Lily nudges me and answers that of course we play. Peter motions for one of the girls at the table to make room for us as he goes to join the guys at the other table. One of the guys hands Peter something wrapped in a crumpled paper bag, from which he takes a swig. The girl, a senior I don’t know, scoots right over and starts resetting the table, scowling at Lily. She’s not the only one scowling, but Lily isn’t fazed.
I look through the chain link to the other side of the park and finally spot Jimmy on the ball court. His brow is furrowed with intensity, his muscular arms outstretched as he motions for Eric Martinez, another junior, to pass him the ball. Eric responds, twisting away from his guard and whips the ball to Jimmy, who in one smooth motion catches it and shoots it into the basket for a three-pointer. Despite myself, I cheer along with the folks on the other side of the fence, which gets me strange looks from my seatmates, Lily included.
I lock eyes with Lily and talk to her under my breath.
“Are you coming with me or not?” I tilt my head ever so slightly toward the court.
“No! I’m staying here.” She presses her lips into a fine line and whispers, “You should stay too. Forget about Jimmy. This is cool.” She accepts a Newport cigarette from a spiky-haired senior whose name I still don’t know.
“Fine. I’m going to go watch the game.” I get up, nod at the table, and walk away. There’s a large enough crowd over there that I feel comfortable heading over by myself. I take a seat at the edge of the bleachers. By now I’m so irritated with Lily that I don’t even have time to get nervous when Jimmy plops down next to me. He has a towel wrapped around his neck and his cheeks are flushed.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” He is speaking to me. He knows who I am.
“Oh, you know, just visiting a friend.” I look down and tuck my hair behind my ear. If I were Lily I would look up at him through my eyelashes and flirt. But I’m not, so I focus on how red my toenails are.
“You mean those gangsters over there are your friends?” He jerks his head in their direction. A few of the guys are talking with some Latino kids from the neighborhood. They all stand stiffly in a semicircle, menacing expressions on their faces. Peter seems to be negotiating with their leader, a dark, stocky guy with a shaved head and an oversized basketball jersey. They all relax when Peter and the guy shake hands, which they do in a hip-hop sequence: fists up, they grasp each other’s hands as if they’re going to arm wrestle, yank themselves toward each other, and bump chests. As their palms separate I catch a glint of light off little plastic bags.
“Those guys? Nah. I’m here with my friend Lily.” Who is over there with those gangsters, I’m thinking. Lily is studying her tiles, but even across the park I can tell she’s watching me from the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t know you were going to be playing here. You’re really good.”
“Um, thanks...” He’s pulling the ends of the towel, rubbing it back and forth over his neck. “I uh... I’m glad you’re here.”
Before we can say anything else, he’s called back into the game. The sun feels good on my face.
And now, a couple of hours later, the sun is starting to set. The basketball game is winding down, without him for the last hour — Jimmy ended up leaving the game to come back to me on the bleachers, and we just talked about everything. He told me he thinks I’m the most mature sophomore he’s ever met. I played it cool and did not tell him how I’ve been practically stalking him.
Eric yells to him that it’s time to go, and as he turns to leave he bends and quickly kisses me on the lips.
“See ya at school!” He grins at me, then heads toward Union Street. I am too stunned to reply, so I just smile weakly at him.
But as the two of them walk off with some of the other ball players, one of the spiky-haired guys struts up to him and bumps him with his shoulder, hard enough not to be an accident. It’s my algebra classmate. Eric looks at him as if to say, What the fuck? but once he realizes who it was that bumped him, he just mumbles, “Excuse me.”
“Why you bump into me, man?” Algebra says. His voice is louder and shriller than I’ve ever heard it, but then again, he hardly ever speaks in class.
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Jimmy has his hands up the way basketball players do when they’re trying not to foul out. Behind him, Eric Martinez and the other guys who were on the court stiffen. Smiles disappear as fists tighten. Jimmy backs away, holding his arms out from his sides to keep them at bay. His friends back off too. They’re not stupid.
“What’s your problem? Get the fuck out of my face!” Algebra is clearly drunk and enjoying the moment of power, but he doesn’t push it any further. He holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger out, and pretends to shoot Jimmy in the head.
Back at the chess tables, Peter and his friends are chuckling amongst themselves. The mah-jongg tiles have been packed up and the table is littered with several more of those paper bags.
An unfamiliar emotion washes over me as I watch Jimmy leave with his friends, who are no longer laughing and joking. My eyes burn with tears and the words come to mind: fear, shame, anger. There was just no reason for that, I’m thinking to myself. And this is what Lily thinks is so cool? I look over at her, now leaning languidly against Peter’s arm. Her fingertips are at her lips and I can tell that she’s as shocked as I am, but she’s trying to hide it, to look grown-up and still perfect.
“Let’s go, Lil.” I don’t even want to make eye contact with anyone else. She nods and reaches for her bag, but as she slides away from Peter, he grabs her arm and pulls her toward him in a gesture that’s meant to look gentle but isn’t.
“Don’t leave me, Little Sister. It’s early. We’re going to a party. I want to show you off.” He looks me up and down. Without his sunglasses his eyes look dead serious and kind of scary. “You can go home.”
“No, Tina’s my best friend. I can’t go without her.” Lily shakes her hair as if to clear her head of cobwebs. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a party at Kuo’s place, the Tulip. It’ll be fun. We’ll make a karaoke video.” His voice is too sweet when he speaks to her.
A lump forms in my throat. Even I’ve heard of that nightclub, the Yellow Tulip. It’s always in the news; it’s been raided several times for prostitution and there’s a shooting there every other weekend. Of course, I can’t say any of this. These are probably the people who do the shooting.
“Isn’t that a bar?” I ask innocently. “Lily and I can’t go. We’re not twenty-one.”
This makes everyone laugh. Except for Lily, who is staring at me as if I should spontaneously combust.
“What? They know how old you are,” I whisper to her.
“No they don’t,” she hisses. She pulls me aside as darkness descends on the playground. Most of the group staggers out of the park, but Peter lights up a cigarette. His cell phone blares an electronic waltz and he answers it, leaning against the gate. The streetlights cast a shadow of the chain-link fence, crosshatching Lily’s face.
I whisper to her: “Lil. You can’t be serious. Isn’t he like thirty? He knows your dad, so he’s got to know you’re only fifteen. He’s not someone you should be messing with.”
“Look. If you want to go out with a nobody, that’s your problem. I think you can do better. But don’t you ruin this for me. I really like him.”