Geri wasn’t there when he showed up at the house. It was a Sunday afternoon, and she had gone with Bird and her mom to Wal-Mart. When they dropped her off, she noticed an unfamiliar gold car in the driveway and wondered if Warren’s wife Carlene had gotten a new one.

              He was sitting on the end of the couch, hugging the arm of it like it was a flotation device. He looked even smaller than he was, sitting like that. Geri glanced at Ganny and couldn’t determine her mood from her expression. She looked completely neutral.

              “Hi Tang,” Scott said.

              Geri mumbled a greeting in return and walked on through the living room to her bedroom and threw her Wal-Mart sack on the bed. She had bought two new bras. She seemed to wear them out so quickly. The elastic in the straps was not true to its name; it didn’t “last.”

              “Geri!” Ganny called.

Geri sighed and returned to the living room, but only as far as the doorway. She leaned on it, her arms crossed below her breasts.

“He’s got somethin’ he wants to tell ya.”

              His hair was thinning. He ran his hand over it and tried a weak smile.

              “I was just wondering if you might like to do something with us sometime.”

              Geri stared at him. Was he for real?

              The silence lengthened.

              “Listen, I realize I haven’t been any type of father to you, and I’m not trying to now, not really. I would like to be a part of your life again though.”

              Geri looked at Ganny, who was purposely facing the other way, suddenly intent on something fascinating out the window. She had a big portion of her skirt wadded up in her left hand.

              “I wasn’t thinking anything fancy . . . well, not at first. Maybe just go out to dinner with us or something like that.”

              Again with the weak smile.

              Nothing fancy at first? What was that?

              Geri felt anger rising in her like bile. The man had no idea what her life had been like from when she was six until she was fifteen and came to live with Ganny. He had no clue.

              As if he read her mind, he offered, “I can’t say how sorry I am that I . . that we let you go . . .”

              Geri’s anger came out in a bitter laugh at the idea of them “letting her go.”

              “I know, I know. It was awful. I was selfish and didn’t think about what was best for you.”

              Got that right.

              “I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I wish I could start over with you”—

              “But you can’t.” Geri spoke for the first time.

              “I know.”

              “Why do you want to?” she asked now, the words like flames blazing out of her.

              He sighed, ran his hand over his hair again and looked at Ganny, as if that would help. She was still pretending she wasn’t in the room.

              “I’ve grown up”—

              “Me, too,” Geri interrupted again.

              “Yes. I can see that. Like I said, I am sorry for all the mistakes I made in the past. I know I don’t have a clean slate and can’t get one with you. Can we just start from here? From now?”

              “Where is she? Why didn’t she come?”

              “Sheila? She’s at work.”

              “I’ll have to think about it.”

              Yeah right, Geri thought. I’ll give it about thirty seconds . . . and counting. Oops, time’s up. See ya.

              She started walking through the room toward the kitchen, but she stopped and turned toward him.

“And my name is Geri.”

She went into the kitchen without waiting for a response. She opened the refrigerator and loudly began taking sandwich items out and putting them on the counter.

              Geri could hear Ganny getting up from her creaky rocker and both of them walking toward the door. Something was said but she couldn’t catch it.

              She didn’t turn around but she listened as the front door opened and closed and Ganny shuffled back across the room.

              “I don’t want anything to do with him.”

              “I didn’t figure ya would, but I had to find out for sure. As bad as he is, he’s kinfolk, and I ought to know—when it gets down to the wire, kinfolk are the ones ya need.”

              “I don’t need him.”

              Ganny came in and sat on one of the old yellow chairs at the kitchen table.

              “Well, I ‘spect not. Someday things might change though. He will always be your father.”

              “How can you say that?” Geri said, spinning around and dropping the mustard knife on the floor.

              “Because he is. I don’t mean nothin’ more about it than that. Someday ya might want to know him.”

              “When donkeys have wings. . . . I guess I could have asked for some back child support while he was here though, huh?”

              “What for? We got what we need.”

              “We need a car.”

              Ganny had never learned how to drive, but Geri had her license now—just nothing to use it on.

              “I could have told him if he’d give me that gold number out there he drove up in, that I’d go to Sonic with him.”

              “That’s downright mean, Geri.”

              “No, downright mean is not giving a damn as I went from foster home to foster home, from juvenile services to group houses to . . .”

              Geri finished making her sandwich and put everything away. Neither of them spoke for a while.

              “What are ya goin’ to tell him?”

              Geri’s impulse was to say he could go to hell. But she was surprised to feel that some part of her that wasn’t hardened against him. Some tiny little part, but she wasn’t willing to admit it to anyone.

              “That if I wasn’t the town basketball star he still wouldn’t care anything about me.”

              Ganny didn’t respond. Geri knew it was because what she had said was true, and there was no way of getting around it.

              “Now that I’m worth something to him—being seen as the father of the basketball star—he has some time for me.”

              Ganny traced some spilt sugar on the table with her index finger.

              “Well, I don’t have time for him.”

* * *

            After their last home game, Geri came out of the locker room and saw Coach and her dad talking at the edge of the gym floor. They were both smiling. What the hell.

            At practice the next day, Geri said to him, “I noticed you talking to . . . my dad.” The word was still very hard to say.

            Coach Thorpe brushed his hand over his sweaty forehead. Sometimes he worked as hard as they did running up and down the court during a practice.

            “He means well.”

            “How do you know what he means?”

            “Just give the guy a chance”—

            Geri spun around and started walking away.

            “Everybody needs a father. You’ll regret it someday.”

            Once again, Geri was saved by Bird walking out of the locker room just then. She noticed the pre-rage expression on Geri’s face and caught up with her before she could turn around and start cussing Coach out. No way would that do them any good.

            “Come on, leave it. He ain’t worth it,” Bird said, tugging at Geri’s arm.

            “Don’t be so tough, Tang!” Coach yelled at them from the opposite side of the gym. Geri tried to pull her arm away from Bird. “Not off the court anyway.”

            Other girls were coming out of the locker room then. Johnna and Beth were arm in arm, whispering, fabulous smirks on their just-washed faces.

            Perfect, Geri thought, my whole life is a mess for everybody to see. She was the only girl on the team who lived with a grandparent. She was the only girl on the team who didn’t live with two parents at home.

            If Johnna and Beth had walked by them, instead of taking the opposite route out of the gym, Geri knew she would have swung at them. Bird was strong. But she wasn’t that strong.

            And Bird wasn’t there later in the day when Geri was leaving history class and bumped into Beth. She automatically said, “sorry” before she realized who she had run into. When she saw, Johnna had immediately materialized beside her.

            “Ooh, tough girl can apologize. Isn’t that sweet?” Johnna said, tossing her long black hair back like she was Cher getting ready to sing.

            “Screw you.”

            Johnna reached across Beth, who seemed to be holding back. It was no time to cause trouble, which could get any of them possibly suspended from school and thus ineligible to play. Johnna didn’t seem to have that concern. She pushed hard against
Geri’s shoulder and Geri spun back against the wall, off balance.

            When she regained her balance, she pushed past Beth, who seemed to be trying to get between them and slugged Johnna with the hardest right she had in her.

            Johnna came back with another shove and Geri grabbed her arms and they both fell to the floor. Johnna was pulling her hair and kicking at her. One kick hit her in the stomach and almost winded her. She struggled to get up or at least get in a position where she could hit her again. Scrambling around on the floor pulling hair was not in her playbook.

            Geri was dimly aware that they had been encircled by a group of kids who were always happy to see something to break the tedium of the school day. They were all curiously quiet though, no one in either girl’s camp. And then the principal was there before Geri was able to regain her footing. He pulled them apart and yanked both of them up—not a easy task, since both girls were as tall as he was—and probably stronger since they didn’t have to compensate for a potbelly.

            As he led them to his office, Geri noticed Bird standing in the hall, her beautiful dark face even darker with the look of disappointment it wore. Geri looked away and tried to ignore the bile rising in her throat.

            “Okay, what’s the story?” Mr. Renfro said, as soon as they were in his office with door closed, both girls sitting on the other side of his desk.

            Neither spoke. Geri was staring at the floor, and she didn’t know what Johnna was looking at.

            “All right. Johnna, you go first.”

            “I was just walking down the hall . . . “

            Geri noticed three knuckles on her right hand were scraped. One was bleeding. She tried to wrap her hand in the hem of her shirt and wipe it off before he noticed. Her hair was hanging in her face, but she didn’t try to push it out of her eyes. The pause lengthened.

            “Yes? And?” Mr. Renfro said, his voice rising.

            It occurred to Geri that Johnna wasn’t going to admit to starting or even participating in a fight. She knew as well as Geri did what it would mean.

            “Didn’t you two get in some sort of altercation in the locker room last year? I seem to remember you were suspended for three days for that. Am I right?”

            Questions that need no answers. This was school, Geri thought. Her stomach still felt like a deflated basketball.

            “Well?” Mr. Renfro practically screamed.

            The door opened at the same time that an urgent knock sounded against it.

            “Excuse me. Could I sit in on this?’

            Coach Thorpe.

            “Why not? Maybe you can get something out of them. If neither one speaks up, they’ll both get suspended, even if what was going on out there wasn’t actually a fight. Although that bruise forming on Johnna’s cheek and the bloody hand this one has surely seems to tell a story.”

            Geri could feel the tension in the man standing behind her. It transferred to her own body. She had let him down. She had let herself down. Bird. Ganny. The team. Frustration began to force silent tears out of her. The weight of his disappointment as he stood behind her was too much to bear.

            “So, apparently Johnna has nothing more to say. How about it, Tangerine?”

            Geri  clutched her stomach and desperately reached for the trash can at the edge of the principal’s desk. Most of the bile made it in. The rest splashed against Coach Thorpe’s tennis shoes.