I do not like basketball, I think I have said. There's too much losing and all that running. Could we just sit down and have a conversation
But it's okay because sometimes you get completely mindblown, and yesterday was the time Bess got to blow us all okay wait lemme go back
It's a regular day, an 80 degree day in February, where all the plants are like wait is it summer and the horses are shedding and getting ready for bikini weather, and it's a regular day, dementia mom, dash to costco, love boat
then Bess whose car is broken from recent tragic accident and getting fixed so no car, she's driven home by Rayleen, star of the basketball team and Mya, sister star of the team, the two best women in women's sports if you ask me and no one does cause they're AMAZING like they throw the ball up like it's nothing they plow through thick ferocious players like the muds of Cambodia after a flood and they STILL MAKE THE SHOT, and I still remember that I met Mya in a laundromat when she was 14 and I thought she was nobody, just this basketball player's little sister and now I sit in the stands and watch the ferocity they are and feel wide eyed emoji
In the silent presence of skilled greatness. You know that feeling. Where you're just watching because you can't believe a girl can be so strong. I love learning this every time
Okay so anyway Bess's car broken, the girls bring her over after school, no practice cause there's this big game, this game that will decide if they go on to win the final game and win the city championship. It's Bess's senior year, we're down to the final four, our team and Kennedy, and another game between Chatsworth and George Washington Prep. Whoever wins these two games battle it out for city.
So the girls come home busting in yelling and dogs leaping around and there's suddenly food happening, have to make quesadillas and steak and mac n cheese from yesterday and I made a smoothie cause it's hot and I put spinach in there secretly so they'll have vegetables all the food groups. They have only a little while til their game so they eat and chatter and then Rayleen takes a nap on the couch and Mya lays face down on the dog bed and passes out and Bess is asleep in her room. I put mom away and do horse chores and it's getting to be 430 and suddenly it's time to braid hair and Mya has to have a perfect line in the back or she takes it out cause she's OCD and we tell her she's an asshole and I sit with Rayleen one minute when she's first waking up and she says I couldn't really sleep cause I'm nervous about the game and I say well you played so hard at the last one, was it hard to do? And she said no actually it was easy. I said maybe you could just play like that then. And everyone brings something to each game, we never know how it will go, but there's more than just one person out there. And she says yeah, with her calm thoughtful face, I have a good feeling about this one.
So Bess and Mya get their hair braided and there is always much cussing and calling each other names and screeching and fumbling with bags and water bottles and yelling you're stupid and talking about finding Rayleen's tickle spot when they're on the court and then they pile into Rayleen's car and she really just got her license and moms like me furrow their brows watching them leave hoping they make it to the gym
Then B and I gather our stuff, waters and an apple and I have tickets on my phone and it's sold out and I worry what if my tickets don't show up I never bought them on the phone before but we get driving toward the gym and B has a bad cold but he just survived a horrible car accident so the fact that he's alive in the car right now is no small miracle
On the way Bess texts me oh no Mya's hair has a problem when are you coming and I say we are almost there
Because after doing Stonehurst Talent Shows all those years crammed into a tiny auditorium, I never get to any event except twelve hours early because I want to be FIRST in line so I can be in the front row. We get there at 5 and the game is at 7 and there is no one there yet, just the principal and the director of athletics who laughs seeing us, and I say there was a hair emergency
So I quick fix Mya's one side braid back into perfect, and then B and I are just hanging around, putting stuff on our seats to save them, waiting
Then it's all happening, Emma's friends show up who love Bess and stand in for Emma who is too far to come, and a few of B's tiny fam show up, and Nathan and Brie and Elaine's mom and Kayla's mom and Ray, Rayleen and Mya's dad who's also their killer coach, then in the first ten minutes of the game star player Rayleen gets kneed in the thigh and goes down hard and then
then it looks so bad like a bad dream she's crying and flat on the floor and we're like the game is over we need Rayleen is this how it ends is t his going to be her last game, losing in pain
She gets back up and goes to the bench and Kayla comes in and we're like wait no this is not good and Mya who shoots deadly 3 point shots from across acres of land, Mya's shots are all missing like 5 in a row and we don't want the other team to see that do they have to be watching they will feel superior and they start getting ahead and we are losing
I'm watching Bess on the bench, she is watching the game too and we are watching it spiraling down. The team is relying on Bess's bff Elaine, who is fierce but we need Rayleen to plow through people she is a battering ram and she's back in the game but she is dragging her leg she's showing up but she's fading into the background trying to see what she can do on only one leg and then she gets punched in the eye with an elbow and is out again
In the meantime Mya is fouling in weird ways and you can only get 5 fouls and the refs aren't calling our fouls fairly, and their dad Ray gets mad and has to leave the game
But before that it is the third quarter and Bess is sitting on the bench and we're down by 9 and the team is playing on shards of itself. She says I looked at the score and I thought damn somebody has to do something. Somebody has to step this up. I looked around and there was nobody. I thought I guess this has to be me. I want to win.
She went into the game like a dragon. She has none of the fine tune training that Rayleen and Mya have had from the minute they were born to a coach Ray. She has had training because B always knew what she needed but she never liked basketball really, she was 13, 14, 15 and wanted to be left alone, wanted to not try for anything, wanted to be invisible and angry and lost.
But not today. Today she channeled all that covid isolation and years of confusion and darkness, she pulled the tab and let it all come flooding out. She got a paddle and oared herself into that team stream of hell and she started hitting people in the face with her paddle. She guarded carefully, she used her body like a weapon, she shoved people out of the way. She wanted the ball and she wanted to help her friends struggling and she wanted to put it in that basket and she wanted them to win the game.
It was maybe only 16 minutes total, the last two quarters of the game. Maybe 20 minutes on the clock. This girl was unstoppable. The showing up, it means alot. Being there and holding your arms up and saying GIVE ME THAT LET ME HELP I CAN DO IT BELIEVE IN ME, I BELIEVE IN ME
That's what did it. Elaine said before Bess came out, Elaine was wide eyed out there, thinking they were gonna lose, whispering under her breath we're going to win we're going to win we're going to win
And then Bess added her whoosh of energy and Elaine passed her the ball and whoosh Bess throws in a 3 point shot that pushes them over the edge and the room exploded in screaming chaos. The whole bench leaped up. The sound was deafening.
Then they're still playing and she has to make free throws and she throws in two more, like it's nothing, like the future of their team doesn't depend on it
She comes in clutch for verdugo hs girls' basketball, changing the course of their lives in this moment, altering the day forever, which is all you can ever do right
Show up and do it
When the buzzer sounded and it was the end they had made it to the final two, they would battle for the championship. Rayleen had gotten her energy back and was her old self fighting again toward the end and Mya had gotten hit in the face and fouled out, but because my little baby who we fought to have back 17 years ago, because she was here there is levity and everyone is screaming because this was a hard won battle. Maybe this is the whole reason B and I met on Critters, just for this moment of this girl, to grow her, to get to be here and see that.
No small thing.
The aftermath of games are always good (if there's no fight club like last time), there's a black night sky hanging over the huge field, the streets are empty, and we're all filtering out floating on the backs of our king's court of daughters, and they are relieved and laughing and back to their pregame selves of cussing and joking and frolicking, and this is why I like the kids, because they know how to play.
