Miracle on 49th Street (16 page)

I
was just wondering,” Barbara said. “Do you ever plan on talking to him again?”

It was the first week of December. They'd just had a huge snowstorm in Boston, one that surprised all the weather people on television, a storm that started late Sunday afternoon and didn't stop until Monday morning. Even got them a snow day from school.

Three days later, the Public Garden and the Common were still covered with snow, making it feel like the middle of winter already.

Molly had just gotten home from school, taken off all her snow stuff, gone straight upstairs to homework. Lots of homework.

She had looked up from her English assignment to see Barbara standing in the doorway.

“I just don't want to talk to him right now,” Molly said.

“I don't want to say ‘I told you so,'” Barbara said.

“So don't,” Molly said.

“I really want to.”

“I know,” Molly said.

Barbara came in and shut the door behind her. Somehow, a minor miracle, Kimmy still didn't know the real story about Molly and Josh Cameron, not that it mattered much anymore, one way or the other.

Barbara lowered herself onto Molly's beanbag. “You're aware he keeps calling.”

“Aware and don't care,” Molly said. “Good rhyme, huh? Sam would be proud of me.”

“I never really felt as if I got the whole story about what happened in New York,” Barbara said.

She reached behind her, made the beanbag more like a chair, and settled back into it. Great. It must be some weird signal I give off, Molly thought, to all the Evans girls, that I'm ready to get down with some serious girl talk.

Except Molly never wanted to get down with girl talk. If she wanted to talk, she could call Sam. Or IM him. Or e-mail London friends.

“I just finally figured out that he didn't want me,” Molly said. “And that there was nothing I could do to make him want me.”

“I don't ever want to be put in the position of taking his side of things,” Barbara said. “But it's pretty early in the process for you to decide that. And this is coming from somebody who thought the whole process was a bad idea from the start.”

Molly closed her Mead Square Deal writing tablet, her favorite kind, and put it next to her on her bed with her pen on top of it. It was like putting down her weapons and surrendering. No matter how busy Molly tried to look, Barbara wasn't getting out of here one minute sooner.

Like mother, like daughter.

Or maybe it was the other way around.

“Process,” Molly said. “You make it sound like I was trying to fill out some kind of application.”

“Don't make this more difficult than it already is,” Barbara said. “You know what I mean. In the best of all possible worlds, you and Josh weren't going to figure out the whole father-daughter thing in a blink.”

She produced one of her signature Barbara sighs now. “Listen to me, talking about fathers and daughters like I'm some kind of expert on the subject,” she said. “My dad and I still haven't figured things out, and we're starting to run out of time.”

Molly nodded, like she understood completely, but didn't say anything.

Barbara said, “You can't ignore him forever. He
is
your father, after all. Even if he doesn't deserve you.”

“He's really not my father,” Molly said. “Not in any way that really matters.” Molly couldn't help it, she made this groaning noise now, like the whole conversation had suddenly socked her in the stomach. “None of this matters.”

“Of course it does.”

“Not if I don't let it,” Molly said. She looked right at Barbara, hoping she'd get the hint. “Or talk about it.”

“You still talk to that housekeeper.”

“Mattie,” Molly said. “I talk to her on the phone sometimes, or she comes over if I tell her Sam and I are going to be hanging in the park.”

“What does she think you should do?”

“Give him another chance,” Molly said, “even though she got madder at him because of New York than I did. She says I have to cut him some slack because he has no idea how to deal with people. Girl people especially.”

“But he has girlfriends,” Barbara said, shooting Molly a disgusted look. “Lots of them, if you believe what you read.”

“I asked Mattie about that,” Molly said. “She says that most of them are so dumb, he doesn't have to talk to them, anyway.”

“You really should talk to him,” Barbara said.

“You're encouraging this now?”

“I'm not going to lie to you,” Barbara said. “The idea of him being unhappy about something other than losing some silly game doesn't make me a bit unhappy. Believe me when I tell you that. But I made a promise to your mom to do everything possible to make
you
happy.”

“I know I'm only twelve,” Molly said, “but I think I've started to figure something out. You can only do that for yourself. If you expect other people to make you happy, you're always gonna end up disappointed in the end.”

Finally Barbara got up. It looked like one of her yoga moves, the way she came straight up even though her legs had been crossed. She looked pretty proud of herself.

“Remember something,” Barbara said. “We're moving in a few weeks. If you're going to try to patch things up, now is the time to do it. Before it's too late.”

“Got it,” Molly said.

“To be continued,” Barbara said.

Boy, Molly thought to herself, I sure hope not.

She wanted to get all her writing done because the Celtics were playing the Bulls in Chicago later—it meant a late start, eight-thirty—and she wanted to listen to as much of the game as possible under the covers. She wouldn't admit to Barbara, or Mattie, or even Sam, she was still interested in the Celtics.

She might not miss Josh Cameron, but she missed the Celtics.

She missed being part of the team.

She did have a team of her own, at Prescott, getting ready to play the fourth game of their six-game season against Bartlett.

Which was, Sam pointed out at lunch the next day, a school even more precious than their own.

“How could that possibly be?” Molly said.

“More plaid,” he said. “Lots more. I looked it up one time. I think Bartlett is the capital of plaid.”

“Are you coming to the game?” Molly said. “You don't have to, you know.”

“Can't make it until the second half,” Sam said. “We've got some dumb yearbook meeting. But I will definitely be there, Miss Miss.”

“Don't call me that.”

Sam made an attempt to sound like a cat snarling and held up his fingers like claws.

“That was not a cat sound,” Molly said.

Sam said, “I'll believe that when you pull back the claws.”

“Sorry,” Molly said. “Miss Miss was, like, a Celtics thing.”

“I'll just write this off as you getting your game face on,” Sam said.

“I don't even have a game face.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, “that you've pretty much had your game face on since you got back from New York.”

The Prescott-Bartlett game was scheduled for three-thirty. Prescott's record was only one and two, but it wasn't because Molly wasn't doing her part. She didn't take basketball nearly as seriously as some of the other girls on the team—or as their coach, Mr. Ford, the seventh-grade history teacher—but it didn't stop her from being the best they had, by far.

The day before, at practice, Molly had grabbed a rebound, dribbled through the rest of the team, and then instead of setting up their one play when she got across half-court, had seen an opening and driven all the way to the basket for a layup.

“I forget sometimes,” Betsy Bender, one of the other guards, had asked Mr. Ford after the play. “What's Molly's position?”

Betsy Bender's entire contribution to the team, as far as Molly had ever noticed, was constantly yelling that she was open and waving for somebody to pass her the ball.

“Molly's position,” Mr. Ford said, “is basketball player.”

The more she played, the more she liked it. All of it. More than she ever thought she would. She'd basically only tried out for the team because she didn't want to wear the tights in ballet and didn't want to do drama.

She'd had enough drama in her life.

Basketball was different from skating, where it was all on you. In basketball, you had four other players to worry about, and she could see, just after a few games, how hard it was, juggling what was best for all of them and what was best for yourself. More complicated than it looked. Sometimes what was best was shooting for herself, even though she didn't shoot nearly as often as she could. Sometimes it meant passing. Sometimes it meant passing to somebody you hadn't passed to in a while just to make sure that player didn't forget she was still on the team.

That was Mr. Ford's big thing, keeping everybody involved.

Little by little, she was figuring out the best way to do it. And while she would not ever admit this to Mr. Smarty Pants Sam Bloom, the way that made it easiest for her was imagining that she was Josh Cameron.

Because all the things Mr. Ford talked about, when he was giving them his daily speech about playing basketball “the right way,” Josh did every single time he was on the court. The basketball “values” that Mr. Ford held sacred? All you had to do was watch Josh play to understand them, because they were right there for you, as plain as day. Playing on her first basketball team, that hadn't been the crash course for her in basketball. Watching Josh was her crash course.

Even though she acted like she didn't watch—or care—anymore.

The Bartlett bus got to Prescott late, a few minutes after four. When Molly heard the applause from the layup line, she assumed that the parents in the stands, impatient for the game to start, were just being sarcastic.

Only the applause wasn't
for
the Bartlett players.

It was coming
from
them.

Molly said to Mr. Ford, “Shouldn't they wait to do something good in the game before they cheer for themselves?”

Mr. Ford said, “They're not cheering for themselves. Check it out.”

Betsy Bender said, “Isn't that one of the Celtics?”

Molly almost didn't want to look. She suddenly felt her heart beating inside her chest, was sure that her teammates could hear her heart beating inside her chest.

He'd come here?

Without even giving her a heads-up?

She took a deep breath, then looked at the seats by the other basket where Mr. Ford was pointing, deciding how she wanted to play it when he saw her looking up at him.

Only it wasn't the him Molly thought it was.

“Miss Miss!” a familiar high-pitched voice boomed out from the upper seats, in Prescott's old-fashioned gym.

Molly smiled.

There was L. J. Brown waving at her.

And Mattie.

Molly couldn't help herself. She ran straight down the court, past the players on the Bartlett team, and jumped right into L.J.'s arms.

She hadn't been this happy to see anybody—with the exception of Sam Bloom—since she'd put her game face on and kept it on after New York.

L.J. squeezed her tight and said, “Looks like Miss Miss has been missin' me as much as I've been missin' her.”

“More,” she said.

She pulled back her head and looked over at Mattie, who winked.

Molly said, “What're you guys doing here?”

“Mattie told me what happened.”

Molly gave Mattie a raised eyebrow. Sam said it was one of her best looks, right up there with the innocent look she'd give teachers when she'd get Sam giggling in the back of class sometimes. “Told you what?”

“She just said the star made you mad, so mad you run off on him in New York. And that now you don't want to come around anymore.”

Mattie winked again, then made a motion like she was zipping her lips.

“I thought you guys had a game in Cleveland tonight,” Molly said.

“Game's here, Miss Miss. Thought you knew the schedule by heart.”

“But usually when they give you a back-to-back, you have the home game first. Or they're both on the road.”

“Schedule maker gave you a little head fake there, didn't he?”

Molly said, “Maybe I was just more worried about my game than yours.”

He laughed his laugh. “Maybe I am, too.”