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The playground was at the end of a street littered with trash and broken dreams. The jungle gym had lost its horizontal bars, and the swing set had no swings. A single floodlight shone over a backboard holding a rusted rim and the fragments of what once had been a net. He parked his car and reached in the back for his basketball. Only a kid would be dumb enough to trust as she did. A kid who hadn’t been knocked around enough by life to smarten up.
But she sure as hell had been knocked around now. He stepped through a muddy pothole on his way across the street to the empty playground. She’d been so knocked around, she’d never be dumb again.
He reached the cracked asphalt and began to dribble the ball. It hit the asphalt, slapped his hand, felt good, like something he understood. He didn’t want to remember her lying in his bathtub encircled by candles. Beautiful, wet, dreamy-eyed. He didn’t want to think about what he’d done to her.
He drove for the basket and slammed the ball home. The rim quivered and his hand stung, but the crowd began to roar. He had to pull out all the stops—show the crowd his stuff—make them scream so loud he couldn’t hear anything else, especially not the taunting voices inside him.
He spun past an opponent and took the ball to center court. He faked to the right, to the left, then came off the dribble for a quick jump shot. The crowd went wild, screaming out for him. Doc! Doc! Doc!
He grabbed the ball and spotted Kareem just ahead waiting for him, a cold killing machine. Kareem, superhuman, the face of his nightmares. Fake him. He started to swing left, but Kareem was a machine who read minds. Quick, before he sees it in your eyes, before he feels it through his pores, before he knows all your darkest secrets. Now.
He wheeled to the right lightning fast, jumped, flew through the air…Man can’t fly, but I can…. Past Kareem…into the stratosphere…SLAM!
Doc! They were on their feet. Doc! They screamed.
Kareem looked at him, and they silently acknowledged each other with the perfect respect that passed between legends. Then the moment was gone and they were enemies again.
The ball was alive beneath his fingertips. He thought only of the ball. It was a perfect world. A world where a man could walk like a giant and never feel shame. A world with referees who clearly signaled right and wrong. A world without tender babies and broken hearts.
Jake Koranda. Actor. Playwright. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He wanted to give it all up and live his fantasy. He wanted to be Julius Erving running down the court on feet with wings, leaping into the clouds, flying higher, farther, freer than any man. Slamming the ball to glory. Yes.
The screams of the crowd faded, and he stood alone in a pool of rusty light exactly at the end of nowhere.
Baby on the Run
Chapter 15
Fleur tried to sleep on the plane to Paris, but every time she shut her eyes, she heard Jake and Belinda. Fuck my daughter, Koranda, so she can save her career.
“Mademoiselle Savagar?” A liveried chauffeur approached her as she stood by the baggage carousel at Orly. “Your father is waiting for you.”
She followed the chauffeur through the crowded terminal to a limousine parked at the curb. He held the door open for her, and she slipped inside, into Alexi’s arms. “Papa.”
He pulled her close. “So, chérie, you have finally decided to come home to me.”
She buried her face in the expensive fabric of his suit coat and began to cry. “It’s been so awful. I’ve been so stupid.”
“There, there, enfant. Rest now. Everything will be fine.”
He began to stroke her, and it felt so comforting that she closed her eyes.
When they reached the house, Alexi helped her to her room. She asked him to sit by her side until she fell asleep, and he did.
It was late when she awakened the next morning. A maid served her coffee in the dining room along with two croissants, which she pushed away. She couldn’t imagine ever putting food into her mouth again.
Alexi came in, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. He frowned as he noticed the jeans and pullover she’d slipped into after her shower. “Did you bring no other clothes with you, chérie? We will have to get you some today.”
“I have other things. I just didn’t have the energy to put them on.” She could see that he was displeased, and she wished she’d made an effort to look better.
He surveyed her critically. “How could you do such a thing to your hair? You look like a boy.”
“It was a good-bye present for my mother.”
“I see. Then we will have it taken care of today.”
He gestured for the maid to pour him coffee, then pulled a cigarette from the silver case he carried in the breast pocket of his suit coat. “Tell me what happened.”
“Has Belinda called you?”
