I drank my water in two long gulps.
“Honey, you stink,” Ma said, pulling away from me.
“Sorry. Gotta do my workouts, though. Every morning.”
She rolled to the other side of the couch. “Get off! You’re going to make the cushions stink.”
“Ma!”
“I’m serious.” She pushed my shoulder and laughed and I rolled onto the floor. “Come on,” she continued. “You’ll ruin the rug.” She leaned back on the arm of the couch and crossed one leg over the other. She could have fallen asleep right there. The bags under her eyes were prunes. Loose strands of hair sprang from her head like she’d pulled a wool hat off and the static electricity still hung in the air around her. But, despite her exhaustion, somehow she still always found a smile for me.
“What’s the matter with you?” she said, yawning. “You look strange.”
“Nothing,” I said.
She rubbed her face and squinted at me and I knew her mind was working to put it all together. But she was so tired. “I can trust you, right?” she asked, still slouched in the corner of the couch. “You’d tell me if something was the matter?”
“Of course,” I said quickly, even though there was a helluva lot on my mind. But I didn’t feel like telling her about any of it. “I’m just going to rinse off,” I said. It was going to be a two-shower day. “Then I got to hit the court. Coach is picking the starters this week.”
“You’ll make it,” she said, as if fighting for a starting spot was NBD. As if it’d just come to me because I wanted it, not because I had to fight for it.
I left Ma slumped against the armrest and went straight to the bathroom. I got the water running hot first, then switched it to cold, just to fire up the senses and wake up. I still felt a little groggy from last night and I was pissed at myself, because after my workout I wanted to get right to the court. I thought I had a real shot at being a starter, but next week was too important to coast through. I had to hit more three-pointers when we went around the world. I had to have the higher free-throw percentage. English was so good, he didn’t have to give up the ball, so if he did, I had to make sure he felt more comfortable giving me the ball—and that meant working harder to get open, and more importantly, making the shot when I got the ball. Because the scouts were coming. Of course the stands were going to be filled, but a few of those seats at every game were the seats we were all playing for. Full ride to Michigan State. Full ride to UNC. My dad had college paid for because he’d gone through ROTC at City College, but I had to do even better. Butler, Notre Dame, Villanova. Wisconsin, Arizona, Duke. Saint Springfield’s son needed to go full ride too. Scouts paved the way—and I had to show them who I was. I had to be a starter.
And, as I was trying to psych myself up for a day of drills down at Gooch, I stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel, holding my stank-ass clothes in a wad, and nearly ran right into Ma. She held my jeans in one hand and my flask in the other. She jutted her chin at me.
“Quinn Marshall Collins. You tell me the truth this minute and you start from the very beginning.” She pinched her lips tight. “Is this how you want the world to know you? Some kind of derelict who doesn’t give a damn about his actions?”
I stuttered. It was the strangest thing. I’d never been caught before. It was like there was regular me, the one Ma smiled at and loved, the one I’d always been, and then this new guy, the one shivering in the hallway outside the bathroom, standing in his towel, wondering why Ma had gone looking through my room while I was in the shower.
“Can I just get dressed?”
Ma sniffed. “You have thirty seconds.” Then she turned and marched to the kitchen. I broke the world’s record for throwing on sweats and busting back to the kitchen. She sat on one side of the little Formica table, steam from her mug of tea rising up to her face as she stared out the window to the Barrows’ house next door. The flask lay askew beside the mug. She ran her hand over her eyes, and then up over her forehead like a visor.
“You know,” she said slowly, “this stuff can kill you. I know you don’t think so, but it can.”
“Ma—” I said, sitting in the chair across from her.
“Listen,” she interrupted. “When you act like this—when you sit around, breaking the law, thinking it is okay—you embarrass me, you embarrass your brother, and you embarrass yourself. You have more important things to worry about, young man.” The flask sat on the table between us and she picked it up. She waved it gently. “This is going in the garbage.”
“Okay.” Then I had to add, flat-out lying, “It was Guzzo’s idea.”
“But you took it from our house. I just checked.”
She’d never done that before. Plus, I only took a flaskful after she’d emptied a glass or two from the bottle, and there was always a new bottle to replace the old one.
“And even if it was.” She waved the flask again.
“Guzzo drank nearly the whole thing.”
“Guzzo drank the alcohol. It was Guzzo’s idea. You make it sound like you weren’t there, Quinn. But you were. You were there.”
Maybe it was the alcohol still in my blood, but the way she said it, I was there, in the night, that hollowed-out gutted feeling, making me nervous and stupider than usual, like I couldn’t find the simplest words. I saw Paul.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough.”
“I’m sorry I stole the bourbon. I’m sorry I drank it with Guzzo and Dwyer.”
“You talk about wanting to be somebody, you talk about basketball, you talk about making your family proud, but then you act like this. What do you think people are going to think of you now?”
“Jesus, Ma,” I said. “It’s not that big a deal. It was only one night. It won’t happen again.”
She tapped the flask with her finger. “Remember you said that. That it was only this one time. Don’t let it happen again. And don’t ‘Jesus, Ma’ me.”
I looked out the window. “I’m just saying that I know it was dumb, and I’m sorry. I didn’t even have that much to drink. I swear.”
“It’s not about that, Quinn.” Ma leaned forward and grabbed my hands. She waited until I stopped looking out the window and looked at her. “It’s about how the world looks at you and when they do, who do you want them to see? What kind of a person do you want to be? Who do you think you are? You’re the one your brother looks up to. You’re a senior, Quinn. This is the year everyone looks to see what kind of man you want to become.”
I pulled my lips tight against my teeth to try to keep calm and not tear up like a baby. I didn’t want to be a baby. I didn’t want to be a jerk-off.
“I’m doing the best I can here,” Ma continued. “I’m on my own, honey, and I’m doing the best I can to help you, but I need your help to help your brother.”
She sipped her tea and watched me. I sat there like a mute because I didn’t know what to say. I felt like an idiot.
She sighed. “I was going to ask you, but now I’m just telling you. Pick up Willy from his game today. The Cambis are bringing him. In fact, go see your brother’s game. It means more to him if you’re there than me anyway, so go see his game.” She reached for her purse that hung on the back of her chair and pulled a few bills from her wallet. “He looks up to you. Spend some time with him. Take him out for pizza after. Once basketball starts we’ll never see you. Take him out for lunch.”