Play Dead

“Fine, but you want me to stop seeing Stan, right?”

Laura hesitated. “I’m not exactly saying—”

“You don’t fully approve,” Gloria tried.

“I’m not sure, that’s all.”

“But you won’t tell me why you feel this way.” Silence.

“Look, Laura, I’m over thirty. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Stan is just about forty. We’re not children anymore. I love him, Laura. I love him very much.”

“I don’t mean to try—”

“I really hoped you of all people would be happy for me,” Gloria interrupted. “But if you’re not, it doesn’t change a thing. I’m in love and I’m going to keep on seeing him.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Laura snapped. “He’s wrong for you.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

“He’s crazy, Gloria! He hurts people! He’s even—”

“I don’t have to listen to this! You’re not my keeper!”

Gloria stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

Laura fell back in her chair. Good going, Laura. Way to be. Keep your cool. She sighed. Her whole body felt drained by the encounter. What was she supposed to do now?

She went over their conversation in her head. Something kept gnawing at Laura’s subconscious—something her sister had said. Laura thought for a moment. When she realized what it was, her whole body went cold. Gloria’s words of defense—they rang so familiar in Laura’s ears. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Gloria was, after all, right. When you thought about it, what right did Laura have to interfere in Gloria’s love life? Her sister was an adult. She had the right do as she pleased. Laura replayed her conversation with Gloria in her mind one more time. The whole scenario reminded Laura of . . .

... of David and her.

Her throat clenched. The parallel dug painfully into her. Oh, God, hadn’t her mother said the same thing to her about David? Hadn’t she warned Laura to stay away from David, warned her without any discernible reason?

“Please, Laura, trust me. Stop seeing him.”

“But why?”

“I beg you. He’s not right for you.”

Laura had not uttered a word to her mother since David’s death. What had she been trying to say back then?

“We may get married.”

“Never, Laura. I will not let you marry that man under any conditions.”

But she had defied her mother. She had run off to Australia and married him anyway, and now Laura understood something else: her words alone could never stop Gloria from seeing Stan, just as her mother had been powerless to stop her from seeing David.

Laura stared out the window. She wanted to sprint down the hallway, corner her sister, and force her to hear the awful truth. But she knew she could not. Had her mother been in a similar position? Was there something terrible she had wanted to tell Laura about David but for some reason couldn’t? And now a crucial question poked at Laura’s heart with a finger of bone—a question that finally had to be answered: What had her mother been hiding about David?

MARK Seidman took his usual seat on the uncomfortable wooden benches. He spotted Timmy Daniels practicing his jump shot. It was an impressive spectacle. Orange rainbow after orange rainbow ended with the ball dropping through the metal circle. Mark’s eyes slid away from the basket and toward Clip Arnstein and the media, who were standing off to the side admiring Timmy’s flawless performance.

Mark continued to watch Clip Arnstein. The older man’s arms were folded across his chest. He wore a floppy white hat, shorts, and a green Celtics shirt. He looked more like an American tourist than a basketball legend.

“Nice shooting, kid,” Clip called out.

Timmy stopped and sprinted over to where Clip was holding the press conference. “Thanks.”

The reporters crowded in. “Are the Celtics going to repeat as champions, Clip?”

“I hope so.”

“Hope?”

“Doesn’t pay to be too cocky,” Clip explained.

“Do you think you can pull it off without David Baskin?”

“Look, fellas, no team can lose a player like David and not feel it. A guy like White Lightning doesn’t come around very often. Will we be contenders? Yeah, sure, of course, we will. Will we be the champions? That, my friends, only time will tell. There are so many factors that come into making a champion. Healthy players and luck, to name just two.”

Mike Logan, the reporter from the Boston Globe who had covered the Celtics for the last decade, stood up. “Clip, last year you told us that David Baskin was the world’s best outside shooter and Timmy Daniels was second.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I, Mike? The three-point contest proved it.”

“No argument there,” Mike Logan agreed. “My question is this: Now that David is dead, is Timmy the world’s best shooter?”

Before Clip could answer, a loud voice from the stands shouted, “No!”

The reporters, the Celtic players, and Clip Arnstein turned toward the blond heckler in the stands. “Then who is?” Logan called back.

Mark stood. “You’re looking at him.”

MARY Ayars heard the doorbell chime. The sound echoed through the house, finding Mary in the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand. Lately, Mary had been drinking a tad more than usual, a tad more than she should. She knew that she was dangerously close to having a drinking problem, that she should really cut back. But the pain of both her guilt and Laura’s continuous rejection gnawed at the back of her brain until she craved just one more glass of white wine. Spanish white wine. Rioja was her favorite.

Mary glanced at the clock. Eleven a.m. Not even noon and she was already on her first glass.

The doorbell sounded again. Mary put down her drink, checked her face in the mirror, and headed toward the front door. She opened it and gasped. “Laura!”

“Hello, Mother,” Laura replied politely. Her mother looked worn but still her beauty was dazzling. Laura noted that she still looked a good fifteen years younger than her true age of fifty.

Mary tried to gather herself. Her daughter had not uttered one word to her recently, not since she had eloped with . . . “Your father isn’t here.”

“I didn’t come to see him. I came to see you.”

“Me?”

“I think we should talk.”