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Authors: Mike Lupica

BOOK: Hot Hand
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Not the guy who was his own son.
Billy held out some hope, though not a whole lot, that his dad might say something about the way he’d scrimmaged today on the way home, since it was his day to drive.
But when Joe pulled up in front of the house that used to be his house, and Billy and Lenny both got out because Lenny was staying for dinner, he just said the same thing he’d said at the end of practice.
“Good job today, guys,” he said. “See you Saturday.”
Can hardly wait, Billy thought.
TEN
The next Saturday Ben skipped piano again.
He didn’t make anything up this time or act like he was going, when all he planned to do was walk around for an hour. He simply told Peg he was sick to his stomach and was going back to bed.
It was Peg he told because their mom was up in Boston working. There weren’t any weekends for his mom.
Peg said, “It can’t be something you ate, since you ate like a bird at dinner last night and you haven’t hardly touched your eggs this morning.”
Ben made the kind of face you did when you smelled
rotten
eggs. “I don’t know what it is,” he said. “But even talking about food makes me want to throw up.”
Eliza, eating her own breakfast with a copy of
Lucky
magazine in front of her, didn’t even look up. “Gross,” she said.
“Ben Raynor,” Peg said with hands on her hips, which always meant business. “Are you telling me the truth, or are you looking for a reason to get out of piano today?”
Ben gave a quick look at Billy, then said to Peg, “I don’t lie.”
“You never have,” Peg said. “I’ll call Mrs. Grace and tell her.”
Ben shot up out of his chair and said, “It’s my lesson. I should be the one to call.” He went across the room and took the phone out of its holder and started punching in numbers as he walked through the door that led into the dining room. In a few seconds, they heard him talking in a low voice.
Peg said to Billy and Eliza, “That boy isn’t himself lately.”
“No one around here is,” Eliza said. “Except me, of course.” She turned a page in her magazine and said, “I
so
have to have that purse.”
Ben came back in, put the phone back in its place and said, “I told her I’d see her next Saturday.”
To Billy he said, “Good luck with your game,” and then headed up the back stairs to his room.
The Magic were playing the Hornets, the only other undefeated team in the league, in the last game for both teams before the play-offs started next Saturday. If everything went the way Billy and Lenny thought it would after that, the next time they’d see the Hornets after today would be at the championship game in two weeks.
Basically, all today’s game was supposed to do was decide which team would be the number-one seed going into the play-offs and which team would be number two, but Billy knew better.
He knew that this game was going to feel like the championship of something, even if it was just the championship of today.
When the doorbell rang, Peg looked up at the clock and said to Billy, “I thought Lenny wasn’t coming for another twenty minutes?”
“He must be operating on Peg time today,” Billy said.
And he knew why. Lenny couldn’t wait to get to the Y, either.
When Billy opened the front door, he saw that Lenny wasn’t wearing a jacket or coat or hoodie, just his Magic jersey and shorts, despite the cold. Cold didn’t bother Lenny DiNardo because hardly anything did. “I know I’m early,” he said. “But, well, you know.”
“I know,” Billy said.
He started to close the door behind them, then stopped, saying to Lenny, “Give me one sec, I forgot something upstairs.”
He ran back up the stairs. Ben’s door was shut, as usual. Billy knocked, didn’t wait—as usual—before poking his head in.
“What up?” Ben said.
“Just wanted to tell you I’m out of here,” Billy said. “And check you out one more time before I left.”
Ben said, “I just don’t feel good.”
“You seemed fine when you got up,” Billy said. “I’m just saying.”
“I was faking,” Ben said, quickly adding, “when I got up, I mean.”
Billy said, “Or you’re faking now.”
Ben turned over on his bed, so he was facing away from Billy. “Go play your game, okay?”
“Not before I find out what’s really wrong with you,” Billy said.
“You think I’m blowing off piano again, don’t you?” Ben said.
“Are you?”
Ben didn’t say anything right away. Didn’t turn around. Billy didn’t know what to say, either. He knew he was the older brother here, by a year. Yet he never felt a year smarter around Ben.
He’d always thought Ben was the smart one of the kids in the family, as if he was the one who had the most of their mom in him.
Billy wanted to be smart enough to get something out of him now, as much as he wanted to get out to the car and get to the game.
The best he could do, still talking to the back of his brother’s head, was this:
“Well, any time you want to talk.”
“I don’t,” Ben said. “Have a good game.”
He headed back down the front stairs. From the kitchen, he could hear Eliza, either talking to Peg or on the phone.
They all made fun of her and how the only thing she seemed to love more than purses or clothes or shoes or music or Instant Messaging was the sound of her own voice. But the way Ben was acting lately, Billy didn’t mind that sound so much these days.
At least when Eliza was around, somebody in the house actually seemed happy.
 
He found out in the car that his dad wasn’t coming to the game.
His dad never missed a practice or a game. But as soon as Billy did everything but dive into the backseat, apologizing for keeping them waiting, Mr. DiNardo said that he’d just gotten a call on his cell. Billy’s dad, he said, had some big emergency with his biggest client and had to go straight to his office.
Now neither one of his parents was having a weekend this weekend, Billy thought.
“So I guess you guys are stuck with me today,” Mr. DiNardo said.
Billy and Lenny didn’t act as if they were stuck with anybody. They pretty much reacted the way you did when you walked into the classroom and saw an easy substitute teacher you’d had before, one who will let you do pretty much whatever you want to, short of having a spitball war.
“High five,” Lenny said.
Billy gave him one that produced a loud slap.
“Bump,” Lenny said.
They bumped fists.
Mr. DiNardo, a funny guy who was the morning disc jockey on the town radio station, was checking them both out in the rearview mirror while they were stopped at a red light on Cherry Street. He said, “For a game this big, you guys have a lot of confidence in me.”
Lenny looked at his dad in the rearview mirror. The two of them looked exactly alike to Billy, and now they had the same grin on their faces.
Just like that, Billy couldn’t believe how jealous he felt, just looking from one face to the other, seeing again how much the two of them liked each other. Trying to remember the last time it was as easy being with his dad as it was for Lenny to be with Mr. D.
Sometimes Billy wished he and his dad could like each other as much as they said they loved each other.
“It’s not exactly you we’re confident about, Pop,” Lenny said. “It’s
us.
”
“Hold on to that thought,” Mr. D said. “Because you guys both know I’m a basketball coach in name only.”
“Don’t worry, Mr D,” Billy said, feeling as cocky as his friend Lenny all of a sudden. “We got you today.”
He wasn’t sure whether he was really feeling cocky, or whether he was just happy that he was going to get to play ball today without his dad looking over his shoulder.
Maybe he was just happy for once to be playing for somebody else’s dad.
ELEVEN
They were ahead almost the whole game.
Never by more than ten points. It wasn’t like they were running away with anything, not against the Hornets. Not against Tim Sullivan, the guy Billy considered the second-best player in the league after Lenny.
Tim Sullivan was taller than Lenny, tall enough to play forward in their league, or even center if he wanted. But in his case, size didn’t matter. Tim Sullivan was a point guard, had always been a point guard, and the only other point guard who could come close to covering him, because of how big he was and how good he was, was Lenny DiNardo.
Tim Sullivan was the player Billy’s dad was always talking to him about. He said Billy should be more like him, that even though Tim could get his shot against any player in the league or any defense, even though he seemed to always have the ball in his hands when he was in the game, he managed to keep everybody else on his team “involved.”
That was a big word with Billy’s dad. Involved.
He made it sound like something you did in church instead of a gym.
Today, though, as much as Tim was keeping his teammates involved, the Magic were winning the game. In Billy’s mind, there were two big reasons for that:
1. Lenny
was
doing a good job guarding Tim.
2. Billy Raynor couldn’t miss.
Could. Not. Miss.
He felt the way he did sometimes at the Pop-A-SHOT they had in the basement, when he’d be down there by himself and get a good rhythm going. He’d make everything he threw at the basket until the clock ran out.
That kind of day.
Mr. DiNardo wasn’t telling him he was shooting too much because nobody was. If anything, the guys on his team wanted him to shoot
more
.
So he had that going for him. And this: Because the Magic were down a couple of players, he and Lenny got to play the whole second half.
“That’s the way your dad would do it, right?” Mr. DiNardo said at halftime.
Billy and Lenny answered at the same time. “Abso
lutely,
Coach,” they said.
“I think that’s the first time anybody ever called me Coach,” Mr. D said.
The Hornets tried to switch from zone to man-to-man in the third quarter. They even switched Tim Sullivan over to Billy. It made Billy mad the first couple of times down the court, Tim guarding him so closely, ignoring everybody else, that Lenny couldn’t get him the ball.
Guarding him so tight those first couple of times Billy could hardly breathe.
Lenny could see how annoyed Billy was. When Tim was shooting a couple of free throws, he came over and stood next to him. “Dude,” he said, “they had to put the big dog on you. It’s a compliment.”
The switch actually worked for the Magic, because Lenny started scoring anytime he wanted to against Tony Gilroy, the guy from the Hornets who was guarding him now. After about two minutes, the Hornets had to switch back, Tim going back on Lenny. Before the quarter ended, Billy hit two straight shots, and the Magic were back to being ahead by ten.
It looked like they would stay ahead, not let the Hornets get any closer than that, until Lenny picked up his fourth foul with six minutes left. He called the time-out before his dad did and took himself out of the game.
As he was leaving the court, he said to Billy, “Don’t let the other guys panic if they make a run. ’Cause they probably will make one now, without me in there.”
“No worries, dude,” Billy said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. Because sometimes when Lenny wasn’t out there with him, he felt as if he were trying to play with only one sneaker on.
The Hornets made their run, just like Lenny said they would. They scored three baskets in a row in the first minute Lenny was on the bench, then even when Lenny put himself back in, they scored two more baskets on turnovers.
Just like that, the game was tied.
This was a whole different game from the one they’d been playing all morning.
It stayed tied into the last two minutes. The Hornets stayed in their man-to-man, Tim on Lenny, Tony Gilroy on Billy. Billy hit another one on the outside, snuck away on a fast break, getting to the middle just like his dad would have wanted. He wasn’t sure, but keeping track inside his head, he had twenty points now, the most he’d ever scored in a game.
He knew it would make his dad crazy if he even thought Billy was keeping track of his own points.
But his dad wasn’t here.
The game was still tied with twenty seconds left.
Lenny called their last time-out. Everybody knew he was the one who’d really been coaching the team all game long. He wasn’t going to stop now. In the huddle he told everybody where they should go on the last play, what they should do. The rest of the guys out there with him—Billy, Jeff Wilpon, Jim Sarni, Danny Timms—just listened.
When Lenny was finished, he looked up at his dad, as if remembering he was still there, and said,
“If that’s okay with you, of course, Dad.”
Mr. DiNardo smiled.
“Boys,” he said, “you just do exactly what my son the coach told you to do.”
There was nothing tricky about the play Lenny had come up with. He said there was no way he could take Tim Sullivan one-on-one. But he wanted Tim to think he was going to try, anyway. He was going to drive to his right like he wanted to go around him on the baseline, have Jim Sarni set pretty much what would be a fake screen on him.
At the same time he was making his move, he wanted Jeff Wilpon to run over to the other side of the court and set a pick for Billy.
The way Lenny said it would happen from there, Billy would cut around Jeff’s pick, then be open when Lenny passed him the ball a couple of steps inside the free throw line.
Everybody knew it was Billy’s favorite spot.
And
then
, if everything had gone the way it was supposed to, Billy would make one more open shot today and the Magic would be the number-one seed going into the play-offs.

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