Long Shot - Mike Lupica [22]
“So what are they doing?”
“One of the waiters who was going to come with your dad, Mr. Miller raised his salary and made him maitre d’. And he raised the salary of one of the bartenders. When your dad asked Mr. Miller about it, he said, ‘That’s business,’ and hung up the phone. And then one of the carpenters he was using suddenly stopped showing up for work.”
“Papa will find other people.”
“He will,” she said. “This has still hurt him, I can tell.” She paused and a sad look came into her eyes. “Someday you’ll find out for yourself, how sometimes you think you know people when you really don’t know them at all.”
I don’t have to wait, Pedro thought, I’m finding out already.
It was halftime of the Suns game by now, and Pedro’s bedtime. He pointed the remote at the set, shutting it off, and picked up the bowl of popcorn that the two of them had emptied as they talked.
“You know your dad,” his mom said. “He won’t complain, he’ll just work harder.”
They both headed up the stairs, Pedro thinking that even when his dad wasn’t in the room, he was still there for him. The way his mom had been there for him tonight, more than she even knew.
Because she was right. His dad never whined or complained about anything. And even if Mr. Miller, his old boss, had hurt him, he knew his dad wasn’t going to waste any time feeling sorry for himself.
From now on, Pedro thought, neither am I.
By the time he got up to his room, he’d made up his mind about something: His season hadn’t started today.
It was starting tomorrow night when he got to practice.
He was going to make sure one thing hadn’t changed, no matter how much his basketball team had. He was going to make sure that he was still his father’s son.
ELEVEN
If you watched Ned Hancock at school, even watched him closely, you would have thought nothing had changed between him and Pedro.
Pedro didn’t buy it for a second, because everything had changed in the gym, whether anybody else noticed it or not. They weren’t even close to being the one-two punch they used to be, the two players out there who really seemed to read each other’s minds, Pedro being the one kid who was able to see the same things Ned did on a basketball court.
Yet in school, things looked exactly as they always had. Maybe it was because there were more people watching. Pedro was starting to think that Ned was as good at being a phony as he was at sports and everything else.
“You know what’s cool about this election?” Ned asked him in math class on Monday morning.
Mrs. Mahoney had paired them up in the kind of competition she’d sometimes have to keep things interesting. Today she just wanted to see which two-person team could solve a page of problems the fastest.
What’s cool? Pedro thought. How about nothing?
“You tell me,” he said.
“It’s like we’re running this long race,” Ned said, “except nobody knows who’s ahead.”
Pedro saw his opening and decided to take it. “Just so long as things are still cool between us, no matter who wins the race.”
Ned looked at Pedro as if he had turned into a problem that needed to be solved. “Why wouldn’t they be? Cool between us, I mean.”
Before Pedro could say anything, Mrs. Mahoney asked if everybody was ready. She was about to start the clock, and the winners got to skip their homework assignments tonight.
“C’mon, let’s do this,” Ned said. “The way we do it on the court.”
What a guy.
That night, Pedro was wearing his new attitude like it was his practice jersey, hustling all over the court, hustling more than he usually did. Like he was trying to make the team all over again.
Getting after it the way Luis Morales’ son was supposed to.
If he was going to come off the bench, he was going to come off it as hard as he could. Once he was out there, he was going to play his game—his usual game, his old game—even if that meant having to work around the great Ned Hancock.
Pedro hadn’t meant anything personal when he’d decided to challenge Ned in the election. It was really more of a way for Pedro to challenge himself. And an opportunity to show his mom and