Long Shot - Mike Lupica [31]
It was bad enough that he’d missed, and they’d blown a sweet opportunity to beat Wilton. What was even worse, what hurt Pedro even more, was to think that Ned Hancock, the ultimate team guy, had decided today he’d rather mess with Pedro’s head a little more than beat the Wilton Warriors.
“This thing is officially messed up,” Joe said.
“You figured that out, huh?” Pedro said.
They were in town an hour after the game, having finished up with their shakes and fries at Bobby Van’s, the diner all the kids in town liked the best. Now they were just walking around until Joe’s mom picked them up in a little while.
“You gotta do something about this,” Joe said. “We gotta do something about it.” They had stopped in front of the video store. Joe wanted to go in there and rent a game for when they got home. “I could say something if you want.”
“I told you, I’m going to.”
“When?”
“This week.”
“Can you at least tell me what you’re going to say?”
“You’ll see.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you’ll see.”
“I still don’t get why this has to be such a big secret.”
“It’s not a secret,” Pedro said, grinning. “Not to me, anyway.”
“But you don’t care to share.”
Pedro said, “Hey, I already shared half of my fries.”
Joe went inside the video store. Pedro told him to go ahead and pick something out, he’d meet him in a few minutes in front of Casa Luis, where Joe’s mom was picking them up.
When Pedro got to his dad’s restaurant, he didn’t walk in right away, as cold as it was outside. Instead he stood off to the side of the front window, snuck a look through it, and saw that his dad was in there by himself, having come right back to work as soon as the Wilton game was over.
Luis Morales was standing on a chair, carefully taking down a huge painting from one of the back walls, the painting almost too big for him to wrap his arms around. Somehow he managed, gently laying the painting on the floor before he hopped down, picked it up again and carried it toward the front.
As heavy as the painting clearly was, Pedro could see his dad smiling.
Just then, Joe and his mom pulled up in her car, Joe calling out and asking if he was ready to go. Pedro told him he’d call him later, for now he was going to stay and help his dad do some work.
He walked through the front door, amazed at how much it was starting to look like a real restaurant, even with boxes still stacked in front of the bar.
“To what do I owe this honor?” his dad said.
“I heard you were short good workers lately,” Pedro said.
“Only for a little while,” his dad said. “Then some friends of mine showed up in their spare time to help me out.”
“Mom says Mr. Miller turned out to be a bad sport.”
Even the mention of Mr. Miller, Pedro saw, couldn’t knock the smile off his dad’s face. Maybe nothing would ever be able to do that inside Casa Luis.
“There are a lot of bad sports in the world,” his dad said. “You just don’t expect it from somebody who was supposed to be your friend.”
You can say that again, Pedro thought.
“How do you handle it when that happens?” he asked his dad.
“Just keep playing your game, son.” He reached over and mussed Pedro’s thick hair, thick as his own. “Now, are you here to work or to talk?”
“Both,” Pedro said.
It turned out the boxes, packed so carefully, with lots of padding, were full of dinner plates that his dad had ordered special all the way from California. Together they brought them to the kitchen one by one, set them in front of the shelves where Pedro’s dad wanted them stacked, shelves Pedro knew his dad had painted himself after his painter had quit on him.
“I’m so scared I’m going to drop something,” Pedro said.
“Trust it!” his dad yelled, and both of them laughed.
When they were done they moved some photographs around on the walls until his dad had all the walls in the place looking exactly the way he wanted them to. Then Pedro held the ladder in place while his dad climbed up and fixed his big ceiling fan.
Somehow it was work that felt like play, Pedro feeling the way he did when they were on