Quite an Undertaking - Devon's Story (13 page)

I wished Rebecca would just lose Jessie once and for all and be with me. Don’t people lose their kids at the mall all the time? Why couldn’t Rebecca take her to the mall, drop her off, and lose her?

I rolled my eyes and hugged Seymour as I turned to look at Missy’s bed in the darkness. She came home Wednesday night for Thanksgiving break and told me that she would move back into her old room at Christmas. Between now and then, she and Mom had to figure out what to do with Grandma’s stuff. Mom would probably donate Grandma’s clothes to some kind of nonprofit thrift store or something. I don’t know what they were going to do with her other things. Grandma had a lot of knickknacks. I hoped Mom would let me keep the New York City snow globe, but then again Missy would probably want that back. I’d have to ask Missy before she went back to school on Sunday.

I heard my aunt and uncle and my anti-social cousin Jarrod leaving. When the front door closed, and their car engine started up, I quickly jumped into my sweats, even though it was only eight o’clock. If I went to bed early, Friday and a certain basketball game would arrive much more quickly.

THE GRASSE RIVER girls’ basketball team had a six-point lead over Reuben Rist High School. The scoreboard clock showed 1:52 left to play in the first quarter. When I got to the gym, just before game time, I looked for Rebecca in the bleachers. She was there, all right, sitting with a lot of the same kids she sat with at lunch. I didn’t know any of her friends’ names which made me feel kind of stupid because our school wasn’t that big. We only had about three hundred and fifty students in each class. I waved and tried to get her attention, but I got the distinct feeling she was deliberately ignoring me. Her indifference hurt my heart, and I took the hint and made my way toward the middle bleacher, smack in between the Rist and Grasse River fans.

Every now and then I’d sneak a peek her way, but she seemed totally riveted by the game. Maybe Rebecca didn’t count every minute until she could see me again like I did with her. She also seemed riveted by all the guys surrounding her, too. I knew there had to be somebody at this school who liked her as much as I did. Maybe she wasn’t like me. Maybe I freaked her out when I grabbed her pinky on the bus. Maybe I needed to stop thinking about her and try to make sense of this basketball game.

I tried to take notes on the game, but I wasn’t sure what to write down. The tournament program listed the rosters for each team, and I saw that Jessie was one of two seniors. Belinda Carmichael was the other. I’d interview Belinda after the game, and even though I should interview Jessie, too, it’d be a warm day in a North Country winter before that would happen.

The game was fast-paced, and it was obvious that Jessie liked to run. I hated to admit it, but she was a good player. Natalie played pretty well, too, but Jessie was undeniably the best player on the Grasse River team. I watched as the Rist team missed a shot, and Natalie jumped up and grabbed the ball after it careened off the backboard.

“Nice rebound,” I heard someone say. Oh, so that’s a rebound. I’d heard the word before, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

Natalie threw the ball to Jessie who had taken off running toward the Grasse River basket. Jessie caught the ball on the run, dribbled a couple of times, and bounced it gently off the backboard. The ball went through the net, and someone said, “Sweet lay-up.” When we were at the mall, Jessie had mentioned something about making a lay-up as soft as a baby’s butt, and I guess I had just witnessed one.

When the buzzer sounded for halftime, the Grasse River team was ahead by a score of 32-24. I stayed rooted to my spot on the hard bleachers as the other fans stood up and milled about. I eavesdropped on conversations around me trying to drink in anything and everything basketball. I learned that rebounds, steals, and assists were important statistics. I guess I should have learned those terms in P.E., but since it wasn’t that important to me then, I didn’t remember a thing. Turnovers, I learned, were not good. Someone in the stands thought Jessie had more turnovers than usual. I shook my head at my ignorance. How could Mrs. Gibson think I could be a sports editor? Sure, I knew how to put words together, but it was becoming obvious that I knew next to nothing about sports.

I stood up, stretched, and tried to find Rebecca with my peripheral vision. God, she was so pretty. No, she was beautiful. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail that lay softly against her red mock turtleneck sweater. Her long skirt and black boots made her look elegant. Her gold earrings dangled deliciously near her neck. I had to look away. God, she made my insides gooey. I looked away for another reason, though. One of the guys sitting near her caught me staring. Maybe I was wrong about her. Maybe what I thought were signs weren’t. Maybe Rebecca was as straight as they came and had only been nice to me because of Grandma.

I sighed and opened my reporter’s notebook. I wrote Rebecca’s name in big block letters and then with a frown put a line through it. I was barking up the wrong tree, I guess. I closed my notebook and settled back to watch the little kids shoot baskets on the court. I closed my eyes against the bright lights and tried to suppress the deluge of feelings about Rebecca. It didn’t work. I couldn’t get her out of my head.

I couldn’t believe how many things I’d done in those fourteen hours since getting out of bed that were motivated by Rebecca. Since I had gone to bed so early on Thanksgiving night, I woke up at five in the morning. I tried to go back to sleep, but after rolling around for half an hour, I got up. Luckily my sweatshirt and running shoes were still on the floor by my bed, so I managed to get dressed without waking up Missy. I snuck out the front door and went for a run in the dark. My mom would have killed me if she’d known I’d gone running in the dark, but I vowed to run every day, and as I ran, I realized that Rebecca was my main motivation for running. I wanted to look good for her. When I got home from my run I turned on the kitchen light and poured myself some of my mom’s healthy cereal—some kind of bran flakes or something. I wanted to eat better because I had pigged out on Thanksgiving.

After my shower, I ironed my shirt and then I even ironed my jeans. Missy was up by then and gave me no end of grief about it. I put my hair up, and then put on my hoop earrings. I was ready to go to the game by 11 in the morning even though it didn’t start until 7 in the evening. Oh, I wanted to text Rebecca so bad, but I restrained myself and channeled my energy into doing homework. That lasted all of five minutes, though, so I switched on my computer. I googled Rebecca’s name, but the only thing I found was a newspaper article about the dance troupe’s concert from last spring. Her name was listed as one of the dancers, but that was the only mention of her. Missy walked in our room when I was doing that, and she demanded her update. When I told her about the pinky thing on the bus, she told me that I had a set of brass ones. I wasn’t so sure about that.

When the teams came back on the court for the third quarter from wherever they had disappeared to, I was relieved because I could focus on something other than Rebecca. I don’t know what the Rist team did to get motivated during half time, but they scored six points in a row while Grasse River scored nothing. I learned that the correct way to phrase this was, “Six unanswered points.” I jotted that down in my notebook along with about a thousand other basketball phrases.

When I looked back toward the game, I was shocked to see Rebecca making her way up the bleachers toward me. Like an idiot, I forgot to breathe. I only noticed it because my lungs demanded air, and then I felt like a bigger idiot for inhaling so loudly. I slid over on the wooden bleacher, so she could sit next to me.

“Hey, at least we’re still winning, right?” I gestured toward the game.

She sat down without touching me. “Yeah, but Jessie had better start playing some defense or we’re gonna get creamed.”

“I have to be honest. I don’t know what I’m looking at.” I shrugged. “I mean, as the sports editor, I should know, but…”

Rebecca laughed that cool laugh that made my insides smile. “What I usually do is find a player to watch for a while.”

And that would be Jessie, I thought sarcastically.

She continued. “Like Belinda. She’s boxing out better than usual and getting more rebounds. I think she’s got more points than Jessie.”

“Okay, you lost me at boxing out.”

She laughed again. “Watch Belinda. No, don’t watch the ball, just watch Belinda.”

Our team was on defense, and Belinda stuck like glue to the tall Rist player she defended. Another Rist player took a shot, and Belinda spun around and stuck her butt in the other girl’s stomach. I raised my eyebrows and smothered a smile, but then she jumped with perfect timing to grab the ball as it bounced off the rim.

“That,” Rebecca said, smiling at me, “was boxing out followed by an awesome rebound.”

“Wow.” I was impressed.

“Yeah, Belinda’s good.”

I opened my notebook, making sure I didn’t open to the page where I had crossed out her name, and jotted down “boxing out.” Rebecca taught me a whole bunch of basketball terms. She told me what a “fast break” was and that the painted part of the court was called the “key.” I learned more vocabulary in an hour of watching basketball than I had all semester in Mme Depardieu’s French class. “Did you play basketball?”

“Well, yeah, I played in middle school, but then the dance thing took over full time.”

“You know a lot about the game, though.”

She laughed. “I know so much because I’ve watched Jessie play since, oh I don’t know, forever.”

Since forever? I swallowed hard. “I just watch the ball go up and down the court.”

She looked at me with her soft eyes. “Yeah, well, when you go to as many games as I do, you have to find some way to keep it interesting.”

Before I could stop myself I asked, “Do you watch Jessie?”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I used to.”

I stayed quiet hoping she’d elaborate, but she didn’t. My reporter tricks didn’t work on her I guess. I wished she’d say something about the school bus and holding pinkies, but she didn’t and neither did I.

We watched the game in silence for a few moments, and then she stood up abruptly. “I have to get back.”

“You do?” Even I heard the disappointment in my voice.

“Yeah, my friends are probably wondering where I’ve gone.” She gestured toward her other friends, most of whom were watching the game, but then I noticed a couple of the guys look in our direction.

“Okay.” I didn’t know how to make her stay. She started down the steps when I surprised myself by blurting, “Hey, Rebecca.”

She turned around. “Yeah?”

“Can we go see my grandma? Next week?”

She nodded. “I didn’t forget. I’ll figure something out, okay? See you later.” She turned back around and made her way down the bleachers. I tried hard not to let my disappointment show.

If she had asked me to sit with her and her friends, I would have moved in an instant. It wasn’t like I owned this miniscule patch of bleacher or anything. I think she just didn’t want her friends to meet me, or she didn’t want me to meet her friends. Either way I was confused.

As miserable as I was, I decided to make myself feel worse by watching Jessie play. She dribbled the ball up the court and passed it to Natalie. Jessie then ran through the key past Belinda, and popped out on the other side. Natalie leaped up and whizzed the ball all the way over to Jessie who caught it and took a jump shot. “Jump shot” was one of the new phrases I had learned that night. The ball bounced off the backboard so hard that even a few of the Grasse River fans laughed. I felt kind of bad for her, but at the same time I had a ha-ha feeling about it.

I continued to watch Jessie play as the Rist team dribbled the ball back up toward its own basket. Jessie followed Rist player #12 around the floor, and when the Rist player’s teammate took a shot, Jessie turned to do one of those box out moves. She spun around and made contact like Belinda had done, but then unlike Belinda, she jammed her elbow into the girl’s side. I don’t know a lot about the game, but I was pretty sure that was illegal. A foul or something. It had to be, but the referees didn’t blow the whistle, so maybe jamming someone with your elbow was okay.

Things continued to go bad for Jessie as the game went on. She only scored four points during the entire second half, but lucky for us Belinda played well, and we managed to win. I don’t think I ever would have noticed what a dirty player Jessie was if Rebecca hadn’t shown me how to watch a basketball game. I wonder if Rebecca taught me that trick knowing I would watch Jessie and see how mean she was. Believe me, I already knew how mean she could be.

I walked out of the gym and saw Missy waiting in her car to pick me up. I didn’t know what kind of update I was going to give her because Rebecca had been incredibly confusing. What a sucky day.

THE KINNEY DRUG store wasn’t crowded on Sunday which was good because I wasn’t in the mood for people. My mom was at the pharmacy getting some kind of prescription filled while I wandered around the store. Missy had already gone back to Plattsburgh, and I needed a distraction from my life, so I jumped at the chance when Mom asked me to go to Kinney’s with her.

I planted myself in front of the magazines and looked at all the covers. No Jessica Alba today. Maybe she’d make another movie soon, and I could get a new magazine. I sighed. No Rebecca either. She had been so weird at the basketball game on Friday night that I wasn’t surprised when she treated me like a chore at the tournament finals on Saturday. She did come over to say hello, though, but she acted as if it was her duty or something. I think she didn’t want to be seen with me because she kept sneaking peeks at Jessie and then at her group of friends as if anxious to get away from me.

I wandered over to the perfume section and looked for anything with a rose scent. That was Rebecca’s fragrance. I picked up a body spray named “Rose Petals.” I squirted a little on my wrist and then rubbed both wrists together. The scent was a little strong at first, but as I waved my wrists around the fragrance reminded me of Rebecca.