She turns her attention back to the screen like she couldn’t care less that she just impressed the hell out of me. Guys, we talk shit, and never more so than when it’s about sports. A woman who can talk sports and talk trash? A fucking sparkling unicorn. She gives as good as she gets, this one. Hell, she may give better than she gets. There’s a spark to her, a confidence I want to see more of.
A lot of girls just reflect. They figure out what you like so they can get in with a baller. This one has her own views, stands her own ground and doesn’t give a damn if I like it.
I like it.
“Since you know so much about me,” I say, “it’s only fair I learn something about you.”
She turns her head by slow centimeters, eyes still locked to the screen as if it’s killing her to look away from the game. Her expression, those changeable eyes, warm and soften just a little. “What exactly would you like to know?”
“Your name would be a good start.”
Her lips twist into a grin. “My family calls me Gumbo.”
“Gumbo?” I almost choke on my ginger ale. “Because you have big ears?”
I risk touching her, pushing back a clump of wild curls. The whorl of her ear is downright fragile, and strands of dark hair cling to the curve of her neck.
“Not Dumbo.” She laughs and pulls away so her hair slips through my fingers. “Gumbo, like the soup.”
“I knew that.” I really did, but I had to get inventive if I was going to steal a touch without drawing back a stump. “So why Gumbo?”
She hesitates, and for a moment it seems I wasn’t breaking through like I thought. She finally gives a “what the hell” shrug and goes on.
“You may not hear the accent now, because it’s been years since I lived there, but I’m originally from New Orleans.”
Now that she says it, I do detect something reminiscent of that city in her voice. A drawn-out drawl spiced with music and mystery.
“My family moved to Atlanta after Katrina.” She gives a puff of air disguised as a laugh. “But I’m NOLA, through and through. I come from good Creole stock. As if Creole wasn’t already mixed up enough, my father’s German and Irish.”
I think the ambiguity of her beauty is part of her appeal. Something elusive and indefinable. I would never have guessed the ethnicities that coalesced to make a face like hers—the wide, full lips, copper skin and striking bone structure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like her. Hers is not a face you would soon forget. Maybe never.
“I’m a mix of everything the bayou could come up with,” she continues, taking a sip of her drink. “So my cousin says I had more ingredients than—”
“Gumbo,” I finish with her. We share a smile, and she nods. “So you’re a mutt like me.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything.” Her eyes run over my face and hair, my looks almost as ambiguous as hers. “But now that you mention it …”
“Lemme show you something.” I pull out my phone, flipping through the photos until I land on a picture of my family from a camping trip a few years ago. “Here.”
She takes the phone, her smile fading at the corners. I know what she sees. My mother smiles into the camera, her auburn hair a fiery halo around her pale face in the winter sun. My stepfather and stepbrother stand at her shoulder, both tall blondes.
And then there’s me.
My hair cut close to tame the dark curls that can never decide which way to grow. My skin is the color of aged dark honey, and my eyes are gray as slate. I couldn’t look less like a part of the family if I tried.
“One of these things is not like the others.” I grin over the rim of my glass, sipping my ginger ale. “I guess I’m gumbo, too.”
She returns my smile and my phone, but the humor slowly fades from her expression. Curiosity clouds her eyes when she looks back at me, but whatever that question is, she’s not voicing it.
“What?” I finally ask.
“What do you mean what?”
“Just seemed like you wanted to say something.”
For a second, her face shutters, and I think she won’t tell me, but she glances up, a smile settling on her lips after a few seconds.
“Did you ever feel like you didn’t quite fit anywhere?” Her words come so softly, competing with the revelry in the bar. I lean in to hear until our heads almost touch. “I mean, like you were always kind of in between?”
Her question echoes something I haven’t articulated to many people but often felt. I sometimes felt displaced in my mother’s new family. I may not look a lot like my African–American father, but I look nothing like anyone in the family I have left. Most kids were one thing or the other and clumped together based on that. It left me sometimes feeling adrift. Basketball—that rim, that rock—became the thing I clung to.
“I think I know what you mean.” I clear my throat before going on. “My father died when I was really young, and my mom remarried not too long after. It took me a while to adjust to everything, especially being different when all I wanted was to fit in.”
“I get that,” she says.
I shrug and turn down the corners of my mouth.
“Thanks to basketball, I started worrying less about fitting in and more about standing out.” I roll the glass between my palms. “But even then, yeah, I sometimes felt … I don’t know. Displaced.”
“Me, too. My skin was lighter than just about everyone’s in my neighborhood. My hair was different.” She shakes her head, the movement stirring the air around us with the scent of her shampoo, some mix of citrus and sweet. “Most girls there assumed I thought I was better than they were, when I would have given anything to look like everyone else. To fit in. I had my cousin Lo for a few years, but besides her, I kind of just had myself.”
What was that like for her? A beautiful anomaly in the Ninth Ward. Maybe I don’t have to wonder. Maybe I know firsthand.
“It got kinda lonely, huh?” I ask.
“Yeah, it did.” She circles the rim of her glass with an index finger. Her lashes lower like that might hide her memories from me, hide her pain, but it’s in her voice. I recognize it.
“Sometimes, even when we had a full house,” I say, dropping my voice for just our ears, “I’d end up in the backyard shooting hoops by myself until it got dark.”
Like there’s some magnetic center, our bodies have turned in toward each other. Our confidences enshroud us, blocking out the ribald conversation, the impromptu karaoke across the room, the wild response to the games on the flat screens. It’s just us two misfits. A few minutes with a complete stranger, and I suddenly feel understood in a way that’s always been hard to find.
“You get used to being alone,” she finally says.
“What about your mom? You guys close?”
“Close?” She squints one eye and tips her head back. “Not really. She’s made a lot of sacrifices for me, and it’s never been easy. She’s strong, a survivor, and I respect that, but I haven’t always agreed with her choices. I can’t remember my mother ever holding down a job for more than a few weeks.”
“How’d you guys get by?”
“She’s a beautiful woman.” She raises cautious eyes, like she expects me to judge. “She used to say there’s always some man willing to take care of a beautiful woman.”
I don’t know what to say to that. My mom is a beautiful woman, too, but I can’t imagine her living that way—relying on just the physical—because she started teaching when my dad died and has worked hard ever since.
“You’re a beautiful woman.” I nudge her knee lightly with mine. “And I bet you can take care of yourself.”
A smile starts in her eyes and eventually spreads to her lips. “Thank you.”
I don’t have to ask which compliment she’s thanking me for.
“My aunt is older than my mom by two years,” she continues. “It’s what my mom saw her do. It’s what they saw their mother do. They used what they had to get what they needed.”
She sighs before sipping her drink and going on. “My aunt relocated with us to Atlanta after Katrina, and they might have changed zip codes, but they didn’t change tactics. Apparently, men all over will take care of beautiful women.”
“Besides your cousin, were you close to anyone else in your family?”
“Just Lotus.” A frown shadows her expression. “She went to live with my great-grandmother south of the city and I stayed in New Orleans, but when she moved to Atlanta for college a few years ago, we got close again.”
She shakes her head like she’s dislodging thoughts, memories. “Enough about my family dysfunction. What about you? Perry West was your dad, right?”
“You know about my dad?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure.” Sympathy fills her eyes when they meet mine over our drinks. “Losing him that way—it had to be tough.”
“Yeah.” I shrug, a casual rise and fall of my shoulders that doesn’t hint at how tough it was. “He was a great player.”
“He had an incredible long-range shot.” She smiles ruefully. “How long was he in the league?”
“The car crash happened in the middle of his second season.” I was young, but I still remember his funeral. His teammates were all there, tall as skyscrapers to my six-year-old eyes. “Tomorrow’s his birthday.”
“No way.” Her eyes go wide. “You’re playing in the freaking National Championship on your dad’s birthday?”
I nod, allowing myself to smile for the first time over this monumental twist of fate. It’s a long time since my mom was married to my dad, but she probably remembers that tomorrow’s his birthday. We haven’t talked about it, though. It feels like I’m the only one who knows it, and now this beautiful gumbo girl knows, too.
“Is tomorrow for him?” Her eyes never leave my face, her intent focus drawing me into her.
“It feels like it. You know? Like what are the odds? I keep wondering if he knows how far I’ve come. If he can see.” I let out a soft laugh, watching her face for signs that she thinks I’m an idiot. “Does that sound stupid?”
“Not at all. I don’t know what happens after we’re gone, but I hope he can see. He’d be proud of you, no matter how the game goes tomorrow.”
“I hope so.” I lean in a little closer, giving her the same attention she afforded me. “What about your father? The German and Irish in your gumbo?”
She smiles, but it’s a tight curve of her lips.
“He was German and Irish. That’s about all I know.” Her harsh laugh ripples through the pool of quiet we’ve made here in our corner of the bar. “Well, I also know he had a wife and kids. My mother was just … a side chick, I guess. He paid her rent while they were together, but right after I was born he moved on. So did she. He never came around asking about me. She never offered much explanation for his absence.”
“And now? Nothing?”
“We left everything in the Ninth when we moved to Atlanta.” Her shoulders lift and fall with a carelessness I don’t buy. “He could still be in New Orleans. He may have died when the levees broke. Who knows? It’s never made me much difference.”
She flashes me another tight smile, signaling that she’s done with the topic.
“How’d we get into all that stuff?” She points her finger at me in mock accusation. “You, sir, are a good listener. Sneaky way to distract a girl from the fact that her team’s losing.”
I glance up at the game, grabbing her segue out of deeper waters like a lifeline. “You a Lakers fan?”
“Die hard purple and gold.” She folds her arms on the bar and leans forward, her eyes back on the screen. “New Orleans didn’t have a team when I was growing up.”
“Well they’re getting crushed tonight,” I offer unnecessarily, hoping to get a rise out of her. Of course, it works, and she goes on a diatribe defending the storied Lakers legacy, though it’s taken such a beating lately.
Through halftime and the last two quarters, we squeeze in a lot of conversation between plays. She wants to work in sports marketing and has several internship opportunities that might pan out after graduation. It seems like most of her stories eventually circle back to her cousin Lotus, the ambitious badass fashion student who always has her back. For my part, I avoid rehashing all the things she already knows about me: the numbers on stat sheets and the stories that have been looping on all the sports shows. Instead, I tell her about my mom, about Coach, about the philosophy class that’s kicking my ass. We cover everything from minutiae to monumental in the time it takes the Lakers to get blown out.
“What did get you so into basketball?” I ask her during a fourth-quarter commercial break.
“I dunno.” She studies her beer, probably long gone flat. “One of my mom’s guys, Telly, lived with us for a while when I was around ten.” She leans one elbow on the bar, giving me a frank look. “He was one of the few good ones who stuck around for a little bit. He loved basketball. Loved the Lakers and we’d watch the games together.” She chuckles, making track marks with her fingertips in the condensation coating her glass. “On game nights, we’d order pineapple pepperoni pizza and drink root beer floats.”
“What happened?” I sip on my third ginger ale. “To Telly, I mean?”
She answers first with a little shake of her head. “He outstayed his welcome, I guess.” Her eyes drift to the screen, maybe an excuse to look away. Or maybe the game really has grabbed her attention. Lakers have the ball. “Someone else came along with more money. Mom traded up.”
“You ever see him, talk to him again?”
Her eyes abandon the screen, and for a few quiet moments, she studies the bar top. “No.”
The word comes low and husky. After a moment she looks back up, flashing me a half-teasing grin. “But I still like pizza and root beer when I watch the Lakers.”
“No pizza on the menu here?” I mumble around a handful of nuts.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” The smile she shares with me morphs into a scowl when the final score displays onscreen. “Another one for the ‘L’ column. Shit calls all night, ref.”
“Really? Shit calls?” I glance from the game back to her face with skepticism. “Nothing to do with the fact that the team is aging and plagued by injuries the last few seasons? End of an era, if you ask me.”
“Bite your tongue,” she snaps, but there’s a playful glint in her eyes. “You could end up going to the Lakers. Have you thought of that?”
“Who knows where I’ll end up?” I slant my smile at her. “I’m hoping for the Stingers.”
“Baltimore?” A frown crinkles her eyebrows before clearing. “Oh! Your hometown, huh?”
“I mean, it happened for LeBron in Cleveland. He played where he grew up, for the Cavs.”
“True. Why do you want to stay close to home? You a mama’s boy?”
My laugh booms over the TV commentators analyzing the Lakers’ loss in the background. “My mom’s pretty awesome, but that wouldn’t keep me close to home.” I stare into my ginger ale instead of at her, a little uncomfortable to express my reasons. “I just want to do something for the place that did so much for me. I was in the Boys and Girls Club. I had amazing teachers, especially in middle school when a lot of my friends started going off the rails. The community center’s where I fell in love with basketball.”
Self-consciousness burns my face, and I shrug. “My whole childhood was there, and that community made it a good one.”
In the beat of silence after I finish, I glance up to find a slight smile on her face and warm eyes that meet mine easily.
“That’s cool,” she offers simply, and I’m glad she doesn’t make it a big deal even though it must be obvious it’s important to me. “So, you ready for the draft?”
I appreciate the shift of subject. It’s not likely I’ll go to Baltimore, and I don’t let many people know how much it would mean to me. “I am, but it’s all happening so fast.” A dry chuckle rattles in my throat. “The NBA was some distant fantasy when I was in the
eighth grade. Now it’s right here, and unless something goes really wrong, it’s actually happening. I just hope …”
My words trail off, but my uncertainty remains. It’s not even about my ability to play at the next level. I know I’m prepared for that. It’s all that comes with it that I’m not sure I’m ready for.
“You’ll do great.” Her slim fingers close over my hand, gripping the glass. “You’ll be an amazing player.”
Just that light pressure, just seeing her hand with mine, feels good. Something about the sight levels the unevenness I’ve felt all day and unlocks words I haven’t said to anyone.
“I want to be more than just a player. I want to use my degree. I want a business. I want a family.” It feels like a confession. “To be a good husband. A good father. This world I’m entering in a few months, I’ve seen it devour guys. We work toward this all our lives, and an injury, age, a bad trade, whatever—can end it overnight. If the game has eaten up your priorities, turned you into someone you never wanted to be, what’s the point?” I laugh self-consciously. “I probably sound—”
“You sound too good to be true,” she interrupts, her hand still resting on mine. “Guys in your position, the night before the big game, right on the edge of the draft—these aren’t things most of them are thinking about.”
She props her chin in the palm of her free hand, a slow smile working its way to her mouth. “You’re special.” She bites her lip, lifting her hand away from my fingers, dropping her eyes to the bar top scarred by a million glasses and a million moments before ours. “I’m glad I met you.”
That sounds suspiciously like the beginning of goodbye. Like she’s ready to close the door on this surreal chapter.
I can’t let that happen. A night like this, a connection like this—it’s singular. After tomorrow’s game, my future will literally be a little ball bouncing around in the NBA Draft Lottery. I may end up playing for a team I don’t like, living in a place I won’t get to choose.
But tonight, I have control. I have choices, and I choose her. To get to know her. To woo her. To earn her trust. All I need is time.
LONG SHOT: (A HOOPS Novel) Page 2