It was a week before school and Maureen had two of the most obnoxious books to read for English. They were big, they were boring, and they were her mother’s.
     “Why do I have to read these?” She balanced one on each hand, pretending to be a waitress; but the weight of each book bent her wrists backwards, and she let them slide off. They hit the ground and hiccupped dust. “They’re like, from the forties. And I can pick my own.” Ms. Goldman was leaning on the arm of their couch, watching as the books fell, her face kept still. She wore a bathrobe, and her hair was wrapped up in an orange towel.
     “Because reading Harry Potter for the tenth time doesn’t count. Come on, Maureen, enough is enough. You’re going into the twelfth grade. It was funny when you were a freshman but now your father and I are wondering if we should get you tested.”
     “Tested for what?” she watched as her mother pushed herself off the couch. Her wet robe left a dark crescent on the fabric, a tattoo. 
     “For stupid.”
     She wanted to be mad, but she couldn’t. Her mom and her were always pulling each other’s leg, as some kind of ongoing joke. It was Maureen’s turn to get back at her. She cracked her knuckles (her mom hated that) and walked towards the vestibule. She stepped inside and started going through the closet.
     “Well I’m going–” she dug around, “–to the–” she swatted at the big leather coats that her dad hadn’t worn since winter. They swung back and forth like pendulums. “Park.” Maureen was captain of the girls’ basketball team at school. In her hand was her brown basketball, worn down to a hotdog red.
     “Maureen…” her mom protested. But she was already out the door, dribbling down the driveway.

     The clouds hung low and the air felt clammy. By the time she had reached the park, Maureen was sweating. She pulled her brown, frizzy hair into a ponytail and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the tail of her shirt.
     “Goldman!” She let go of her shirt and looked up.
      “Schuyler!” Maureen ran up to the park fence. Connie Schuyler was Maureen’s best friend and strongest teammate at school. She was wearing a tie-dyed tank top and frayed denim shorts, sucking on a lollipop, her arm resting on the fence like a truck driver would in traffic. She had a golden tan, and she was covered in freckles. She was always covered in freckles.
     “Why are you running? I’m not going anywhere,” she said coolly. Connie worked at the park during the summer, though nobody came because it was old and broken. But it hadn’t always been that way. When the place was sparkling and new, the owner’s son had suffered from an asthma attack. His inhaler was misplaced, and Connie was the only one who knew CPR– or who was willing to do something. She saved his life, and the owner was so moved, so ashamed of himself for standing there like a chicken, and so grateful for her, that he insisted on repaying her. He was a gibbering, sweaty idiot, his black-rimmed glasses covered in his own sweat drops. He would’ve given her his own kidney if she had asked. But all she said was, “I need a job.” And she got the job. She worked at the park Monday through Saturday, forever. She watched as it wilted away.
     It was built in a square lot and the metal fence snaked clumsily around it. In the bottom right of the lot, where they were standing, was a small hut with a slanted roof. It had a bathroom, sports equipment, and board games, although the bathroom had stopped working a few years ago, and the sports equipment was rotting. The heat from the summer sun had deflated the basketballs and soccer balls, stretching them into weird, splattered shapes, and throughout the winter they were frozen solid. Now they just lay there, warped and useless.
     If you walked along the fence towards the top right corner of the park, you’d run into a few skate ramps. They wouldn’t be so bad if they hadn’t been wrecked. The bottom metal lip on the smaller ramp had curled up into a nasty snarl, and if you chose to skate on it, you’d fall and cut your face open. The second ramp looked alright. It was bigger, and its lip didn’t jut up off from the ground. But the wood was crumbling away, and if you tried to skate on it, it would fall out from under you. The rest of the park was made up of weeds; dandelions bobbed in the breeze and the dead grass would crunch underneath one’s feet. It was a depressing junkyard.
     But there was one good thing about the park: it had a basketball court. The net was no longer and the backboard was growing a wasp nest, but it was still functional and that was enough for them. They had the park all to themselves and they would play one on one for hours, to the point where they knew what the other one was going to do. Connie went for lay-ups, Maureen was a mean dribbler.
     “I didn’t think it’d be this hot,” Maureen said as she pinched her shirt and ruffled it back and forth, fanning herself off.
     “Mm,” Connie pulled out her lollipop to talk. “Not hot. Humid.”
     “Either way it feels like I’m dying.”
     “Don’t be so dramatic,” she bit off the remainder of the stick and tossed it, signaling for Maureen to pass the ball. It skimmed over the fence and was caught in Connie’s ruddy hands with a satisfying fump.
     “Did you read your books for English?” Maureen asked as she hopped the fence, not bothering with the gate that had been rusted shut.
     “Yeah.” Connie was smart, too. She was everything. “Why? Did youuuu,” she teased. Maureen didn’t do s***.
     “What’d you read?”
     “The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies.” She pulled her hair up into a ponytail; her hair was long and soft, like honey. They made their way over to the court.
     “Are they any good? Could you lend them to me?” Maureen caught Connie’s pass and dribbled absentmindedly. She saw Connie shake her head.
     “I borrowed them from Jazz. Gave them back ‘bout a month ago.” Jazz, Jazzy, Jasmine, whatever people wanted to call her, was on their team. Maureen sighed. Jazz would never lend her anything, because she thought of Maureen as “irresponsible.” So that part of her plan was ruined.
     “Tell me everything about them.”
     They played and as they played Connie racked her brains for details about both books. Their converse squelched against the asphalt, the rubber soles threatening to peel right off. Their hair and clothes were damp with sweat, and the heat was making them exhausted, their heavy breaths dampening their chapped lips. It reminded Connie of the owner’s son, who had nearly died by his father’s foolishness. What an idiot, she thought. Lucky for them, as the sun went down the air got cooler, and they got their spunk back. Their eyes adjusted to the dark, and they could see each other clearly. Maureen saw how the color in Connie’s shirt was coming back, and how the whites of her eyes juggled in the dark. To a passerby they’d look like blobs, darting around the blackened court, their shoes slapping loudly on the pavement. In between each slap they’d hear Connie’s messy depictions of The Great Gatsby and Lord of The Flies. She had read them over a month ago, so who could blame her?
     They never held back from the other.

     It was ten when Maureen was walking herself home, the yellow streetlights pulsing over her head. She held her basketball in one arm and smacked her legs, for mosquitoes, with the other. The trees overhead were being jostled in the wind, their blue-green leaves clapping against one another. They sounded like rain. She saw a kid, maybe in their early twenties, walking an old, yellow Labrador, who had stiffened legs and a dopey smile. She felt herself smiling, because it was the sweet end of summer.
     She came home, tossed her ball into the closest, made her way over to the kitchen to eat a handful of cornflakes, and made a mental note to start Harry Potter for the tenth time tomorrow.