“Shoot!” he said.
Jack actually had the nerve to stop and fold his arms across his chest. “This should be fun,” he said.
“Get ready to weep,” I told him, instantly losing credibility when I dribbled so hard, the ball bounced off and I had to chase it down.
“You need to work on your hand-eye coordination, Michelle!” Jack called out.
“You need to work on your brain-mouth coordination!” I shouted back.
Rabid, I caught the ball and approached the basket close, dribbling just a few inches from the ground. Jack laughed and tried to steal the ball from me, and I clutched it tight in both hands, running off until he caught me and pulled me up off the ground.
“That’s called traveling, and it’s a foul,” Jack said.
“Will, help!” I screeched.
But Will was having too much fun watching us as he leaned against the fence. Kicking in the air, I shouted, “Let me go! Red card! Red card!”
“Red cards are for soccer, Michelle. Get your games straight.”
“WILL!!!!”
I threw the ball away desperately, and Jack dropped me and ran off to play some more. When we were done, Will and Mike went to the car for a cigarette and I sat down on the court. Jack was still dribbling. He crouched down in front of me, and I was tempted to push him over, but instead I just grabbed the ball and threw it as far away as I could.
“Come on,” he told me, “don’t be a sore loser. You want to give it a shot?”
“Give what a shot?”
“You want to try and make one in?” He stood and offered me his hand. “Come on, I’ll show you how.”
I accepted reluctantly.
“Let’s start with the basics,” Jack said, coming around behind me to set my shoulders. “Here, hold your arms like this…yeah, that’s it…exactly. No, straighten your elbow a bit. There you go. It’s not so hard, is it?”
I couldn’t say if it was hard or not—I hadn’t done anything yet—but I nodded and tried to play along.
“Now,” he said, “just look at the backboard, and…wait, stiffen your fingers a little so your palm’s not touching the ball. There you go! Now bend your knees slightly, straighten up, and throw.”
“That’s it…?”
“No, we need to work on your aim, too. Which, if it’s anything like your coordination, means we’re going to be here a while.”
“I should remind you, Jack, that Will asked me to hold onto the keys while he played. They’re in my purse. So unless you want to go walking home…”
“Did I tell you how good you look today?”
I grinned. I would never have admitted it, but I really wanted to make the shot. I squinted, bit my lower lip, got ready, and…
Not even close.
That time I’d gotten an F in gym class had been a prophecy.
Jack chuckled as he ran after the ball. I tried several more times, but it was clear I was no Caitlin Clark. I had no sense of aim, and no explanation of technique was going to change that. In the end, Jack got behind me again and wrapped his hands around mine. “Come on now,” he said. “You and me together, no one can defeat us, right, Jen? One, two…”
All right, so Jack did all the work, but whatever: it went straight in that time. Ridiculously, I felt a tingle from head to toe and started skipping off toward the ball, which was still bouncing near the post.
“My God, that was one for the record books, Jordan himself would be impressed!”
“I’m so happy,” I said, “that I’m going to choose to believe you’re actually being serious!” I gave him a five, then pretended to be holding up a trophy. “First of all, I’d like to thank my coach, I could never have made it this far without him. I’d like to thank Will, who took a chance on a rookie player. I’d like to thank Mike for leaving the court to drink beer and making things easier on me. And of course, I can’t forget my old gym teacher who flunked me…”
