Homecourt Advantage

by Rita Ewing

  “Is everything okay, Collin?”

  Collin feigned laughter as he turned around to face Paul. “Yeah, man, everything’s fine. Just a hectic time for me, ya know? Between Remy’s schedule, the play-offs, my work, free agency … there’s a lot going on,” Collin said, purposefully leaving free agency last as he nonchalantly sprayed on deodorant. Sometimes guys in the league looked at free agents who weren’t signed by their teams as scrubs, or even worse, pitied them.

  “Oh yeah. Free agency, it’s a pain, especially since we don’t know what’s happening with the team. I understand, man. I guess your agenthas you in and out of strategic meetings with management,” Paul said, nodding his head.

  “Exactly, I’m up to my ears,” Collin lied again.

  “Cool, but when you get some real time, I’m regaining my title.” Paul smirked.

  Collin laughed as he watched Paul go to his own locker, thinking about Paul “regaining his title.” He and Paul had an ongoing competition of one-on-one, and Collin was ahead of him by two games for the year.

  Collin pulled his sweater over his head and sat down on the pine bench next to his locker. Pulling up his faded Levi’s, he knew he was going to have to level with Paul sooner or later. He was tired of lying. Collin needed to confide in a true friend about a lot of things. If he didn’t, he was going to burst keeping everything bottled up inside.

  Chapter 7

  Dawn wrapped herself in a long, fluffy white Calvin Klein bathrobe and headed toward the bed where her fiancé, Michael, was resting. She had just received the robe that morning amidst boxes of clothing from the vice president of Calvin Klein Underwear. One of the perks of being engaged to a Flyer was that a lot of top designers invited the players and their significant others to their New York offices and sample rooms to sift through the latest collections, allowing them to select all of the clothing they desired.

  Dawn realized quickly in the beginning of her relationship with Michael that the more celebrities had, the more people gave them. Of course, she suspected these same generous people would not remember Michael Brown when his playing days were over. She and Michael had taken advantage of the offers just the same. Neither turned down free goods from RocaWear, DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, Sean Jean, Phat Farm, or Calvin Klein.

  Dawn lay down on the bed and cuddled up to Michael. She could have stayed there with him forever. She cherished moments like these when she had Michael all to herself. Sometimes she felt as if there wasn’t enough of him to go around. He had people tugging at him from every direction. She had begun to feel as if even she was demanding too much of his time and attention. Dawn knew that Michael loved her, but he was so focused on winning the Rookie of the Year award, bringing home an NBA championship, and being the official spokesman for every company seeking his endorsement that she felt like an afterthought. She needed an appointment just to see a movie with him, and she was afraid to broach the subject of their wedding date for fear of making him angry. She knew he would only think of an excuse to quiet her for the moment.

  Dawn pressed herself closer to him, not wanting him to leave. She wanted to stay spooned together with him all day and night. She moaned softly as he rubbed his hand over her bottom. Dawn knew she had different ideas about the touch than Michael. For him, it was an obligatory caress before he left for the arena. She could sense his nervous energy. He was bucking to get out of bed and head to the Mecca as if he had something to prove to the world.

  She wished it could be as it was when they were in college. It had been etched in stone at Stanford that he was already the big man on campus. He had had nothing to prove on the collegiate level anymore. The only thing he’d been interested in proving back then was how he wanted to spend the rest of his life making Dawn happy.

  Dawn held tight to Michael’s midsection as he tried to inch his way out of bed. She looked at the clock and knew he did not have to be at the Mecca for game one of the play-offs versus the Philadelphia 76ers for another three hours.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Mr. Brown?” Dawn said, forcing a smile in her voice, trying to keep in mind what Casey had said at her apartment yesterday morning.

  “I have to watch some extra films before the game.”

  “Do you have enough time to roll around in the bed with me before you go?” Dawn said, trying to tickle him.

  “Come on, Dawn, relax. You know how important the first roundof the play-offs is. If we can sweep them, we’ll have a few more days of rest and practice than whatever team we’re gonna have to play in the second round,” Michael said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  Dawn felt a lump in her throat, but she once again remembered Alexis’s edict via Casey and promised herself she would not pressure him about anything right now. She also reminded herself about the disturbing news Brent had passed on to Michael about the future of the Flyers.

  “I understand. I just didn’t know you had to get there so early.”

  “Things have been hectic since Brent told all the guys about the team possibly being sold. Some of the fellas are acting like we should be packing our bags for Albany, like the deal is as good as done. It’s making everybody talk and act crazy.”

  “I hear Albany is pretty nice in the winter,” she said with a smile.

  Michael scrunched up his face as if he were eating a sour grape. “Do you know how much endorsement money I would lose if the Flyers moved to Albany? That would be the worst thing for my career,” Michael spat out.

  “That would be the worst thing?” Dawn said, barely able to contain her disgust. “Michael, I know you’ve heard what kind of a man Leonard Hightower is. How about the fact that you’d be working for a racist jerk who would probably fire you if he knew you planned on marrying a white woman,” Dawn said, scarcely believing that Michael only seemed concerned with his image and endorsement money.

  Dawn was of Italian-Irish descent, with the violet eyes of Elizabeth Taylor and the cheekbones and full, pouty lips of Sophia Loren. Her thick, honey/blond hair was trimmed to all one length resting on her shoulders. The two of them made a handsome couple, with Michael’s flawless mocha complexion covering his lean yet muscular six-foot-five-inch frame. With his large, expressive brown eyes and killer smile, if basketball didn’t work out for him, then modeling could certainly be an alternative career. But basketball was his game, and Michael was quickly proving to be among the best.

  “Don’t get paranoid. Nobody’s thinking about whether or not we get married but you.”

  “So I see,” Dawn said, jumping out of bed and hurrying into the bathroom.

  Michael quickly followed behind her. “Why does everything have to come back to us getting married?” Michael said, exasperated.

  Dawn sat down on the edge of the bathtub and tried to calm herself. She did not want to say something she would regret later, especially on the first night of the play-offs. She never wanted him to walk away angry.

  “Listen, Michael, let’s not fight about this. My point was not to bring up the topic of marriage. I was just expressing my concern about the possibility of you having to work for a bigot. I was worried about your future working conditions. Okay, sweetheart?” Dawn took a deep breath and stood up on her tiptoes to kiss Michael on his chin. “Now, get on out of here and kick some ass tonight. Do you want me to make you a sandwich to eat on the way?”

  “No, I’ll grab something at the arena. I’m sorry, Dawn, I don’t want us to fight either. It’s just a stressful time, but I promise as soon as the season is over … it’ll get better.” Michael reached down and embraced Dawn.

  Dawn quickly closed and locked the bathroom door after Michael left, as if he were there to see the steady flow of tears. Dawn stared at her clear eyes in the mirror and wondered if Michael had seen through her charade. He was right; for her, everything did come back to when they were going to get married. She wanted to share the rest of her life with Michael and she was tired of waiting around for him to decide that he wanted to make that commitment. Wh
en he’d told her that things would get better once the season was over, she’d been hoping he would follow that up by saying they could start planning their wedding. It seemed as if he had one foot in the door of their relationship and one foot out.

  They had dated for three years at Stanford, and right before he graduated and was drafted, he had proposed to her. That was over a year ago. He’d promised that they’d get married before the season was over. Somehow, right before training camp began last October, Michael had managed to give Dawn a lame excuse about Coach not thinking it was a good time to plan a wedding. Since that time, Dawn had gottenan assortment of reasons why they had not gotten married: from Michael and his procrastinating, to his sports agent, Jake Schneider, who never thought marriage should be on any of his client’s list of priorities, to the groupies sitting in the stands at the Mecca Arena who said that rookies never got married during their first year in the NBA. She surmised that Michael’s real reason for not having married her was a combination of everything.

  Dawn hated that she was feeling so needy. Before Michael, she never questioned her complete independence and relied on no one. Now she wondered if loving someone as much as she loved Michael brought out her insecurities. Her father had run off and married his twenty-two-year-old secretary the day before Dawn’s third birthday.

  Dawn was not interested in history repeating itself in her relationship. She saw the debilitating effect her father’s walking out on them had on her mother. After he left, Dawn’s mother was never the same person. Feelings of failure and inadequacy tainted the rest of her stressful life. Watching her mother year after year in such a self-pitying state made Dawn determined not to go down that same path. Ironically, it made Dawn fiercely independent yet so needy at the same time.

  Two years ago, her mother had died of breast cancer. Dawn was left financially independent. Her mother would have been proud of the strong, self-contained young woman she’d become. In seven years Dawn had completed Stanford’s accelerated joint degree program and received a bachelor of science degree in biology and her doctorate of medicine. Her life was almost complete.

  Now Dawn was prepared to do just about anything to ensure that her relationship with Michael worked out. She was even willing to put aside pressuring him about marriage so that he could concentrate. He was, after all, a twenty-two-year-old multimillionaire with a mission to win an NBA championship and Rookie of the Year award. She knew the last thing he needed right now was her nagging him about marriage, or anything else for that matter. What he needed was her unconditional love and support. She thought again of Alexis’s edict. Yes, Dawn decided, she’d just have to put her selfish interests on hold for a while.

  Chapter 8

  Trina Belleville smoothed her graying hair self consciously as she sat at a corner table in the Mecca’s Family Lounge. She was waiting to see a welcoming or even familiar face, but thus far, no luck. Looking down sourly at her second empty plate, she used her plastic fork to fiddle with the remains of shrimp tails. She fantasized about getting up and walking around the busy room, going from table to table, holding court, as she used to do when Rick played for the Charlotte Hornets. That was North Carolina, with different people and a different set of circumstances. Here she was worried that everyone might stare at her wide bottom and protruding stomach. She had to force herself into the largest pair of slacks in her closet: size sixteen. One of the fringe benefits enjoyed by the wives of the Flyers was the VIP Family Lounge. This was where all of the family members of the players would convene before, sometimes during, and certainly after the games. Trina had always loved it because of its vast array of delicacies, ranging from several types of salads to five or six entrées, seven to ten side dishes, and a separate dessert table. This was the arena’s unofficial meeting room, and more drama occurred here than on Broadway. It was where the players’ wives kept tabs on one another, the place to keep abreast of who’s new, who’s out, who should be out, and who’s in. And of course, who’s pregnant. Here the women were expected and encouraged to be natural extensions of their mates. As Trina watched some of the wives and girlfriends trickle in, she contemplated, rather morosely, the irony of this: how she was an extension of her husband not only here, but everywhere she went.

  Even though Trina and Rick had spent a whole season in New York, she was still having a difficult time adjusting. Staring around the bustling Family Lounge, she felt overwhelmed. For the past fourteen years, she had followed Rick to five different NBA cities, and none of them was anything like New York. Almost since the day Trina had arrived in the city, she’d felt as if she was a few steps behind all of the other wives and girlfriends, always trying to catch up but never quite knowing how.

  Looking at the fashionable, trim, fit women, some even mothers of the players, Trina felt way out of her league. She and Rick had attended and graduated from Tennessee State together. Of course, she’d never put her degree in sociology to use, at least not in a job that paid. Yes, she received an allowance from Rick, and she certainly deserved every cent. But somehow Trina imagined it wasn’t quite the same as making her own way in the world, something she’d been giving more and more consideration to: making her own money. Looking at the people around her and even a few of the other Flyers wives and girlfriends, she saw they really seemed to have their acts together—careerwise and physically. She must stick out like a sore thumb.

  When Rick had been playing for the Hornets, the games didn’t seem like fashion shows the way they were here in New York. At the Mecca, Trina felt like an outcast because her clothes didn’t have a made in italy tag and her body wasn’t made by Jake—hardly.

  Trina jumped as one of the players’ daughters rammed into the back of her chair while chasing the assistant coach’s son.

  “Watch it, little lady, you’re gonna hurt somebody!"Trina said, rubbing her back.

  “You’re not my mama,” the sassy little girl retorted as she continued to run around the room in her black and red RocaWear jeans.

  “I know, ‘cause if I were your mama, you wouldn’t be running around this room like you didn’t have any sense,” Trina said under her breath, rolling her eyes as the little terror ran off.

  She felt she had excuses: she had two small children and a demanding husband who left her no time for herself. But Trina knew that even if she did have any free time, the last thing she’d want to do would be to go huff and puff herself into exhaustion at some gym. She would much rather stay at home and snack on the various culinary delights she loved to prepare for her family, friends, and neighbors. Recently a neighbor friend of hers whose husband owned the local Safeway grocery store convinced Trina to start supplying their bakery with homemade treats.

  Even though Trina had ballooned up to nearly two hundred pounds, she was an attractive woman with rich, ebony-colored skin. She rarely made attempts to enhance her looks, though. Trina was prematurely graying and her usual hairstyle was a snatch-back feathered concoction reminiscent of the early eighties. She also never bothered with much makeup … and had no intention of wearing it despite Alexis’s orders. Trina had ignored her and then Casey on that count.

  Trina swiveled her chair around and caught a glimpse of Remy entering the lounge. Just about everyone in the room turned and gazed at the star as she headed toward the fully stocked bar. Three little girls and boys rallied around Remy, clinging to her pantsuit, which Trina noted was uncharacteristically conservative. Trina chuckled under her breath thinking about how Remy had obviously been influenced by Casey, who, as far as Trina was concerned, was behaving like Alexis’s puppet.

  Casey, along with Lorraine, had been the most welcoming of the wives from the start. But Trina was an old-fashioned woman at heart. She liked her family and personal affairs to be handled at home behind closed doors. Rick took care of the business of basketball. Trina attended every home game and genuinely supported her husband andhis career, both on and off the court. Although Rick had not mentioned it to Trina himself, she had overhea
rd a conversation he’d had with his agent about the team possibly being sold and moved if the Flyers didn’t win the championship this year. Apparently the prospect had everyone up in arms. She knew not to ask Rick about anything that related to his work for fear of him accusing her of meddling. Besides, what was happening with the Flyers and the powers that be was out of her control. She was not about to let Alexis or Casey get her tangled up in her husband’s business affairs.

  For one thing, Trina did not oppose the prospect of the team being sold and relocated to Albany. Rick would not be hurt by the loss of any endorsement opportunities. He was at the end of his career anyway. No corporations were banging down his door to advertise their products. There were younger, more athletic, more marketable players taking his place all the time.

  As Trina watched Alexis glide into the Family Lounge with her prep-school-poster daughters in tow, she was reminded of the cover of a Town & Country magazine. Maybe Albany would not be that bad. Trina welcomed a change of scenery. She wasn’t even sure she could handle one more glittery season with the frantic, chaotic pace of the Mecca.

  She and the kids went where Rick’s career took them, and the final destination did not matter. So long as they were together as a family, they all eventually learned to adjust. Certainly it was a hassle packing up and moving an entire household time after time, and school placement for the kids was a chore in and of itself. Still, it was part of the life of a professional athlete. The summers were still theirs and they had a home in Florida where the kids had plenty of cousins their ages and a slew of friends to give them a sense of stability. Trina had never had complaints about the transient nature of their life until they hit the fast pace of New York.

  New York, the Flyers, and everything that accompanied them deified the position of a professional basketball player in this town. And it had brought out the worst in Rick. The accessibility of a boundless nightlife clearly was a disaster.