In the Paint (3 page)
Matt stared down at the light brown Cheerios bobbing in the half-full bowl of milk and tried to convince himself that he was hungry. It was 7:00 on the first Monday morning of October, and he wasn't the least bit interested in eating breakfast. Or if he was, his skittish stomach didn't realize it.
His mother was busy making lunches and asking him about school and his friends. But despite sitting just a few feet away at the kitchen table, Matt didn't hear much of what she was saying. His mind was fixed on the list that would appear today. The only thing he could think about was whether or not his name would be on that list.
This afternoon, at 4:00, Coach Stephens would release the names of the twelve players who had made the varsity squad. After two weeks of practice, Matt wasn't sure where he stood. He thought he had played pretty well, but there were plenty of good kids in tryouts, most of who were taller and older.
Matt wanted to be on the team so badly it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. He had struggled to do his math homework over the weekend, finishing one question and then daydreaming about the team list, then doing another. Even the horror movies he and Jake had rented on Saturday had failed to hold his complete interest. The time between the last practice of tryouts on Friday afternoon and this morning had seemed to stretch forever.
“Matt? Have you heard a word I've said?” his mother interrupted his thoughts, feigning anger. “Maybe if I painted my face orange and wrote Spalding across my forehead, I'd have a better chance with you!”
“Sorry, Mom,” Matt replied, forcing a spoonful of now soggy cereal into his mouth. “But today is huge. If I make the team it will be so sweet. But if I don't ⦠I don't know.” His voice trailed off. The thought of not making it was too much to bear. There was so much riding on the list.
“If you don't, then you'll make it next year,” she said sweetly, laying her small hands on his shoulders and gently stroking his wavy brown hair. “Besides, this isn't the first team you've ever tried out for. It will be okay.”
It was true. Matt had been playing organized sports since he first took to the field for mini-mites soccer as a five-year-old. Despite the fact his mom was a single parent, she had always managed to find the registration fees, money for decent equipment and enough time to drive Matt in their chuggy red Toyota Corolla to the baseball diamonds, swimming pools and gymnasiums around the city.
Matt loved sports but none quite as much as basketball, a game he had first seen on television and then later, in a much more real sense, when his older brother Mark was a steady guard on the South Side High School team.
Eight years older, Mark was gone now, working a good job on the oil rigs in Eton, a couple of hundred miles away. Their only contact was on his brother's odd visit home, Sunday-night phone calls and, most frequently, e-mails. But Matt could still vividly remember those winter nights when his mom would make a thermos of hot chocolate, bundle him up in his heavy jacket and mittens and trudge through the snow from their two-bedroom apartment to the high school to watch Mark play.
Back then, when he was only seven and not much more than four-feet tall, high school basketball was a fascinating new discovery for Matt. The cheerleaders giggling and locking arms, the hundreds of people of all shapes and sizes packed tightly into the bleachers, the smell of the sweat and the squeaks of the sneakers on hardwood all mingled into an intoxicating blend. The very first time they visited the South Side High gym, he was hooked on the game.
Ever since then, Matt had spent much of his free time on the outdoor courts of the neighborhood; shooting hoops by himself after school until it got too dark; and playing H-O-R-S-E with his buddies on summer days until they grew tired of laughing at each other's miserable attempts to make the “ultimate” shot. To Matt, there was nothing better than the feeling of a ball in his hand and a backboard in front of him on a sunny afternoon.
And there was nothing more important right now in his life than making the South Side Middle School roster.
Matt's mom noticed the serious look and his furrowed brow. “Come on,” she coaxed. “Basketball isn't everything, you know.”
Matt had to smile. Somehow, his mom always seemed to have a way of making him feel better, of calming his nerves. And even though she sometimes came out with some pretty weird things â like calling Kobe Bryant “Bryant Kobe” in front of Phil and Jake one day last summer â she still understood him better than anybody else in the world.
Matt and his mother were about as close as a parent and a child could be. His father had left when Matt was just three, and although he had often wondered what it would be like to have a dad around, he honestly couldn't think of many times he had felt shortchanged because of it.
Mom had always been there, even in the early days when she was a waitress and he and Mark ate supper in the back booth at the Elmhurst Diner while she worked. She had saved her tips, always made sure they had decent clothes and good food and that they did lots of interesting things like trips to the zoo and to the park. Even now, when Matt was twelve and old enough to do most things for himself, she made a point of taking him out for a pizza or a movie or to play mini-golf every once in a while. They had their fights and issues, but more often than not they enjoyed each other's company.
Matt liked to refer to his auburn-haired mom as “short but sweet.” He liked almost everything about her as a parent, but he desperately hoped he had inherited his height from his dad, whom Matt understood was about six-foot-four. His mom stood only five-foot-two, but Matt loved her big brown eyes, small nose and easy smile, all traits that he shared. And his mom had a warm, gentle manner that had helped make him feel safe and loved as he grew up. He felt he could talk to her about anything â or almost anything.
Matt had always been able to sense his mom didn't enjoy discussing his father. It wasn't that she wouldn't answer questions about his dad, but Matt thought he could detect hurt in her eyes whenever the subject came up. For the most part, he simply avoided the topic. He had gleaned enough to know that his father was tall, had a mechanical engineering degree, knew a lot about music and airplanes and had been a pretty good athlete in his high school days. Matt also knew his father hadn't been around while he was growing up. He hadn't seen his dad or had any contact with him since his parents split up, which meant that Matt had no real memories of his father. But a few years ago he had decided that he didn't really need to ask a bunch of questions if it meant upsetting his mom.
When he was about seven and Mark was fifteen, their mother began studying for her real estate license, thinking that if she was good with people in the restaurant she might be able to use the same skills to sell houses. When Matt was nine, she officially became a real estate agent and, within months, was making more money. The job change meant they could move out of their apartment and into a two-bedroom house about six blocks from South Side Middle School. It had also meant that Matt had to become more independent, making his own meals sometimes and doing the laundry for his mom after Mark moved out. You could never tell when Mom's pager would beep and she'd be called away to show a property or write up an offer. But no matter how busy she got, she had always been able to get him to his baseball, basketball or soccer games. And she always seemed to have time to make him feel better when he was worried.
“Basketball might not be everything,” Matt said, as he grabbed his backpack and headed for the door. “But it sure feels like it this morning.”
“Good luck,” smiled his mom, rising to her toes to kiss him on the forehead. “And try to forget about it until this afternoon, okay?”
As he hurried down Anderson Crescent, Matt went over the pool of players and tried to determine which twelve players Coach Stephens would select. Some were obvious, such as Jackson and McTavish and even Amar, who had been impressive during tryouts. But others were on the bubble. Matt couldn't help but feel he was one of those.
His pace quickened as he saw Jake and Phil up ahead, waiting as they always had since elementary school, under the massive oak on the corner of Anderson Crescent and Seventh. Jake lived about five miles outside town at Long Lake, where his parents ran a small resort. Each morning, he took the bus into town, getting off on Densmore Street near Wong's Grocery, the corner store run by Phil's family. Jake and Phil then walked a couple of blocks to Anderson and Seventh and waited there for Matt.
The three of them â four, counting Amar, who walked to school from the opposite direction â had been inseparable since their days at Glenview Elementary, playing sports together, exchanging trading cards and video games and just hanging out. Matt felt comfortable with these guys. He knew they'd remain friends no matter whose names appeared on the team list this afternoon.
“The Mattster,” Jake shouted in an overly dramatic television announcer's voice. “What's up?”
“Not much,” Matt replied. “Just thinking about the cuts, you know?”
Just seeing Jake put Matt at ease. Of all his buddies, Jake was the most easy-going, and it was difficult not to feel comfortable around him. He never seemed to take anything too seriously, including himself. He was a natural at everything â sports, school, music â without even trying.
“Don't sweat it,” Jake said, reaching out and pulling Matt's ballcap down over his eyes. “You worry way too much.”
Matt couldn't help thinking that if Jake worried even just a little he'd be a sure thing to make varsity. Jake was about two inches taller and stronger than Matt, but his basketball skills weren't nearly as polished. While Matt and Phil had practised diligently during the summer, Jake had taken it far less seriously. He had spent more time at the beach, watching videos and playing the fire-engine red electric guitar he had taken up in the fifth grade. Jake lived in the moment and, for him, not every moment included working on his crossover dribble.
Matt knew that Jake, who had one of those long-limbed bodies capable of moving quickly and powerfully with almost no effort, had the raw ability to make the South Side basketball team. He was often the best player when the four buddies battled through their summer games of twenty-one and two-on-two. But Matt also knew that for Jake, whose whole family enjoyed water-skiing and hiking and horseback riding, basketball was just one thing, not the only thing.
“I couldn't sleep last night thinking about it,” Phil interjected. “I'd be happy just making the team to sit on the bench.”
Phil was deadly serious about basketball, or anything else he tried. He was a straight-A student and a competitive chess player and the best video-gamer Matt had ever seen. And he had consistently been the top catcher all through Little League baseball, easily his favorite sport.
Phil's parents ran a popular electronics business downtown while his grandmother took care of Wong's Grocery, the family's neighborhood corner store. Phil was expected to help out at the store in the mornings before school and more often during the summer months. Consequently, he and Matt had spent many a summer day hanging out at Wong's Grocery, helping Phil's grandmother organize the returned soda bottles, stock shelves and sweep up the aisles. The boys had also sampled a fair amount of the candy and potato chip inventory at Wong's and had spent countless summer nights playing Strat-o-Matic baseball and PlayStation2 in his grandmother's cramped living quarters at the back of the store.
Matt believed that Phil worked even harder at sports than he did. But Phil was at least three inches shorter and that would hurt his chances of making the South Side varsity against the larger grade eights and nines. Still, Matt had long ago learned never to count Phil out of anything. Nobody was more persistent. And he had a great three-point shot. He had become something of a folk hero in outdoor pickup games at Anderson Park during the past summer due to his uncanny long-range accuracy. Whenever Phil drained a three, either Jake, Matt or Amar â or sometimes all three â would yell: “Phil it up! Phil it up!” It had become his trademark.
As the three friends walked down the leaf-strewn sidewalk of Seventh Avenue toward the South Side school grounds, Matt couldn't help thinking that each of them was probably on the bubble to make the team. It was good to have their company, especially this morning.
The school day dragged on for Matt. He kept staring at the clock, through history, language arts and career preparation in the morning. He half-heartedly played some pickup hoops outside during lunch period, barely picked at the ham-and-lettuce sandwich his mom had packed for him and then struggled mightily to concentrate through his afternoon math class with Mr. Davis.
Math was Matt's least favorite subject and the only one with which he had any real trouble. Mostly, he was a solid-B student, and school had come fairly easily all through elementary. But math, particularly now, was a different story. He just wasn't interested in it because he wasn't much good at it. It seemed to Matt that he had to work twice as hard at multiplying fractions as Phil did, even though his friend always got far superior grades.
Mr. Davis was a portly man, in his mid-forties, with a graying beard and thick black-rimmed glasses. He wore white dress shirts that always seemed to be coming untucked from the back of his pants and his hair was a tangled mess. Matt didn't care so much about that stuff, but whenever Mr. Davis began delivering a lesson he found himself tuning out. With the school year little more than a month old, Matt knew he was already falling behind.
Not being able to follow something that most of the other kids seemed to routinely grasp bothered Matt, but on this day, that concern took a definite back seat to basketball team selections. Finally, after what had seemed the longest fifty-five-minute math period of his life, the bell rang at 3:35. School was out. It was time for the list.