This time, Madison was right on me, and I dribbled to get away from her, but she moved laterally with ease, sticking to me. I faked a drive, put up a shot, and Madison, not even really jumping up, managed to get the tip of her finger on it, which sent the ball off its course. It hit the side of the rim and bounced away. In two steps, Madison had it, and she reset. I got low, bending my knees, my arms spread out. She drove by me, smacking my shoulder hard enough to spin me just a little, and put up a floater that bounced around the rim before falling in.
“Yay,” Timothy said, a little squeak, and Roland and Bessie turned and frowned at the kid.
“Good one,” I said.
“Lucky,” she admitted. “You’re good.”
“So are you,” I replied.
“We’re still good,” she said.
“We are,” I agreed.
And then she drove right past me, like a fucking gazelle, and rose up so high that for just a second I thought she might dunk. She hit the layup, and this time all three kids on the bench went “OOOOHHHH,” and I got red and a little angry. And now, only in that single moment when I checked the ball for Madison and she stared at me, did I know that we were actually playing. That this was a game. And that one of us would lose, and one of us would win. And I wanted to win. I truly wanted to win.
And it went on like this, trading baskets, me hitting my jumpers from outside but not able to get much going inside, while Madison used her size to force me to post up while she kept banking in these turnaround jump shots. No one ever led by more than two points. The kids were really into it. Timothy scooted closer to the siblings, assured that they would not eat him, or, god forbid, smudge dirt on his slacks.
It was tied, 9–9, and I had just pulled down a rebound when Madison’s jumper clanked off the rim. “Goddamn,” she muttered under her breath. We were really sweating now, Madison because she had just recently killed herself doing aerobics and me because I hadn’t really exercised since I’d moved to the estate. My arms felt like rubber, but I dribbled between my legs, looking for something. Madison was right there, waiting for me.
“C’mon, Lillian,” Bessie said, and there was way more intensity in her voice than I wanted there to be. I looked over at the kids. “Breathe now,” I said, afraid they were going to burst into flames, and just saying this made Madison look worried for a second, checking on Timothy. And if I’d driven to the basket right then, I would have hit an easy layup, but I let her recover. I drove and then did my little step-back move, and the moment I put up the shot I knew it was off, so I started running toward the basket. And when Madison felt that pressure from me, that movement, she turned and ran to the basket, too. And, like I knew it would, the ball hit the rim and nearly got a playground bounce before it skittered away. I was about to reach it when I felt something hard slam into my face, and all these stars blasted into my head, this stinging pain.
“Oh, fuck!” I said, holding my left eye, and I heard Madison say, “Oh, shit, sorry.”
I just stood there, pressing the palm of my hand hard against my eye, like I could jam the pain back inside me. But that wasn’t working. When the pain finally turned into something throbbing and manageable, I looked over at Madison, who was holding the ball. “What happened?” I asked.
“She hit you in the face,” Bessie said, “with her elbow.”
“It was an accident, of course,” Madison said. “Shit, I’m sorry, Lillian.”
“Does it look bad?” I asked, and Madison immediately started to nod.
“It looks pretty bad, yes,” she replied.
“That’s not fair,” Roland said, but I waved him off.
“It was an accident,” I said, nodding to Madison. But I remembered how she played in high school, where things looked effortless until the pressure increased. Then she got weird with her elbows, could get dirty if it meant she’d win.
“It’s the height thing,” she said, now bouncing the ball. “You’re right at my elbow.”
“It’s fine,” I said, touching the edges around my eye, wincing. I didn’t want to kill her, not really, but I wanted to beat her so bad.
“You can have the ball back,” she said, “if you want to call a foul.”
Ooh, maybe I did want to kill her, actually, but what could I do? The kids were watching. This was a game. “No, you got the rebound. It’s good.”
I scuffed my high-tops on the court, digging in, knowing she’d be backing me up to the rim, wearing me down, seeing what she could do to me. She was at the three line, and she kind of shrugged and then started dribbling. And then, like a rifle shot, she fired a perfect jumper, way outside her usual range, and it went right in. And that was that. Madison had won. I had lost. I was good, but she was better.
“Yay, Mommy,” Timothy said, and this time Roland and Bessie didn’t look angry. They looked sad. Defeated. Like they had hoped for something different and now felt embarrassed for having thought it might happen. I knew that look. I knew that feeling. And it hurt me to know that I’d made them feel that way.
“We should get some ice on that,” Madison said to me.
“We have some at the house,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
“It’ll still look pretty bad,” she said. “Again, I’m sorry.”
“It’s no problem. It’s basketball. Good shot, by the way.”
“I can’t believe I hit it,” she replied.
“I can,” I said. I turned to Bessie and Roland. “Okay, kiddos,” I said. “Let’s get a snack.”
“Your eye is really messed up,” Roland said.
“It’ll be okay,” I told him.
“Timothy,” Madison said, “say goodbye to Bessie and Roland.”
“Goodbye,” he said, and the twins grunted and waved.
“See you in a couple days for dinner,” Madison said. “And then maybe one night we can have a night with just the two of us. Have a drink and sit on the porch.”
“That would be nice,” I said, gritting my teeth, my head still cloudy.
We watched the two of them walk off, leaving us behind, and then Bessie went over to the basketball and started dribbling.
She looked at me. “How did you do that thing where you dribble between your legs?”
“Practice,” I said. “Just kind of using both hands to put the ball in the right place, bending your knees.”
“Can I do that?” she said. “Can you teach me?”
“Sure,” I said.
She looked up at the hoop like it was a mountain, like the air was thinner up there. She weighed the ball, shifting it between her hands, and then threw up a pretty ugly shot. It took part in three distinct movements, but I was amazed that she got it up to the hoop, just over the front of it. It bounced up in the air, and then it bounced and bounced and bounced, and I was just praying, Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease, and then the ball fell through the hoop, the luckiest shot I’d seen in a long time. It was true happiness I felt, that I felt for Bessie, because I knew what it felt like to make that shot, to get what you asked for, and how rare that was in life.
“Oh my god, Bessie!” Roland shouted. “That was amazing!”