“About what?”

“About life, Kit. About when life scared you.”

“I didn’t—”

“When you called 911 on yourself, when you were so scared you thought you’d die…you asked for help.”

Then Dana hugs her. And the sirens get louder.

“We’re gonna have to explain a lot,” Dana says. “There will be questions.”

Kit recalls the question she asked the rim on her game winner, the question that started this all.

Is Daphne going to kill me?

And the rim said yes.

And the rim never lies to Kit.

“We’re alive,” she says. And her voice does not shake. “And all the fear in the world…”

“What about it?” Dana asks. “Kit?”

The squad car is visible now from where they stand. Kit puts her arm around her friend. Says,

“Let’s not even think about it.”

For Allison Laakko and Jason Glasgow

and the summer we spent asking the rim questions

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I love basketball. Always have. Every variety: the college game, high school, the driveway, the street, the gym, the NBA, the WNBA. Growing up, my bedroom walls were covered with posters of Akeem Olajuwon (no “H” to start his name yet back then), Isiah Thomas, Larry Bird. A kid in high school once called me a “walking oxymoron” because I’d wear a Celtics shirt, a Lakers jacket, a Pistons hat. But I don’t blame him: he didn’t realize I wasn’t rooting for a particular player or team, I was rooting for the game. Especially the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. It was like the Old West. I was rooting for the duel. I pretended to be these players outside in the driveway. But I pretended to be girls I had crushes on too. I’d pass the ball to them. Watch them pass it to each other. There was also an Alyssa Milano poster on that bedroom wall. I grew up with the game. The first thing of length I ever wrote was an account of a tournament I played in Ohio with this incredible travel team. We’d been down eleven points with about a minute and a half to play, and we came back and won. I made a three-pointer to cut that lead to five. I also almost got dunked on, but the guy missed it. Yes, the game has been there for me my whole life. Minutes after my parents told us they were getting divorced, I dribbled a basketball three miles to my high school girlfriend’s house. Talked with her and her family about it. I took mushrooms with friends in college and went and played a pickup game at the rec center. One friend shot it from half court just to see what it’d feel like. I can only imagine what the sober players on the other team thought of that. We called our Gus Macker team The Tommyknockers. We called our intramural team The Ghastly Monsters. Years later, I’d challenge Bob Pollard and Guided By Voices to three on three against us, the High Strung. Bob said, simply, “You don’t wanna do that.” There were days I played in cowboy boots. Called them my “Karl Malones.” Played in dress shoes. Called them my “Phil Jacksons.” And years later, a friend who played on that high school travel team called to ask if I wanted him to send one of my books to a lawyer he knew. That story is detailed elsewhere, but it all leads to where we are now.