Page 8 of Courtside

“What day do you get in?” Sage gently pressed her finger into the dirt in one of her bright ceramic pots that sat on the top of a bookshelf that she’d set up in her living room. When she couldn’t feel any moisture, she went to the kitchen and grabbed the watering can she kept on her counter. Filling it, she moved methodically from plant to plant, checking each one before sprinkling the dirt with water.

“I fly in on Thursday around noon, and then leave late Sunday morning,” Brinley was saying. “I’m going to stay with McKenna at her place, but you’ll be around to hang, right?”

“Of course.”

Sage missed her sister, and genuinely looked forward to hanging with her and her friends throughout the weekend. They were wild when they were together — something about the sorority bond that got them all worked up, even though Brinley and her friends were now in their early thirties.

“How’s mom?”

Brinley hesitated before responding. “She’s fine. I was home last weekend. The garden looks amazing, as usual. She was canning tomatoes and making pickled jalapeños. She’ll probably send some with me when I come to visit.” There was a slight pause. “She was going on about good marketing jobs in LA. She had a whole folder on her desktop of saved job postings with the Kings and Dodgers.”

Sage let out a groan.

Cheryl Fogerty was, in most ways, a quintessential hippie: hated war, only ate real food that was either grown by herself or someone she knew, and was a feminist to her very core. However, after their dad left them for his secretary when Sage was a kid, their mom had gone from being an easy-going stay-at-home mom to suddenly being saddled with the full financial responsibility for two kids and their household. She’d had to take the first job she could find, which was a substitute teaching position at the local high school. Somehow, she’d juggled raising two kids on her own and getting a teaching certificate, and had worked hard ever since.

She was undeniably a badass. Sage was forever impressed by what she’d accomplished, infinitely grateful for what she’d sacrificed to give her and Brinley a comfortable life.

But a bitterness had gripped Cheryl Fogerty when her husband left. She told her daughters over and over again that their primary mission in life should be finding independence — financial and emotional — and that putting themselves in positions where men were in power over them was the ultimate act of betrayal to the women who’d fought for their rights.

Brinley, for her part, was crushing it. A female lawyer taking the world by storm, working at a firm where her boss was a woman. Her income was more than Sage could imagine, and in their mom’s eyes, being in a position of never having to rely on a man was the definition of success.

Hence their mother’s obsession with trying to figure out how to turn Sage’s sports management degree into something lucrative. And the unfortunate reality was that, at the moment, the positions with the most potential upward mobility and earning potential in sports were in social media and marketing. Especially for women.

There was also the added piece that their mom assumed that Sage would be moving home to California after graduation. Brinley had, so of course it was presumed that Sage would follow.

But Sage didn’t want to work in social media, and she definitely didn’t want to move home to Santa Barbara.

“You there?” Brinley asked, and Sage realized she’d gone quiet, lost in her thoughts.

“Sorry. Yeah. Just trying to grapple with the existential dread that comes with thinking about what happens after graduation.”

Another laugh from Brinley. “You’ll be incredible no matter what you decide to do, Sage. And ignore Mom. Don’t let her bullshit become yours. She loves us, but she’s…well, she’s Mom.”

Sage felt a wave of gratitude for her sister. “Can’t wait to see you,” she said.

“You too,” Brinley replied. “Okay, I’ve gotta run. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Brinley hung up before Sage had a chance to end the call.

* * *

By 8:30pm, the practice gym was as she knew it: empty, and lit only by the harsh white overhead lights. Sage moved to the bleachers, opening her bag and pulling out her worn Hyperdunks, the red and orange accents scuffed and the laces beginning to fray. She slid her feet into the shoes, kicking her heels back against the floor before tying the laces tight, just how she’d always liked it.

She reached into the bag, pulling out a basketball. The leather was a rusty orange, with only a few scuffs on the surface. Sage had had the same ball that she’d stolen from her high school gym since she’d left California.

With only the ball in her hand, she walked over to one of the baskets, craning her neck up to look at the orange of the rim and fresh white of the new net. Positioning herself only about a foot away, she held up the ball in one hand, and then shot.

The flick of her wrist was second nature. The slight bend in her knees before she shot. The ball rolling off of her middle finger, the angle of her head as she watched the ball barely brush the rim before falling through the net with a softswish.

Her hands were ready when the ball bounced back to her. She repeated the shot, lifting just her left hand and shooting; this time the ball fell perfectly into the net, just missing the rim. A small smile twitched at her lips.

She repeated the same shot twenty times, before moving to the front of the basket, where she did the same thing. She moved from spot to spot, shooting again and again, and eventually her right hand came up to guide the ball from the side. Her movements sped up, more of her body getting involved as she deepened the bend in her knees to give more strength to her shot.

She made more than she missed. In the wake of a miss, she made tiny adjustments, but for the most part her body fell into the routine of shooting, reuniting with each familiar spot within fifteen feet of the basket. It was a rhythm so familiar that her mind quieted until there was nothing but the squeak of her shoes on the wood, the swish of the net, and the almost metallic-sounding bounce of the ball.

An hour later, her back and face were drenched with sweat, and her lungs burned with each breath. She walked back to her little pile of stuff on the bleachers, nudging out of her shoes and sliding her now soaked socks into her Birks.

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