A Stitch in Time Pt. 05

"I saw him at Shea Stadium when I was fourteen, and again the next year. He was Jewish, you know?"

"I did not know that, sir."

"He refused to play on Yom Kippur once in the World Series. Not that they needed him with that damn Drysdale."

"I do know he had a great curveball," I smiled and leaned back.

"And you?" he asked. "How's your curveball?"

"I have a good fastball. My curve only goes about fifty-eight feet, six inches so far."

Mr. Szerchenko burst into laughter to the bewilderment of his wife and daughter.

"Home plate is sixty feet, six inches from the pitcher's mound," he explained. "Your friend's curve breaks a little too early."

"I still can't believe you watched baseball," Tanya shook her head.

"And I can't believe that you didn't want to tell us that your friend was an athlete," her mother shot back.

It looked like the beginning of a good family argument. I had no idea why Tanya had tried to keep it a secret, but it was time for me to play the white knight.

"I think she was afraid I'd get a swelled head," I said to her parents.

"I'm sorry?" her father turned to look at me.

"She liked me before she knew I was a jock," I smiled at Tanya. "And I think she wants to make sure that I always know that. I do tend to kind of get a little full of myself in the spring. My sister calls this the golden arm."

I held the arm out as if it was an object worthy of everyone's reverence, and Tanya whacked the other one. The tension was broken. Tanya's mother got up to finish getting the dinner ready and her father excused himself, too. My best girl and I were left sitting alone on the couch.

"So this is the Seder?" I asked after a pause. "The meal that follows a Jewish family counseling session?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just didn't think they'd understand."

"Why you like somebody who likes sports?" I asked softly.

She nodded.

"Cause all of your earlier boyfriends have been, like, chess guys?"

She nodded again.

"Maybe they don't care, you know. Maybe they just like the people you like. Maybe they trust you."

"And you're saying that I should trust them?"

"Hashem forbid I should get into the middle of this," I said. Tanya whacked me again and I raised my voice toward the kitchen. "Is there anything I can help you with, Mrs. Szerchenko? Please?"

She came out with a bottle of wine for me to open, and the Seder was underway. It was amazing. I hate to call it a meal, because it was a meal and a celebration and a solemn religious observance and a discussion group and an occasion for love. And for me, of course, it was an education, although it reminded me a lot of Christmas at my Aunt Ruth's. I found myself wondering what Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill were doing for Easter this coming Sunday. It wasn't until I left, in fact, that I realized that I had no idea who had won the NCAA Final Four.

Early the next morning I got a phone call from Bob Hastings.

"Trick, I just want to let you know that Andy Lebo was released from the hospital yesterday."

"Jeez," I said, "I kinda thought he would have been out before now."

"Evidently he needed a second operation," Mr. Hastings explained.

"So he's not being charged either?" I asked, a little shocked.

"Hell, yes, he's being charged. Breaking and entering, assault, assault with intent to maim, destruction of property — it's a nice, long list."

"So he's in jail?" I asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not, pal. But it cost his parents a $500,000 bond, and they forfeit it if he gets within one hundred feet of the school or any member of your family. So I wouldn't be surprised if his folks are finding a nice military school for him to finish his education."

"I guess he couldn't get into to Richmond Arms, huh?" I asked, naming the girls' school where my former girlfriend Stephie van Carlen was finishing her education in lieu of going to the same school as I did.

Mr. Hastings started to chuckle.

"I wonder how far down I am from valedictorian?" I mused aloud, getting an even bigger laugh. We finished the call, and I went out to celebrate. Actually, I went shopping.

Practice wasn't until 3:00, so as soon as I hung up with Mr. Hastings, I called Tanya see if she was free. She was and — oh lucky day! — so was her mother. I don't know why, but I thought that all mothers worked. Mine had. Everybody else's did. Mrs. Szerchenko did not. So my plan to spend the day with Tanya, at her house, just the two of us, never got off the ground. Instead, it was going to be a shopping trip for three. What fun we were going to have.

It was the first time I'd gone back to the mall where I'd had my really freaky meeting with Santa Claus in 2003, just over three months ago on the Patrick Sterling timeline. I was afraid that would weird me out a little bit, but the mall is a much different, much colder place in the non-Christmas season. So I very amiably spent most of the morning and early afternoon listening to the two women argue about shoes. Mrs. Szerchenko also insisted on buying me a hideous baseball tie. All in all, the first part of the day went just about as well as I would have predicted if you had told me I was going to spend it at women's shoe stores in the mall.

Practice that afternoon came as a welcome relief. So, for that matter, did my assignment the next morning to stay home for Dave duty. Dad grudgingly took the day off from work to take Tiffany to the doctor's office for another checkup. At that point, it was starting to look to me like the poor women didn't need a checkup so much as she needed somebody to come and remove the damn thing. Her due date wasn't for another five weeks, on May 11, but I didn't think she could possibly get any larger. That evening, when we all had dinner together down in Dave's room, Tiffany told us that she had finally broken down and asked the doctor about the baby's sex. It was a girl, it turned out, and she and Dad had planned on naming it Brittany. What did we think of that?

We tried to be thrilled. Until Dave pointed out that if their next one was a boy they could name it Normandy. Then we were just laughing too hard.

"You guys are very funny," Tiffany said. "Ha-ha-ha. I wonder whose room we'll start making over for the nursery."

"His," Dave stopped laughing pointed at me. "He'll be gone right after the draft."

"His," I pointed at Dave. "Tanya's gonna make him go to college."

We both looked at each other and turned to Tiffany.

"Jeanne's," we said in unison.

"But she'll be here for another year," Tiffany protested.

"She can double up with Jill," I explained.

"Girls love that," Dave agreed.

"Men," Tiffany huffed. "You're all just useless."

All three of us were looking at her pear-shaped body.

"I didn't say you weren't necessary, just useless," she snapped back.

I tried calling Tanya that evening, but remembered, when I got her voicemail, that her parents had taken her into the city for an opera. They'd invited me along for that one, too — her father had been particularly eager to offer me his ticket — but I pleaded my "Obsession" paper. In truth, I hadn't even really started it yet. I had wasted the first week milking my fight injuries and finishing my History paper, and the second week concentrating on baseball. I only had four days left, which included another game and Easter. So I really did have to work on it that night. Besides, opera? Were they serious?

On Thursday morning I got a call from Rachel Carter, asking me to come into school. I pointed out to her that I was on spring break, and she pointed out to me that I was still a senior at Marshall and if I wanted to graduate with my class, I'd better get my damn butt into school. I was more than a little reluctant, right up until I actually walked into the office.

"Trick!" Rachel yelped as I walked up to the counter. She jumped out of her seat, rushed around the counter, and leaped on me, throwing her arms around my neck. She was wearing a particularly attractive soft, knitted turtleneck, and I found myself wishing that I hadn't worn a windbreaker. I mean, it wasn't every day a guy got a hug from Rachel Carter.

"So I'm not in trouble?" I asked when I put her back down on the ground.

"God, no," she laughed. "We got an e-mail from the SAT, and I just wanted to say congratulations."

"You got my score?"

"You didn't check online?"

Now that she mentioned it, I did remember being given a card with a password that I could use to get my score on the SAT website. I sheepishly pulled it out of my wallet and Rachel triumphantly seated me at her desk as I brought up the website and plugged in the information.

"Holy shit!" I pointed at the screen.

Rachel cuffed me on the back of the head.

"I mean, gosh, look at that. A combined score of 1970. That's pretty good, right?"

She cuffed me again, and I turned around to look at her.

"For sarcasm," she explained. "You know damn well it's good."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"You said 'damn!'" I pointed at her.

She frowned. Then she laughed.

"Your friend Mr. Hickson wrote to apologize for taking so much of our time," she said.

I invited her out for a celebratory lunch, but she told me that since Mr. Peterson was away, she had to stay at her desk and man the office. She did ask for a rain check, though, when things weren't quite so hectic.

I was more than a little surprised to see all three Szerchenkos at that afternoon's baseball game against Hanford High School. A home game during spring break had seemed like a particularly stupid idea to me, but there was a pretty decent crowd, including the slightly fish-out-of-water Szerchenko family. Actually, Mr. Szerchenko could still pull off the baseball fan look, with a cap and sweatshirt, and Tanya was dressed like any other high school kid. It was Mrs. S, in the long skirt, who stuck out like a sore thumb.

But when we met at the end of the game, she admitted that she had had a good time. In truth, it had been a good game. I struck out 12 guys, but we had trouble scoring ourselves. So we didn't win until the bottom of the seventh, when Rabbit Parker hit the first walk-off home run of his life. He later confirmed, as I guessed from the way he acted when the umpire finally gave the home run signal, that it was the first home run of any kind that he'd ever hit in his life. Since he had also poked two singles into left field, to raise his average to .383, I was going to be very surprised if Rabbit Parker wasn't batting second next week.

After the game, the Szerchenkos took me out to dinner. Mr. Szerchenko alternated between pumping me for information about our hit-and-run strategy — as far as I knew, we hit the ball, then we ran — and trying to impress his wife and daughter with his knowledge of baseball. Then they broke the bad news. Mrs. Szerchenko's mother was ill down in Miami — not really ill, Hashem be praised, but slightly ill — and all three of them were leaving the next morning to visit her. They wouldn't be back until Monday. I glowered at the lot of them. I was particularly disappointed that Tanya wouldn't be able to attend Easter services with me. Mrs. Szerchenko assured me that Tanya would make it up to me the following weekend.

"Make it up to me?" I whispered to Tanya as we walked out to where we had parked our respective cars. We had slowed to put a little distance between us and her parents.

She flushed a deep red.

"I guess they know us athletes need constant reassurance about our performance," I needled her as we approached the Szerchenkos' car. Her parents were already in their seats.

She stopped and looked up at me.

"You know, I have been to a Christian mass before. I think my favorite part is where everyone very solemnly intones, 'Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.'"

"We do that at our church," I smiled.

"Well, that's fine," she poked me in the chest. "But when I get back I don't want find out that anybody else has been doing any rising and coming again."

It was a good line, only slightly blasphemous, and I gave it the laugh it deserved before I realized what she'd left out.

"But what about dying?" I asked in mock horror.

"That's true," she said after appearing to give it a moment's thought. "Don't do that, either. If you were a righty, maybe... Dad says there are plenty of them."

"See ya, Tanya," I said.

"See ya, Trick," she answered. I held open the door of their car and closed it behind her.

Tanya's absence did give me a chance to finish my "Obsession" paper. On Wednesday evening, I had struggled to put together a thesis about Ahab. On Thursday night, I gave up and wrote about me. Me and Tanya Szerchenko. It was a little, er, steamy. So I filed that away and wrote about me and UVA. Both of them met the requirements of the assignment, but I really couldn't see Mrs. Palmer enjoying the Pat and Tanya story.

I finished it on Friday afternoon, which Coach had generously allowed us to have as a day off, and drove to the church for Good Friday services. I had a hard time holding it together when we got to the part of the service that Tanya had mentioned, drawing stares from the parishioners in the pew in front of me.

I was at the school parking lot on Saturday at exactly noon, just as I'd been ordered in the message that Tiffany had passed along to me. I watched Cammie Rowe get off the bus, with Jeanne right behind her. And then Jill stepped off, her eyes shining as she listened to the girl behind her say something. Still on the steps, she looked up, looked around, and saw me.

She leaped off the bottom step, and began to run toward me. I was probably the only guy — the only straight guy — at Marshall High School who wouldn't have gotten a hard-on at the sight of Jill Sterling, even in a fleece jacket and jeans, running toward him. Her blonde hair flowed behind her head, her long legs stretched toward me with each stride, and a broad smile showed every one of her beautiful teeth.

"Trick," she exulted as I caught her in my arms. "Oh, God, Trick."

"Hey, Jilly, good trip, huh?"

"The best. Oh, God, I've been so worried about you."

"Worried? Why?"

"Cause Andy got out."

"On bond," I pointed out. "If he comes anywhere near me they'll throw him in jail and give me the key."

She was sobbing in my arms, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

"He threatened me, didn't he?" I asked her softly. "He said he'd hurt me if you didn't get back together. Is that what happened, Jilly?"

I felt her nodding her head against my shoulder.

"Don't worry, sweetie, I have two bodyguards now."

She pulled her head back to look into my face.

"Tough Tommy Narburg and the traitorous Trasker."

"Jesse?" she asked.

"He's a baseball player now," I smiled. "He doesn't want this arm hurt anymore than I do."

I hope.

"Or I do," Jill added.

"Now tell me about your trip," I smiled.

"Can't," she said, trotting back to the bus. "Have to wait."

Apparently it had to wait until Jill returned with her suitcase and Jeanne and Cammie.

"You want a ride home, Cammie?" I asked hesitantly. Her parents didn't know my car, but her dad certainly knew me.

"No," she smiled. "I just want to ride around until you hear this story. They've been practicing it since last night. Then you can bring me back here. That's my car right over there."

I drove us to the food court at the mall. Jeanne started talking almost as soon as our butts hit the little plastic chairs.

"So the first two concerts go fine, and then we get to the third city on Tuesday, and Mr. Collins calls a meeting and tells us that Ann O'Hara, who's in your class, has laryngitis. I was so bummed."

"Oh, God, you should have seen her face," Cammie said.

"So then he says, I'm sorry, Jeanne," Jeanne suddenly stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oops, I left out part. So like for most of the concert we just sing group songs, right, but the first half of the show ends up with a trio with me and Cammie and Ann, and the chorus behind us, singing this song from Gilbert and Sullivan."

"Who are?" I asked.

"They wrote all these operettas," Cammie interjected.

"Little operas?" I guessed.

"Yes, can I finish?" Jeanne was getting just a little impatient. "Hush up, Cammie. And then in the last half of the concert, I sing a duet with Katie Wright, and Ann sings one with Barbie Moore, in French. Okay?"

"Sure," I nodded.

"So anyway, Mr. Collins says I'm sorry Jeanne, sorry, Cammie, sorry, Barbie. The songs with Ann are going to have to be cancelled. And then he kind of laughs and looks around and says, 'unless someone else knows Three Little Maids, ' which is the trio. And we all laugh, because of course nobody does. And then we all see that Mr. Collins is staring at the back of the room. And we all finally turn and look and see this one, who basically hasn't said a word the whole trip so far, and has just been hanging around us wherever we go, and she pipes up —"

"'I think I can sing it,'" Jilly said shyly.

Jeanne picked it up again.

"And Mr. Collins is looking really doubtful, so he does this long, 'Ummmm' because he has no idea who she is. And then he suddenly remembers she's my sister, so he says, in kind of this superior way he has, 'Miss Sterling, do you really know Ann's part in Three Little Maids?'"

I followed Jeanne's eyes over to Jill, who suddenly gave voice to this incredible song, which might as well have been real opera for all I could understand it.

"So you just sang it?" I asked her. "Without even practicing, or hearing it before, or being, like, a singer?"

"Trick?" Jeanne warned me back to silence.

"And Mr. Collins says, very slowly, 'O-kay, so then we just have to cancel the duet, unless, ' and his voice kind of trails off and he cocks his head like this and looks over at Jill and —"

I was absolutely flabbergasted. Jill had had two years of Spanish, and there she sat, singing what sounded to me like perfect French.

"How can you do this?" I asked her.

I was conscious of three women staring at me.

"Sorry," I said. "Go on."

"So she gets to practice with Miss Beachem — the pianist? — for like an hour, and we give the concert, and right before the trio Mr. Collins explains that we have a replacement and asks everyone to be understanding, and Jilly's just standing there glaring at him like this."

Jill gave me an evil stare.

"Like, understanding, my ass. And then we sang."

The entire mall stopped and listened as Jeanne, Cammie, and Jill sat there at the table singing to me. Then the rest of the patrons joined me in what turned out to be their third standing ovation for the song, since they had also performed it again on Wednesday night, before Ann finally got well enough to sing on Thursday.

We dropped Cammie off at the school parking lot, and drove back home while I told them of my exciting spring break. That afternoon was the first Game of the Week on FOX, and when I settled into the couch to watch it, I was very pleased to have Jill and Jeanne sit down on either side of me. Jill popped some popcorn, and tried to learn baseball. She had even more questions than she had during the Super Bowl because, as everyone knows, baseball is a far more complex and intellectual game.

And yet, as good as that day was, the next day, Easter, was even better. When I emerged into the hallway, dressed in a full-fledged suit and tie, I found two Sterling girls waiting for me, dressed in their Easter finest. Together, they dragged me up to the front row, where we sat with Cammie and her own visitor, Rabbit Parker. After church, Jeanne ordered me to drive to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill's, who were waiting for us on the front porch of their house. They had no trouble recognizing me this time, or Jill either for that matter, and we sat down to an absolutely wonderful mid-afternoon supper of roast lamb and mashed potatoes.