Chapter 10

Game Six

The rest of Saturday was spent puttering around Sandra's house. She wanted to cook for me, but since pizza had been a "tradition" of our games, we decided to wait, at least until Sunday. Monday, if there was a game seven, would be pizza. But after that, she could cook for me as much as she liked.

Hey, I know it sounds sexist of me, but I'm not just a guy... I'm a guy who knows he's a lousy cook. And Sandra... well, she says she's pretty good.

"Damn good, actually," were her words.

"So why did you become a lawyer."

"My ex-husband," Sandra replied.

"Huh?"

"Kind of ironic, isn't it?" she asked. "I actually wanted to be a chef, but when we met Bill thought that would be too big a conflict on our schedules, so I decided to become a lawyer."

"I thought you met in law school," I asked. "Isn't that what you said the other day?"

"Maybe," Sandra admitted. "We did, kind of. Bill was actually in law school and I was working in the law library. Eventually Bill dropped out and went into sales, and I started attending classes. The idiot didn't know what he was getting into when I switched. All of a sudden I was working the long hours, and he was always on the road. When it came time for a divorce... bam... he never stood a chance."

"Remind me to never go up against you," I laughed. "You're just mean."

"But lovable," Sandra protested.

"Stipulated," I deadpanned.

It was a fun day, just the two of us hanging around. We sat out on Sandra's back porch for part of the afternoon. She tanned while I read. Well... I said I was reading, but it's hard to concentrate on some dumb political thriller while there's this gorgeous naked woman lying three feet away from you.

Eventually I offered to put oil on her back. Sandra agreed and things progressed from there.

An hour later, slightly sunburned but altogether happy, the two of us made it inside. I'd never quite managed to get the oil applied, but even so, Sandra seemed to have a definite glow about her.

"I don't think I've ever been this happy!" she gushed at one point. Sensing a bit of... I don't know... not hero worship, exactly... I decided to admit a few things.

"I'm a pig," I said. "I can't cook. I usually leave my laundry out in a big pile. I fart. Often. Add to that I'm a defense attorney who also votes Republican and you have a lot of bad points. I know you haven't seen many of them yet, but trust me... you will."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" Sandra asked seriously. "Because if you are, forget it. I have my own list of faults, and I'm sure you'll experience them, just like I'll find out how much you hog the covers in bed, but that's not important. What's important is that we'll discover them... together. We'll talk about them..."

"We're lawyers, after all. We're good at talking," I butted in.

"Exactly. And what's more, we'll compromise. So you see, there's nothing to worry about."

"Good."

"Except one thing," she added. "Who wins the game and who has to quit their job."

"There is that," I agreed.

Finally... finally... it was game time.

Sandra and I planted ourselves on the couch, but unlike previous games, we were plastered so close together you couldn't have fit a subpoena between us! But that was fine. Sandra seemed okay with the stakes of the bet, and I would just have to go with it.

"Besides," I said as the teams took the court as the lineups were announced. "You can just support me, if the Suns somehow manage to win two games in a row."

"Fat chance of that, buddy," she said. "I'll just be a poor, underpaid assistant district attorney. You'll be the one joining some hoity toity law firm like Fulbright & Jaworski."

"Or maybe Locke, Liddell & Sapp?"

"Exactly," Sandra replied. "Pretty soon you'll just be rolling in the dough and I'll be able to retire."

"Will you spend most of your time outside?"

"Sunbathing, you mean?" she asked. I nodded. "Will that motivate you?"

"Definitely." I nodded furiously.

"Okay," she laughed. "If you think it will help."

"Heck," I added. "If that's how it's going to be, I might as well just quit right now. Forget the bet. You win."

"Really?"

"No." That earned me another punch in the arm, a disconcertingly common occurrence lately, but Sandra pulled up and didn't wallop me as she had been.

"Okay," she finally said once we'd stopped laughing. "Time to get down to business." It was game time.

"Okay," I said. "Just like the good man said on the TV, the Mavericks have to start off right, or it's over. Phoenix always starts off hot, and Dallas needs to stay with them."

"Yeah, but Phoenix has been dying in the second half, lately. What's up with that?"

"Look how many games they've played this year," I replied. "Eighty-two regular season games, seven against the Lakers, seven against the Clippers and now five against Dallas. Tonight will be game number one hundred and two! That's a lot, especially when you consider that Phoenix is a running team, so they have good athletes, but a lot of those guys didn't play all that much last year. Guys like Barbosa and Diap and Tim Thomas have got to be gassed by now. And then having no Kurt Thomas or Amare Stoudemire can't hurt, not to mention Raja Bell being hurt."

"I know," said Sandra, looking even more worried than before.

"Hey, you brought it up."

"Yeah, well... you were supposed to be reassuring!"

"Not a chance, tonight. I want to keep my job."

"Jerk," muttered Sandra. "Whatever happened to chivalry?"

"I'll show you chivalry," I replied. "Right after you quit your job."

"Hey!"

"You wanted to bet," I pointed out. Sandra just laughed, but still looked worried.

She didn't need to worry, however. Dallas started out the game okay, but after a few minutes Phoenix started hitting on all cylinders, and Dallas couldn't score a bucket to save their lives.

"Oh my God!" I screamed at one point. "I don't think Dallas will even score ten points in the entire quarter."

And that's how it looked for a while. The Mavericks, so strong on defense all year - especially compared to previous years! - turned into a sieve. First Diaw drove the lane, then Nash, then Diaw again, and pretty soon the entire team was heading straight towards the goal, and Dallas had no answer.

"Stupid refs!" I shouted when the second Dallas player - our top two guards - had to go to the bench with two fouls. "You don't call an important game like this. It's not fair."

"Said like a true defense lawyer," mocked Sandra, who was loving this.

In fact, with a minute and a half to go in the quarter, Dallas had only scored nine points. Boris Diaw - all by himself, had already scored ten points, and the Mavericks were falling far behind. They went on a little run - a couple buckets and a free throw - but at the end of the quarter things looked bleak. The Suns, as is typical of their fast starting team, had pushed the lead out to 29-14, and when the second quarter started immediately added another basket by Diaw.

"Fuck this," I said angrily. I stood to go but Sandra grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the sofa.

"Someone needs a popsicle," she said, referencing the porn we had watched the night before. "No body can be grumpy with a popsicle. It's a proven fact."

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "At least the guy in the movie got his dick sucked."

"And then he got shot in the head. Is that what you want?"

"How about just the first part?"

"Always the shyster lawyer, huh? Nope. All or nothing."

"Forget it, then," I said. "I guess I'll watch the game."

"Good boy." Sandra gave me a quick kiss, then turned back to the television. "Now shut up and let me watch the blowout."

And that was an apt description. A blowout was what this game was turning into. With half the quarter gone, the lead for Phoenix had ballooned to eighteen points. Worse, Dirk Nowitzki, who had been so amazing in game five, seemed to have slipped back into the funk he suffered through in game four.

"He's just shooting jumpers," I griped. "Why doesn't he drive the lane like he did last game?"

Sandra shrugged. She didn't know either. "Got me," she said. "If there's one thing every Suns fan knows it's that we have no inside defense. Sure, we'll pick up a charge every once in a while, but if you want to get to the rim and lay it in, more power to you. We'll just beat you from the three point line."

From the midway point of the quarter until halftime, the game slowed down a bit. Dallas manged only thirteen points, which brought their halftime total to 39, but Phoenix could only add seven, allowing Dallas to cut the frightening eighteen point lead to a more manageable twelve.

"Well, this game could be a whole lot better," said Sandra as the game moved up to Ernie, Kenny and Charles. For all her apparent calm earlier, now that the game was at intermission she got up and started pacing back and forth! "Phoenix should be ahead by twenty right now instead of twelve."

"Got that right," I said. I was in complete agreement. "Still, they're playing really well and if not for a couple late fouls, Dallas wouldn't even know where the hoop is tonight!"

"There's still time, though."