Main > Series > Chapters > Fame Book 2 > Chapter 14

Friday night came around. Leroy arrived back at the school, his tote bag over his shoulder and a fierce kind of determination in his eyes, at around the same time that Lucas Boyd and Andy Parachek and the rest of the basketball team were descending the stairway with Brother Timothy to the St. Charles' locker rooms. This has got to be perfection, Leroy told himself. The boys were telling themselves much the same thing. They'd seen Coach Jordan strolling around upstairs, and the smirk on his face seemed to indicate that he already considered the match won and the opposition pasted. Turning up and playing was just a formality.

     As the two different kinds of performances were in preparation, Charlotte Miller sat on the brocade sofa in the lounge of her apartment and watched her daughter making some changes in the dress that she was planning to wear for the Alumni Day dance that would follow the show. Julie was sitting on the floor, surrounded by tape measure, pins, material, and thread; the dress was almost unpicked into its component parts, and she was just beginning the complicated process of reassembly.

     'You know,' Charlotte was saying, 'I was just thinking about my mother. She was always great at helping me with things like this.' Julie was half-listening, most of her attention on the job before her. 'Yes,' Charlotte went on, 'she was great at sewing, but not too wonderful at listening. It was always very hard for me to talk to her. You know what I mean?

     'I think so,' Julie said, pulling the tacking stitches out of a piece of interlining.

     'I was convinced that she didn't know anything at all about being a teenage girl, and how hard it is  growing up sometimes. And you know what?'

     'What?'

     'When I got married and had you, I was amazed at how much my mother had learned in just a few short years. She was always there for me to talk to, but I was just too afraid to let her in on my own feelings. All that time she could have been my best friend, but I was too scared to let her.'

     'Yeah,' Julie said. 'I think Grandma knows a lot too. Could you help me with this hem?'

     Charlotte Miller sighed, and got up off the sofa.

     At the Martelli house over in Queens, a scene was being enacted in the basement that was remarkable for its similarity to events in the Miller apartment. Bruno was setting up the synthesizer, and Angelo had just appeared a the foot of the stairs to tell him that dinner would be ready in a few minutes. Having imparted the news, he now seemed in no hurry to go.

     'You know, Bruno,' he was saying, 'I really like the time we take to talk to each other. To share things, you know?'

     'Uh huh,' Bruno said, most of his attention on the job before him.

     'It's important. How many fathers and sons do you know that aren't afraid to talk things over . . .  get things off their chests, sort of? Not many, I'll tell you!'

     He checked to see if he had Bruno's attention. He didn't - well, no more than a fraction of it - but he persevered anyway.

     'And I think it's really great,' he said, 'that no matter what it is, we're not afraid to talk about it. Anything that's bothering us. Anything at all.' Bruno plugged in a jack, set a couple of sliding switches. 'Like . . .  girls  and stuff like that. We can just put it right out there with each other.'

     'Right,' Bruno said absently.

     'Not like the way it used to be with my father and me. No, sir. I couldn't talk about what was bothering me without always getting jumped on, or criticized. Isn't that a dumb thing to do to a kid? I mean, the way you feel is the way you feel, right? Boy, he sure didn't make communication easy. And that's tough when you're a kid and you've got things on your mind. Right?'

     'Right,' Bruno said, and checked a lead sheet against the setup that he'd made.

     Angelo sighed, and turned around to go back up the stairs.
 
 

Everybody had still been calling it the Johnny Willcox number, but tonight that ended. Tonight, Leroy had made it his own

     Lydia Grant had built the piece around a jazzy rescoring of some Aaron Copland music that she'd found in a discount record store in Greenwich Village. It was going to fit in pretty well with the Country and Western theme that Doris had devised for the overall event, and Reardon's suggestion of a dramatic prologue to be read over the loudspeaker system as the lights slowly dimmed had been met by Elizabeth Sherwood, who had put Jenny McClain forward for the assignment. Now the prologue was to be Jenny, reading her own poem The Awakening Land.

     The overall effect was more than they could have hoped for. Less than a dozen people were sitting out in the auditorium for the dress rehearsal, but the noise that they made at the end was enough for a crowd five times as big. The house lights came on and the dancers shuffled back onto the stage, grinning broadly and looking totally spent by their efforts.

     Lydia Grant stood, still applauding.

     'People,' she said, 'that was wonderful.'

     But Leroy pushed his way through; he was flushed and glowing, but he seemed to have plenty of energy still to spare, 'It was better than that,' he said. 'It was flat-out perfect. There isn't any way in the world it could get better, right?'

     'Well, I don't know if I'd say . . . '

     'If we did it like this on Wednesday, would you be satisfied?'

     Lydia had to be honest. 'Yes, I believe I would.'

     'Now say you love us and tell us to the showers.'

     'I love you and hit the showers.'

     Danny Amatullo came pushing through the crowd onstage. It wasn't until he reached the stage apron that Lydia saw he was dressed for the street and carrying Leroy's jacket. In the few seconds that it took for her to realize where they were going in such a hurry, they'd leapt down from the stage into the auditorium and were sprinting up an aisle to the exit.

     'Brother Timothy phoned at the half,' Danny said breathlessly as they ran down the front steps and headed towards the subway. 'It's eighteen to fourteen.'

     'Who's got eighteen?'

     'Not us!'

     But still, eighteen to fourteen . . . it was almost respectable. And with half of the game to go, the kids could still make up the distance and win through. Danny had their subway tokens ready, and they shot through the turnstile so fast that they left it spinning like a roulette wheel.

     It was the longest subway ride that either of them had ever taken; it felt as if they were crossing the Indian sub-continent on the stopping train. They left the IRT at West Fourth near Washington Square, and then they ran the rest of the way along the Avenue of the Americas to Downing Street.

     The doors to the rectory annex were pinned open as if ready for a crowd, but Leroy and Danny hadn't taken more than half a dozen steps inside before they knew. No single sign told them, but the atmosphere was impossible to misread.

     The game was over, the crowds had already left. They were too late.

     They slowed to a walk, and made for the gym. There was no point in rushing now.

     The court was almost empty, apart from a couple of kids and the caretaker, who was going over the scuff-marks on the waxed floor with a duster wrapped around the end of a broom. The two kids were Lucas Boyd and Andy Parachek, and they were over by the scorers' table.

     Leroy didn't have to get any closer to read the board; HOME 21, VISITORS 26. They walked over to the scorers' table. Neither he nor Danny knew quite what to say.

     It was Lucas who broke the ice. He said, 'How'd your show go?'

     'Fine,' Leroy said. 'Real good.'

     Danny said, 'And how'd your game go?'

     'Fine,' Andy said. 'Real good.'

     Something was wrong here. The two of them actually seemed satisfied, not like members of a losing side at all. Danny glanced up at the scoreboard, and said, 'Aren't you guys the home team?'

     'Yeah,' Andy said.

     'And doesn't this say the other side scored more points?'

     'Yeah. They scored more points.'

     'Well then,' Leroy said, somewhat bewildered, 'what did you win?'

     Lucas Boyd drew himself up to his full five feet three inches. 'We won the respect of the other team,' he said.

     'They didn't cream us,' Andy added proudly. 'Didn't even come close.'

     So Jordan had been expecting a walkover, and he hadn't got it. The idea of a bunch of little Rockys coming up out of nowhere and flattening the champions had always been an unreal fantasy, and now Leroy supposed that he knew it. But this kind of victory was real; maybe Jordan could keep the trophy, but the trophy hadn't really been at stake. The real target had been the coach's superior smile - and he'd never be able to wear that again.

     'Hey,' the caretaker called to them, and they all turned. 'Don't forget your ball.'

     The basketball was lying forgotten over against a set of wall bars, and now the caretaker gave it a shove with his brush to send it rolling across the floor towards them. Danny was nearest; he caught it and gathered it up.

     For a moment he just stood there, weighing the ball in his hands. The nearest basket was about twenty feet away. Leroy had never claimed any particular powers as a mindreader, but right now it wasn't hard to guess what Danny was thinking.

     'Ten dollars says no way,' he said.

     Danny looked at Leroy, and then at the basket. 'You're on,' he said, and he crouched down a little and tried to get the measure of the distance before making the throw.

     But before he could launch, Lucas called to him. 'Hey, man,' he said, 'hold it.'

     Danny looked at him. 'If you miss it,' Lucas continued, 'you'll be mad at him. If you make it, he'll be mad at you. Ain't no friendship worth a basket. Not even close.'

     There was no argument. Danny threw the ball to Andy Parachek, and the four of them moved towards the door. On one of their coaching visits, Danny had earmarked for future interest a place less than two blocks away that offered some of the best-looking chili dogs that he'd ever seen.

     It was the ideal kind of venue for a victory celebration.