Long Shot - Mike Lupica [16]
The day before the season opener was a Saturday, which meant soccer in the park with his dad.
His dad had been spending even more time than usual at Casa Luis as the date of the restaurant’s opening grew closer. Once again, Pedro had told him that he could skip soccer if he was too busy.
“Soccer with you keeps me fit,” his dad said on their way to the field. “Probably because it makes me so happy.”
So they played the way they always had, and for a couple of hours, Pedro was able to forget about basketball, throwing himself into his other sport, trying to keep up with his dad, trying to make sure he seemed as happy today as on all the other Saturdays.
But when they had finished, and were walking the length of the field toward the parking lot, Luis Morales said, “Something is bothering you today.”
Forget about reading his mind. Pedro’s dad was able to read his son’s heart.
“I’m fine, Papa.”
“No, you are not. Is it school, or sports?”
Pedro wanted to tell him it was both, wanted to tell him in the worst way. He didn’t want to hold back anymore, because he had never held back anything from his dad—at least not anything important.
But he still wasn’t ready to tell him about the election.
He thought of another one of his dad’s expressions, one from his job, the one about half the loaf being better than none. So he gave his dad half the story now.
“Sports,” he said.
“What about sports?”
“Things aren’t going so good with my team,” Pedro said.
He stopped now in the middle of the field, looking around him as he did, thinking that everything looked the same as it had the Saturday morning when he had made up his mind to run for class president. The sun was high in the sky, but still the air was a little cooler today. The feel of the grass underneath his soccer spikes was the same as it always was. And they’d run and laughed and chased the ball and each other the way they always did on Saturday mornings.
But Pedro knew that things had changed so much in a couple of weeks.
Even if he was the only one who actually knew how much.
“But it’s opening day tomorrow!” his dad said, clapping him on the back. “And in sports, opening day is always supposed to feel like a holiday, is it not?”
“I’m playing like Cepillín,” he said to his dad.
He was a famous clown from a television show in Mexico, El Show de Cepillín, which Luis Morales used to watch when he was a boy.
“This I do not believe,” his dad said. “Basketball is not just your favorite sport, as much as it pains me to say that. It is also your best. You have a gift, son.”
“Not this season.”
“There is no season yet, there is just practice.”
“Papa,” Pedro said, “I’m not starting tomorrow’s game.”
“But you started last year. You always start.”
“This isn’t last year.”
“What happened?”
“I stink now, that’s what happened.”
“You don’t stink at anything,” his dad said. “Not your whole life.”
Pedro thought: In his eyes, I’m Ned.
“You haven’t seen our practices,” Pedro said. “It’s like I’ve forgotten how to play.”
The other night, he even shot an air ball from the free throw line when he had a chance to win a scrimmage for his team.
The two of them stopped now, at the goal closest to the parking lot. His dad’s eyes were on Pedro now, somehow dark and bright at the same time.
“Is there something more that you are not telling me?”
Pedro put a smile between them, almost like he was using it to play defense.
“No, just that I pretty much stink.”
His dad said, “Why do you sound so beaten before an official game is even played? And I do not just mean beaten out of a starting job for now.”
“Dave’s playing better than me.”
“For now.”
“Papa, sometimes it’s like I can’t get out of my own way.”
“But you will.”
“How can you be so sure of that?”
In a quiet voice, not joking now, his dad said, “Because you are my son. Because you