Homecourt Advantage (8 page)

“Listen, Michael, let’s not fight about this. My point was not to bring up the topic of marriage. I was just expressing my concern about the possibility of you having to work for a bigot. I was worried about your future working conditions. Okay, sweetheart?” Dawn took a deep breath and stood up on her tiptoes to kiss Michael on his chin. “Now, get on out of here and kick some ass tonight. Do you want me to make you a sandwich to eat on the way?”

“No, I’ll grab something at the arena. I’m sorry, Dawn, I don’t want us to fight either. It’s just a stressful time, but I promise as soon as the season is over … it’ll get better.” Michael reached down and embraced Dawn.

Dawn quickly closed and locked the bathroom door after Michael left, as if he were there to see the steady flow of tears. Dawn stared at her clear eyes in the mirror and wondered if Michael had seen through her charade. He was right; for her, everything did come back to when they were going to get married. She wanted to share the rest of her life with Michael and she was tired of waiting around for him to decide that he wanted to make that commitment. When he’d told her that things would get better once the season was over, she’d been hoping he would follow that up by saying they could start planning their wedding. It seemed as if he had one foot in the door of their relationship and one foot out.

They had dated for three years at Stanford, and right before he graduated and was drafted, he had proposed to her. That was over a year ago. He’d promised that they’d get married before the season was over. Somehow, right before training camp began last October, Michael had managed to give Dawn a lame excuse about Coach not thinking it was a good time to plan a wedding. Since that time, Dawn had gottenan assortment of reasons why they had not gotten married: from Michael and his procrastinating, to his sports agent, Jake Schneider, who never thought marriage should be on any of his client’s list of priorities, to the groupies sitting in the stands at the Mecca Arena who said that rookies never got married during their first year in the NBA. She surmised that Michael’s real reason for not having married her was a combination of everything.

Dawn hated that she was feeling so needy. Before Michael, she never questioned her complete independence and relied on no one. Now she wondered if loving someone as much as she loved Michael brought out her insecurities. Her father had run off and married his twenty-two-year-old secretary the day before Dawn’s third birthday.

Dawn was not interested in history repeating itself in her relationship. She saw the debilitating effect her father’s walking out on them had on her mother. After he left, Dawn’s mother was never the same person. Feelings of failure and inadequacy tainted the rest of her stressful life. Watching her mother year after year in such a self-pitying state made Dawn determined not to go down that same path. Ironically, it made Dawn fiercely independent yet so needy at the same time.

Two years ago, her mother had died of breast cancer. Dawn was left financially independent. Her mother would have been proud of the strong, self-contained young woman she’d become. In seven years Dawn had completed Stanford’s accelerated joint degree program and received a bachelor of science degree in biology and her doctorate of medicine. Her life was almost complete.

Now Dawn was prepared to do just about anything to ensure that her relationship with Michael worked out. She was even willing to put aside pressuring him about marriage so that he could concentrate. He was, after all, a twenty-two-year-old multimillionaire with a mission to win an NBA championship and Rookie of the Year award. She knew the last thing he needed right now was her nagging him about marriage, or anything else for that matter. What he needed was her unconditional love and support. She thought again of Alexis’s edict. Yes, Dawn decided, she’d just have to put her selfish interests on hold for a while.

Trina Belleville smoothed her graying hair self
consciously as she sat at a corner table in the Mecca’s Family Lounge. She was waiting to see a welcoming or even familiar face, but thus far, no luck. Looking down sourly at her second empty plate, she used her plastic fork to fiddle with the remains of shrimp tails. She fantasized about getting up and walking around the busy room, going from table to table, holding court, as she used to do when Rick played for the Charlotte Hornets. That was North Carolina, with different people and a different set of circumstances. Here she was worried that everyone might stare at her wide bottom and protruding stomach. She had to force herself into the largest pair of slacks in her closet: size sixteen. One of the fringe benefits enjoyed by the wives of the Flyers was the VIP Family Lounge. This was where all of the family members of the players would convene before, sometimes during, and certainly after the games. Trina had always loved it because of its vast array of delicacies, ranging from several types of salads to five or six entrées, seven to ten side dishes, and a separate dessert table. This was the arena’s unofficial meeting room, and more drama occurred here than on Broadway. It was where the players’ wives kept tabs on one another, the place to keep abreast of who’s new, who’s out, who should be out, and who’s in. And of course, who’s pregnant. Here the women were expected and encouraged to be natural extensions of their mates. As Trina watched some of the wives and girlfriends trickle in, she contemplated, rather morosely, the irony of this: how she was an extension of her husband not only here, but everywhere she went.

Even though Trina and Rick had spent a whole season in New York, she was still having a difficult time adjusting. Staring around the bustling Family Lounge, she felt overwhelmed. For the past fourteen years, she had followed Rick to five different NBA cities, and none of them was anything like New York. Almost since the day Trina had arrived in the city, she’d felt as if she was a few steps behind all of the other wives and girlfriends, always trying to catch up but never quite knowing how.

Looking at the fashionable, trim, fit women, some even mothers of the players, Trina felt way out of her league. She and Rick had attended and graduated from Tennessee State together. Of course, she’d never put her degree in sociology to use, at least not in a job that paid. Yes, she received an allowance from Rick, and she certainly deserved every cent. But somehow Trina imagined it wasn’t quite the same as making her own way in the world, something she’d been giving more and more consideration to: making her own money. Looking at the people around her and even a few of the other Flyers wives and girlfriends, she saw they really seemed to have their acts together—careerwise and physically. She must stick out like a sore thumb.

When Rick had been playing for the Hornets, the games didn’t seem like fashion shows the way they were here in New York. At the Mecca, Trina felt like an outcast because her clothes didn’t have a
made in italy
tag and her body wasn’t made by Jake—hardly.

Trina jumped as one of the players’ daughters rammed into the back of her chair while chasing the assistant coach’s son.

“Watch it, little lady, you’re gonna hurt somebody!"Trina said, rubbing her back.

“You’re not my mama,” the sassy little girl retorted as she continued to run around the room in her black and red RocaWear jeans.

“I know, ‘cause if I were your mama, you wouldn’t be running around this room like you didn’t have any sense,” Trina said under her breath, rolling her eyes as the little terror ran off.

She felt she had excuses: she had two small children and a demanding husband who left her no time for herself. But Trina knew that even if she did have any free time, the last thing she’d want to do would be to go huff and puff herself into exhaustion at some gym. She would much rather stay at home and snack on the various culinary delights she loved to prepare for her family, friends, and neighbors. Recently a neighbor friend of hers whose husband owned the local Safeway grocery store convinced Trina to start supplying their bakery with homemade treats.

Even though Trina had ballooned up to nearly two hundred pounds, she was an attractive woman with rich, ebony-colored skin. She rarely made attempts to enhance her looks, though. Trina was prematurely graying and her usual hairstyle was a snatch-back feathered concoction reminiscent of the early eighties. She also never bothered with much makeup … and had no intention of wearing it despite Alexis’s orders. Trina had ignored her and then Casey on that count.

Trina swiveled her chair around and caught a glimpse of Remy entering the lounge. Just about everyone in the room turned and gazed at the star as she headed toward the fully stocked bar. Three little girls and boys rallied around Remy, clinging to her pantsuit, which Trina noted was uncharacteristically conservative. Trina chuckled under her breath thinking about how Remy had obviously been influenced by Casey, who, as far as Trina was concerned, was behaving like Alexis’s puppet.

Casey, along with Lorraine, had been the most welcoming of the wives from the start. But Trina was an old-fashioned woman at heart. She liked her family and personal affairs to be handled at home behind closed doors. Rick took care of the business of basketball. Trina attended every home game and genuinely supported her husband andhis career, both on and off the court. Although Rick had not mentioned it to Trina himself, she had overheard a conversation he’d had with his agent about the team possibly being sold and moved if the Flyers didn’t win the championship this year. Apparently the prospect had everyone up in arms. She knew not to ask Rick about anything that related to his work for fear of him accusing her of meddling. Besides, what was happening with the Flyers and the powers that be was out of her control. She was not about to let Alexis or Casey get her tangled up in her husband’s business affairs.

For one thing, Trina did not oppose the prospect of the team being sold and relocated to Albany. Rick would not be hurt by the loss of any endorsement opportunities. He was at the end of his career anyway. No corporations were banging down his door to advertise their products. There were younger, more athletic, more marketable players taking his place all the time.

As Trina watched Alexis glide into the Family Lounge with her prep-school-poster daughters in tow, she was reminded of the cover of a
Town & Country
magazine. Maybe Albany would not be that bad. Trina welcomed a change of scenery. She wasn’t even sure she could handle one more glittery season with the frantic, chaotic pace of the Mecca.

She and the kids went where Rick’s career took them, and the final destination did not matter. So long as they were together as a family, they all eventually learned to adjust. Certainly it was a hassle packing up and moving an entire household time after time, and school placement for the kids was a chore in and of itself. Still, it was part of the life of a professional athlete. The summers were still theirs and they had a home in Florida where the kids had plenty of cousins their ages and a slew of friends to give them a sense of stability. Trina had never had complaints about the transient nature of their life until they hit the fast pace of New York.

New York, the Flyers, and everything that accompanied them deified the position of a professional basketball player in this town. And it had brought out the worst in Rick. The accessibility of a boundless nightlife clearly was a disaster.

Just then Casey arrived in the room and hugged Paul Thomas’sbrother and sister. Trina waved her hand to get Casey’s attention as she worked the crowd.

Alexis stopped Casey in her tracks before she had a chance to weave her way to Trina’s corner table. Mrs. Coach, as Trina thought of her, looked like she was having a secret conference with Casey right in the middle of the Family Lounge. Her two daughters were obediently sitting on the brown leather sofas with their ankles crossed, reading books. Alexis had obviously not spared her daughters from etiquette lessons.

When Casey finally approached Trina’s table, Remy was by her side.

“Well, hello, ladies. You two on your way to a meeting on Wall Street or something?” Trina said in a kidding tone.

“Hey, girl, we do look a little uptight, huh?” Remy said, running her hands over her suit.

“A little?” Trina laughed, thinking how Remy rarely spoke to her unless she was with Casey.

Trina sometimes felt like Casey’s charity case. Casey was so sophisticated and seemed revered by everyone associated with the Flyers.

“Ladies, it
is
the play-offs,” Casey reminded gently

“I know. Casey, you have me dressing like I’m Murphy Brown,” Remy said, playfully shoving Casey on the shoulders.

“And I’m sorry for stepping out of line, Miss Alexis.” Trina motioned to her own casual sweater smock.

“Well, Alexis just wanted us to look really professional for the play-offs since there’s going to be a lot more media coverage on us during this time.”

Trina pointed to Alexis, who seemed to have Lorraine cornered at the bar. “Looks like she’s debriefing her.”

“And I’m sure you weren’t exaggerating about
Mrs. Mitchell’s
directive.” Remy laughed.

“So kill me, I’m only the messenger delivering the bad news … Hey, simmer down, Sarah.” Casey chided the same little girl who had bumped into Trina’s chair moments before.

“I’m sorry, Casey,” Sarah coyly said as she slowly walked away from them, checking back over her shoulder to see if Casey was looking at her.

Even the kids knew who had power—and who didn’t, Trina thought.

“You ready to go down now?” Remy asked Casey.

“I guess so.”

“You’re going now?” Trina asked, feeling a bit left out.

“I don’t know about you, girl, but I want to see Collin stretch and warm up. That’s my favorite part,” Remy said, clasping her arm around Casey’s.

“Trina, want to come with us?”

“Naw, I’ll see you girls at halftime or after the game. I’m gonna grab a little dessert. Hopefully we can get a win tonight.”

Watching the two of them walk toward the exit, Trina thought they looked like they could be two prima donna models on the cover of
Essence
magazine. As they headed out, it looked like the parting of the Red Sea the way everyone in the lounge scurried around them, wishing
them
luck for tonight’s game. They always had to be on their best behavior. Trina was glad she didn’t have that problem. She just wanted to have a few chocolate chip cookies and enjoy the game. She didn’t have to keep up appearances for anyone.