On Guard Read online

  “What’s that, love?” Jade tugged at the silver necklace around her neck.

  “You see,” Mercedes started, but then stuttered like she did back in grade school. “You see how far there is to fall.” Mercedes fell into Jade’s arms, and Jade wrapped her in a hug.

  “You’d better get to practice,” Jade whispered. Mercedes wiped away tears, pulled her bag out of her locker, kissed Jade goodbye, and started toward the gym.

  At the gym door stood not her coach or teammates, but Lloyd Webber, Birmingham Police Detective.

  “We need to talk,” Webber said, his words pushing Mercedes down the mountain.

  23

  “Could I have more potatoes?” Tina Franklin asked Mercedes’s mom, who gladly passed the special scalloped potato, cheese, and chive dish. “These are delicious. I’d ask for the recipe, Mrs. Morgan, but being a college recruiter means I’m always on the road. I’m a Burger King queen!”

  Everybody except Lincoln laughed. Mercedes sensed that Franklin already liked her game but also wanted to like her as a person. This dinner was a test.

  “Very strong team this year, Coach Johnson,” Franklin said, no stranger to polite behavior. “Will you win state?”

  Coach nodded but said nothing. Maybe Coach was more used to fancy meals from recruiters rather than a homemade meal in a small house.

  “We will,” Mercedes said with pride.

  “That’s the kind of confidence you’ll need to achieve good grades and then graduate,” Franklin said. Then she launched into a short speech, probably canned but Mercedes didn’t care, about the values Auburn looked for in a student athlete—that’s the term she always used. “There are plenty of girls who can hit a three-pointer. We want girls who can study, who can—”

  “Why don’t you quit all this jiving and get to the bottom line,” Lincoln said and pushed his full plate of food to the side. He’d been pushing his family aside too: meals unattended, homework neglected, and curfews broken. “Let’s talk money and a ride.”

  Jade squeezed Mercedes’s hand under the table, then whispered, “What’s he doing?”

  Mercedes said nothing.

  “Everybody knows that’s how the game is played,” Lincoln said as he sat up in his chair. Mercedes noticed the swagger in his voice. “Anybody who doesn’t play it is a loser.”

  “Lincoln, that’s enough!” Mercedes’s dad snapped.

  Lincoln rose from the table, picked up his plate, and hurled it against the wall over the sink. “That’s garbage, just like all of you.”

  24

  “She’s not there,” Mercedes told Coach just before heading out onto the court. She was the Auburn recruiter who left immediately after Lincoln’s scene and hadn’t been in touch since.

  “Play your game, Mercedes,” Coach said. “That’s what matters. Just let it be, let it be!”

  As she walked onto the court with the other starters, Mercedes glanced into the stands. Only Jade waved. Her parents were back at Callie’s bedside, and she hadn’t seen Lincoln since his outburst. Her parents had reported him missing, but the police only seemed interested in getting information on Callie’s shooting and the people Callie had been hanging around with. From the second she saw “SNITCH” painted in red on the garage door, Mercedes guessed the shooting was Robert’s doing, but she couldn’t risk leaving her parents to deal with another daughter in the hospital or maybe in the grave. After declining to answer any of Detective Webber’s questions at school, she’d tossed the detective’s business card out with the rest of the trash.

  “Let’s win!” Halle yelled before the jump ball. The ball came to Mercedes, who made a quick pass to Cheryl. Cheryl moved the ball up court and called the play. Everybody got quickly into position with Mercedes cutting to the far left. Cheryl passed to Mercedes, who set for the shot, drawing the double team to allow Cheryl to break for the basket. A quick pass from Mercedes to Cheryl, then a quicker one to Halle. She slammed home the first two to wild cheers.

  Play after play, North executed Coach’s design like they’d practiced. When a set play got shut down, the pass went out to Mercedes, who nailed three-pointers with a military precision. Along with tough team defense and sloppy play by the Hueytown squad, the game was a blow-out by halftime. The only question wasn’t if North would win or even by how much, but if this time Mercedes would break the record for three-pointers in any Alabama high school game.

  Even though they were ahead, Coach launched into a fiery half-time speech until she was interrupted by a knock on the door. Coach looked angry but motioned for Kat to open the door. Jade. Her phone hung as if by a thread in her left hand; tears ran down her face. “It’s Callie,” was all she said.

  25

  “She’s not getting better,” the doctor said. “It is only a matter of time.” Jade stood on the left side of the bed, Mercedes’s parents on the right. The doctor, surrounded by a sea of white faces and uniforms, stood at the foot of the bed looking like the captain of a sinking ship.

  “There’s nothing you can do?” Mercedes’s mom asked. Or something like it. Her vocal cords were choked with tears. Her father didn’t speak.

  The doctor said nothing more. He handed the chart to a young face behind him. What could this child know about death? Mercedes wondered, but then she realized she could ask the same question of herself. Death stole childhood from everyone touched by it.

  “The damage the bullet did to her brain—” the intern started. Each word stabbed Mercedes. While she wanted an answer, this wasn’t the question: not how was her sister dying, but why. What led her to the perilous corner while Mercedes was drawn to the basketball court? Same parents, just three years apart. She knew the answer as clearly as she had on any calculus test: Callie had found Robert, and she had found Jade.

  As the intern talked of pulling the plug, Mercedes stared at the white line threatening to flatline and the machine’s red lights no longer blinking.

  The doctor finally spoke again. “It’s your decision.” He’d washed his hands when he entered the room, Mercedes thought, and he’s doing it again.

  Mercedes took a step toward the bed, reached down, and touched Callie’s face. Nurses, or someone, had cleared the makeup off her skin, removed her long false eyelashes, and detached the gold extensions from her hair. Callie looked more innocent than she had in years.

  “Goodbye,” Mercedes whispered, and she bent over to kiss her sister’s forehead. It seemed cold, the shock of the sensation momentarily freezing Mercedes’s quivering lips.

  26

  “I need to see it,” Mercedes told Jade as they left the hospital. She wrapped her jacket tight as if to hold in the hurt in her heart. How could one bullet, she thought, ruin so many lives?

  “You’re sure?” Jade said. She offered her hand, but Mercedes shoved her hands deep into her pockets. The heat in the Dart didn’t work. Outside a cold rain fell. “I’m not so sure if—”

  “I am,” Mercedes lied. She didn’t know anything for sure except in a few hours her sister would be dead, and she hoped she was strong enough to “let it be” since she could not change it.

  On the way, Mercedes asked Jade to stop at a craft store. Together they created a small memorial with fake flowers.

  “People need to know she died here,” Mercedes said as they pulled up to the corner. The rain had let up some. The wipers on the old Dart left blurry steaks. Jade parked the car.

  Even in the bad weather, two people stood on the corner, wearing black hoodies. The one facing the car smoked a cigarette, and the shorter one, back to the car, rocked back and forth.

  A pawn, she saw when the shorter one turned around and the streetlight hit his face, by the name of Lincoln. Mercedes pushed the passenger door open and ran toward the corner, screaming her brother’s name. Jade followed quickly behind, yelling for Mercedes to stop.

  Joel stepped in front of Lincoln and growled, “Stay back!” He quickly opened his jacket. Mercedes saw the gun butt sticking out from his
boxers. Sister dead, brother set to die, why did she care?

  “Go ahead! Shoot!” Mercedes yelled at the top of her lungs. With Jade’s help, Mercedes pulled her young brother from the corner, all the while shouting, “You will not take him too!”

  27

  “I never understood this part,” Jade whispered. She was one of the few acting somber. Mercedes’s relatives had purged their grief at the funeral, so maybe there was nothing left in them, Mercedes figured, except room for laughter, maybe forgiveness. “How are you doing?”

  Mercedes’s cried-out eyes surveyed the room of long-lost relatives, old friends from the neighborhood, and every single member of her team. They were more than a team; they were family. Mercedes squeezed Jade’s right arm, the “Loyalty” tattoo covered by the long sleeves of a black dress. Love and loyalty were what a person needed. It beat the false promise of the corner.

  “Take as much time as you need,” Coach said after expressing her condolences.

  “No, I need to get out on the court if I want to get away from this.” Mercedes had saved her brother, but for how long? She hadn’t snitched on Robert to the police because it would do no good, but she had told her parents everything about Lincoln. She guessed that Lincoln hated her and would for some time, but one day, he’d thank her for saving his life.

  “It’s a light schedule the next few days. You can miss practice, even a few games if—”

  “No.” Mercedes shook her head, her straightened hair not moving a centimeter. She felt as out of place dressed up and made up as she would have felt resting on the bench. “I think I blew my chance with Auburn, so I need a second chance. Maybe you could call the scout?”

  When Mercedes said those words, she clutched Jade’s hand. For Jade, she’d been that second chance. She hoped she’d done the same for Lincoln, but it was too early to tell.

  “I think with the light on you from the tournament, that won’t be a problem,” Coach said. “You just need to be on guard. Make sure you play your game, not the one you think she wants.”

  Mercedes nodded in agreement, but wouldn’t smile. Not the place or the time. Today was about the past, tomorrow’s game about her future. Mercedes felt stuck in between again.

  28

  Mercedes stared at the game clock telling her she had only one minute left to make two three-pointers. She didn’t want to look at the nervous faces of her father and Jade in the stands, or the scowls of the opposing Huffman squad who’d hacked her hands like machetes. It’s one thing to lose, Mercedes thought, but another to get blown out and have a record set against you. She wondered if she’d play—or foul—the same if she was on the other side of the court.

  “Look, we’ve got this game,” Halle said. “This is for Mercedes.”

  “This is for Callie,” Cheryl added. Coach sat the other starters, but Halle and Cheryl insisted on coming in the last quarter because both could easily feed Mercedes the ball.

  “Thanks,” Mercedes said, bumping fists with her teammates as she headed out to the court. Like before a big fight at school, Mercedes felt the temperature and the tension in the building rise.

  Lydia, the back-up forward, inbounded the ball to Cheryl. Cheryl quickly raced down court and found Halle open at the top of the key. Halle shot the ball out to Mercedes, who passed it right back. Halle looked confused as Mercedes cut toward the baseline. The Huffman guard pushed Mercedes hard, almost sending her out of bounds. The ref didn’t call it. Mercedes moved quickly, gathered in a pass from Lydia, then used the pick set by Halle to get free. The ball sailed from her hands and bounced off the backboard and into the net to tie the record.

  The home crowd exploded. Rather than getting back, North used a full-court press as Coach had instructed, even in the closing seconds, as if the score mattered. The score did not, but the scorer did. Cheryl cut off the inbound pass. A layup was hers, but she passed the ball to Lydia, who rushed it to Mercedes. The defense converged, forcing a pass to Cheryl. Cheryl tossed to Halle, who moved toward the basket, drawing in the defense. Halle passed back to Mercedes. But one second later, the ball swished through the net and fell softly back into Halle’s hands.

  29

  “Foul!” Mercedes didn’t like calling fouls in pickup games, but she didn’t like the hurt Lincoln was putting on Jade. She needed Jade to lay the smackdown on Lincoln about the bad choices he was making. Jade had made some of the same choices. Maybe he’d listen to her.

  “She moved her feet!” Lincoln shouted back. Shouting had been his only volume speaking to Mercedes ever since she pulled him off the corner. “This is bull—”

  “And an odd way to celebrate non-violence,” Mercedes’s dad said softly. She recalled that all his yelling at Callie just drove her further away. Different child, different approach, but it didn’t seem to be working. Lincoln stayed off the corner, but didn’t seem part of their house. After church and a Martin Luther King celebration, they’d headed to the park to play, Lincoln against his will. Their mom rarely left home except to go to work; ever since the funeral she couldn’t face the world with one less child in it.

  “That MLK stuff is crap!” Lincoln said. He picked up the ball and tossed it not just off the court but into the street. Mercedes’s father inhaled deeply like he’d been punched, and went to retrieve the ball. With her father’s back turned, Mercedes saw Jade step forward, nose to nose with Lincoln.

  “You foul me again, little man, I’ll break you in half.” If Mercedes’s father wouldn’t be tough, Mercedes knew Jade would be. Jade got up in Lincoln’s face. “You think you’re real tough, don’t you?”

  “Stop spitting on me,” Lincoln shot back. Mercedes grabbed Jade, but she pulled away. Jade ripped off her long-sleeved maroon shirt, down to a white beater. Lincoln’s eyes grew wide.

  “Get your eyes here.” Jade pointed at the “Loyalty” tattoo on her right arm. “You think you know what you’re getting into with goons like Robert, but trust me, you know nothing.”

  Lincoln laughed, but stopped when Jade grabbed his right arm and twisted it behind his back. “You’re hurting me,” Lincoln whined like the little kid Mercedes guessed he was inside.

  “You don’t know hurt!” Jade shouted into his ear and she wrenched his arm tighter. “How much do you think Callie hurt when that bullet went into her skull? How much do you think your sister and parents hurt watching her lie there dying, kept alive by machines? How much—”

  “I don’t know, let me go!” Mercedes stood in front of the two to obstruct her dad’s view.

  “So what are you gonna do, act all tough, be on the corner, be somebody?”

  Lincoln started to speak but stopped when Jade wrapped her other arm tight around his throat. He tried to pry her arm away without success. “This is what dying feels like. This is what standing always on guard feels like. This is life on that corner. It is nothing but a stranglehold.”

  “I can’t breathe,” Lincoln muttered.

  “That’s right, you can’t and here’s why.” Mercedes felt her heart drop as Jade told her brother stories about gang life, about what she did to get in, what she did to get out. Mercedes didn’t know how much was true and was afraid to ask. She sensed Lincoln was afraid too.

  “So I’ve been there, like when my pops died,” Jade said, twisting Lincoln’s arm tighter until tears formed in his eyes. “Angry and scared. I was acting more like a wolf than a person.”

  “That’s enough,” Mercedes said, placing her hand on Jade’s arm.

  “There’s an old Cherokee story that we have two wolves inside us. Lincoln, you have a bad wolf roaring inside you so loud you can’t hear. But you know what, little man? You have a good one too, like your sister,” Jade said. “She’s that good wolf living in you.”

  Jade released Lincoln. He stumbled and fell to the ground. Mercedes and Jade offered their hands to help him. He waved them away, cleared the tears from his eyes, and coughed. Jade turned and kissed Mercedes.

  “And do you know which on
e wins?” Jade continued.

  “Which one?” Lincoln asked as he brushed off his dirty pants.

  “The one you feed.”

  30

  “Mercedes, in my office,” Coach said as she walked out onto the court for practice.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Cheryl said. Mercedes couldn’t tell from Cheryl’s tone if she was concerned or just busting her. “That’s worse than getting called into the principal’s office.”

  Mercedes put her head down and jogged to the office, but Coach stayed on the court, starting practice. When Mercedes opened the office door she saw Tina Franklin seated at the desk.

  “Sit down, Mercedes.” Tina pointed to the other open chair in front of Coach’s desk. Mercedes tried not to let on how surprised she was to see the Auburn recruiter. “I heard about your last game and that you set the record for three-pointers in an Alabama high school game.”

  Mercedes beamed with pride, but the smile left as Franklin’s frown filled the room.

  “We don’t need record setters at Auburn,” Franklin said. She tapped her left foot against the floor as she spoke. “We don’t need shooters, passers, or rebounders. We need players.”

  “That’s me.” Mercedes started to explain how Coach wanted her to set the record.

  “Your coach explained that to me.” Franklin’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “She also told me about your sister. I’m sorry. She said she thought setting that record was something you needed after what just happened, but trust me, Mercedes, I’ve seen too many girls like you trying to fill the holes in their hearts. Dead brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, cousins. Death is selfish; it never gives back.”

  Images of Callie’s funeral flashed through Mercedes’s head on fast-forward. “I know.”

  “No matter how many threes you shoot, it never really works.”