And then the finale.
Scant seconds remained, the outcome very much in doubt. The beloved boys from Beantown were down by one point. A man wearing the familiar Celtic green and white passed the ball to David. Two men from the enemy camp covered him like a blanket. One second remained. David turned and launched his unique, high-arching, fade-away jump shot. The shot lofted the orange sphere impossibly high, heading for its target from an impossible angle. The crowd stood in unison. Laura’s pulse raced as she watched the ball begin its descent, the game and hearts of the crowd riding on its slow movement toward the basket. A buzzer sounded. The ball gently kissed the top of the glass backboard, and then the bottom of the net danced as the ball went through for two points. The crowd screamed. Laura screamed.
The Celtics had won another game.
“Telephone is ringing, Mrs. Baskin,” the Australian accent said.
“Thank you.”
Laura rolled over on her stomach, the phone gripped tightly in her hand. She wondered if it had been during that fade-away jump shot that she first had begun to fall in love with David. She heard a click and the ring that originated in Boston traveled halfway around the planet to the small town of Palm’s Cove.
On the third ring, the receiver on the other end was lifted. A voice came through the static-filled wire.
“Hello?”
“T.C.?”
“Laura? Is that you? How’s the honeymoon?”
“Listen, T.C., I need to talk to you.”
“What’s up?”
She quickly recounted the past day’s events. T.C. listened without interrupting, and like Laura knew he would, he immediately took control.
“Have you called the local police?” T.C. asked her.
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll catch the next plane out of here. Captain said I’m due for a vacation anyhow.”
“Thanks, T.C.”
“One more thing: stress to the police the importance of keeping this quiet. The last thing you need is a plane- load of reporters pounding on your door.”
“Okay.”
“Laura?”
“Yes?”
He heard the strain in her voice. “He’ll be all right.”
She hesitated, almost afraid to speak her mind. “I’m not so sure. Suppose he has one of his . . .” The words stayed in her throat, the thought too unpleasant to be spoken. But T.C. was one of the few people David trusted. He would understand what she was talking about.
“T.C is my closest friend,” David had said to her the previous year. “I know he’s rough around the edges, and I know you don’t easily trust, but when there’s real trouble, T.C. is the one to call.”
“What about your family?” Laura had asked him.
David shrugged. “I only have my older brother.”
“What about him? You never mention him.”
“We don’t talk.”
“But he’s your brother.”
“I know.”
“So why don’t you two talk?”
“It’s a long story,” David said. “We had a problem. It’s all in the past now.”
“So why don’t you call him?”
“I will. But not yet. It’s not time.”
Not time? Laura had not understood. She still didn’t.
“Just get here fast, T.C.,” she said now, her voice quavering. “Please.”
“I’m on my way.”
IN Boston, Massachusetts, home of the beloved Celtics, T.C. placed the phone receiver back in its cradle. He glanced down at his dinner—a Burger King Whopper and fries he had picked up on the drive home—and decided he was no longer hungry. He reached for a cigar and lit it with a Bic lighter. Then he picked up the phone again and dialed. When the receiver was lifted on the other end, he spoke three words:
“She just called.”
TWENTY-SEVEN hours passed. Terry Conroy, known to his friends as T.C., a nickname given to him by David Baskin, fastened his seat belt as Qantas flight 008 made its final approach before landing in Cairns, Australia. It had been a long journey, beginning with an American Airlines flight from Logan to LAX, then from Los Angeles to Honolulu with Qantas, and finally, the flight from Honolulu to Cairns. Almost twenty hours in the air.
T.C. pushed open his shade and looked down. The water of the southern Pacific was unlike any other he had ever beheld. The color was not merely blue. Describing it as blue would be like describing Michelangelo’s Pietà as a piece of marble. It was so much more than simply blue, too blue really, gleaming in its purity. T.C. was sure he could see straight through the miles-deep water right to the bottom. Small islands dotted the ocean’s canvas, beautiful landscapes formed from the rainbow corals of the Great Barrier Reef.
He loosened his seat belt because his newly formed gut was getting crunched. Too much junk food. He looked down at his rolls of flesh and shook his head. He was starting to get fat. Ah, face facts. For a guy under thirty, he was already too flabby. Maybe he would start an exercise program when he got back to Boston.
Sure, right. And maybe he’d meet an honest politician.
He threw his back against his seat.
How did you know, David? How did you know for sure?
T.C. had turned twenty-nine last week, the same age as David. They had been roommates at the University of Michigan for four years, best friends, amigos, partners, equals; and yet David had always awed him. It wasn’t his basketball ability—awesome as it was—that set him apart. It was the man, the man who seemed to let problems and unhappiness run over him like small ripples of water. Most felt David was carefree because he had everything going for him, that he had never known real hardship or conflict, but T.C. knew that was bullshit, that David had survived the early wallops to end up on top, that he still had his moments of private hell that fame and fortune could not counter.
“It’s not real, T.C.,” David had told him during his rookie season with the Celtics.
“What’s not?”
“The fame. The girls. The groupies. The adulation. The people who hang around you because you’re famous. You can’t let it mean anything.”
“Well, then, what is?”
“The game,” he replied, his eyes lighting up. “The feeling on the court. The competition. The moment when the game is on the line. A perfect pass. A fade-away jump shot. A dunk. A clean block. That’s what’s it’s all about, T.C.”
And years later, T.C. thought now, Laura was put on the top of that list.