A Stitch in Time Pt. 02

I looked around and found her, sitting at a table with Debbie Wadsworth, who was probably the cheerleader captain this year; Paul Scholl, probably the captain of the tennis team, or maybe the golf team; and Lindsay Zimmerman and Patty Colinksy, two more of the school's beautiful people. The girl who had called my name occupied the middle seat on one side of the table, with the seat across from her left open. I was dating the Queen Bee.

With a last glance at the horrified, curious faces of my former friends, I swallowed hard and approached the table to which I was apparently assigned.

She was very pretty, in a sort of obvious way. Her long brown hair curled around her head in a deliberate, almost practiced manner. Her blue eyes were surrounded by just enough makeup to emphasize her high cheekbones and full, red lips. Her hands were clasped together on the table, her fingernails the same blood-red that my little sister Jill had been using on Christmas morning. She tilted her head sideways as I came closer, waiting for something more than for me to take my seat across from her.

For the moment, though, that was all I was willing to do.

"Stephie," I smiled at her. "How was your Christmas?"

"How was my Christmas?" she spat at me, her lips suddenly growing thinner as she stretched them across a set of perfect teeth. "Where the fuck were you?"

"At home?" I said.

"With a broken cell phone, I assume?" she said.

Other people couldn't help but notice us now; heads were popping up across the cafeteria, like grazing wildlife that become aware of danger to the herd but don't know yet which way to turn.

"You know, I completely forgot to turn it on," I said. "Did you try my home phone?"

"God, Trick," Lindsay chimed in, "that's so last century."

Stephie shut her up with a glance.

"And this morning?" she demanded.

"This morning," I nodded. "I took the bus."

The entire table exploded with derisive laughter.

"The point of having my father lease you a car," Stephie bored in on me, "was so that you could pick me up."

"He leases cars to all the athletes," Patty said before she realized she'd taken the wrong side and snapped her mouth shut. Even still, she got a full-second glare from Stephie before it swung back to me.

"Are you trying to humiliate me in front of my friends?" Stephie asked. "Is that what you're trying to do? Break up with me? Maybe so you can try that little Jew girl from your religion class?"

"I'm sorry, what?" I asked. Up until that instant, I could understand the attraction. She was attractive, impeccably attired, obviously well-connected. And she was a fucking bigot. The way she'd sneered out "Jew girl" was so much the opposite of what my mother had taught me that I found myself on the verge of nausea. I couldn't believe I'd ever even started dating this woman; what the hell had I done with this life?

"You heard me, Trick," Stephie radiated hostility.

I stood up.

"Where are you going?" Stephie's eyes grew big.

"For air," I said quietly, trying to suppress the revulsion and anger that I was feeling, directed partly toward her but mostly at myself.

"Nobody leaves me, Trick Sterling," she lifted her head in an almost imperial gesture.

"Sorry," I said. I left my tray right there and began walking out of the cafeteria, followed by every pair of eyes in the room. A few steps away, I took out my key ring, worked off the key to the Subaru, and put it in my right hand. Without breaking stride, I twisted my torso back and looked at the shocked faces at the table I'd just left.

"Here," I said quietly, flipping the key toward Stephie. It was a horrible toss, sailing over her head. Paul had to stand up to catch it for her.

I continued on my way out through the silence.

That evening I was sitting on my bed, throwing a nerf baseball against the opposite wall. There was a soft knocking at the door, and Jeanne stuck her head in.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"Yeah," I smiled.

"You really broke up with Stephie van Carlen?" she asked.

"You were there," I grinned at her. "I found this on the floor outside my locker at the end of the day."

I picked up the two pieces of a very nice leather jacket, sliced neatly up the back right through the felt "M."

"And of course the car was gone," I said.

She looked at me a little longer and then began to back out.

"Thanks, Jeanne," I said.

"For what?" she stuck her head back in.

"For stopping by to ask," I smiled at her.

I would say that Thursday was nowhere near as eventful a day as Wednesday, but that would be obvious. I don't think I've had a day since that has been as eventful as that Wednesday was. In hindsight, of course, Thursday was not without its moments as well; it's just that in comparing them to Wednesday, anything short of a circus parading through the halls of the school was bound going to come up a little short.

Government was basically the same as the day before, although the other jocks were keeping their distance until they figured out how this whole thing was going to play out. I imagined that would pretty much take place when their girlfriends decided how it was going to play out and told them. History was the same as the day before. Mrs. Palmer's seminar held my interest, just as it had the day before, although I was acutely aware of the stares of every kid in the class on my neck. Astronomy was a little different; the blonde had dropped the class, probably afraid that being assigned as my lab partner would forever ruin her social standing at John Marshall High School. So I sat at the bench by myself, exchanging greetings only with Aaron, who turned out to be a real nice guy who was planning on going to Tech next year, until Cammie showed up. And Religion was exactly the same. Fifteen eager beaver Christians, Tanya, and me.

I found a table by myself at lunch, and was eating in comfortable silence, looking up periodically to catch people quickly looking back at their own lunches, when I became aware that someone had stopped in front of me.

"Is this seat taken?" Tanya asked.

"That seat?" I laughed. "Nope. That one isn't either, though. Or that one, or... I'm sorry, no. Will you join me?"

I stood up as she pulled out her chair, something my mother had taught me long ago but which seemed to set off another round of stares. She seated herself, I sat back down, and we started eating.

"So you don't mind sitting with a —" she started.

"Shut up," I interrupted her savagely.

She froze, her fork poised halfway between her mouth and plate.

"If you start thinking of yourself like that," I said, "as something that begins with 'a' — a member of this group or that group, a cheerleader, a flute player — you're really no different from them, are you?"

Both of us knew who I meant by "them."

"And I'll get up and leave you, too," I told her when she still hadn't moved. "But no, I don't mind sitting with Tanya, er, Tanya..."

"Szerchenko," she giggled.

"Exactly," I said.

We talked about the school she'd transferred from at the beginning of the previous semester, and we talked about her religion class. She was a little nervous when I asked her why she was taking it, because the answer involved her religion and she was afraid that I'd storm off. Eventually she explained that her parents had vociferously objected to a religious class in school, but that Mrs. Jenkins herself had asked Tanya to enroll, in order to prevent the class from becoming just another session of Sunday School for the other kids. She told me that she had been very pleased to see me there on the first day.

The bell rang, and we parted as friends. I liked Tanya Szerchenko. Four or five or eight years from now, when I started thinking about dating again, I might ask her out.

Lunch had not only been enjoyable, it had been an excellent distraction. But it eventually ended, and I got even closer to what I had been dreading ever since the night before, my seventh period debut as an experienced baseball pitcher. The "Baseball for Dummies" book had been very helpful; I had a good grasp of the game and its rules; its history and traditions; and the basic principles of pitching, defense, and base running.

I had been trusting, though, that the muscles of my arm and fingers would retain the memory of how to grip the ball and throw it, because I had no clue. And I had been dismayed to learn that I wasn't alone. The arm and fingers were just as ignorant. I'd gone out to the ball field the night before by myself, just before twilight. My room was full of baseballs, and I brought five or six of them with me. Standing on the mound, I hefted one in my right hand, hoping to identify the place that my fingers rested. I looked into the book in the fading light, trying to match my fingers with the ones in the picture. Finally, in desperation, I simply rocked back and hurled the ball toward the backstop. It hit the metal backstop and, its momentum spent, dropped straight down. If that was a 95 mile per hour fastball, the cars that were whizzing by on the road behind me were averaging 250 miles an hour. I threw another one; it hit the ground six feet in front of the plate. I threw a third; it sailed high. I kept throwing until there was no more light, with no better success.

"Coach," I said when I reported to him in his office at the end of sixth period, "I think the arm's a little sore today."

He watched me swing my right arm around while I grimaced, and he gave me a look of utter stupefaction.

"Just get into your gym clothes," he finally told me.

I reluctantly did as I was ordered, and emerged into the gym to find Tommy Narburg, my old, slightly chubby friend, dressed in a catcher's mask and padding, standing with the coach and another man in jeans. A bucket of baseballs rested on the ground beside them.

"This is Andy Mastring," Coach said as I approached. "He's a scout for the Orioles. Andy, this is Trick Sterling."

"Heard a lot about you, son," the man said in a Southern drawl as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Lookin' forward to seein' you do some throwin.'"

You and me both, I thought.

"Don't worry, Trick," Coach said, reacting to the look on my face. "He understands you haven't started real workouts yet. Just toss a couple to Tommy."

"Hey, Tommy," I said.

"Pat," he nodded. "I mean Trick."

Tommy was apparently not my regular catcher, because when he paced off the appropriate distance and dropped into his crouch, he looked like he was ready to dive off to the side and bail out on me at any moment.

I took the ball from Coach Torianni and turned it over in my hand.

"Coach?" I finally said, ready to start my confession.

"Where's your glove, son?" he asked me suddenly.

"Uh," I stammered.

Coach looked at the scout and shook his head.

"Kids," he muttered. "I'll get it."

"I saw some film of you from last year, son," Mr. Mastring smiled after Coach had jogged back into the locker room. "You got a lotta potential."

"Yeah, see, about that," I began.

"Here you go!"

I turned around to see a glove flying at me, and snatched it out of the air with my right hand. I recognized almost instantly that it was a glove for the right hand.

"But I'm, uh, right-handed," I murmured, pulling the glove on and noticing how well it fit, how snugly my fingers slipped into the individual holes, how the middle finger rested on the outside of the glove underneath the strap.

"Yeah, I don't understand it either," Coach Torianni tried to share a laugh with the puzzled scout. "And nobody else can explain it to me. I've had doctors look at it, orthopedists. He does everything with his right hand except throw."

While he was talking I had picked up a ball with my left hand, working it around, feeling the way each of the seams fell against calluses that I hadn't noticed over the past week. I was a goddamn lefty.

"You gonna throw it, son?" the scout asked after a while.

"Yeah," I probably had a goofy grin on my face. "Yeah, ya know I think I will."

I turned my right side to Tommy, exactly the opposite of what I'd tried to do the evening before. My body actually did remember; I just hadn't given it the right cue before. I came to a set, brought my right leg back, pushed forward, and fired the ball into the glove that Tommy was holding in front of him like a shield. The impact drove the glove backward into his chest, and knocked him back against the wooden stands that were folded back against the wall.

"Easy, Trick," Coach said sharply. "Tommy's not ready for the season yet either."

"Sorry!" I yelled down to Tommy, who was reluctantly assuming his crouch once again. Like hell I was.

Still, I tossed the next one in softer, and the next one softer than that.

"Show him your change," Coach smiled at the scout.

"He already did," Mr. Mastring looked back at him with a big grin on his face. "Goddamn, son, what was that, mid '70s?"

How the hell did I know? What was I, a frickin' speedometer? I did know, though, that with the changeup, as long as it looked like a fastball to the hitter, slower was better.

"Maybe," I nodded. "Probably a little higher. I still got some work to do this year."

"Not much, buddy," he clapped me on the shoulder and shook his head. "I'm afraid we may not pick high enough this year for a chance at you. And we pick fifth. Thanks, Kenny."

"Sure, Andy," Coach smiled at him, happy that "we" had been successful. "Good job, Trick. Thanks, Tommy! That's all!"

They walked toward the office as I waited for Tommy.

"What the hell were you trying to do?" he asked me. "It's gonna take me two more months before I can catch that heater."

"Sorry, man," I answered. "I honestly thought it would take me longer than that to throw it again."

"So you really broke up with that bi—" he started to ask before his eyes suddenly widened and he clammed up.

"Couldn't quite hear ya there, Tommy?" I grinned at him. "But yeah."

"Back among the peons, huh?" he grinned back.

"Nah, not that low, Tommy," I said as we both laughed.

I finished my paper for Mrs. Palmer that evening, and the rest of my homework along with it. I was in a very good mood the next day, and even walked to lunch with Tanya after our fifth period class. Her "usual" table turned out to be a bunch of yearbook geeks, so I companionably ate with them while they peppered me with questions about baseball. As little as I knew, it was still more than they knew. I actually went to bed Friday night a fairly contented young man.

"Shopping!" I yelled as I banged on Jeanne's door at ten o'clock the next morning.

"What do you want?" she threw the door open and glared at me.

"Shopping trip," I dangled a set of keys in front of her.

"Whose car?" she asked.

"Tiffany's," I told her. "She told me to borrow it any time."

"So you didn't actually ask her?"

"She didn't actually get up yet," I shrugged.

Jeanne rolled her eyes at me.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"For me?" I said. "Church clothes. For you? It's a surprise."

Despite her suspicions, she got her purse and coat and followed me out to the car. I quickly hustled around to the passenger side.

"The mall, driver," I ordered, feigning sleep once again.

She approved my church clothes — a new suit, a sports coat, a couple of ties, a new pair of slacks, and three new button-down shirts — and then I walked her down to the other end of the mall.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"In here," I said.

"The optometrist's office?" she asked.

"When was the last time you went?" I asked her.

"Couple of years," she mumbled.

"Time for some new glasses, then," I said. "You said the other day that God knows I could afford to buy some nice clothes. And you were right."

Was she ever. Apparently I'd gotten some cushy summer jobs the past few years, no doubt with one of the town's sports boosters, because I had over seven grand in my checking account.

"So now I want to spend some on you," I told her, pushing her into the store. It took a little more discussion, but when she saw how lightweight the new lenses were, even for prescriptions as strong as hers, and how attractive she looked in different frames, she finally let me buy them for her.

She liked the next stop even more, a used car lot where I bought an automatic 1998 Civic for $1,200.

"Why should I take twelve hundred bucks when it's priced at fifteen?" the salesman had smiled at me.

"Because I've got twelve right here in my wallet," I smiled back at him, "and before I tried it out, that car hadn't been off the lot in a month and a half."

My smile grew a little bigger, his a little smaller, and I owned a car. Actually, Jeanne and I owned a car, because I registered it in both of our names.

"Two weeks," I said as I threw her the keys and got in the passenger side.

"For what?" she laughed.

"Your next driver test. Home, Jeeves."

She drove us both to church on Sunday morning. And then sat up front with Cammie. I sat in the back, keeping to myself. Life is still slow sometimes, even when you take it three years at a time.

Chapter 6

If we'd had an impartial referee, I have no doubt that the contest would have been declared a complete and total mismatch and never allowed to begin. As it was, it was nearly over before I even realized that it had started. In one corner, you had a sophisticated high school senior, a seductress who had spent the last three years navigating her way through the complex social webs that connect the various groups at a suburban high school. In the other corner, a ninth-grade naïf who had no memory of how he had spent those same three years. I was doomed.

In retrospect, of course, Saturday and Sunday had probably been my last chance to sue for peace, or more accurately to grovel before the throne of Stephie van Carlen. A simple apology might have sufficed on Thursday or Friday, although I might have hurt my chances for that by sitting with Tanya Szerchenko at lunch both days. By Saturday, though, that ship had undoubtedly sailed. As it was, I spent both days, Saturday and Sunday, watching the NFL playoffs.

And in any event, I hadn't entertained any idea at all of apologizing, let alone groveling. With no idea what kind of relationship Stephie and I had had before Christmas, my impression of her was based entirely on our single encounter in the cafeteria on Wednesday, and as far as I was concerned, it wasn't a relationship I saw any reason to continue.

Monday started on a high note, a very high note, although I did have to wait until third period. I had already figured out that that was probably going to be true every day. There weren't likely to be high notes during first or second period. In Government, I was quickly learning that Mr. Kennedy was happy if you copied down everything he said during class, mostly from the way he paused to let us keep up with his pearls of wisdom. I had every expectation that the tests would require that and little more; as long as you knew what a bicameral legislature was, it didn't really matter whether you knew why the Founding Fathers thought it would be a good idea. A cynical view, sure, and one based on only three classes, but I was fairly confident it would hold up.

Mr. Anson's history class was a little better, but I still had the feeling that we were going through the motions of rote learning. Here, for example, is where you needed to know that the Founding Fathers wanted a bicameral legislature. You just didn't need to understand what it was.

Third period was when the day started to get interesting.

I'd read "Bartleby" over the weekend, but Mrs. Palmer started class by asking those of us with front row seats to pass back a Xeroxed paper that she was handing out. I took one and turned around to hand the stack to Missy, who gave me a little smirk and snatched them from my hand, apparently upset now that I had one of her jobs, that of the first passer-backer. I turned back to my seat and was mortified to see my own handwriting on the piece of paper that Mrs. Palmer had been distributing. I looked up to find her standing directly over my desk, just in case anyone had missed my name scrawled across the top of the essay.