The Impossible Knife of Memory(46)

“Painting took more out of my arms than I thought,” he said.

“It’s been a while,” I said.

I ran through topics in my head, trying to find something to talk about that wouldn’t lead to trouble. I couldn’t bring up Finn, for obvious reasons. He didn’t want to talk about work. I didn’t want to talk about school. Politics was completely out of the question. Spock had started to gnaw on a hot spot on his hind leg, but to talk about that we’d have to talk about a trip to the vet and that would lead to talking about money and how we didn’t have any because of everything else we couldn’t talk about.

By the time he’d started to sweat, his bad leg was dragging a bit, but his hands were remembering what to do. He dribbled, one, two, three, leaned a bit on the good leg, pulled in his shooting elbow and launched the ball in a beautiful arc that fell, swish, through the basket.

“Nice!”

He grinned and made three more shots in a row. “What time is it?” he asked as I grabbed the rebound.

I passed him the ball and checked my phone. (Finn had texted five times.) “Quarter after. Why?”

“Just curious.” He dribbled with his left hand. “Finally got ahold of your guidance counselor today.”

“Ms. Benedetti? Don’t listen to her. She lies about everything.”

“Don’t worry. She likes you.”

“What did she want?” I asked carefully.

He bounced the ball between his legs and passed it to me. “Still struggling in math, huh?”

I put the ball on my hip. “I have a tutor.”

He wiped his face on his shirt. “Sounds like you’re spending a lot of time in detention.”

I dribbled the ball. “Cruel and unusual punishment, remember?”

“Maybe you should work on your diplomacy a little bit.”

I shot and missed. “They’re all lunatics.”

“Teaching kids like you?” He chuckled, grabbed the rebound, spun around me, and made a layup. “Can you blame them?”

I caught the ball and dribbled it behind my back. “What else?”

“Nothing else.”

I passed him the ball and watched him make a couple layups. Maybe Benedetti hadn’t talked to him about Trish or she had and he didn’t want to discuss it with me. A loud motorcycle headed toward the park. A couple of guys had arrived and were shooting at the other basket. Dad watched them for a minute, dribbled to the foul line, sank a free throw, and raised a triumphant fist.

“Not bad for an old guy, huh?”

Asking about Trish would spoil everything. It wasn’t worth it.

“Watch this,” Dad said.

He dribbled, cutting left, then right, like he was faking out an invisible opponent. He spotted up and tried to jump, but stumbled, landing hard and wincing. The ball sailed over the backboard.

“Oh, God, I said. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He limped a few steps. “Just need to walk it off. Get the ball, will you?”

I found the ball under an SUV across the street as the engine of the motorcycle revved loudly then cut out. I stood, then ducked back down, trying to keep out of Dad’s sight. He looked around once, then hurried over to where Michael sat straddled on his Harley. The exchange— something in Dad’s hand, something in Michael’s— happened so fast nobody else would have noticed it.

My phone buzzed and I took it out of my pocket.

Sup? Finn wrote.

have you been kidnapped by aliens? are they torturing you?

helicopter is gassed up and ready I can rescue you

I wrote back:

i wish





_*_ 51 _*_

As we were walking to gym the next day, Finn asked me to go to see a school with him.

“We’re already in school, dummy,” I said.

“No, goof.” He gently hip-checked me. “College. My mom set up an interview for me, tomorrow. I don’t really want to go, but if you come with me, we can make it into a road trip. An epic road trip.”

“Epic is a stupid word,” I said. “Ninth graders call the cafeteria nachos ‘epic.’ That actress, what’s-her-name, the stoned one, she says her dog is ‘epic.’ And her lipstick.”

“It’ll get us out of here for a day,” he said. “And my mom will pay for the gas.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded.

I kissed him. “That’s potentially epic, I’ll grant you that much.”

Forging my father’s signature on the excused absence card was cake, and it felt good, in a bizarre way, to watch Ms. Benedetti’s face light up as she officially approved the absence. I wrote a note on my hand to bring her back a souvenir.

He picked me up at the corner the next morning. I thought he’d be buzzing on energy drinks and the epic-ness of the adventure, but he hardly said a word. Barely looked at me. When we got to the Thruway, he took a hard right into the commuter parking lot instead of driving through the tollbooth.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did the oil light just come on? Is the engine overheating?”

He shook his head, but I craned my head for a look at the dashboard, just in case. The indicator lights showed no impending disasters. Finn sighed heavily, but still didn’t say a word.