Lay-ups and Long Shots by David Lubar Read Free Book Online Page B

stretches until the corners of her lips rise to the bottom of her ears, and her eyes look like two skinny caterpillars drawn in black crayon across the middle of her face. “Yes, please,” she finally says.
    Coach stands there for a long awkward silence. I know this silence.
    “My mother doesn’t understand,” I say. He looks at me with his own frown of not understanding.
    “She doesn’t speak English,” I add.
    “Tell her I’m very glad to meet her and I think you are a good soccer player,” he says, speaking very slowly and much too loud. I know this custom too. People always talk in this manner when they need me to translate. Like I can’t hear if they don’t raise their voices. Like I can’t remember the words if they don’t string them together with big empty spaces in between. I feel my face turn hot, even hotter than it felt running around the field.
    My mother looks at me, waiting to hear what Coach has said. Very soft and fast, I tell her. My mother nods at Coach and says, “Thank you. Thank you very much.” Her face is red and getting redder, but not from the sun. Not from the heat of running. Red like I have never seen on my mother’s face.
    Like she doesn’t know anything just because she doesn’t know English.
    I turn and say something to her in Korean, not so softly this time. She says something back. Coach looks like he is waiting for me to translate again, but these words are only for my mother and me. I say something else to her and she smiles, but it is not painted-on smile.
    What did I say? I said, “I’d like to see him try and speak Korean.”
    And she said, “It is not so easy to learn a language when you are old.”
    And I said, “You are not old. It just takes work and time, like to make kim chi. And you have me to teach you English. How lucky is that?”
    Pretty lucky, from the smile on her face.
    On the way to the car, she says, “Coach is not so nice. You really want to play soccer with him?”
    “I love to play soccer,” I say. “And this is the only chance I have to make the high school team one day.”
    She nods her head like maybe she understands. Then I think, this is America. Here you can fall in love and get your heart broken, but there is always hope. So I say, “Next week I have a game on Saturday.”
    She doesn’t go to church on Saturday.
    “Maybe,” she says, “Maybe I come to game on Saturday.
    “Thank you, thank you very much,” I say, in that way Americans call sincere.