by Tim Green
They found a spot along the railing and leaned against it, watching the water.
“Try to follow one spot of water,” Joey said, his eyes picking out a part of the stream as it fell, split, and shattered into a thousand droplets that got lost in the mist.
Leah leaned against his shoulder, then separated. “I like it here.”
“Me, too.”
“Zach says you’re the nicest person he knows. He says he never had a friend like you.”
“I never had one like him, either.”
“I bet. You guys are lucky, sticking together like that. I don’t know if girls can do that.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged and laughed at him. “What’s that book? Women Are from Venus, Men Are from Mars?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something like that. We tend to compete a little more.”
“Both Zach and I are competitive.”
“With each other?”
Joey had to think about that. “No. Not with each other, I guess.”
“See? That’s nice. Like Lucy, for instance.”
“Lucy?”
“My friend. She’s got blond hair.”
“Oh, her. Yeah?”
“She’s mad at me about you.”
“Me?”
“She likes you, so she’s mad that I danced with you and talked on the playground. I’m sure she’s steaming right now.”
“But she’s still your friend. She didn’t say anything.”
“That’s what I mean. Girls don’t talk about it. They use secret methods to do battle. Boys? They just start arguing and pushing each other around. You always know where you stand.”
“But you know where you stand with Lucy?”
“I’m tuned in to things like that, but even I get caught off guard sometimes.”
Joey shook his head. “That’s what I like about baseball. You always know where you stand.”
“Except for this all-star thing, right?” She looked at him.
34
“Sorry,” Leah said, “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m going to make that team.” Joey sounded more confident than he felt.
“Well, I think you should.”
“But you only saw my worst game.”
“The other nice thing about baseball is that your numbers speak for themselves. Twenty-seven home runs with a five-ten batting average is tough to argue with.”
Joey just stared. She knew his stats. She actually knew his stats. “How did you . . .”
She tilted her head. “Zach.”
“Oh.” Joey took out his phone and looked at the time. “Hey, we probably better get back. We eat dinner at six.”
They walked side by side, and at first Joey wasn’t certain but he thought Leah was walking closer to him. Halfway back to the swimming area, her hand brushed against his and he was sure. It made him blush and he thought about taking hold of her hand but couldn’t work up the guts to do it. Before he knew it, their group was in sight. Zach lay back with his hands behind his head and his mouth half open like he was sleeping. Butch Barrett and his buddies had disappeared. Joey acted like he didn’t even realize they’d gone, and to his extreme pleasure Leah didn’t mention them either.
Zach rolled on his side and propped his head up on one hand. “Hey, guys.”
“What took you so long?” It was the blond, Lucy, and Joey saw the anger in her eyes. “You didn’t stop to kiss, did you?”
Joey’s face blazed.
“Who do you think I am, you?” Leah scolded her friend, and by the look on Lucy’s face, she wasn’t expecting it.
As he rolled up his towel, Joey realized that his discomfort grew when other people were around. When it was just him and Leah, he was much better. Now he felt like a clod again, standing there in the midst of them all.
“Okay. Well. Bye.”
“You’re going?” Zach got to his feet and slapped hands with Joey. “I better get home, too, but this was fun. Ladies . . .”
Zach bowed dramatically. “It was a pleasure.”
The girls smiled uncertainly at him. Joey couldn’t even look at Leah in front of her friends. The thing with Lucy was too weird, so he gave half a wave, turned, and walked away with Zach beside him.
“Well,” Zach said under his breath as they walked toward the bike rack, “did you?”
“Did I what?” Joey couldn’t help sounding annoyed.
“Kiss her, bro.”
“Zach, you think she’s like that? I barely know her.” The thought scared him even more than it thrilled him.
“Well, her friend asked, so I don’t know.”
“Well, she’s not.”
“She’s not, or you’re not? Girls like to be kissed.”
Joey shot him a look. Everyone knew Zach had kissed Sheila Tibioni in the entrance to the food court at the mall. She was in eighth grade. Zach did it on a dare and had grown famous for it.
“I’m just saying.” Zach held up his hands in surrender. “It’s not so bad. Once you do it once, it’s no big deal.”
“Look,” Joey said, “I like her. I like just being around her.”
“So, ask her out, then. Did you ask her out?”
Joey grabbed the handles of his bike and yanked it free from the rack. “No, I didn’t ‘ask her out.’ What does that mean? Where am I asking her ‘out’ to?”
Joey knew what it meant, but didn’t want to talk like that.
“You just ask her to be your girlfriend. That’s all. It’s simple. You don’t have to do anything. You’re just ‘going out.’ Then, you hang out together and text a lot.”
“That’s crazy. Going out is like going out on a date, to dinner or the movies or something. We can’t even do that.”
Zach shook his head. “I hate to break it to you, but that’s what people do. Especially in seventh grade.”
“Well, we’re not in seventh grade.”
“But we will be. Technically, after Thursday, we’re seventh graders. Sixth grade will be over.”
The handgrips on Joey’s bike grew slick and he realized it was from his own palms. “Zach, you’re the best friend anyone could have—”
“No, you are.”
“Well, we both are, but I can’t ask Leah ‘out.’”
“Why?”
Joey looked up at the sky. He didn’t want to repeat Leah’s words about being friends before going out because he didn’t want to admit talking about it, even to his best friend. “I just can’t.”
“Listen.” Zach put a hand on the seat of Joey’s bike. “If you don’t, trust me, someone else will. We’ll be in junior high next year with kids from four other schools and a bunch of eighth graders. She’s beautiful. Everyone’s going to be asking her out, and if you don’t, what’s she going to do?”
Joey pinched his mouth so tight his head trembled. “I don’t know. I can’t help it. I’m scared just looking at her. I can’t dance with her. I can’t touch her. I can barely talk.”
Zach snapped his fingers. “I got it.”
“You got what?”
“I know exactly how to fix this.”
35
“How?” Joey held his breath.
“I’ll ask her.” Zach put a thumb on his chest.
“What?” Joey couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No, don’t look at me like that.” Zach laughed aloud. “I’ll ask her for you.”
“What? How?”
Zach shrugged. “I just will. I talk to her all the time. I’ll just ask her, ‘Leah, will you go out with Joey?’ I bet she says yes. People do it like that.”
Joey shook his head. “No. No way. You can’t do that.”
“I can.”
“No.”
“Fine.” Zach threw up his hands. He let go of Joey’s bicycle seat and removed his own bike from the rack a few spaces down. “You can only lead a horse to water. You can’t make it drink.”
> “I’m not thirsty.” Joey toed up his kickstand.
Zach stared at him. “You’re dying of thirst. You just don’t know it.”
Joey watched him pedal away. Before he rounded the corner of the pavilion, Zach looked back with a face that said he wasn’t really mad. “Good luck with Coach Barrett! I mean it, bro. No way can that all-star team be without you.”
Joey gave him a victory V and mounted his own bike. He took the long way around the pavilion so he could get one last look at Leah. He was rewarded with a wave from her even as she sat there amid her friends. Joey waved back and felt a surge of energy for his ride home, traveling fast, fueled by the terrifying yet exciting thought of actually asking her out, as silly as it sounded.
At home, Martin greeted him just inside the door with sticky hands and cat hair. “Joey, Joey, Joey. Hug.”
“Martin, please. Your hands.” Joey couldn’t help thinking that, again, his little brother knew exactly what he was doing.
“Joseph, you be nice,” their mother said without turning from whatever it was she had cooking on the stove.
“Mom, he’s disgusting. There’s something sticky and cat hair all over him.”
“Pork Chop!” Martin squealed.
“Yeah,” Joey said, looking around. “Where is Pork Chop?”
“Pork Chop bye-bye.” Martin opened and closed his sticky mitts.
“Oh, boy.” Joey could only imagine as he scooted past his little brother and bolted for the stairs to go up and change. Across from the stairs, in an oversized closet, was the room where the washing machine and dryer were. Joey had his foot on the first step when he heard a low mewling from the laundry room.
“Pork Chop?”
He pushed open the laundry room door and looked around inside. He must have been hearing things. He turned to go and heard it again, coming from the dryer. He yanked open the round door and there was Pork Chop, slathered in something brownish yellow that made Joey start to get sick until he smelled its sweet odor. Pancake syrup. The cat was doused in it and looking miserable. He gently closed the door.
“Mom!” Joey hollered on his way up the stairs. “I think Martin put the cat in the dryer!”
He didn’t want to stick around and have to clean up, so he undressed quickly and got into the shower himself. He heard his mom calling his name but successfully ignored it through the sound of the spraying water.
“How was swimming?” his father asked when he sat down at the dinner table.
“Great.”
“Good.” His father bowed his head and they all said grace together.
“I don’t know why Coach Barrett wants to talk in person,” his father said, spooning out some string beans before passing the bowl to Joey.
His mother put a chicken leg on his plate, then proceeded to cut one up into little bits for Martin’s tray. “He’s a strange bird if you ask me.”
“Decent baseball coach.” Joey’s father talked around a mouthful of chicken, drawing a disapproving look from Joey’s mom.
“You should just tell someone, that’s all,” his mom said. “All this mystery nonsense. I don’t like it. It’s like when a store owner burns down his place for the insurance money and he wants to tell you all about the fire and how horrible the whole thing was.”
“How is it like that?” Joey’s dad asked.
She held a forkful of beans at bay. “I don’t know. It just is. Something fishy.”
Her words didn’t do anything to help Joey. He could barely eat, and kept looking at the clock, urging the hands toward seven. His mom served slices of a strawberry rhubarb pie she’d made, and then Joey and his dad cleaned up while she gave Martin a much-needed bath upstairs. Joey’s mom was still up there when Coach Barrett arrived, wearing his Blue Jays cap, maybe to show that he was there on official business. The coach seemed glad Joey’s mom wasn’t there, and the three of them sat down in the living room.
Joey’s dad offered the coach a drink.
“No, I can only stay a minute.” Coach Barrett held up a hand and took some papers out of his shoulder bag that he used as a coaching briefcase. He handed the papers to Joey’s dad. “Okay, well you should sign these.”
“Is this for the all-star team?” Joey’s dad screwed up his face at the mystery of it all.
Joey could barely breathe.
Coach Barrett clapped his hands before he clasped his fingers together. “Okay, well, what do you want first, the good news or the bad news?”
Joey’s dad glanced at Joey. Joey swallowed and his dad said, “Give us the bad news first.”
36
Coach Barrett’s face clouded over. He leaned forward and spoke in a somber and serious voice, almost like someone had died. “Okay well . . . No, no, no. I’ve got to give you the good news first.” Coach Barrett looked back and forth between them.
“Okay, the good news then,” Joey’s dad said.
“Good news is that Joey is the first alternate for the all-star team.” Coach Barrett’s face beamed at them like a headlight.
Then Coach Barrett’s face fell, as did his voice. “I guess that’s the bad news, too.”
“You mean, he made it, or he didn’t make it?” Joey’s dad asked.
“As the alternate,” Coach Barrett said, nodding like a bobblehead.
“So, unless someone drops out, he didn’t make it.”
“Or if someone gets hurt,” Coach Barrett said brightly.
Joey felt like he was about to lose the small amount of food he’d choked down. This was it, and it was really over. The alternate thing was like striking a match in a blustery wind.
Coach Barrett cleared his throat. “And I want you to know that I fought tooth and nail to make him the very first alternate. I would not let anyone leave that room until they agreed. It was tough, because they argued no team should have three players on the all-star team, except maybe the champions, but I had them dead to rights because I argued that even though we didn’t win the championship, we still had the best record, and there was a reason for that. It wasn’t all just coaching . . .”
Joey’s dad folded the waiver Coach Barrett had handed him, and his fingers crept across the crease over and over again.
“No, it wasn’t, but, Don . . .”
Coach Barrett seemed startled by Joey’s dad using his first name.
“You said ‘three players’ from our team. I get Zach and Joey, but who’s the third?”
37
Joey knew who the third was, even before Coach Barrett puffed up like a tom turkey, stretching his neck and arching his back just a bit to expand his chest as big as it could possibly get.
“The third? The third is Joey. The first is Zach. Butch was the second.”
“Butch?”
“My son.” Coach Barrett wore a vicious smile. “You know? Butch, our second baseman. The winning run on first yesterday in the top of the sixth inning? The one who caught that pop fly to keep them from scoring in the fourth? That Butch.”
“I didn’t mean . . .” Joey’s dad stopped talking to prove that he really didn’t know what he meant.
“It’s not easy when your son is involved, trust me. I wasn’t the advocate for Butch. It was the other coaches. They insisted he get a wild card spot. Trust me, my vote was for your son, just as I said it would be. You can see the minutes from the meeting if you like.”
Joey’s dad held up his hands in surrender. “That’s not necessary at all. I was just thinking of your own words yesterday, that he had an outstanding season and that he deserved to be on that team.”
“And I stand by that. Look, Jim, I didn’t come here to be challenged. I came to get this waiver signed and let you know that if anything happens, Joey will be the first kid we call to play in that game on Saturday. I think he does deserve it, but I’m only one vote. The other coaches felt strongly about Butch and the other kids we selected. I’m sorry. It’s hard, I know.”
Joey thought about Butch Barrett’s smug face and his bold pred
ictions. He thought about Coach Barrett’s secret meeting with the other coaches at the Dark Owl Diner the night before. A hot slush of anger slopped around inside his stomach. Joey wanted to scream. He wanted to spit. He felt tears building up in the corners of his eyes.
Baseball wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Life wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Life, and especially baseball, were supposed to be fair.
38
Through the screen of the open window, Joey and his dad listened to the sound of Coach Barrett’s car as it faded down the street. Silence filled the room. Finally, Joey’s dad sighed.
In a quiet voice he said, “Sorry, buddy. I don’t know what to say.”
The shock and horror of it left Joey unable to speak. He could barely think, but somewhere in the soup of boiling emotions floated the image of him and Leah leaning against the railing by the falls and them talking about his baseball prowess. He wondered if she’d still go to the game, even though he wasn’t playing in it. Maybe she’d go to see Butch Barrett.
A groan bubbled up in his throat.
“I know.” His father’s voice was so full of sympathy that it only made him feel worse. “But these things happen. That’s life.”
“Well, it stinks!” Joey jumped out of his seat and raced up the stairs.
He bumped into his mom as she rounded the corner at the top.
“Hey, hey.” She tried to take hold of his shoulders, but he shrugged free and escaped to his room, where he slammed the door and locked it.
His mom rapped her knuckles against the wood like gunshots. “Young man, you open this door! I’m your mother!”
Joey sat on his bed and wrapped his arms around himself, holding on tight through the storm of noise. He heard his father’s footsteps on the stairs and the murmur of his calming voice through the bedroom door as he soothed Joey’s mom. Finally, the two of them walked away and he heard them going down the stairs.
A minute went by before there was a soft scratching on the door. “Joooeeey. Joooeeey.”
Joey clenched his fists and leaped across the room. He hammered his fist against the door.
