Ambitious Read online

  I still remember heading to the locker room during half-time at one of the biggest games of the year. I’d scored twenty-one points in the first half of the game. I was on fire! But I remember thinking that I wasn’t feeling basketball much anymore. And it hit me that night as I jogged through the hallway of our school, and into the locker room—a towel flung across my shoulder and a bottle of Gatorade in my hand. As Coach Austin laid out his strategy for the second half of the game, I was dazed—in la-la land. I wanted to tell him that night that I was thinking about transferring to another school, but I didn’t want to ruin the rest of the game for him or my teammates—or for my father who was sitting in the stands wearing a silver-and-blue jersey and yelling every time the officials made a bad call. I couldn’t bring myself to do that to them that night. But I had a plan.

  After a brief conversation with my literary arts teacher, Miss Claiborne, who encouraged me to “do something with my acting,” I couldn’t wait to find out more about Premiere High School’s drama program. I skipped school the next day and walked the twelve blocks to the performing arts school in the heart of Manhattan. I snuck in with a group of students and headed straight for the theater. With a baseball cap pulled down on my head, I took a seat in the back. Hidden by the darkness of the theater, I watched as students rehearsed lines for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. At that moment, I knew that I belonged there.

  “I have to audition for that school,” I told Preston, my best friend since fourth grade.

  Although we attended separate schools, Preston and I grew up together. Our fathers had been good friends and associates for a long time. I’d spent many weekends at Preston’s mansion in New Jersey, where I’d learned horseback riding and how to play a round of golf. We ate lunch by ourselves at his father’s country club when we were merely ten years old. When we were both twelve, Preston’s father sent us to a real Knicks game in the family’s Bentley. Although his nanny tagged along as our chaperone, we still had a great time.

  Preston was an exceptional violinist. His love for music started when we were small boys. He’d taken private lessons and learned how to play classical music. However, when he visited our Manhattan apartment, he brought his violin and spent the evening mimicking the sounds and rhythms that he heard on the BET music videos. I didn’t live in a mansion, but at our house, Preston was able to relax and be free. He didn’t have to worry about the pressures of being rich. At my house we ate chicken nuggets, drank red Kool-Aid and watched ESPN and MTV. In my room, he slept in the top bunk and threw kernels of popcorn at me from above. He loved my house, and I loved his. Unlike him, I thought it was cool being rich. Although my father was somewhat wealthy, we didn’t live as Preston’s family did. Preston enjoyed the simple life that I had. Sometimes I wished we could switch places—if only for a week.

  Preston wanted to attend Premiere High—a place where he could be free with his violin and play the type of music that he enjoyed, instead of the stuffy classical music that he learned during his private lessons. However, his father would never allow him to attend a school like Premiere. Breckinridge Academy was where his father attended high school; his grandfather and his great-grandfather also went there. His choices were slim. I often joked that Preston’s father was such a busy man, he would never know if Preston were to transfer to another school. He would laugh and then throw a pillow at me.

  “Shut up, Bishop,” he’d say.

  “No, seriously. How often do you see your dad anyway…once a week…once a month?”

  “He travels a lot,” Preston would say, “but he left his spies in charge. Well, one spy…the nanny, Sydney.”

  “She’s cute,” I would tease. “I could keep her distracted for you.”

  “You’re a dreamer.” He called me that all the time.

  I stepped out of Delilah, grabbed my book bag from the backseat and hit the power locks. As I strolled through the parking lot, I heard the screech of tires burning rubber through the parking garage. Preston whipped his white sports car around the corner, almost running me down. He rolled the window down and gave me a wide grin.

  “What’s up, man?” he asked.

  “Why you driving through my parking garage like a maniac?” I asked.

  “I’m having a great day, my friend!” he exclaimed.

  “What makes it so great?”

  Instead of answering, he rolled his window up, whipped into an available parking space, stepped out of the car and raced toward me.

  “We’re going to a basketball game tonight,” he announced.

  “What game?”

  “Breckinridge Academy meets…guess who…?”

  “Who?”

  “Your old high school!” he exclaimed.

  “Are you kidding? That can’t be. Private schools don’t play public schools. They’re in a totally different league.”

  “Your old coach got together with our coach and put together a scrimmage.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really,” he said. “Now, I would suggest you go throw that old book bag in your room. Put on some nicer clothes. Something not so corny.” He laughed.

  I looked down at my argyle sweater vest and slim jeans. “No can do,” I said.

  “Okay, fine. Keep on the corny clothes, but come on so we don’t miss the tip-off. That’s my favorite part of the game,” he said.

  “No, I’m saying I can’t go.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t go back there. It’s too soon. The wounds of my leaving haven’t healed yet. I haven’t seen my old coach since I broke the news to him. It would be too awkward.”

  “You don’t have to see him,” Preston said. “There will be hundreds of students in the stands. No one will even notice you.”

  “Are you kidding? I was voted last year’s homecoming king. I was the LeBron James of the school’s basketball team,” I bragged. “Do you know that I never completed one homework assignment last school year?”

  “That’s not anything to be proud of.”

  “I had a girl for every subject, and they insisted on doing my homework for me. Needless to say, I aced all of my classes.”

  “You’re a vain one, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not vain, just confident,” I explained. “Besides, I’m not so popular anymore. Not at Premiere. When I walk through the doors there, I’m just an ordinary kid.”

  “Give it time, dude. As soon as you land a major role, you’ll have the babes kissing your feet again,” Preston said and smiled. “But for now, we got a game to go to. And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “Okay, man. Let me go change shirts. I got ketchup on my sweater at lunchtime,” I said. “And by the way, did I tell you that I got a parking ticket today?”

  He followed me into our apartment building, where I called for an elevator. We took it to the eighth floor.

  “You didn’t drive Delilah to school.”

  “I did.”

  “Your dad know?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “He’ll never know.”

  After changing shirts, Preston and I headed to my former high school for the basketball game of the century. Stuffy old Breckinridge had been undefeated for the past two years. It would definitely be an interesting game.

  In the stands of my old stomping grounds, I watched the game through dark shades and a baseball cap pulled down low on my head. We missed tip-off, but the first quarter of the game was filled with excitement. Breckinridge was ahead by two points, and one of its players was at the free throw line. I watched as Coach Austin paced back and forth across the buffed floor, that usual wrinkle in between his eyes. He seemed stressed out all the time; too stressed to be coaching a bunch of knuckleheaded teenagers. Breckinridge’s center, a tall guy with blond hair, sank both free throws into the basket, placing his team ahead by four points.

  “Drew Bishop. Is that you?” asked the girl wearing sexy skintight jeans and a cashmere sweater. With both hands on her hips, Angie was much pre
ttier than I remembered.

  “Why are you wearing those stupid glasses?” asked her friend, Dana. I remembered Dana. She was a loudmouth and in everybody’s business. I didn’t like her much.

  “And what happened to you calling me, dude?” Angie asked. “Did you lose my number?”

  “I, uh…” I didn’t have a chance to respond because they were tag-teaming me.

  “Why are you here anyway?” asked Dana. “Don’t you go to that artsy school now?”

  “Yes, I did lose your number,” I told Angie, completely ignoring Dana’s question, “but I would love to have it again. Maybe I can call you sometime.”

  “Cool.” She grabbed an ink pen out of her purse, took my hand in hers and began to scribble her phone number into the palm of my hand. “Plug it into your phone before you wash your hand, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I admired her body as she stepped down from the bleachers, remembering that my attraction to Angie had been totally physical. She had the dumb-blonde thing going on.

  “Why didn’t she just let you plug the number into your phone right then, dude?” Preston asked the question that I was thinking.

  “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

  We both laughed.

  Right before the game ended, I made my way to the floor and toward Coach Austin. After losing to Breckinridge, I knew that he’d probably be in a bad mood and the reunion might be a little painful. But it was something that I had to do. They’d lost but played a great game, losing by only one point. But if I knew Coach Austin, a loss was still a loss in his eyes. When I approached, he was shocked to see me.

  “Bishop!” he yelled like a boot camp sergeant. It was the same voice that I often heard while running down the court and he wanted me to be somewhere else. It was always startling when he said my name. Bishop!

  “Hey, Coach.”

  “You left without saying goodbye. What’s wrong with that picture?” he asked. He often talked in what seemed like riddles. Or asked questions that he really didn’t expect an answer to.

  “I should’ve said goodbye?” It was more a question than a response.

  “Darn right you should’ve said goodbye. That was a wimp move.”

  “Sorry?” Again a question.

  “You left all of this—” he motioned toward the basketball court “—to go play house at that school in Manhattan.”

  “I, um… I went to pursue my dreams of acting.”

  “Whatever.” He was insensitive. “You ready to come back and play ball or what?”

  “Nah, Coach. Not right now.”

  “Okay, well, when you come to your senses, give me a call.” He turned his back to me. “Okay, you little girls…let’s get to the locker room. I got some stuff I wanna talk to you about.”

  “Congratulations on playing a great game,” Preston said to Coach Austin.

  Coach Austin turned around and gave Preston a strange look. “A great game? What do you mean, great game? We lost!”

  “You lost by one point,” Preston explained.

  “Whether it’s ten points or one point, we still lost,” he said and then marched toward the locker room. Left us both standing there without words.

  “That went well,” Preston said as we left the gym.

  “I’ll say.”

  “Well, if it isn’t Benedict Arnold. I mean, Drew Bishop,” said Antwoine, my friend and former teammate.

  “What are you doing here, Drew?” asked Kev, one of my best friends since elementary school. It felt strange that he was greeting me this way—as if we hadn’t slept over at each other’s houses since we were small.

  “Yeah, man, what are you doing here?” Andre asked. “This is no place for a sellout.” His remark stung even more because I had known him since fifth grade, and considered him a close friend.

  “Oh, so I’m a sellout because I decided to pursue my dreams?” I asked.

  “This was supposed to be our year to shine, man. Basketball is what we do. Not Shakespeare,” said Kev.

  The three of them continued to take shots at me, and I didn’t know how to defend it. I felt like Benedict Arnold. As if I’d betrayed everyone. Facing Coach Austin had definitely been something I wasn’t prepared for. Before the game, I wasn’t even sure I’d made the right decision—transferring to Premiere. But after my short-lived conversation with my former coach and my friends, I knew even more how important pursuing my dream was. If playing a good game didn’t account for anything, as Coach Austin had said, then I was in the wrong place. And if my friends couldn’t support my decision, no matter what it was, then they weren’t my friends at all.

  I felt more resolved with my decision as I hopped into the passenger seat of Preston’s car.

  nine

  Marisol

  The portable stereo was plugged into the wall. Jasmine and I danced to the sounds of Justin Bieber in an empty dance studio. When we mentioned that we were planning to audition for Dance America, J.C. had given us permission to use the studio during our lunch period in order to practice our routine. She thought it was wonderful that two of her students were auditioning for the competition. She even offered to help with our choreography if we needed her to. We took her up on the offer; we could use all the help we could get. With the Dance America auditions in one week, we had a lot of work to do.

  J.C. showed us a few of her dance moves; moves that I couldn’t believe she owned. She was graceful, and somewhat funky. She moved as the dancers did in some of the videos I’d seen on MTV, but with style. As we followed her lead, she taught us things that we would never have come up with on our own. With moves like this, we would definitely be taken seriously in the competition. We would look like professionals.

  “From the top girls…one, two, three…” she said after slipping a different CD in. She had become our self-appointed choreographer. “The bass in this song is stronger and will work better for your routine.”

  In just a short time, she’d switched up our music as well as our routine. I kept thinking about Luz and how she wasn’t able to join us. She would have a lot to learn in just a short time, but I had faith in her. She was not just an excellent dancer, but a quick study. If anyone could learn a dance routine in a short time, it would be her. I would show her every move, just as soon as I made it home from school. I’d already sent her a text and let her know that we were switching things up a bit, but that she would catch on quickly. She didn’t respond, but I knew she would. She wasn’t allowed to use her cell phone during class, but I knew she’d text me back in between classes. I couldn’t wait to bring her up to speed.

  As our lunch period ended, I wiped sweat from my brow with a small towel. I tossed the towel to Jasmine to wipe her sweat away. She started panting and coughing, and I couldn’t help but think that it was because she smoked those horrible cigarettes. She’d be a much better dancer without them.

  “You ladies really have potential,” J.C. said, “but you don’t have much time to work on this routine. So here’s what I’m gonna do. I’ll meet you here every day this week. Same time, same place. Which means you’ll have to sacrifice your lunch hour.”

  “You mean you’ll actually work with… Train us for Dance America?” I asked.

  “Only if you want me to,” she responded. “I would love to see someone from Premiere to actually take Dance America by storm. The potential is here.”

  Just listening to J.C.’s words had me excited inside. The thought of Jasmine, Luz and I making it to the finals gave me chills. I wished that Luz was a student at Premiere and could take advantage of the lunchtime rehearsals.

  “There’s a third member of this group. I wish that she could be involved, too,” I explained. I didn’t know if mentioning it would do any good. You never knew what strings grownups could pull.

  “Does she attend Premiere?” J.C. asked.

  “No. She attends a public school in Brooklyn—” I decided to reach for the moon “—but maybe we could do this in the evenin
gs, and she could come by here after school.”

  “Won’t work. I don’t have much time to dedicate after school. This is the best time for me,” she explained. “She’s probably not going to work out as the third member of your group. Maybe you should consider just being a two-some.”

  “Well, we started out as a trio. And that’s how we’re gonna stay,” I said. “I’ll bring her up to speed.”

  “Whatever makes you happy,” she said. “You should get dressed and get to your next class.”

  “We appreciate your help, J.C.,” said Jasmine as she pulled a pair of jeans over her leotards.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” I added.

  “Glad to help,” said J.C. as she removed her CD from the stereo and wiped sweat from her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

  I put my jeans on and pulled my shirt over my head. Tomorrow I’d sneak my father’s camcorder from its place on the shelf. I would videotape us as we danced our hearts out. With a dance coach like J.C., we truly had a chance at stardom.

  I stepped into my advanced algebra class feeling great. My day was going well. I took my usual seat in the third row; fourth seat from the rear of the class. When Drew waltzed into my class and began searching for a seat, I wondered what was going on. He spotted me and took the seat at the desk right in front of me.

  “What are you doing in this class?” I asked. We were well into the second week of school and I had never seen him in the class before.

  “I got reassigned here,” Drew explained. “They had me in some bogus math class at first. Funny seeing you here. Isn’t this an advanced class?”

  “Yes, it is.” I’d always excelled at math.