Hoops (9 page)

She blinked, trying to get his reaction into focus. With her, he was bitter and angry. With Stewart, he sounded weary and disappointed. Why did that bother her?

Stewart nodded. “Sometimes it’s that way in teaching, too. But if you persist, they’ll get it.” He turned to her. “That’s why I asked you to come over, Carolyn. C.J. would like longer practices—”

Relief seeped into her. Dealing with the realities of her job as academic adviser returned her to solid ground. This she understood. “No.”

C.J. gave a snort of disgust and raised his eyebrows to Stewart in a distinct “I told you so.”

She ignored him and addressed herself to Stewart. “I just had three of the players in my office, asking for more help with classes at the very moment Marsha called. They came to me, Stewart. I’m not going to back off because he’s lost a basketball game.”

C.J. stood up. Under the lithe ease and laid-back drawl, she heard a band of anger. “This isn’t going to work, Stewart. Professor Trent is more interested in putting up roadblocks for me than she is in helping the guys.”

“That’s not true. If you would look beyond your gymnasium—”

“No more, Carolyn.” Stewart looked at her, then turned to C.J. “Sit down, C.J.”

C.J. sat. She kept her eyes on Stewart as he removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose thoroughly before returning them to a spot where he could look over the top.

“I’m disappointed in you both. If either one of you would open your eyes, you’d see you both have the good of those players at heart. I think it’s time you stopped bickering with each other and started putting those young men first. I expect the two of you to cooperate from now on. Is that understood?”

He got nods from both; reluctant nods, but definite acknowledgments.

“On this specific matter I hope you can start toward a workable solution right now.”

Silence encompassed them.

Carolyn looked out the window, her peripheral vision absorbing the tired, discouraged lines of C.J.’s face. She cleared her throat. “What, specifically, does he . . . do you want in the way of changes?” She didn’t quite look at C.J., but at least she’d saved herself from the absurdity of addressing her question through Stewart.

“I’d like more time—”

“More practice time is out—”

“Wait a minute, will you? Just for once, listen.”

She met his glare with one of her own. “I’m listening,” she snapped off after half a minute.

“What I was going to say is that I’d like more time, but if that won’t work, at least having the practice time in one block instead of broken in two like it is now would help, for conditioning and continuity.”

She did some quick figuring. “There wouldn’t be time for the practice hours in one block and the study hall unless their dinner was pushed back.”

“Pushing dinner back might cause a rebellion.” The harsh lines in C.J.’s face eased a little as his grin flickered. “How about dividing up the study time. If you give me another hour and a half in the afternoon, I’ll give you the time I’ve been using in the morning.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Two shorter periods a day could help keep them fresher for studying. And the morning meetings she’d been juggling between their classes would be easier to schedule.

“That’s agreeable,” she said with dignity. “As long as they come with their minds prepared to deal with something other than basketball. And with their anatomies intact.”

She stood up, speaking to Stewart. “I believe the quote today was ‘Coach chewed our fannies.’ Little studying was accomplished this afternoon.”

“You must’ve made quite an impression on them, Professor Trent,” C.J. drawled out, “that they gave you such a cleaned-up version.”

She didn’t look directly at him. But as she moved around the chair toward the door, she saw how C.J.’s cheek twitched with the effort to suppress a grin. “One more thing,” she said. “I want Frank Gordon’s file on my desk in the morning.” She shut the door on that parting shot, so she missed the look C.J. exchanged with Stewart.

Into the silence C.J.’s sigh came heavy and tired. “I’m not sure this is going to work, Stewart.”

“Give it time. I know you don’t take losing well, but it’s only their first game.”

C.J. stifled a grimace. There was an axiom in basketball: players win games, coaches lose them. He’d lost.

Last night in bed he’d replayed every moment of that game, reviewing each maneuver in his mind to find where he’d failed. But what had gnawed at him as he’d stared at the ceiling until dawn had turned it imperceptibly lighter was remembering how he’d scanned the crowd looking for Carolyn’s face, and the disappointment he’d felt that she hadn’t come.

“It’s not the team. It’s Professor Trent. I know she’s got a great reputation, but how much good can she really do the guys when she hates basketball? And that’s without even knowing everything.”

“I don’t know that she does hate basketball.”

“All right, me, then,” he retorted with the sharpness of sleeplessness. His mind replayed her expression after he’d blasted her when all she’d said was she was sorry they’d lost. He saw again the marble mask slip over the momentary softness. If she didn’t hate him before, she surely did now.

“I don’t know that she hates you, either,” Stewart objected mildly.

He met Stewart’s eyes across the desk and wondered what he was being told without words, if anything. But all Stewart put into words was his determination to continue with Carolyn as academic adviser.

* * * *

When the file didn’t arrive the next day or the day after, Carolyn sent another hot memo to C.]., this time with a copy to Stewart requesting approval to examine Frank Gordon’s personal file in the registrar’s office.

After a memo like that, no one could misconstrue her going to that night’s home game. She wanted to make a gesture of support for the players. Only the players.

C.J.’s odd behavior in Stewart’s office didn’t really mean that her absence from the first game had hurt him. And she certainly felt no need to disprove his statement about her trying to get rid of his program by pulling for losses.

Still, her hands felt clammy even in the body-warmed heat of the gym. A natural reaction in unaccustomed surroundings, she told herself.

Students, faculty, townspeople and alumni packed the side of the gym reserved for Ashton’s backers. She saw Stewart and Helene waving happily to her from a patch of faculty amid the students, but decided against trying to get to them. No seat merited fighting through all those bodies.

She went around and came in on the other side of the gym. She’d picked a spot on the edge of the bleachers near the door when she heard her name called. Edgar Humbert stood, waving to her, from the center of the bleachers, about halfway up.

“Good thing I saw you,” he said when she'd made her way to him. He spoke around a wad of gum. “That’s a terrible seat. You would have missed half the action. This is the best spot. I sit here every game. You can really see the game develop from here.”

She watched in fascination as he folded another stick of gum into his mouth.

“No smoking in the gym,” he said by way of explanation. Carolyn had never seen him without a cigarette before. “It’s okay once the game starts. I forget about it, but until then this is the only thing that helps.”

A roar nearly swallowed the last of his words. Ashton University’s players sprinted out, shooting basketballs practically before they hit the edge of the court. She saw C.J.’s shining sandy mop above all the others as he and Dolph Reems, clad in red blazers in honor of Ashton, followed more sedately.

This basketball thing was more invigorating than she’d thought. The game hadn’t even started and already her heart beat more heavily than usual.

Edgar mumbled away around the wad of gum about field goal percentages and zone defenses and shooting from the point.

She watched C.J.’s easy motions as he shook hands with the opposing coach and the officials in their black-and-white-striped shirts. He returned to the bench across the court from where she and Edgar sat. With his back to them, he removed the red jacket and carefully folded it over the end of the bench. Carolyn thought she saw his shoulders tense.

Then he turned and looked directly at her.

There was no vague, wandering gaze that happened to notice her. His eyes found her immediately and unerringly. The crooked grin would appear now, mocking her for coming at all. She waited, with her heart thudding fast and hard, and her chin raised. But he just looked at her.

At last he gave her a slow nod. She felt a wash of approval and appreciation and tried to tell herself she’d imagined it. She smiled a little, and an answering smile flickered onto his face.

Everyone stood for the “Star-Spangled Banner,” snapped out by an Ashton band obviously eager to get the game started. Then a tidal wave of noise and confusion buffeted Carolyn as five players from each team took the court.

She wasn’t a total novice to basketball. After all, she’d played from the time she’d started grade school. Baseball might be the American pastime, but basketball came as a godsend of all physical education teachers contending with energetic youngsters and inclement Midwestern weather.

But as she watched the speed and strategy unfold, she decided that the only thing this game had in common with the one she’d grown up with was that the score went up when the ball went into the basket.

At first that happened more frequently for the opposing team than Ashton. But late in the first half Brad hit three shots from so far away that the crowd oohed even before the ball swished through the net.

“That should loosen things up in the second half,” Edgar said with satisfaction as the teams trooped off the court, with Ashton trailing by eight points.

“Why?”

“They’ve been packing in around Frank Gordon, but with Brad hitting from outside, they won’t be able to do that. And Ellis is doing a good job breaking the press. See?”

Edgar Humbert tried. He even passed up his halftime cigarettes to try to explain the half-court press to her. Each time she started to get a grasp on it, however, his excitement would bubble up into another convoluted anecdote and set her adrift once more.

She did see what he meant about Brad’s outside shooting opening up the game in the second half, though. For the first time Frank seemed to have some room to move under the basket, and soon he’d added enough points for Ashton to inch closer. Then ahead.

At game’s end, with the scoreboard showing a five-point Ashton victory, Edgar turned to her with a big smile, made even bigger by the mass of gum in his cheek. “So, have any questions?”

She laughed as they climbed down the bleachers. “Edgar, I have
every
question.”

And that included the one about why C.J. hadn’t looked in her direction again. During the game she understood his total concentration on the play in front of him. But afterward she thought he might look up and share a smile.

How ridiculous, she chided herself. Why would she want him to look at her and smile? She pushed the question aside before some troublemaking part of her offered an answer.

“The only thing I know is the final score. But I made a deal with Frank Gordon, and I intend to make him keep his end of it tomorrow morning. He’s going to explain this game to me if it kills both of us.”

“Your end of the deal didn’t happen to have anything to do with the
Canterbury Tales
, by any chance?”

“Yes. He asked for some help. I hope you don’t mind.”

He waved it aside. “That’s the academic adviser’s job. Actually, I’m pleased he’s volunteering in class. The kid’s bright. He’s got some original ideas. You can tell he’s really thought about what he’s read. But sometimes a sort of unexpected gap in his basic knowledge seems to crop up.”

Carolyn considered Edgar’s words as she walked across campus toward her apartment. She had the same impression of Frank. File or no file, she would ask him some questions the next day—right after she had him explain a half-court press.

* * * *

She didn’t have a chance to do either. She had just finished answering Frank’s list of questions—shorter each day, Carolyn noted with pleasure—when a knock sounded at her office door.

In reply to her “Come in,” C.J. pushed open the door and said, “Good morning,”

“Morning, Coach. I’m just leaving.”

“That’s all right, Frank. Take your time.” C.J.’s hand rested on Frank’s shoulder briefly. “I’ll talk to the professor later.”

She saw the genuine affection between them, and a strong urge to please on Frank’s part. “No, honest, Coach, I’m leaving. We’re all done, aren’t we, Professor?”

He looked to her for confirmation. What could she say?
No, we’re not done. I want to ask you what a half-court press is and, oh, by the way, I have a few questions about your academic background.

She smiled at him. “Yes, we’re done for now. I’ll see you with the rest at 2:30.”

C.J. watched the door swing closed behind Frank and turned to face Carolyn. Damn, she’s lovely, he thought. He looked at the sleek golden brown hair and longed to let his hand smooth it. Then he would trace the bones of cheek, jaw, forehead and nose that created that elegant profile.

He met her eyes and knew by the startled look that came into hers that his face showed too much. From behind his back he produced the objects he’d brought and laid them on her desk: a small light brown teddy bear with soulful brown eyes, a brown button nose set slightly askew and a blue-green ribbon around his neck; and a manila folder labeled Frank Gordon.

She looked at the articles on her desk for a moment, then put the teddy bear aside to reach for the file. He’d known she would. It was enough that her fingers lingered for a furtive stroke of the soft brown fuzz.

“Darn, that’s not quite right, either,” he said with a sigh.

She schooled her expression to bland inquiry, but he saw that she knew exactly what he meant. “This little fella’s not quite the right color, either. He doesn’t have enough of the golden to his brown. Although,” he added with a critical look at the wistful-looking bear, “I think that ribbon’s a perfect match for that dress you wore at homecoming. What do you think?”