Airball (3 page)

Bragger flopped onto the bed. The prehistoric metal bedsprings let out a screech.

“
Brag
-ger,” I said.

“Sorry.” He crept to the edge of the bed and managed to sit up without setting off the bedsprings again.

“Okay.” I took a big breath. “The first piece of evidence.”

I pulled a red fake-leather book from the bookcase. It was her yearbook. My mother's senior yearbook.

I eased onto the edge of the bed next to Bragger and set the book on my lap. It naturally fell open to the senior pictures. My gaze naturally fell to the middle of the page, to the skinny girl with wild hair. Curly like mine, only hers was red instead of blond, and so long it flowed past her shoulders and right out of the picture.

I ran my finger over her name.
Melissa Nickel.
I slid my finger to the picture before hers, right beside her in alphabetical order: Brett McGrew. Over the corner, in his big, loopy handwriting, he'd scrawled,
To Missy. Love always, Brett.

“Look what he wrote.” I smoothed the yearbook out flat. “He said he'd love her always.”

Bragger leaned over my arm so he could see. “No, he didn't. He said ‘Love always.' That's what people say, Kirby. He probably wrote it in everybody's yearbook. He would've written it on Mrs. Snodgrass's menu if she'd asked him. You can't base your whole family tree on two words scribbled in a yearbook. That's no better than having your middle name be Michael.”

“Not by itself, no. But there's more.” I flipped through the pages. “I didn't just start this yesterday, you know. I've been working on it a while. Ever since I was old enough to figure out what a father is and that I'm the only kid around who doesn't have one. I've been gathering clues, one by one, and the evidence is overwhelming.” I found the page I was looking for. “There. That's them.” I set the book on Bragger's lap. “My mother and Brett McGrew. Dancing.”

Bragger studied the picture. “Dorky clothes.”

“And look at what it says.” I pointed to the top of the page. “King and Queen of the Sweetheart Dance. The
Sweetheart
Dance.”

“You weren't paying attention to the
Welcome to Puberty
slide show, were you, Kirb? You don't get born just because your mom danced with a basketball player. Look.” He pointed to a picture on the next page. “Here she is again, dancing with some other guy. Can't see his face, but he's not tall enough to be Brett McGrew. And look how close they're dancing. She's not snuggled up that close to McNet.”

“Probably a slow song,” I said. “You're supposed to dance close to slow songs.”

“Are you supposed to close your eyes? Cause hers are closed.”

“Blinking,” I said. “I imagine she blinked right when the photographer snapped the picture.”

Bragger gave me a pitiful look. “Okay, Kirby, let's say you're right. There's not a chance in the universe Brett McGrew is your father, but let's feed your delusional fantasy for a minute and say he is. Why didn't your mother ever mention it? Why would she dump you on Grandma here in Nowhere, Kansas, if you had a perfectly good father out in Phoenix, Arizona? If you could be lounging around his mansion, swimming in his pool, driving his Porsche, and getting free tickets to the play-offs? Why?”

“I wondered that very thing,” I said. “Because it doesn't seem to make sense.”

“Not a lick of sense, Kirby. Not a
lick
of
sense.
”

“But here's my theory. Think what it must've been like back then, when Brett McGrew was in high school. He's fielding scholarship offers from all over the country. He's traveling to KU and Duke and Kentucky and who knows where else to check out college programs. He's going to be a big-time basketball star, and everybody knows it. Everybody in town's helping him get there the best way they can. Everybody. Including my mother. You really think she's going to saddle him with a baby? Hold him back from everything he always wanted?”

“Or here's another theory. Maybe she didn't saddle him with a baby because he's
not your father.
” Bragger gave me a sympathetic poke in the ribs with his elbow. “Look, Kirby. It totally bites that you don't have a mom or a dad. But hallucinating about Brett McGrew isn't going to fix anything.”

I didn't say anything. I slid the bottom drawer of my mother's dresser open and pulled out a flat, tissue-wrapped bundle. I folded the tissue back and held it up so Bragger could see. It was the clincher I'd saved for last: a red basketball jersey, neatly folded so the white satin letters that spelled out S
TUCKEY
were perfectly centered above a huge number 5.

“Whoa.” Bragger touched the jersey. Gently. With the very tips of his fingers, as if the fabric might disintegrate beneath his hands if he pressed too hard. He leaned down and sniffed.

“Doesn't smell like sweat.”

“No. It smells like old dresser drawer.”

He pulled his nose from the fabric. “You been holding out on me, Kirbster. You didn't tell me you had a real live Brett McGrew jersey.”

“I don't,” I said. “My mother did. Know where I found it?”

Bragger shrugged. “In her dresser?”

“In the
bottom drawer
of her dresser.”

Bragger wrinkled his forehead, obviously not getting it.

“The same drawer where she stored my baby footprints.”

Forehead still wrinkled. Still not comprehending.

“Same drawer,” I said, “where she stashed my coming-home-from-the-hospital clothes.”

Bragger looked at me. Forehead still wrinkled. But he nodded.

“Same drawer,” I said, “where she kept the flowers she wore to the Sweetheart Dance. The flowers she was wearing when she danced with Brett McGrew. The flowers she saved by pressing them between the pages of my baby book, which”—I unfolded the jersey and pulled out a satin-covered book with my squalling newborn picture on the front—“I found wrapped up inside.”

Bragger's gaze flickered to the baby book, then back to me. “Same drawer?”

I nodded. “Same drawer.”

He ran his fingers over the jersey again.

“Okay,” he said. “I'm convinced. Number five is your father.”

Five

“You don't really look like him.” Bragger studied Brett McGrew's senior picture. We'd smuggled my mother's yearbook back across the hall to my room, and Bragger was lounging on his stomach on my bottom bunk with the yearbook spread open on the pillow.

“I know,” I said. “I keep thinking there has to be a resemblance, but I can't find it.”

“Maybe it's not so much in the face. Maybe it's in your build. Maybe you're built like McNet.”

He flipped through the yearbook till he found an action shot of Brett McGrew muscling his way around a Whipple player to make a shot. Bragger swung around to a sitting position and held the yearbook on his lap. He looked back and forth from me to the picture.

“You didn't get his height,” he said. “Not so far, anyway. Maybe you're a late bloomer.”

“Maybe.” I was sitting on the edge of the bed. My feet didn't even reach the floor. I'd hate to think I was an early bloomer and this was all I got.

“You're not as muscle-bound as he is. Look at his legs. Even in high school he was a human catapult.” He glanced at my legs. At my bony, white, hairless legs, the kneecaps sticking up like tumors on a toothpick. “He probably worked out more than you do.”

“I imagine so.”

“But look here. Look at his shoulders, how wide they are.” He held the yearbook up. “And look at yours.”

I looked. He looked. At Brett McGrew's biceps bulging from the arms of his jersey. Then at my own scrawny shoulders. Barely wider than my ears. Bones practically poking through the skin.

“Maybe it's not a resemblance you can catch in a picture,” said Bragger. “Maybe it's something you have to see in person. It'll be easy to see once you're standing there right next to him in Lawrence. Right next to Brett McGrew.” He shook his head. “I still can't believe it. Brett McGrew. Your father.”

“He doesn't know he's my father.”

“Not yet. But he will. Hey, you're going to let me lounge by the pool with you, aren't you? And drive the Porsche? I mean, you know, once we're old enough to get a learner's permit.”

I didn't say anything.

Bragger glanced up. “Oh, man.” He shook his head. “I know that look. The look that means you're thinking too hard. You
are
going to tell him, right? You're going out for basketball, you're meeting Brett McGrew, and you're telling him he's your father. I mean, that's the whole point.”

“You'd think.”

“You'd think? What do you mean, ‘you'd think'? This is your big chance, Kirby. If you don't take it, you might not ever get another one.”

“I know.”

“I mean, he's a major sports figure. You can't just walk up to him on the street. He's probably got bodyguards.”

“I know.”

“And you can't call him, like he was a regular person or something. His number's probably unlisted. You could write him a letter, but it'd probably go right to the Brett McGrew Fan Club or the Suns front office or something. He'd never even see it. And I doubt you could get his e-mail address. Not his real one, anyway.”

“I know. You think I haven't thought about all this?”

“So this is it, Kirby. This is your chance. It's, like, your destiny or something.”

Huh. My destiny. Courtesy of Mrs. Zimmer. And Coach.

“You can't fight destiny,” said Bragger. “You go to Lawrence, you meet your father, you complete your destiny. That's how it works.”

“No, that's not how it works. I've thought about this, and I can't see how it
could
work. What am I supposed to say? ‘Glad to meet you, Mr. McGrew. Thanks for inviting us. By the way, turns out we've got a lot in common—our DNA.' That'd go over real well right there in the middle of the fieldhouse, with TV cameras and sports writers lurking around. Not to mention Coach. He'd wad me into a ball and drop-kick me to Nebraska. And that's not even the worst part.”

Bragger looked at me. “There's worse? Worse than Coach?”

“Yeah. Worse than Coach.” I grabbed the yearbook from him and held Brett McGrew's picture up next to me. “If you were this guy”—I pointed to McNet —“would you want anything to do with this guy?” I flung my hand up beside my own scrawny self. “Would you even admit you were related?”

Bragger shrugged. “You're related to me and I admit it.”

“Not the same thing.”

“I don't know what you're getting all worked up about, Kirby. So you don't look like your father. So what?”

“It's not just the way I look. It's the way I
am.
Brett McGrew has been the MVP of every team he's ever played for. Me, I shoot a layup and practically end up in the nurse's office. I'm not what he wants in a son.”

Bragger considered this. “You're right,” he said. “Brett McGrew probably has very specific taste in offspring. I imagine he'd want somebody more like your mother was. You know—tall and muscular, talented in every sport, leading her team to victory with her unequaled skill and athleticism.”

“What are you talking about?” I looked at him. “My mother was short and skinny and, as far as I know, never went out for a sport in her life. I found her report cards. She flunked P.E.”

Bragger shook his head. “Weird.”

“What?”

“You just described yourself.”

“I
know.
That's the problem. Have you not been listening?”

Bragger took the yearbook from me and flipped through it till he found the Sweetheart Dance page. He set the book in my lap.

“Your mother was just like you, Kirby. And guess what? McNet liked her anyway.”

I stared at the picture. The same picture I'd been staring at my whole life. But I'd never truly looked at it before. Not really. My mother
had
been just like me. Same freckles. Same bony shoulders sticking out of her glittery Sweetheart Dance dress. She was short, too. Even in high heels, she barely came up to Brett McGrew's armpit.

I looked closer. “I think she's stepping on his foot.”

Bragger leaned over my shoulder. “Hey, she is. Her spiky heel's totally skewering Brett McGrew's big toe.” He shrugged. “McNet doesn't seem to mind.”

No, he didn't. Brett McGrew was smiling down at her, and she had her neck bent back, laughing up at him. My short, skinny, clumsy mother. Brett McGrew liked her.

Brett McGrew liked her.

“What we need is a plan,” said Bragger.

Brett McGrew liked her.

“Are you with me, Kirb? A plan. To get you through all the reporters and TV cameras. And past Coach. A plan to get you into a private conversation with Brett McGrew.”

I looked up. “How are we supposed to do that?”

“We'll think of something. We've got a lot going for us here. You're the smartest kid in Stuckey, and I”—he stopped, obviously considering his talents—“I am the most willing to make a complete fool of myself. That's a powerful combination, Kirby. Together, nobody can stop us.”

I stared at him. He was right. If I was going to do this, I had to plan out every detail. And I could do that. Better than anybody. This could work. It could.

Six

Grandma called us for supper. Bragger always ate with us on days his parents worked late. I slid my mother's yearbook under my pillow, and Bragger and I sock-footed it downstairs in time to see Grandma slide a big pan from the oven.

It was her turkey roaster. But the steaming mound of meat inside it was like no turkey I'd ever seen. It was huge and round and coated with something gleaming and blackened in spots, like ketchup, only orange, with darker stripes running across it in a vaguely familiar pattern.