Long Shot - Mike Lupica [3]
He had lived in Tucson, Arizona, first and then moved to New York City, because that had been another dream of his when he envisioned a better life for himself in America.
Once he got to New York he worked as a busboy as a way of putting himself through cooking school. Then he had worked his way up to being a chef, finally becoming head chef at Miller’s, the best restaurant in Vernon, where Pedro was born and had lived his whole life.
Earlier this year, Luis Morales had found a space he could afford, after saving up for a long time, and now he was about to open Casa Luis. He’d been working so hard at it, day and night, wanting everything to be just right and look just right, that Pedro hadn’t been seeing very much of him lately.
Pedro had even told his dad at breakfast this morning that he could skip soccer today if he was too busy at the restaurant.
His father looked across the table at him with eyes as dark as Pedro’s, but which seemed to see so much more, as always.
“Boy,” he said, “I would sooner give up eating one of my own desserts before I would give up my soccer mornings with you.”
Luis Morales had been the best player in his town in Mexico as a boy. And one of his boyhood dreams had been to play for Mexico in the World Cup when he got older.
“But that is the funny thing about dreams,” Pedro’s dad liked to say. “Just when you are sure you have a good one, an even better one comes along.”
By the time he had left Mexico at the age of fifteen, he’d also left behind whatever big ideas he had about being a World Cup soccer star. Now soccer was a passion more than a dream, but a passion that Luis always made time for. He watched games from all over the world thanks to satellite television, and even played in what he called an “old man’s league” in Camden, the next town over from Vernon, in the fall and spring.
Pedro had watched his dad play some of those old man games, watched him and thought that his old man was the most dazzling one out there, running rings around the other players, almost playing a different game than anybody else.
And even with all that, Pedro never thought he was seeing the very best of Luis Morales.
It was as if his dad saved that for Pedro and their Saturday mornings together.
What Pedro really saw from his dad, what he was seeing again today as they passed the ball to each other and tried to take it away from each other or took turns in goal, was this:
The boy in Mexico who was going to play in the World Cup someday.
Pedro felt like he’d traveled back in time so he and his dad could be the same age for a little while.
Pedro was quick. His dad, even now, was quicker. Pedro, whose normal position in soccer was midfielder, could do a lot with the ball.
His dad could always do more.
Luis Morales even had this trick—it really seemed like a magic trick to Pedro—where he would lean forward and balance a ball between his shoulder blades and remove the T-shirt he was wearing without the ball falling to the ground.
He did that now on the soccer field at Vernon Middle when they took a break.
“It’s like something I saw on a television show once, Papa,” Pedro said. “A man pulled a tablecloth off a table, but the glasses and silverware and plates stayed where they were.”
His dad smiled.
Another thing that made him look young, like a boy, to Pedro.
“Anybody can do that,” his dad said. “But only your papa can do what I do with this soccer ball.”
“I believe you,” Pedro said, smiling back at him.
It was all right for his dad to take his shirt off because the November sun was warm this morning. They were both on their backs now, using their soccer balls as headrests, both taking the sun full on their faces.
Luis Morales said, “Are you absolutely sure of this thing you tell me, that you love basketball more than soccer?”
Pedro said, “It’s not that I don’t love soccer. I just love