The Dance (15 page)

Michael was bent over a CRT with Bubba in the computer room when they heard the cheer in the gym. That day, all day, Bubba had run a pipeline—via a modem—between Dr. Gin Kawati’s ARC Medical Group and Tabb High. The end result was a packed hard disc and a ton of files they couldn’t directly read.

“The second half must be about to start,” Bubba said.

“I don’t know if I’ll watch it. I’d like to look at that autopsy report tonight.”

“Tonight might be asking too much.” Bubba pointed to the data on the screen. “These are binary files, not text. Our word processor can’t access them.”

“We can use the sector editor and read them manually.”

“Yeah, but we’re talking about forty megabytes of data. There must be sixty or seventy files here. You’ll have to load in each file individually, do an 'Alice McCoy’ search, delete the file, then load in the next one until you find her. That could take a long time.”

“I have time,” Michael said.

“If that’s how you feel,” Bubba said, surrendering his seat in front of the screen. Michael sat down and called up the sector editor while Bubba took down a fresh-from-the-cleaners suit of clothes hanging in the corner of the room. Naturally, it was not an ordinary suit Bubba had selected for the big night. A bright yellow, it came with a green hat. Bubba liked hats. “Will you be coming to the dance?” he asked casually, pulling off the plastic and inspecting the material

“I doubt it.”

“Not even for the crowning?”

Michael glanced at him. “Why don’t you just tell me who’s going to win?”

Bubba smiled. “I don’t know everything, you know.” He held out his green tie. “Is this too Irish or what?”

“No one can ever be too Irish. You’re changing the subject.”

Bubba set aside his suit, spoke seriously. “I knew you were standing outside the room when Clair was complaining to me about Jessie.”

“How?”

Bubba shrugged, indicating it wasn’t important.

“Clair should be homecoming queen. She’s prettier than Jessie.”

“In your opinion. Anyway, pretty isn’t everything. All I’m asking for is a fair vote.”

“Why ask now? The name has already been re-corded and placed in a sealed envelope. If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Bark has it in his pocket at this exact moment.”

“Whose name is inside?”

“You put me on the spot, Mike. Clair did that to me, too.”

“Then you did arrange for Clair to win?”

“I didn’t say that. What I said was she deserves to win. Jessie resorted to low-level tactics in this campaign.”

Bubba wouldn’t look at him, and ordinarily Bubba wouldn’t mind looking you in the eye while telling you he was sleeping with your girlfriend. “
Did
Clair have an abortion?” Michael asked, remembering how she had come to Bubba the afternoon she had been elected to the court, her eyes red.

“A vile and vicious rumor started by the vile and vicious Jessica Hart. No, she didn’t.”

“Was it yours?”

Bubba snapped his head up. “No.” Then he relaxed, adding with a chuckle, “You know how careful I am about such matters.”

“Yeah, you’re careful,” Michael muttered, confused at Bubba’s behavior. He wasn’t simply being evasive—Bubba never actually told the precise truth, except when it benefited him to do so, which was rarely—he was uneasy. And ordinarily he would not have been worried about having knocked Clair up any more than he would have been concerned about having knocked Jessica down.

Someone banged at the door. “Yeah,” Bubba called out.

Kats walked in, surprising Michael. Kats had changed from his usual crusty jeans and oily army-fatigue jacket into a pair of black slacks, a white shirt, and a red tie. It was remarkable—he looked greasier than ever.

“What are you doing here?” Michael asked.

Kats grinned. “I’m the man tonight. I’m taking care of the princesses.”

“Kats is driving the float into the tent before the crowning,” Bubba explained.

“Why did Sara pick you?” Michael asked.

Kats scowled. “Is there something wrong with me, Mikey?”

Obviously Kats was still mad at him from the last time they had talked at the gas station. “Kats is a great driver,” Bubba said. “Sara chose him as a favor to me.”

“What favor does Sara owe you?” Michael asked.

Bubba brightened at the question and picked up his yellow suit and green hat. “Honestly, Mike, you know I’m a gentleman.”

Bubba and Kats left together, leaving Michael’s last question unanswered. Michael turned back to the computer screen. Hopefully, somewhere in all this data, was the answer to more important questions.

Michael read in a file, set the computer to search for the McCoy name, sat back, and waited. He wished he knew how the files were organized, which ones he should concentrate on. He heard another loud cheer come from the gym and checked his watch. The second half was definitely under way. He had been pleased to see Nick doing so well, particularly with the cooperation of The Rock. Michael had not had a chance to talk to Nick the last couple of days; he didn’t know what had changed between the two. But it had clearly been a change for the better. At least somebody was making progress somewhere.

I can’t complain.

His mother’s boyfriend had finally come to a decision. He had proposed marriage, and his mom had accepted. Michael had to admit she had never seemed happier.

I’m going to have a father. I have a sister on the way. A comet in the sky that belongs to me. What else can I expect? Nothing. And yet, he was lonely, desperately lonely. Jessica—crazy as it sounded even to him—he sometimes believed he needed her simply to go on living. And he hadn’t felt that way even in the depths of his despair over Alice. He kept remembering sitting beside her while she slept under the tree after the SAT. He should have lain down and slept beside her. Then maybe he could have met her in a dream and told her all the things he couldn’t tell her when he was awake.

Go forward, I will follow.

That was a dream he hadn’t had in a while.

Alice wasn’t in the first file. She wasn’t in the second or the third. He began to worry that he would go through all the files and discover Dr. Kawati hadn’t bothered to put the autopsy reports he did for the county into his business computer.

The fourth file turned out to be huge. Michael prowled the room while the name search went on and on, listening to the sporadic roar of the gymnasium crowd, thinking of how cute Jessica had looked during the first half crouched at the end of the court, her camera balanced on her knee, her long brown hair hanging loose and wonderful. He glanced again at the computer screen, the endless succession of numbers and text creeping by, and decided a quick stop inside the gym wouldn’t make any difference.

He felt the tension the moment he entered the building. A glance at the scoreboard said it all: Tabb 56, Westminister 57. Seven seconds left. Tabb had the ball. Nick had just called time out, and the team was huddling around Coach Sellers. The man would probably advise them to dribble out the clock.

Everybody was standing. Everybody except Jessica. Michael spotted her kneeling alone on the court floor behind Tabb’s basket, doing a trial focus with her camera. He wondered if he should accidentally try to bump into her when the game was over. But he could imagine Bill coming up if he tried to talk to her, taking her hand, and leading her away to the dance.

I’ll just see who wins, and then go back to the room.

Sitting down, Nick grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from his brow, trying to block out the noise of the cheerleaders at his back while listening to what the coach was saying. He was running on adrenaline, hyped up. He had played hard all night, but with each passing minute, he felt himself growing stronger. He was ready to take the last shot.

“Go Tabb! Go team! Take the ball and stuff it mean!”

To his disappointment, however, he quickly realized Sellers had other ideas.

“Troy will collapse on Nick the second we inbound the ball,” the coach was saying, sketching shaky
X
s and
O
s with a marking pen on a white board on the floor at the center of their huddle. “For that reason, Nick, I want you to fine up on the baseline off the key on the left side. Stewart will take the ball into The Rock, here, who will dribble toward you, but then suddenly whip a pass over to Ted, here, beside the free-throw line. Ted, you’ll take the last shot.”

Ted didn’t know if he liked that idea. He was their best outside shooter—after Nick, of course—but he’d been having an off night, hitting four of fourteen from the field. He stared at the
X
s and
O
s as if they were part of a ticktacktoe game he had just lost. “What if they don’t collapse on Nick?” he asked, standing beside The Rock. “Then I could have both their guards in my face.”

“Go Nick! Set the pick! Let your best shot rip!”

“Their guards should fall back,” Coach Sellers said, not sounding very sure of himself. “But if they don’t, you’ll have to take the ball higher up and take a longer shot.”

“What if I miss?” Ted asked.

“Then we lose the game and you’re the goat,” The Rock said.

“That’s enough of that,” Coach Sellers said.

“Go Ted! Use your head! Make the Trojans drop dead!”

“I wish to God they’d shut up,” Ted said. “Don’t we have another play?”

“Don’t you want to take the last shot?” Coach Sellers asked.

“Sure,” Ted said. “I just don’t want to miss it.”

Coach Sellers glanced at each of them, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “
Do
we have another play?” he asked.

“Let me pass the ball down to Nick,” The Rock said.

“It’s too obvious a move,” Coach Sellers said. “He’ll have someone in front of him, someone behind him. You’d never get him the ball.”

“Ted will never get the ball in the basket,” The Rock said.

“Hey, I could make it,” Ted said. “Maybe.”

“Go Rock! Be a jock! Catch the ball and give 'em a sock!”

“Who writes those bloody things?” The Rock growled.

Nick felt he should speak up. He could line up a couple of feet closer to the basket than the coach wanted, catch the ball on the leap, and spin around and bank it in. The Rock had improved two hundred percent as a passer in the last week. It would be a sound play. The coach was looking at him. They were all looking at him, waiting. Nick glanced behind him, at the jammed bleachers. He’d seen Maria up there when he’d been warming up before the second half. And her parents. He remembered them from Alice’s party.

What if
I
miss?

Suddenly, although he had enjoyed their support all night, he could feel the weight of the crowd. This week, for the first time since his move to this part of town, walking around campus had not been an ordeal. Rather than jumping out of his way, people had been stopping him to wish him luck. But would these same people laugh behind his back next week if he blew the team’s last chance? He had already had a great game. Prudence dictated he play it safe.

“Whatever you say, coach,” he mumbled finally, taking the easy way out and hating himself for it.

Coach Sellers nodded nervously, glanced at Ted. “You’ll make it,” he said.

Ted swallowed. “Christ.”

The time-out ended. Wiping the last beads of perspiration from his hands with his towel, Nick followed his teammates back onto the court, positioning himself near the baseline, to the left of the basket. A moment later Troy’s center came and stood at his back, while Troy’s power forward placed himself a few feet in front, between him and Stewart. Nick knew Troy’s forward would drop back and lean on him, try to box him in, the moment the referee handed Stewart the ball. Both their center and power forward—in fact their whole team—were strong, very physical.

Oh, no! We forgot to tell Ted to get off his shot early enough for me to stand a chance at a rebound.

Nick went to speak to Ted precisely when the referee tossed the ball to Stewart and blew the whistle. That settled that. Stewart now had five seconds to inbound the ball. Ted would have to follow the cheerleaders’ advice and use his head.

Troy’s power forward immediately jumped back and sagged into Nick. Their center put a hand on his shoulder, a hand that might have had a hold on his jersey. Nick did not struggle to get free, deciding to wait a moment to see which way—figuratively and literally—the ball bounced.

Free of defensive pressure, Stewart easily in-bounded the ball to The Rock. Unfortunately, as The Rock dribbled toward Nick, only one of Troy’s guards moved to block his path. The other kept his position near the top of the key, near Ted. The seven on the clock slipped to five.

Putting forth a faked shot that probably didn’t fake a person in the building, The Rock whizzed the ball over to Ted, who caught it a solid twenty feet from the basket. Then Ted did the strangest thing. He paused to study the ball, as if he were checking to see if it were the brand name he would willingly have chosen to use while risking his athletic reputation. He did this for a grand total of perhaps one second. Given the situation, that was an extremely long time. Never give the ball to someone who’s afraid of it, Nick thought. Michael was right, Sellers should coach checkers.

The clock went to three seconds. Ted finally emerged from his important study, but with no clear idea of what he wanted to do next, whether to dribble closer or shoot. The crowd screamed, clearly wishing he would make up his mind. Ted glanced at Troy’s advancing guard, decided to put the ball up. Nick knew it wasn’t going to go down before it left his hands. Ted launched it toward the backboard as if he were throwing a stone at an attacking dinosaur.

Nick pivoted to his left, slapping off the hold on him with his elbow, crashing into the key, into perfect position to grab the rebound. Ted’s shot didn’t even hit the rim, however, and had so much behind it that it ricocheted high off the backboard. Nick not only had to leap as he had never leaped before to catch it, but he had to twist back so that his midsection stretched directly across the face of Troy’s big center.

Time did not slow down for Nick as he had often heard it did in moments of crisis. Indeed, as he rolled prone off the center’s nose, the ball balanced precariously in his right hand, the floor five feet beneath the back of his head and getting closer fast, he caught a glimpse of the big red letters on the clock going from two to one. He acted instinctively. He scooped the bail toward the basket, feeling a painful slap to his right arm in the process. The slap, though, didn’t hurt nearly so much as his butt did when he hit the floor.

Go in! Go in!

From flat on his back on the floor, Nick watched the ball roll lazily around the inside of the rim. The crowd gasped. The buzzer sounded. The ball rolled out.

We lost.

The disappointment soaked through him like a bitter drink, draining away his energy. He couldn’t even be bothered getting up. But there was The Rock, his fat hand out, insisting he do so.

“You can do it, buddy,” The Rock said, clasping Nick’s wrist and yanking him to his feet. “Two free throws and this baby’s wrapped.”

“What are you talking about? It’s over.”

“You were fouled, man.”

The Rock’s comment was slightly premature. The refs—and the coaches—were still arguing about it. Nick had never seen Coach Sellers so alive; all that blood in his cheeks.

Standing with his teammates, waiting anxiously for the decision, Nick spotted someone that almost caused him to faint.

His father was standing at the top of the bleachers.

A moment later the crowd cheered. Coach Sellers returned to his seat and began to twitch. Ted and The Rock patted Nick on the butt. The referee handed him the ball. Nick stared at it a moment.

It’s a Spalding, Ted. A fine brand.

Nick had trouble locating the free-throw line. It seemed to him someone had moved it back a few feet. He had shot about sixty-five percent from the field tonight, but had taken six free throws and made only two Standing at the line, alone on the floor—time had Officially expired—he bounced the ball a couple of times and listened as the ear-busting din dropped to a heart-stopping silence. This wasn’t pressure. This was murder.

Nick glanced up at his father. His father had only remarked upon his going out for the team once; that had been to tell him it had better not interfere with his bringing home his weekly check.

Why is he here?

Nick tried to focus on his grip on the ball, the position of his feet behind the line, the basket, trying to envision the ball sailing through the air and swishing through the net. He dribbled twice more, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. But he felt himself beginning to sway and quickly opened them. Yet the dizziness did not leave.

I am going to miss.

As it was, feeling the way he did, he would be putting up a couple of shots reminiscent of Ted’s last attempt. The problem was, he couldn’t jump, pivot, or fall away. Custom said he had to stand there relatively still and either make it or miss it. His decision after practice on Thursday notwithstanding, this was not his world. He was but a visitor. He had to obey custom.

He glanced again to his father. Although faraway—two hundred feet, at least—it seemed to Nick their eyes met. His dad did a little jump where he stood, pumping with his arms and nodding.

Do it your own way, but do it.

Nick turned and took a fifteen-foot jump shot.

He made it.

The crowd cheered.

He took another jump shot.
Swish
. Game over: Tabb 58, Westminister 57. The crowd freaked.

Like a wave bursting a dam, people flooded the court. Nick felt his own wave breaking inside. He felt, without a speck of worry or pain to blemish it, a clear white euphoria.

He got touched more in the next few minutes than he had been touched in his entire life; guys and girls pumping his hands, slapping him on the back, telling him how great he was. He drank it up like a man dying of thirst of thirst would have drunk down a barrel of Gatorade, which, by the way, was exactly what The Rock had decided to pour over Nick’s head.

Then his dad was congratulating him, along with Mr. Gonzales. Nick introduced them, sounding to his own ears as if he were babbling in a foreign language, but making enough sense to get them shaking hands and talking basketball strategy.

And somewhere in all this, Maria appeared. Climbing to her tiptoes, she asked if she could speak to him outside. He let himself be led into the cold and the dark, down a hallway, and behind a tree. Here she didn’t compliment him on his defense or his lay-ups. She had never been one to talk a lot.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Can you forgive me?”

“No problem,” Nick said. In that instant, he honestly felt all his problems were behind him. He kissed her.