Hot Hand Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Question is, when?”
    Ben swallowed the rest of his waffle and smiled at her then.
    “You know I brushed,” he said.
    “I do,” Peg said, smiling back. “But I got to test you now and then.”
    When nobody else in the family could get a smile out of him, Peg could, even when she was busting him the way she was right now.
    “Billy,” his mom said, “are you sure you don’t want to go to the game? I could drop you on my way to the office.”
    He wasn’t even surprised anymore when she worked on a Saturday. His mom told him all the time how she had worked seven days a week to get herself a scholarship to Harvard and then worked even harder than that to put herself through Harvard Law, which made Billy wonder if they had somehow added days of the week when she was in law school.
    Lately she liked to say that she wasn’t going to stop working now, with the finish line in sight.
    Even though she never really explained where the finish line was.
    She kissed Billy and Ben, saying Eliza would be heading over to Maggie’s later for a sleepover and that she’d be home from work in time to take Billy and Ben out for burgers at The 1770 House, which they all knew was the best burger in town.
    “Last chance on the game,” she said at the back door. “Going once, going twice—”
    Billy looked at her and said, “Mom, I don’t want to see dad today.”
    His mom started to say something but didn’t, just came back across the room, leaned down and hugged him. Then she was out the door, calling over her shoulder that it was pretty cold out today and Peg could drive Ben to piano, even though Mrs. Grace, his piano teacher, only lived two blocks away. And it wasn’t really two blocks if Ben cut through some backyards.
    “I want to walk,” Ben said.
    “It’s no bother, little guy,” Peg said.
    “I’m not little!” Ben said. “I’m nine years old!”
    Peg went over and put a hand on his shoulder. As soon as she did, it was like she’d thrown some kind of switch and Ben wasn’t mad anymore.
    “My bad, big boy,” she said. “You’re not only nine, you’re a lot older than that some of the time. Now eat up so you won’t be late for your lesson. We’re moving up on that recital of yours. After that, look out, Carnegie Hall.”
    Peg was from Brooklyn, New York City, and had explained to them that Carnegie Hall was this place in New York where the best piano players in the whole world got to play.
    Billy and Ben finished their breakfast without either one of them talking. With Eliza gone, the kitchen seemed as quiet as the school library. It was like that a lot, Billy feeling as if he and Ben were alone, even when they were in a room together. He was thinking about the game he was missing, getting ready to start in about a half hour. Maybe Ben was thinking about piano.
    Most of the time, Billy had no idea what his brother, who could be harder to read than a school-book, was thinking.
    When Ben was gone, Billy went into the den, what had been his dad’s room, and started to play NCAA Live, which Lenny had left there the day before, knowing he was coming back over after the game. Peg said she was going downstairs to catch up on her ironing, though Billy wondered how there was ever anything to catch up on. She seemed to be down in the basement, listening to her music and ironing, about half the day.
    Billy got into his video game as much as he could, telling himself that fake basketball would have to do today, until the game at the Y was over and Lenny was calling with the final score, as he’d promised he would.
    He played until the phone rang, knowing he had to get it, that there was no chance of Peg even hearing it from downstairs, not with the way she kept her old-fashioned music cranked up on the speakers they’d all chipped in and got her for Christmas, the ones that went with her new iPod.
    Billy ran into the kitchen, but his mom must have left the receiver somewhere when she was walking around talking on