Rather than run the set play he’d drawn up, I gave in to frustration, coming off a screen and barreling down the lane. I remember, distinctly, the look on their center’s face as I went straight at him: a mix of awe, pity, annoyance. He had eight inches and a hundred pounds on me. For me to dare — it wasn’t in his mental playbook, and I’d wrong-footed him.
He reacted as best he could, sliding to cut me off, throwing his hands straight up and knocking me sideways in midair. I came down at an angle, landing on the inside of my right foot, the knee caving inward, the full weight and force of my heroism skewing laterally through my anterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament, and medial meniscus.
I’ve heard other people talk about a catastrophic injury. They say things like It’s funny, there wasn’t any pain. I can’t agree. It wasn’t funny, and I felt more pain than I’d ever experienced. But pain, however bad, isn’t what sticks in the long term. We can place it on a spectrum and assimilate it.
It’s the unfamiliar sensations, the ones without a point of reference, that become the stuff of nightmares.
Take a wet bunch of celery.
Grip it with both hands.
Twist, as hard as you can.
That’s what my knee felt like.
And the crowd, shrill and unforgiving.
And the floor, slick and unforgiving.
And the face of the trainer, scraped pale. He couldn’t help himself. Consolation would follow; encouragement, planning, structure. But he’d shown me the truth in an instant, and to this day I can’t help but feel a certain hatred for him.
I looked at Tatiana. “Mostly, I miss my teammates.”
She slipped off my coat and her shoes and padded over. I tossed her a ball. She caught it awkwardly and dribbled a few times, slapping at it. She seemed to be seeking approval, and I started to step forward to give her a pointer.
She tore past me with a screech, chucking a wild shot that hit the top corner of the backboard and went flying.
“Fuck,” she yelled as we both ran after the rebound.
I got there first, corralling it and dribbling out to half-court. Tatiana faced me, cat-backed, grinning, rubbing her hands together, beckoning.
“Ones and twos,” I said.
“I don’t know what that means,” she said.
“Normal shots are worth one. A three-pointer is worth two.”
“That makes zero sense.”
I ran toward her, stopped short, pulled up, and let fly. Snap.
“Two,” I said. I reached down and plucked a ball from the floor. “Loser’s out.”
“Oh fuck you ‘loser.’ ”
We played with no regard for boundaries, running and heaving and traveling when convenient. When I blocked her path, she simply turned and sprinted downcourt toward the other basket; when I poked the ball from her hands, she snatched the nearest one off the floor. If I got within arm’s reach of her she started hacking at me mercilessly, her shrieks caroming from the walls and the stands, lighting up the hush. Nobody came to see what the racket was all about or to tell us to keep it down. We were living in a one-room universe.
Flushed, her hair sticking to her forehead, her shirt glued to her ribs, she put up a particularly heinous airball from the free-throw line.
I backpedaled, leapt, snatched it from midair, rolled it in.
“We’ll call that one for you,” I said.
“What’s the score? I’ve lost count.”
“Me too.”
“I am so completely terrible at this.”
I took a ball and stood behind her, leaning down to wrap my arms around her, positioning her hands. “The right provides the power. The left acts as a guide. Think of it as a one-handed push.”
I stepped back.
She bricked it, short.
“Closer,” I said, grabbing another ball. “Put some height on it. The more you exaggerate the arc, the bigger your target gets.”
She dribbled once, twice. Shot.
Got the bounce.
I applauded. She turned and curtsied. Held out her hands.
“Come here right now,” she said. “Please.”
We sank down together, tugging and prying at each other, fingers catching on fasteners and fabric, rolling around half naked on the hardwood. It seemed like a fun idea but she soon said, “Know what, this is really uncomfortable,” and we both started laughing.
I said, “We’re not kids anymore,” and she said, “Thank God for that.”
I got up and helped her up and then, before I could dwell on the risks to my knee, I swept my arms around her back and behind her legs and carried her to a stack of gym mats shoved into the corner. They smelled plasticky and sharp. Bodies had fought here.
I spread out my coat and she uncoiled, a creature released from captivity, running to trap and devour the first living thing it saw, which was me. She caged me with her arms, her fingers taloned my neck, light drilled down on us in high contrast, her perfect contours raised up above the surface of the world.
“Someone might come in,” she said.
“Does that bother you?”
She smiled. “I like it.”
I should have figured: she was a performer.
Chapter 19
In the morning I woke alone, blinking up at the blushing ceiling of her bedroom. My clothes lay folded on the floor. A dent in the sheets beside me. I flopped over the edge of the bed, scrabbling for my phone, dragging it toward me by my fingernails. Ten after eight.
I called Tatiana’s name. No response.
Pulling on my pants, I went into the bathroom to wash my face.
I heard the front door open and came out to find her balancing a cardboard tray with coffee, a bulging waxed-paper bag in her other hand. A thoughtful gesture, but it sent a chill through me. The same items had been spilled across her father’s foyer.
“I had to guess if you take milk,” she said, handing me the tray.
“I do.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “He’s a big boy, he probably drank a lot of milk as a kid.” She smiled and rose up on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Good morning.”
“Morning. Thanks for this.”
“You’re welcome.”
We sat cross-legged on the carpet and ate, surrounded by the stacks of banker’s boxes.
“What are you going to do with all of it?” I asked.
“I rented a storage locker. I’m supposed to hang on to everything for a full year. There’s even more stuff waiting for me in Tahoe. Just thinking about it stresses me out.”
“Then we won’t think about it.”
“Too late.” She wiped her mouth. “Did you sleep okay?”
“Great. You?”
She shrugged. “You have long legs. Long, active legs.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right. I need to be up anyway.” She tore at a croissant. “Tell me the truth. You do that for all the girls?”
“What. The basketball thing?” I shook my head. “Just you.”
“Uh-huh. Does it work?”
“Like forty percent of the time.”
She smiled.
I liked that about her. Quick to smile but hard to make laugh. It kept you honest.
We finished our breakfast and I carried her bags down to her car. My knee felt shockingly healthy.
“I’ll call you when I’m back,” she said.
“Any sense of when that’ll be?”
“Two weeks,” she said. “Three.”
“Which one is it? Two or three?”
She kissed me, got into the Prius, and drove off toward the freeway.
It’s true: I did want to see her again. But that wasn’t my reason for asking.