Small Mercies (31 page)

Thou shalt not, Gail.

She fell asleep by focusing on the prickly sensation of warmth returning to her feet. When Michael came into the bedroom hours later, unsteady and smelling of beer, she was lost in a deep, troubled sleep.

* * *

The games ticked by, each one like the last, in the stands if not on the court. The six parents talking in the quiet pauses of each game, the conversation revolving around the action on the court.

“This number 22 is a punk.”

“Terry’s off tonight.”

“Why aren’t we pressing this team?”

“That was a charge, ref!”

Every so often, Bobby made a play whose importance wasn’t readily apparent to Gail: he set a solid screen or threw an outlet pass or grabbed a rebound he had no earthly right to get. When that happened, Danny leaned over, put his hand on her back, and whispered in her ear.

“Bobby’s playing like a man possessed tonight.”

“Jesus, that screen rattled teeth.”

Sometimes he put his hand on her back for no reason at all.

* * *

After each game was the same as well: the lonely bed, the soiled underwear, the cold, unforgiving basement, the shame, Father Kenny.

Thou shalt not, Gail.

The vision of Father Kenny grew more intense, but also more comical.

Thou shalt not, Gail.

She started talking back to him.

Perhaps I shalt, Father. Perhaps I shalt.

She was always asleep by the time Michael came in and if he woke her, by accident or design, she feigned grogginess and turned away from him.

* * *

It was a good season. Saint Peter’s beat them twice, each time by a dozen points, but the games felt closer, like a play here or a bounce there and the outcome may have been different. They lost a heartbreaker to St. Joseph by the Sea, on a prayer at the buzzer, and got destroyed by Curtis on a night when the whole team was off. After the losses, Bobby was sullen and he sought comfort not with her, but with Tina. And that was depressing and thrilling.

He was the team’s heart and soul: its leading rebounder and second leading scorer. First, by a wide margin, in charges taken, balls dived after, floor burns suffered, and elbows swung. One night, Danny mentioned casually that he knew a few scouts, that he could probably get Bobby a scholarship to a Division II school: University of New Haven or Sacred Heart or Molloy College. Gail nodded, excited but uncertain.

Bobby had never been a student. CSI, then a city job, was the assumed route. But that night she watched him snatch a rebound and thought maybe, just maybe, basketball could be his road to a different life. Maybe, with Danny’s help, he’d have options. Maybe even work on Wall Street, like Danny, make a boatload of cash. Danny had said as much himself.

“Would love to have a kid like Bobby working for me someday. Kid who works that hard will always find a way to be useful.”

She was glad someone was showing an interest in Bobby. His own father didn’t seem to care a whit. Silently, she beseeched Michael to show her some sign of love, give her some reason for not doing something that was taking on an air of inevitability. He was oblivious, hopeless, clueless. He’d turned into her father in the space of six months, but she would not be her mother. She would not rage silently and do nothing.

One night, Danny cupped his hands around her ear, but instead of praise for Bobby’s play, he said, “Jesus, you look beautiful tonight.”

She pretended not to hear him, but it was hard to ignore his hand casually resting on the curved muscle of her inner thigh.

She couldn’t concentrate at work; her mind kept drifting out the window into idle daydreams like those of half the students she taught. She thought of Danny’s blue-gray eyes and the feel of his fingers thrumming on her thigh. The whole thing was madness, some bizarre echo of high school; two middle-aged adults playing at teenager. She barely knew him and yet, twice a week, it took all her self-restraint not to turn and start kissing him in a gym full of people.

Bobby and Tina became a couple. They started holding hands and kissing in public, sometimes a touch more aggressively than Gail thought appropriate. She was certain that what she saw was the tip of the teenage iceberg; more expansive explorations were undoubtedly taking place behind closed doors, when no one else was around. She thought Michael should probably say something to Bobby, something about protection at the very least, but she wasn’t speaking to Michael and neither was Bobby, so she let it lie. She wasn’t going to give Bobby a lecture about safe sex and waiting for marriage, not when she spent her nights fantasizing about another man.

Besides, the euphoria vibrating between Bobby and Tina was infectious. Witnessing young love, in all its absurdity, was a powerful aphrodisiac. Gail started thinking that maybe she and Danny were meant to be together. Maybe there was an easy, clear path for them to be together. The boys were basically out of the house. Michael had no interest in her.

She knew these thoughts were ludicrous. She didn’t believe in adultery, had only recently come around to the idea of divorce. But sitting next to Danny, watching her son play basketball, felt right in a way that she couldn’t explain. Even the ghost of Father Kenny had stopped haunting her.

Still, beyond some heated leg pressing and intense flirtation, nothing had happened. She had no reason to see Danny other than at Bobby’s basketball games and the season had dwindled down to a precious few games: the Catholic school play-offs and something new this year, a March Madness-style tournament for the Island championship.

If something was going to happen, it would happen soon or not at all.

* * *

The play-off game took place on a Friday afternoon, at Bishop Ford in Brooklyn. The gym was half empty due to the early start. Some of the usual parents couldn’t make it because of work, Paul Baddio and John Keegan included. Danny came straight from his office in downtown Manhattan, wearing a charcoal gray suit, a blue shirt with a white collar, and a blue silk tie. He strode up the bleachers with a confident smile and sat down beside Gail. Dana Baddio and Mary Keegan walked in together before the opening tip and took seats on the opposite side of the gym.

Gail and Danny were alone, nervous. The first quarter of the game passed in silence, as though they didn’t know what to do with this sudden, unexpected boon.

The game itself provided little to comment upon. Bishop Ford was bigger, faster, better coached. They played with energy and discipline; their players’ movements were somehow both fluid and precise. On offense, the ball zipped from player to player, scarcely touching the floor. On defense, they contested every movement, harassed each dribble or pass. They were relentless. One of their players, whose jersey bore the appropriate last name Long, was nearly seven feet tall and rail-thin, with spindly arms that reached out and effortlessly rebuffed half of the shots that Farrell attempted.

Bound for Kentucky on a full basketball scholarship, Danny said. Gail watched as Bobby tried to box him out, but there was nothing for him to stick his ass into. Long slithered around him, gathered the errant Bishop Ford shots, and deposited the ball in the basket as easily as other people would drop a coin in a parking meter.

Midway through the second quarter, the game’s outcome was no longer in doubt. It took on the air of an exhibition as Ford’s backups battled with Farrell’s starters and the lead stagnated at twenty. Whenever Farrell made the slightest run, Long was inserted back into the game and, soon enough, the lead was twenty again.

With two minutes left in the first half, Coach Whelan called another useless time-out. Danny reached over, gripped her hand. His gaze was still focused on the court.

“I don’t know how to say this, Gail, so I’m just gonna say it. I’ve been lucky, by and large, in my life. I’ve caught some breaks, made a few of my own. Mostly, I’ve listened to my gut. If my gut told me to do something, I did it. I’ve learned not to doubt my instincts. The one mistake I made in my life, I didn’t listen to what my gut was telling me.”

He exhaled, a doleful sigh. Gail’s stomach was in ribbons.

“I married the wrong woman. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did. Such is life. I didn’t care for the longest time, didn’t care until I met you. There’s something between us, Gail, I can feel it. I know it in my bones. I wish we’d met thirty years ago. But we didn’t. And I’m not gonna ignore what I feel. I can’t.”

He told her all this in an unbroken rush of words, his eyes drifting from the court up to her. The halftime horn sounded, punctuating his last statement, like he was trying to squeeze it all in, beat the clock.

Gail watched Bobby jog off the court toward the locker room, the inevitability of his team’s defeat already gnawing at him. She noticed, for the first time, Tina in the stands behind Farrell’s bench, looking glum.

Danny gazed at her.

“Jesus, your eyes. I could live in those eyes.”

She wanted the game to be over, wanted to leave right then.

“Danny . . . I don’t know how, I mean, I’m, Michael and I . . .”

She nearly started crying.

“It’s okay, Gail.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Excuse me, one second, Gail.”

He stood and walked down the bleachers to shake hands with a young man wearing glasses and holding a spiral notebook. Gail looked down, her hands were trembling. The doubts she thought conquered were rallying for a late charge.

She looked out across the gym. Through the small, slitted windows at the top of the opposite wall, she could see the day dying outside, the last strands of light falling away. Michael could have come to this game, she realized, and with that, all her remaining doubts surrendered. Her mind became a mantra of simplicity, like a child’s first instructive reading tome:

I will sleep with Danny. Gail will sleep with Danny. Gail will be with Danny. Danny and Gail will be together.

Danny returned. He told her that the young man he was talking to was an assistant coach for the Sacred Heart basketball team. They had an open spot and the guy liked Bobby. The coach wanted to see tape. Gail nodded.

“Will you have dinner with me tonight, Gail?” Danny asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Ever been to Peter Luger’s?”

She shook her head no.

“Best steak you’ll ever have.”

The second half passed in a blur. The final buzzer came abruptly, waking the entire gym, it seemed, from a stupor. Gail and Danny both stood, clapping for no reason, and watched the teams exchange handshakes. She glanced at the scoreboard. 79–41. A blowout. She’d barely paid attention.

They walked down the bleachers and Danny introduced her to the young coach. He gave her a card, told her he’d be in touch. She and Danny joined the other parents in a large, joyless circle, the season’s usual alliances abandoned in favor of solidarity in this cruel, merciless land.

“Jesus, that was an absolute ass-kicking.”

“What about that kid Long? It wasn’t even fair.”

“No way number 24 is seventeen.”

Their sons didn’t linger in the locker room, didn’t keep them waiting. They wanted to get away as quickly as possible, back across the bridge and safely ensconced in the warm, convivial comforts of the Island. The city boys had whipped them, as they usually did, at least in this game, and they wanted to go home.

Bobby was surprisingly chipper, had already shaken off the sting of defeat. He told Gail that he’d catch a ride back with Pat Keegan and he asked for a few bucks because the whole team was going to dinner at Denino’s. She gave him a twenty and watched as he walked over to Tina.

Now she was truly unfettered. Michael would be working. Bobby would be out. She looked at Danny and he was smiling at her, like a little boy who’d lined up all his dominoes and whose finger was poised over the first, crucial one. The parents slowly shuffled out of the gym, more disappointed, it seemed, than their sons. She felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned.

“Mom, Tina took the ferry, then the train, and the dinner is kinda team only and there’s no room in Pat’s car anyway and I was wondering if you could give her a lift home so she doesn’t have to take the ferry alone.”

Tina was irritated at the fuss.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Amendola. It’s no problem. I like the ferry.”

What could she say?

“Don’t be silly, Tina. Of course I’ll give you a ride home.”

She fished in her purse for the car keys, handed them to her son.

“Bobby, walk Tina to the car. I need to use the restroom.”

They walked out of the gym, arguing in lowered voices. The gym was nearly empty, but Danny lingered back, sensing a disruption. They stepped into a small, dimly lit alcove between the bleachers and the exit doors.

“I have to drive Tina home,” she said, with teenage petulance.

“Okay, meet me after.”

“Drive back to Brooklyn?” she asked. Something about that rankled her. Something silly, like having to pay the toll twice. He laughed.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We can do it another night, Gail.”

“No, no. I’ll come back.”

He put his hand on her arm, gave it a squeeze.

“It’s gonna be okay, Gail. Everything will be okay.”

She kissed him. A long, exploratory kiss, the kind she and Michael hadn’t shared in years. She pulled away.

“Wait for me,” she said.

She walked out of the dim, dusty space. Outside, in the parking lot, it was cold and dark. Only a few cars remained. She saw Tina standing outside the car, shivering. She walked to Tina, hands thrust in her jacket pocket, her tongue tingling from the taste of spearmint.

* * *

The car was quiet until they were halfway over the Verrazano.

“That kid Long was unbelievable.”

The sound of Tina’s voice startled her; she’d been daydreaming about Danny.

“Yes,” Gail said. The traffic on the bridge was heavy. The car inched over the span in short spurts.

“So, you’re pretty friendly with Mr. McGinty?”

Gail stiffened. Was it that obvious? She tried to sound casual.

“Not really. He’s helping Bobby get a scholarship. That man at the game was an assistant coach, he thinks Bobby could play at Sacred Heart in Connecticut.”