A Stitch in Time Pt. 04

"No kidding," I said. "One of his friends paid me a visit today. Jesse."

"Jesse Trasker?" Jill looked up.

"Yeah," I said. "He wanted to let me know that Andy's going to be angry."

Jill gave me a panicked stare.

"With me?" she asked.

"More with me, I think," I told her. "He was under the impression that I told you not to see him any more."

Jill blinked at me a couple of times and then returned to her food.

"Jill?" I asked. "Did you tell Andy that I told you to break up with him?"

"It was easier," she finally said as all of us stared at her.

"Than what?" I asked. "The truth?"

"He called your girlfriend a kike," she blurted out.

"I don't have a girlfriend," I said. "What do you mean, a kite?"

"A kike," Dave explained. "It's an uncomplimentary thing to say about someone who's Jewish."

I looked back and forth between Dave and Jill. I was surprised that Dave knew that, and equally surprised that Jill cared.

"So just tell him he's disgusting," Jeanne said.

"Yeah, right," Jill said. She looked like she was about to say something more, but snapped her mouth shut and again stared down at her plate.

"I told Andy's friend that I told you that he was a bigot," I said.

"Oh my God," Jill stared at me, her body almost shaking. "He'll kill me."

"He won't kill you," Jeanne scoffed.

"You don't know him," Jill told her. "He will."

"Who will, baby?" Dad interrupted.

"Andy," she told him. "He wants everybody to think he's like this great, perfect guy and everything."

"Eeeh," I dismissed him with a wave. "So you dumped him. What's the worst that can happen?"

Jeanne was the first to start laughing, and the whole table soon joined in. Even Jill smiled, although she still looked a little nervous.

That evening, I learned why. After the second game, I left for a pit stop. The boys' room was down the hall a bit, and as I was washing my hands, I heard the door bang open. I looked up to find an angry Andy Lebo blocking my way. Behind him, Jesse Trasker leaned against the door, a stupid-looking grin on his face.

"Sterling," Andy said seriously.

"Andy," I nodded.

"Jesse here tells me you've been disrespecting me to your sister."

Telling Andy that it was Jill who told me about his racism was probably a really bad idea. I decided that my only real choice was to agree with him.

"So?" I asked.

"So I'm thinking you should maybe tell her you were wrong," he said.

I'd been pretty much a coward in ninth grade, but I'd also considered myself a master of sarcasm. Despite my new body, my mental approach to life hadn't changed much.

"I'll do just that, Andy," I nodded. "I'll make sure to tell her tonight that you're not a racist bigot. Yessir, that's just what I'll do as soon as I get home. Now if you'll excuse me?"

He didn't have a chance to excuse me, because Jesse Trasker suddenly came flying forward, slamming into Andy's back and knocking him toward me. The two fell to the ground together as I neatly I sidestepped them. I looked up to see Tommy Narburg holding the door.

"Jeanne was worried," he said as we walked quickly back to the gym.

"I didn't know you were that strong," I told him, looking back over my shoulder every few seconds to see if we were being followed.

"Proper application of weight," he said with a smile.

"Well, thanks, pal," I said. "I was getting a little worried there, to be honest. Speaking of weight, I'm gonna start weightlifting next week after school. Wanna join me so we can spot for each other?"

"Weightlifting?" Tommy asked. "For what? Did Coach put you up to this?"

"How well did you hit last year?" I asked.

He gave me a glare and mumbled something.

"What was that, Tommy?" I cupped my hand behind my ear.

"Two thirty," he muttered a little louder. "Asshole."

"Yeah, I get a lot of that," I smiled. "Start on Monday?"

He nodded.

"I'll get Coach to set up a program," I said.

Jill rode in with Jeanne and me again on Wednesday, but on Thursday she was already gone by the time we left. At lunch time, Jeanne told me that she'd seen her in the hallway talking with Andy. I saw them myself later in the afternoon, walking together as if they'd never broken up. I found the sight disturbing. It had been easy enough to tell Jesse Trasker that I didn't tell my sister what to do. But it was hard advice to follow.

Thursday was yet another tryout, this time for the San Francisco Giants. It was a little different from the others. After the guy watched me throw a few times, he told me he was going to go stand in the batter's box in front of Tommy and said he wanted to see a little "chin music." They hadn't covered that in my book. I was on the verge of asking him what the hell he was talking about when Coach caught my eye. As the guy was walking down toward Tommy, Coach leaned in to hand me another ball.

"He wants you to throw at his chin," he whispered.

"He wants me to what?" I hissed back.

"Brush him back off the plate," Coach continued casually. "High and inside."

"All right," I said skeptically.

"Just don't hit him," Coach added.

No fucking kidding, I thought as I watched him take a stance. He was crowding the imaginary plate a little bit, and Tommy looked a little uncomfortable. But, as we'd done for the past couple of tryouts, he started to run through some of our signs for the coming year.

He called for the change-up. I shook him off. He called for the fastball. I nodded. He gave me a second sign for location. Low and away. No. Low and inside. No. High and away. No. He tapped his crotch — straight down the middle. No. His eyes widening, he gave me the only other sign he had. High and inside. I nodded. And threw.

Tommy stuck his glove up in the air and, bless him, held it right there after he caught the ball. When the scout got back up — he had ended up on his butt — he looked over at Tommy's glove and then back at me.

"One more time?" I asked cheerfully.

He was shaking his head as he walked back.

"Looks like you're gonna be a Devil Ray," he said.

"Yes, sir," I said. He left and I turned to Coach.

"Why the hell would I want to be a Devil Ray?" I asked.

Coach stared at me.

"They have first pick," Tommy said as he joined us.

"In the Major League draft," he added as he saw the look on my face.

"But I don't have to —"

I was about to tell him that they couldn't seriously expect me to play for some team I didn't like, but then I realized — duh! — that's why they called it a draft.

" — play for them if I go to college, right?" I changed the sentence.

"No," Coach said. "They lose their rights as soon as you take your first class. We went over this whole thing last year. Are you okay?"

"Sure, Coach," I said. "Just nerves, I guess."

"I got class in five minutes," Tommy said. "I gotta hustle."

We watched him leave, and I turned back to Coach.

"Me and Tommy are gonna start lifting next week," I told him. "What kind of weights should we be starting with?"

"Tommy? How'd you get Tommy to start lifting?"

He was staring at me again.

"I asked him? Was that wrong? Shouldn't he lift?"

"Hell, yes," Coach said. "But he's never done it before. Maybe he's just taking it seriously now that he could be the starter."

"Could be?" I asked. "Why wouldn't he be?"

"That Trasker kid on the football team said he'd try out this spring," he shrugged. "We'll have to see."

"Tommy's my catcher," I said firmly.

"Not if he can't hit," Coach said.

"Tommy's my catcher," I repeated. He'd damn well better hit.

"Then it's a good thing he's gonna be lifting," Coach said. "Come on. I'll give you a schedule."

That evening was another "friends" event. I picked up Rabbit, Tanya, and Tommy and we headed over to the band concert. It was fairly ordinary at the beginning; the junior high band was no better than it had been when I was in junior high school. I'd been to their concert just before Christmas, in fact, and they stunk. The senior high band, though, was amazing, even though, for the most part, it was the same people I'd seen playing for the junior high band just two months ago. They'd clearly gotten a lot better in the three years I'd missed. And when Sammy Houghtaling came out as a soloist, to play some kind of trumpet thing by Haydn, fifteen minutes worth of music that he'd memorized, I couldn't believe it.

"Isn't he great?" Jeanne gushed into my right ear as we stood up. I was too busy applauding to answer.

Friday brought something else new: a religion test, on the first five books of the Bible. I was pretty pleased with myself overall, although I probably could have done a little better on the essay question. After class, Tanya was bubbling away that if all the tests were going to be this easy, she'd ace this class for sure. Since she'd already been admitted to Cornell, though, I failed to see what the big deal was. Jealous? Maybe I was. Probably, though, I was just upset that I still hadn't figured out all the rules of this "friends with benefits" thing yet. There weren't any friends events scheduled for the weekend, and it looked like I was going to be doing without my benefits for at least another week.

The only really good part of the weekend was Sunday afternoon, when I made a point of arriving at the library just before 3:30. Mrs. Parsons was sitting next to me as we both pretended to read. The phone rang, and Lynn answered it.

"Did I what?" she asked in horror. "We've only had two dates."

She cast a murderous glare at the table where both Mrs. Parsons and I were laughing hysterically.

"Crabby?" she yelled at us, attracting the attention of everyone else. "I'll show you crabby."

She returned to her call.

"Now what can I help you with?" she asked Mrs. Simmons.

It turned out to be a baseball question, and Lynn had to call me over to help her answer it.

"Two dates, huh?" I asked after I hung up. "I noticed you didn't tell Dottie that the answer was no."

Lynn Edwards was blushing furiously as I returned to the table to exchange a high-five with Mrs. Parsons. Our work done, our entertainment over, we walked out of the library together while Lynn was distracted by another patron. As I walked to my car, though, I couldn't help but think that a weekend where Lynn Edwards got laid and I didn't was not a good weekend at all.

Chapter 13

T.S. Eliot apparently wrote somewhere that April is the cruelest month. Maybe he went away every February. Because as far as I'm concerned, April has nothing on February. February is still cold, it's still dark, and it has that damn Valentine's Day in the middle of it.

My own February hadn't really been that bad, particularly since it followed a January where I had come a little too close to being thrown out of school. I had made a friend with benefits, even if we'd only had benefits once so far. And even if we didn't really have one of those Valentine's Day relationships. I had made a bunch of other new friends, too. And I was on track for A-pluses in Government, History, and my Honors English Seminar.

Then, on February 27, I got my first Religion test back. Mrs. Jenkins must have spent the entire weekend grading them, the old biddy. She gave me an A and yes, I know that an "A" is an excellent grade. It says so right on the report cards. A = Excellent. So I really couldn't complain about it. Besides, she'd written "Very nice job, Patrick" across the top of the test, and she smiled at me when she gave it back like I was a prize show dog that she was particularly proud of. But A+ = outstanding. And I needed outstanding grades to get into UVA. I had been right. I could have done better on that essay question.

The day hadn't started off well, either. Jeanne and I were about to get into our car for the trip to school when Andy Lebo pulled his land ark into the driveway behind my car and honked his horn. We watched Jill come out of the door and climb into his car. Jeanne and I traded glances and got into ours. And then we waited for Andy to leave. And waited. And waited.

Finally, after five minutes, I left the car idling and walked over to Andy's car. He had turned the radio up and closed the windows. He and his buddies, Jesse Trasker and Brian Hughes, who were sitting in the back seat, were just laughing at me as I tried to ask him to move. Jill was sitting in the front seat, and while she didn't join them in laughing, it didn't look like she was doing anything to help us. Finally, with about five minutes to go before the start of school, he backed out of the driveway and tore off down the road. Jeanne and I followed at a more sedate pace, and were naturally a few minutes late by the time we got to school.

Mr. Smithson refused to let me into homeroom without a note from the office, and when I got there I found Jeanne ahead of me, nearly in tears. We were the only people there other than Rachel Carter, who was so busy typing that she hadn't noticed Jeanne arrive. I hadn't had occasion to come by the office since we'd danced together, and I was very happy to see her wearing her hair loose now.

"Hey, gorgeous," I called out. "How 'bout some service over here?"

Her head snapped up, ready to take offense.

"Here's trouble," she grinned. "What can I do for the Sterling family?"

"The Sterling family got held up by a bunch of assholes on the way here," I told her, "and can't get into their homerooms without notes."

"What's this?" Pete Peterson came bustling out of his office. "What happened, Trick?"

"We just had a run-in with some guys who wanted us to be late," I said.

"Who?" he asked. He seemed a little eager, like he hadn't disciplined someone in a while and needed to pad his statistics.

"It was —" Jeanne began.

"Mister Peterson," I interrupted her. "Do we look like we're the kind of people who'd squeal on our classmates?"

With a disappointed glance at Jeanne, who probably did look like she was that kind of person, he agreed that no, we didn't.

"Anyway, it didn't happen on school property," I said. "But we still need notes to get into our homerooms, of which we only have about five minutes left."

As Pete was interrogating us, Rachel had prepared the necessary paperwork, and we both hustled out of the office.

"Why didn't you tell him?" Jeanne demanded as we were about to part ways.

"Do you really think that he wouldn't confront Andy, and that Andy wouldn't take it out on Jill?" I left her standing there, open-mouthed, as I hurried back to Mr. Smithson's classroom.

I passed Andy's locker on my way to fourth-period Astronomy, and he was just leaning on it, smirking at me.

"Nice trip, Sterling?"

"Yeah, thanks, Andy," I said as I hustled past. "You know, next time you and Jesse and Brian oughta try to finish your play date a little earlier so you can pick Jill up before school starts, huh?"

I'd said it loud enough that it got some giggles from the kids within earshot, and it earned me a righteous glare from Andy. In retrospect, of course, it probably hadn't been the smartest thing to say.

And then Religion. I could tell that Tanya was delighted with the A that she showed me, and I did my best to share her enthusiasm as we dumped our books in our lockers and walked to the cafeteria. It would have been hard to explain why a fuck-up like me was all of a sudden getting bent out of shape because he got an A rather than an A-plus. Instead, I told her the conclusion of the Lynn Edwards saga, and then had to tell the whole thing over again at lunch for everyone else's benefit.

After school, Tommy and I began our weightlifting program. It went well, and Tommy told me he wanted to come back every day. But Coach wanted us to start the first week doing every other day, so Tommy agreed to wait until Wednesday.

At dinner that evening, Jeanne did something that I hadn't seen her do in a long time, even by my truncated measuring stick. She complained to Dad. She launched into a diatribe about our having been late to school, and put the blame squarely on Jill.

"Hey, I didn't do anything," Jill protested.

"It was your stupid boyfriend who just sat there in the driveway laughing at us," Jeanne pointed out.

"I didn't tell him to do it," Jill argued petulantly.

"So why didn't he just drive you to school?" Dad asked Jill.

"I don't know," Jill said as she played with her food. "He said he wanted to..."

"To what?" Dad asked.

"To jerk Trick around a little," she said reluctantly.

"Why?" Dad pressed her.

"'Cause he says that Trick tried to break us up," she said, tears forming in her eyes.

"Hey, Dad," I interrupted.

He looked over at me.

"It's not a problem," I said. "I'll take care of it. I'll make sure Jeanne gets to school on time."

He gave me a long look, and then looked at Jeanne and Jill in turn.

"Good," he grunted. "Because it's not like I can stick around here to referee your little high school problems."

We all returned to our dinners, but after Jeanne and I had finished the dishes, I knocked on Jill's door. It was ajar, and I could see her in there at her desk, her ear plugs in and her head nodding to something mellow on her iPod.

"What do you want?" she asked when she finally realized I was in the doorway looking at her. She dialed down the volume.

"Is it important to you that he thinks that I tried to break you up?" I asked her.

She made a show of taking out her earplugs and asking me to repeat myself. I did, even though I knew full well that she'd heard me the first time.

"Yeah," she said. "You did."

"No, I didn't," I said gently.

"Yeah," she glared at me. "You did. Can you just leave me alone, please?"

"Jilly, what's the —"

"Please, Trick?"

I went out later that evening and parked the car on the street. When Andy came the next day, I just pulled out and left him fuming in the driveway. Even Andy wasn't about to mess with us in the middle of traffic. And after that he apparently decided it wasn't worth the trouble any more.

On Wednesday morning, I got back my Melville paper, another "Very nice job, Patrick" printed across the top. Unlike my Religion test, this one came with an A-plus attached to it. Thank you, Mrs. Palmer. On Wednesday afternoon, Tommy and I met again in the weight room after school for some lifting. He said he was a little sore, but he eagerly agreed to meet me again on Friday. On Wednesday evening, Tanya scuttled those plans with a single phone call.

"My parents are going to a friend's house for the Sabbath," she said.

"You guys are gone like every other week," I grumbled.

"I didn't say I was going."

"You're not going with them?" I perked up.

"No. Interested in an after-school special?"

"You bet," I said. At least, I thought I was. It sounded a lot like sex. Either that or we were going to watch TV. Either way, it would be time well spent as long as Tanya was there.

"Good. I'm feeling really horny."

So it wasn't TV. There was a long pause, and I finally realized that I was expected to respond.

"Me, too," I said.

"Good," she repeated. "I was getting worried."

"About what?"

"That you might not have, you know, liked it," she said shyly.

"Are you serious? It was great. You were great. It was amazing."

"You're blabbering," she giggled.

"Exactly."

"Then why didn't you ask me again?"

Was that the rule?! I couldn't ask her out to dinner or to a movie, but I could say, 'hi, wanna get together and fuck this weekend?' Is that what this meant? Hell, why didn't everybody do this?

"Uh, I guess I'm just too new at this," I said. "I've only done the boyfriend-girlfriend thing before."

We talked a little longer, and finally signed off with "see ya." None of that messy "I love you" stuff for me and Tanya.

On Thursday, I had a tryout for the Devil Rays, the team that had the first selection in the upcoming baseball draft in June. The scout tried not to appear that interested in me, and kept reminding me about up some hotshot lefthander at Vanderbilt that they were giving a real hard look. I uncorked a couple of my best fastballs — Tommy was getting more and more comfortable catching them — and told him that that was fine, I was looking at a bunch of colleges, too. Our little chat after the throwing session took up so much time that I never noticed Tommy leaving. As a result, I forgot to tell him about the change in our Friday afternoon plans until I saw him in the hallway Friday morning.