Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3) (2 page)

“Hi, Nina! Thanks for coming!”

“Meg! Good luck!”

She was walking in front of the bench now, passing within a yard or so of Meg Brennan, the coach. Meg was a perfect picture of a women’s basketball coach: short blond hair, slightly aggressive posture, blue sport jacket to go with even bluer Scandinavian eyes—she did not look as though she could have donned a uniform and raced onto the court to play point guard; no, she looked like she already had on such a uniform, there pressed and ready underneath her white blouse and gray slacks.

“Go get ’em, Meg!”

“We will, Nina!”

Nina was prevented from saying more by the onslaught of the pep band, which, filling the fifteen rows immediately above the home bench, said:

“BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
 
DE

 
BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

Rest rest—

“BLAAAAAAAAAAAHHH DE

 
BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

Rendering even trivial conversation impossible.

So Nina, team roster clutched in one hand, purse in another, began to make her way up toward the higher reaches of the bleachers.

Every now and then, she turned to look at the court beneath her.

A sea of blue and white (The Bay St. Lucy Mariners) pulsated on one end, and an equally turbulent body of red and white (Pass Christian: The Lady Pelicans) formed its own intricate patterns on the other.

Layup lines.

Passing drills.

Players clapping, shouting encouragement.

“Go girl!”

“Hey babe, hey babe!”

“Looking good, Alyssha!”

“You go, Girl!”

“BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
 
DE

 
BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

“BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
 
DE

 
BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

Rest rest—

“BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
 
DE

 
BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

“BLAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
 
DE

 
BLAAAAAAAAHHH DE BLAAAAAAAHH!”

She found a seat near the top of the bleachers, spread herself out, took off several layers of winter clothing, yelled or whispered pleasant inanities to whoever was the appropriate distance away, and looked down at the scene below.

Meg caught her eye again.

Meg who, a few players gathered in a tight circle around her now, was drawing diagrams with chalk on the gym floor, pointing animatedly to them as though they were some cross between algebraic formulas and sorcerers’ formulas.

Meg was a favorite in the town of Bay St. Lucy.

They completely forgave her for being gay.

In the first place, lesbianism and women’s sports went hand in hand, and everybody knew that.

But more importantly, Bay St. Lucy had always prided itself as an artist community or a fishing village, or some cross between the two. Whichever one it was, it was populated by folk of a different sort, by people who, had they themselves been judged by the norms of conventional society, would have been cast into outer darkness and forced to serve penance until showing the willingness to go to work in regular jobs, and wear socks.

So they completely understood Meg’s ‘arrangement’ with Jennifer Warren, proprietor of ‘Jenny’s Art Treasures,’ partially because it was none of their business and, more importantly, because it made them feel liberal and free.

If such a relationship could not exist in a community of artists and beach bums, then where could it exist?

But no matter. People were standing now to hear the band’s rendition of
The Star Spangled Banner.
Some had their hands over their hearts, some simply stood straight as they gazed somberly at Old Glory and the Rebel Flag (Nina had long since come to terms with the fact that Mississippi wasn’t about to change its colors, and contented herself with the fact that the thing at least hung below its counterpart on the flagpole in the Northeast gym corner)—and some, teenagers mostly, could not stop engaging in a bit of mild flirting, hair pulling, beneath the gym rows, kicking or wild, purposeless giggling, despite the solemnity of the occasion.

Their parents would have words for them later on.

But the end of the song always forced Nina to the brink of tears.

AND THE HOOOOOME

OF THE

BRAAAAAVE!

The last lines always made her tear up and she wished for Frank, so she could hold his hand as they resumed their seats.

But there were other things to think about.

Because the game had begun!

Pass Christian won the tip.

Trouble there. They had a six foot tall girl.

(Why did all the opposing teams always have a six foot tall girl?)

Still, there was hope. Bay St. Lucy stole a pass, worked the ball down the court, and began a fancy outside semicircular weave, Alyssha Bennett
 
dribbling hard to the right, slipping it behind her back to Sarah Gray, barreling left over the top of the key, Sonia Ramirez taking it right back in the other direction, Haley Stephens right there on another switch, everyone milling inside, screening, turning, heading out, then back in, then the ball back in Haley’s hands, shot clock now at ten seconds, now at eight seconds, back to Sonia and then—

Bullet pass under the basket!

Alyssha! All alone! Uncontested layup!

The crowd went wild and began singing a fight song that The University of Wisconsin had somehow in the last century stolen from Bay St. Lucy and patented under the name “On Wisconsin.”

GO YOU MARE-NERS!

GO YOU MARE-NERS!

FAT FAT FAT FAT FAAAAT

(The word ‘fat’ being as close as southerners could come to ‘fight.’)

“YEEEAHHH!”

Braying like a bull (and as large as a bull), Jackson Bennett, the once quite young and naïve lawyer recruited as a partner by Frank, the now proud parent of a budding basketball star, leapt to his feet.

“YEEEAH!
 
GO MARINERS!”

Jackson pumped his fists twice and then sat down again in a ten-foot space that he’d carved out for himself (obsessive male parents not wishing to be bothered with other human companionship while watching their offspring compete)—quickly returning to his task of filming the game on the small IPhone thrust out arms’ length and gripped between two hands.

Elsewhere in the crowd, organized cheers began.

WATERMELON WATERMELON

WATERMELON RIND!

LOOK AT THE SCOREBOARD AND SEE WHO’S BEHIND!

Pass Christian inbounded

And Nina, watching the superbly confident young women representing her school and her town, each knowing exactly what to do, each with eyes fixed on her opponent—began to feel the melancholy she always felt (although she fought hard against it) while watching this team, or the volleyball team, or the softball team.

Her chance to do these things had come—and gone—almost fifty years ago.

An era before Title Nine.

Which had changed women’s sports forever.

All right, she was only five feet four.

But wasn’t that the perfect height for a point guard?

Look at Amanda Billingsley, hurling herself on the floor to tie the ball, and then Alyssha following, now all of them, three of our players down, two or three of theirs, a human knot contorting and writhing and fighting desperately for the ball—

––would she have been able to do that?

––and, if so, how might that willingness have changed her life?

In 1963, her year of graduation, what choices did she have?

She could have gotten married, of course, as she did, to her eternal happiness.

But what if Frank had not—well, happened to her—what then?

What if there had not been that junior prom (Frank was a senior), and the kiss in the vacant lot behind the Presbyterian Church, wisteria all abloom on the May night and a thunderstorm rumbling in the distance out over the twinkling coastal oil rigs—

––what if there had been no Frank (because there certainly was no other, nor could she have ever conceived another)?

She would have gone on to teachers college, as she did.

She would have become a teacher, as she did.

And as for other choices?

A secretary.

A nurse.

And that was about the limit of it.

She would not have joined the Air Force to become a fighter pilot, a choice which lay before Haley. She would not have become a firefighter, which Alyssha could do if she so chose. She could not have become a police officer, nor would she probably have considered attending The University of Mississippi Law School (nor The Yale Law School, for that matter).

No, these young women inhabited a different world.

One which began for them with stolen passes at center court, and fierce rebounding battles, and pressure three point shots in the last seconds of the ball game, the entire town standing as one and bellowing like a sea beast come aground in this glowing, pulsating, huge hall of a gymnasium.

What was the call?

Bay St. Lucy ball!

Long pass—

Haley open from the three point line, then a long, arching shot, soft, soft—

SWISH!

THREE POINTS!

Bay St. Lucy five, Pass Christian nothing!

The quarter wore on, and all players, even the opposing ones, assumed identities, became heroes or villains as the action developed.

Haley off to Alyssha over to—nope, ball stolen by the tall red-haired girl from Pass Christian down court to the slender girl with glowing ebony skin over to the feisty blonde who was built like a fire plug and who hurtled over everything in her path then her pass re-stolen by Sarah across to Sonia and then—OH NO BAD PASS knocked away by tall Hispanic girl with ponytail taken by fireplug girl—my god, she’s everywhere—down court to red head over to frizz hair number thirty-two—who’d just checked into the ball game—and bounce pass to ponytail back to frizz over to taller-than-anybody-on-our-team, then back to fireplug—

––and two points.

And so it went.

Halftime score, twenty eight to twenty eight.

The entrance hall into the gym had been transformed into a winter version of the county fair. The choices of food were somewhat more limited, of course:
 
hot dogs or popcorn or pizza or nachos (with cheese sauce) or huge pickles.