to leave the park and take their nets with them. For a few summers, they and their friends had talked about it ceaselessly, as if it was an issue they should submit to the UN. Finally, she asked them what they needed nets for anyway and they all turned to her at once and froze. Six boys with exactly the same look on their faces, and no one moved and no one said anything. She turned and walked away, at which point the cursing and revenge plotting resumed.
■
Ndiya stood there revising what she knew about the physics of basketball and thinking how none of this strangeness boded well for her evening. One of the old men on the picnic table turned around and yelled, apparently at her,
–Miss, would you mind and please tell Mrs. Clara to tell Melvin that a shot’s about to go in?
Exactly then the other old man interjected,
–No it’s not!
He didn’t take his eyes off the nearly stationary ball. The first man turned to him:
–Yes it is!
Then he turned back to her:
–Would you mind and see does the boy want to come and watch?
And she did. She minded. It seemed like it’d been two lifetimes since she’d minded someone. She minded him back up the block feeling like she was moving on a sidewalk that was itself moving almost fast enough to get back to where she came from if she kept on minding. She hadn’t even thought about which way to go or to make sure she knew who Mrs. Clara and Melvin were. She was just minding.
When she reached the old woman and the tsunami boy, they were packing up the yarn and needles and boats. Ndiya mustered,
–Ma’am, Mrs. Clara, ma’am, the gentleman down the, er, down the alley, I mean in the park?, a gentleman down there would like to know does little Melvin here want to come and see the, ah, the shot go in, or, or not?
Mrs. Clara looked up at Ndiya as if they’d known each other for life:
–You hear that, Melvin? Now go on. This nice young lady, what’s your name honey?
–Ndiya, my name’s Ndiya, ma’am.
–Yes, yes, I see. Well, Melvin, you go on with Miss Kneed-in-the … you just go on and see does the shot make it in the net tonight or doesn’t it, OK?
Mrs. Clara handed Ndiya a small backpack. Melvin moved his goggles up to stick above his eyebrows, this pushed down his brow and seemed to make his whole face frown.
–OK, Nana.
Then he raised up his hand and, taking Ndiya’s:
–Let’s go!
Ndiya turned, holding little Melvin’s hand. She heard Mrs. Clara charge,
–You mind now, Melvin, you hear?
And so, Melvin minding Mrs. Clara to mind Ndiya minding an old man on a picnic table, the both of them sloshed and squashed back to the opening of the alley and up to where the two old men sat concentrating on the shot.
–You all just made it, won’t be a minute—
At which point the other old man said,
–Bet it will!
And the first continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted,
–before Nesta out there makes his shot and Lee Williams, right here, loses another quarter to yours truly, Lucious Christopher.
Lucious Christopher extended his hand and Ndiya, feeling like she was still minding, introduced herself,
–My name’s Ndiya. Ndiya Grayson.
–Grayson … Grayson. Lee Williams, you ever known any Graysons?
Lee Williams, eyes drilling the floating ball, answered,
–Used to know some Graysons from visiting my cousins down in Greenville, but that’s a long time ago.
–Don’t mind an old man’s lack of manners.
Lucious Christopher said, gesturing to the bench in front of them,
–Young lady, have a seat.
And, then, a light tap on her shoulder.
–Ah, beg your pardon there, er, you don’t mind me saying, but you a little old for swimming on the block there, Miss Grayson. You should go on down to the beach.
Lucious Christopher and Lee Williams looked at each other with the all-knowing, we-best-watch-this-one look on their faces. Ndiya’s face heated up as she ignored them. She had a spinning-dizzy feeling like she was a ball of string that was being very quickly unspooled.
And then Lee Williams:
–Grayson! Yes, Lonnie and Lucky, old Clem and them—but that’s all I can get back, it’s been a long time.
Lucious Christopher:
–Is that right? I knew a Lonnie and a few Luckys, can’t recollect they last names, but now you mention it, years back, didn’t one of them Grayson ni—well, brothers—take up with a fine young woman who got herself one of them new apartments off in The Grave? Then, remember there was that crazy thing with—
Lee Williams cut him short:
–Don’t know. Like I said, they was Greenville ni—I mean, brothers—when I knew them. Now, hush while I sight-guide Nesta’s brick on toward the hoop in such a way that it don’t do a “Chocolate Thunder” on Junior’s backboard.
Ndiya sat, stunned, thinking, this is not happening. Melvin immediately climbed into her lap to wait for the shot to go in or not. While helping Melvin change out of his boots, she welcomed her thought: “This might not be happening, but it’s certainly going to impede the dreaded conclusion of my evaluation of date number two.”
Wrong again. As they watched the ball gain speed on its way down the slope toward the front of the rim, Ndiya heard the faint sound of a piano from above the court. The music sounded like it curled around itself in circles of differing speeds and radiuses. In wide, slow sweeps cut by faster, tighter arcs, the first note of each phrase was loud and clearly audible. The notes that followed faded until they almost weren’t there at all when a new phrase began somewhere else, loud at first and fading as if it curved away. It sounded like the piano rode the curve out of earshot. Then, there it was, come around again. It sounded to her like wheels inside wheels.
From time to time, the phrase would start with a note sung by someone and once in a while a few notes would be sung inside the phrases. She’d just noticed it, but Ndiya guessed that the music must have been there all the time because, now that she did hear it, the players’ movements seemed to follow the phrases. They didn’t all follow each phrase, though, nor did they move for the complete audible length of the brief, arc-like tunes. Nonetheless, now that she’d noticed it, the music provided a cadence that held the scene together. Up close, it all seemed less like the baseball diamond inside ripe nighttime and more like she was watching through the thick glass of an aquarium. Movements behind that aquarium glass had always made Ndiya slightly nauseous so she closed her eyes to steady herself. This was a very bad idea.
Upon closing her eyes, Ndiya felt like she’d been lowered headfirst into the music coming from a window above the alley. Instantly, the whole of date number two flashed through her body and behind her eyes as if it had all happened in about twenty seconds. It didn’t move like her memory; the fluid thing washed over her body in one piece like if you watch a wave pass overhead from beneath the surface of the water. She felt the pull of its weight draw over her and move through her at the same time. She saw herself standing immobilized at the Violet Hour window watching the SnapB/l/acklist folks toasting Maurice at a large table to the right of the bar. Maybe it was the way that window framed the scene? Or being home in Chicago? She didn’t know. In that window she’d seen clearly for the first time the vast distance between herself and these youngerish, blackified, professionalized