“Are you good at basketball?” Bessie asked her.
“I am,” she said, not the slightest hesitation.
“Better than Lillian?” Roland asked.
“Different skill set,” she said, and, even for me, an adult, this was not a satisfactory answer.
“You should play each other,” Bessie said, and I shook my head.
“Madison has stuff to do,” I told the kids.
“No,” she offered. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, we have lessons, right?” I asked the kids. I don’t know why I didn’t want to play her. Well, shit, no, I knew why. I didn’t want to lose in front of the kids. I didn’t want them to love her more than they loved me.
“No lessons,” the twins whined.
Madison took the ball out of my hands and started dribbling. “It’ll be fun,” she said. “Come on.”
I tried to think of a time when I hadn’t done what Madison had asked me to do. That time did not exist.
“Okay,” I said. “A quick game, I guess.”
“Timothy,” Madison said, “sit on the bleachers there with Roland and Bessie.” Timothy looked like he’d been asked to sit on a hill of fire ants, but he did what he was told. Bessie and Roland sat scrunched together on the edge of the bleachers, amazed to see this sport, this game of basketball, performed right in front of them, like it had been invented only fifteen minutes earlier.
“Do you need to warm up?” I asked her, and she shook her head.
“I’m good,” she said. “We’ll play to ten.” She passed the ball to me and set herself for whatever would follow. She was giving me enough room to shoot, almost daring me to take the shot, just to get a sense of my range. Or maybe, I thought as I started dribbling, she wanted me to drive, so she would tower over me, ruling the interior. I faked a drive, but Madison didn’t even seem concerned, simply postured up again and waited. I threw up a shot, perfect from the moment it left my hand, and it fell effortlessly through the hoop.
“Hell yes!” Roland shouted.
“Watch your language around Timothy,” I said, and Madison nodded her approval, of both the admonishment and the shot.
She had chased down the ball and passed it back to me. 1–0. This time, she played me a little closer, those long arms, her hand just a few inches from my face, her fingers almost wiggling. I stepped back, took the shot, and it went through the hoop again, nothing but net.
“Yay,” Roland said.
“Nice shot,” Madison said, and I didn’t reply. My heart was racing. I loved playing. Even at the YMCA, when I played girls a lot younger than me but not nearly as good, when I played men who let me join, no matter what the stakes were, I would feel my heart hammering in my chest. Like I couldn’t believe I was getting to do this, like it might be the last time. And I loved the way it felt.
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.