Brian stood. “You want something to drink?”
“Sure.” Brian left Danny in the stands, alone and vulnerable to conversations with his teammates’ parents. Danny had no desire to make small talk. They’d just want to talk about the game and his leg. Coming here had been a huge mistake.
He pulled out his phone and pretended to play around on it while he watched Star lead the poms squad in a dance to “Jingle Bell Rock” at half court. His eyes met hers for a moment, for the first time all game, and she waved at Danny like they were old friends, like he hadn’t just caught her cheating on him last night. Screw that. His eyes jumped back to his phone. They weren’t friends. They were nothing. Danny was fine. Totally and completely fine.
He was a survivor, able to adapt to any situation. In fourth grade, he’d joined a park district team with a bunch of his classmates. He’d shown up for the first practice having no clue how to play basketball. He could barely even dribble, because he’d had no one to teach him. His dad had left them when Danny was young, and his mom never cared about sports. Danny had tried asking Brian once, but he just hurled a ball at Danny’s head and told him to get lost. So while other guys were out at the park playing sports, Danny stayed home with his mom building LEGOs and doing science experiments.
But Danny put in his time practicing, and somewhere around the fifth game of the season, Danny made his first basket ever. He’d improbably caught a pass and heaved it into the net. It was a total fluke, but everyone clapped and hooted and hollered. Danny knew that feeling of pride. It was the same way he’d always felt after winning the gingerbread competition.
But after the game, another kid told him that Kevin had said Danny was “bad.” He was “bad” at basketball. Danny, who’d won every gingerbread contest he’d ever entered, who had read The Hobbit when he was seven, had never been “bad” at anything in his life.
He was not going to be “bad” at basketball.
He started going to the park alone to practice. He watched old games on ESPN Classic. He studied famous players’ routines and stories. He lived and breathed basketball.
And he made the transition from “bad” to “amazing.”
Suddenly Danny started getting invited over by the coolest boys in his grade, including Kevin. Before basketball, the guys would have secret birthday parties and not include Danny. Now he got all the invites.
He abandoned his old life. He stopped entering the gingerbread contest, he quit science club, and he sold all his LEGO sets. Star’s best friend, Carolee, cornered Danny at his locker in seventh grade and told Danny that Star wanted him to ask her out. Star was the most beautiful and popular girl in his class. Danny had achieved the adolescent dream—fame, popularity, perfect girlfriend.
Until he made one stupid dunk and ruined everything.
Danny watched as the team filed back out of the locker room. His status had been an illusion. He’d thought he meant more to his team, but here he was relegated to the stands. He’d thought Star had cared about him, but now, watching her act all cute and lovey-dovey with Phil, it was obvious she’d never felt the same way about Danny. The contrast nearly blinded him. She liked Phil. She never liked Danny, and he’d been totally oblivious. He’d bent over backward for years to make Star happy; he’d tried so hard to be the kind of guy she wanted him to be.
He couldn’t change his leg situation or the fact that Star was with Phil now, but Danny could avoid making the same mistake again. He’d never jump into something because the girl was hot or popular. He’d stop wasting his time pursuing any girl who obviously didn’t like him for him.
Danny would never date another Star.
…
On Sunday afternoon, Holly trudged upstairs, toweling off her wet hair. With so many people currently living under the same roof, it was the first time she’d been able to squeeze in a shower all day. She found Elda up in the attic, where she’d thrown herself sideways across the hide-a-bed and buried her face in a pillow, sobbing.
“Oh my God, Elda.” Holly, in her robe and slippers, perched next to her cousin’s feet and patted an ankle. “What happened?”
Elda heaved herself up to a sitting position. Tears had moistened her face, which only gave her a dewy glow. Elda didn’t cry like normal humans. Her skin wasn’t blotchy. Her eyes weren’t red. “He dumped me. Teddy dumped me.”
“Oh.” Holly searched for the right words. She hated to see Elda sad, but Teddy wasn’t worth the tears. It might take Elda a while to come to that realization herself, but she’d get there eventually. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“He called me this morning and officially broke it off. He wants to go out with Kara. Kara!” Elda wiped her eyes. “Why am I so bad at this? My relationships never last longer than a minute.”
At least Elda had gotten the chance to be in a bad relationship. Holly, who liked to think that she understood how the whole game worked, never even got that far. “I don’t know, Elda. Maybe you’re just going after the wrong guys.”
“No.” Elda straightened. “It’s me. I always ruin things. I’m just, ugh! I always say the wrong thing. Remember how I talked about a freaking dead squirrel with Danny at the coffee shop?” Elda shook out her shoulders. “Everything sucks right now. I need to stop thinking about this.”
“Maybe you need to find a guy who’s not scared of a little carcass chatter?”
“Yeah, right. That guy doesn’t exist. What I need is a better filter, or any filter at all.”
“I think I have something to take your mind off guys.” Holly got up and went to her suitcase, from which she pulled out her grandma’s day planner. Elda needed to see the book more than Holly needed to hide it. “I found this.” She handed it to Elda and sat next to her on the pull out couch.
“Is this Grandma’s?” Elda started flipping through it. “It’s her journal. Oh my God, so cool.” Elda stopped on one of the last pages of the calendar, the entries for this week, the one leading up to Christmas. “Aw. She was supposed to go to a holiday dance tonight.”
The calendar had been filled through December 31, which was sad and romantic and morbid all at once. Grandma’d had no clue that she wouldn’t make it to the end of the year. She’d gone about her business, making appointments and scheduling events. Holly couldn’t stop thinking about the impermanence of life. One minute you’re here, and the next? Gone.
“She has a date,” Elda said. “Frank.”
That had been another discovery, thanks to the journal. Grandma’d had a “friend,” a guy named Frank, whom she went out with regularly. They were supposed to go together to this dance tonight. “Poor Frank,” Holly said. “I had no idea he existed.”
“Me neither.” Elda flipped to the end of the book. “I wonder if our dads knew?”