in honey, and it were a bee. I finished with twenty-seven rebounds—which, I learned from a reporter, was a CIF record. At the postgame meeting I kissed the ball, and said, "Thank you, Clyde."
Coach Fontaine laughed. "Take him home tonight. He obviously wants to be with you. Poor thing's been following you around all day."
We stayed to watch the JV game, and then I got a ride home. I couldn't wait to tell Raina about my game, to make her as jealous as she'd made me, and when I walked into the house, I found her, still in uniform, sitting on the floor and watching M*A*S*H.
"Hey," she said, as I sat down on the love seat. "Did you win?"
"Yeah," I said, setting Clyde down beside me. "It was Redondo. We kicked ass."
"Yeah, so did we. It was kinda boring." She spun around to face me. "I hate blowing people out, don't you? It just ain't very fun."
"Well, yeah, that's usually true, but today was kinda cool."
"Why? What happened?"
"Well, I . . ." I lowered my eyes. This was my moment of triumph, but suddenly, for some reason, I couldn't look at her. "I kinda had a triple-double."
Raina leaned forward. "A triple-double? Holy shit! What—points, assists, and rebounds?"
"Not assists," I said. "Blocked shots."
"You had double figures in blocked shots?"
"Yeah," I said. "Ten exactly." I snuck a peek at her, expecting to see the same kind of battle in her face that must have been in mine for the last few days. I didn't find it, though. She looked animated, incredulous—and happy.
She inched forward on the carpet like a caterpillar, pulling her butt to her heels, then sticking her feet out farther, moving her butt again, moving her feet. "So how many points you get?" she asked excitedly. "And how many rebounds?"
I didn't feel triumphant now; I felt like she was trying to get me to admit something against my will. "Well, not that many points," I said. "Twenty-one." I put my hand on top of Clyde. "But I had twenty-seven rebounds."
Raina's eyes and mouth flew open wide. "Twen—No. Get the fuck outta here. You're kiddin me, right?"
"No," I said.
She just stared at me for a moment. She put her hands on top of her head, and shook it. Then she rocked backward, stuck her arms out and appealed to the sky, and let out a huge, joyous laugh. "Twenty-seven fuckin rebounds!" she yelled. "Nancy, you are the shit!"
"Thanks," I said, half-smiling. This was not what I wanted. Where was Raina's jealousy, her resentment?
"Wait," she said, leaning forward again. "That's gotta be some kind of record."
"It is," I said. "It's a CIF record. The old one was twenty-five."
She jumped to her feet—by magic, it seemed. One second she was sitting on the carpet, and the next she was standing up.
"Damn! You broke a CIF record!" she yelled. "Well, shit, get up, girl, so I can hug you!"
I stood, obediently, and she gave me a long, rough, body-shaking hug. This might have meant something to me normally, but I was so unhappy at that moment that I received it like a child in the clutches of an aunt who reeked of cheap perfume.
"Goddamn!" she said. "A triple-double, and a CIF record! I thought I had a good game, 'cos I had twenty points and eight assists, but shit, I ain't got nothin on you!"
She looked at me, beaming, and shook her head. Then she went off into the kitchen. I heard her pick up the phone, punch some buttons in. After a short pause she started to talk. "Yo, Stacy, wassup? You ain't gonna believe this shit. Nancy got a fuckin triple-double today, and it was blocks, can you believe that?—instead of assists . . . What? . . . I know, I know, but it gets better, girl. 'Cos guess how many boards she got. No . . . Twenty-seven. I'm serious, twenty-seven! Yeah, girl, you heard right! It's a CIF record and shit!"
I listened for a moment, feeling more and more miserable, and finally, I went upstairs to take a shower. When I came back down, Raina was still on the phone—with someone else this time, telling the same story. Claudia got home a few minutes later, and Raina met her at the door with the news. She did the same thing with my father when he got home. They were both excited—Claudia hugged me, and my father opened a bottle of wine—but I just wanted to go to my room and hide. I couldn't deal with Raina being so happy for me. She clearly didn't care that I'd outshone her that day. And I knew now that she'd taken no pleasure in outscoring me before; she probably had not even noticed. I could have hated her for this, but I was too ashamed—or maybe, not nearly ashamed enough. My father made steaks and rice, and as dinner progressed, I felt my anger begin to subside. Raina ignored my strange mood and talked to me, teased me, made it clear how proud she was. I couldn't believe she could be so nice to me after how cold I'd been the last few days. Her generosity was stunning, and I would have to try, now, to be worthy of it, and also—if I could—to return it.
* * *
The day after my triple-double game, my father pulled me aside as I was heading toward the kitchen for breakfast. "Listen," he said, voice lowered. We were standing in the living room and Raina and Claudia were already in the kitchen. "Um, Claudia's parents have invited us all down to San Diego for Christmas. And I know it's a break from our, um, holiday tradition, but I think it might be fun to go. And hey—it'd mean that you wouldn't have to eat my dry turkey." He cleared his throat and seemed so worried about my response that I had to smile. My father was an inch taller than me, but probably eighty pounds heavier, and he looked, just then, like a teddy bear. "Oh, and also, Claudia and I, and her parents, are going down to Baja that night with two of my friends from school. So you and Raina can hang out in San Diego for a couple of days. Their house is only about a mile from the beach—it'll be fun, I think. Would you mind spending Christmas with a group of people for a change?"
I thought about this for a moment. Although I didn't say so, I think my father overestimated my attachment to our traditional way of celebrating Christmas—eggnog, a sad little tree, college football games on television. The holidays always depressed me. For one thing, they were the only time I ever heard from m
y mother. She had moved to Rolling Hills with her white lawyer husband, his bully son, and their two new half-white kids; according to my mother's parents, who still wrote to me on occasion, even my half-siblings—much to their parents' dismay—got beaten up by white kids. My mother now sent me a Christmas card and a hundred-dollar check every year, and that was the extent of my dealings with her. I didn't know what my father thought of all this. He never mentioned my mother, holiday season or not, and he wouldn't show me any pictures; he'd removed all traces of her from his life. I wasn't unlike him, I understand now—I preferred to act like she didn't exist.
The other reason the holidays depressed me was that they reminded me of my father's parents, who'd died five years before in a car accident. From the time of my parents' divorce, we'd always gone to their house for Christmas, and being alone with my father just didn't compare. It would be nice to get out of the house during the holidays for once, but it was strange to think about spending that time with someone else's family.
"I guess it's okay," I said now.
My father looked at me. "You sound a little skeptical."
"I'm not skeptical, it's just that . . . well, what if they don't like me?"
He cocked his head, then laughed. "Why wouldn't they like you? What—because you're Japanese?"
I hadn't consciously realized the nature of my fear, but now that he had said this, I knew he was right. "I don't know. Maybe."
He smiled at me, the reassuring father again. "Sure, Nancy. They're fine with the idea of Claudia living with a Japanese man. But he has a daughter who's Japanese, also? Now, that's too much."