“Fine,” she murmured to herself. “Just fine.”
Marlee didn’t know what to do. She watched him roar out of the parking lot and out of her life. Her softball bag suddenly weighed 300 pounds. She shrugged it off her shoulder. What just happened? She needed time, time to process. I can’t see you anymore, he had said. She walked back toward the school and got angrier and angrier. Well, fine. I can’t see you anymore, either. Marlee fumed. She couldn’t believe he had just broken up with her. And now she had to face her coach about Lord knew what. And her friends were waiting for her, too. How could she face any of them now?
She reached the stairs, but lost her resolve. She turned and sat down squarely in the middle of the bottom step in the ever-increasing rain. The rain seemed a fitting accompaniment to the sudden shift of events. Tears welled up. She thought about all the time she and Bobby had spent together since they met in January. She remembered the fun they had hanging out with Jeri and Dave. And, of course, she thought sarcastically, all those wonderfully awkward moments at Lake Birch. Although she felt a thousand different feelings, she was surprised to find relief among them. She smiled when she realized she would never have to go to Lake Birch ever again. Still, even though she found comfort in that last thought, tears slid down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them.
At that moment, Jeri and Lisa bounded out of the school. They must have been watching. And even though the rain fell in earnest, they plopped down like bookends on either side of her. Jeri grabbed Marlee’s hand while Lisa put a protective arm around her. She thought she had it together, but this show of friendship and support opened the floodgates. She put her head into her hands. “He broke up with me.” She sobbed without looking up. She slapped her thigh forcefully. “I just got dumped. Dumped!”
Jeri pulled her into an embrace and murmured, “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
Lisa added, “Hang in there, Marlee.” She rubbed her back.
Marlee struggled for composure. “Crap. Coach is waiting for me. Can you hang while I see what she wants?”
Jeri nodded. “Sure. We’ll keep the Mustang warmed up for a speedy get-away to Stewart’s.”
“Yeah,” Lisa agreed. “You need ice cream, eh?”
Marlee laughed and swiped at her tears. She thanked her friends and attempted to get herself together for her meeting with Coach Spears.
Marlee took several deep breaths as she walked toward her coach’s office. She stopped at the water fountain right outside the office and took a long drink. She scooped up some water, splashed her face, and tried to look as if she hadn’t been crying. She hadn’t yet gotten herself under control so she sat on the bottom row of the bleachers in the gym.
With a sigh she dried her face on her already damp sweatshirt. To get her mind off what had just happened with Bobby, she thought about her call to Susie on Sunday. Marlee had been a little nervous about calling so soon, but Susie sounded happy to hear from her. Susie had just finished Sunday dinner with her family. Susie told her that even though both her parents worked, they always had Sunday dinner together. Usually Susie’s grandmother cooked, but sometimes Susie’s mother cooked, too. Marlee told Susie that she and her own mother rarely had sit-down meals together, but when they did, they usually ate in front of the television using TV trays.
Marlee inhaled and wiped at her eyes again. She smiled when she thought about Susie calling her back on Monday. For three days in a row, Marlee had talked to Susie on the phone. And the best part was that Susie hadn’t called for any specific reason, not really, she just wanted to talk. Susie said she liked talking to someone who wasn’t part of the regular drama in East Valley. And as Marlee sat alone in the Clarksonville gymnasium trying to get her head together after being dumped by her boyfriend, she finally figured out why she enjoyed talking with Susie so much. It was so simple. Susie was becoming a good friend because she wasn’t part of the same old routine at Clarksonville. Clearly, that was the reason Marlee had become so fascinated with her. Marlee breathed a sigh of relief and stood up to see her coach in the girls’ Physical Education office.
She tapped on the half-open door. “Hey, Coach, you wanted to see me?” Marlee walked into the cramped office that her coach shared with two other physical education teachers. She dropped into one of the chairs on the other side of her coach’s desk.
Coach Spears wrote furiously in the scorebook, obviously tallying some statistics. Without looking up, her coach said, “Marlee, something’s off. I’m counting your strikeouts and walks and once again, you’ve got far too many walks. You also had high counts on a lot of batters. You can get away with this against a weak team like Northwood, but not against stronger teams like East Valley.”
“Yeah, I know, Coach. I’m working on it. I mean, Lisa and I pitched last weekend, but my rise ball still kind of sucks. Oh, sorry. I mean, stinks.” Marlee looked down at her hands. She felt tears welling up again and tried to fight them by taking a deep breath.
Coach Spears must have heard something because she tossed the scorebook aside and came around the desk to sit next to Marlee. “What’s wrong, kiddo?”
Marlee shook her head, “I’m okay.” Clearly she wasn’t because the tears she thought she had under control eased down her cheeks again. She put her head in her hands and started to cry in earnest.
“Oh, you are not okay. Did something happen with your young man out there?”
Marlee struggled to find her voice. She couldn’t, so she simply nodded and reached for a tissue from her coach’s desk.
“Marlee, why didn’t you come to me sooner? You know my door is always open, especially to my softball girls.” She handed Marlee another tissue. “Okay, what happened?”
The tears continued to flow and Marlee couldn’t get her voice under control. She felt extremely stupid crying in front of her coach.
Coach Spears said quietly, “Marlee, c’mon, you can talk to me.” She seemed to hesitate a moment, but then asked softly, “Is it a Planned Parenthood issue?”
Marlee sniffled and laughed. “No, Coach.” She looked up and said calmly, “No. Nothing like that.”
“Okay, okay,” her coach backed off. “I had to ask. So what happened?”
“Oh, Coach, I don’t know. He broke up with me. Said he ‘met someone else’.” Marlee reached for another tissue just in case.
“I’m so sorry, Marlee. Are you going to be okay?” Her coach handed her the entire box of tissues.
“I just didn’t expect it is all.” She looked down at the tissue box and added, “He was moving kind of fast, you know?” She looked up at her coach again.
“Ahh, I see. Maybe...maybe you’re better off,” her coach said gently.
“I don’t know. I can’t think right now.” Marlee sighed. She hoped the waterworks had finally stopped flowing.
“Marlee, you know I’m always here if you want to talk anything over. The other teachers know to go get coffee if somebody comes in to talk. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Coach.” She stood up and added, “And I really am working on my pitching. I think I’ve been,” she searched for the right word, “distracted.”
“Okay, Marlee, I’ll see you tomorrow at practice. We’ve got a big game against Racquette on Friday.”
Marlee perked up at the word Friday. Friday meant another chance to see Susie. And as she left her coach’s office, she laughed because she knew that as soon as she got home she would grab the phone from her bedside stand and punch in a certain East Valley phone number. She was both pleased and relieved that she had finally worked out why she was so fascinated with Susie. Good friends were hard to find and Marlee couldn’t wait to see her new friend again. She had to wait until Friday, though. Three days felt like three hundred.
Marlee ran to the locker room, put her softball gear away, and grabbed her backpack. She bounded down the back stairs of the gymnasium and ran through the pouring rain to the Mustang. Jeri revved the engine. Marlee jumped in the front seat and yelled, “Get me ice cream!�
�� Jeri hit the accelerator.
Chapter Six
Confessions
“WHERE ARE MY fries?” The Mustang weaved as Jeri searched through the McDonald’s bag.
“Hang on! Stay on the road. I’ll get ’em.” Marlee dug for the fries and handed them to Jeri. “I can’t believe we’re going to another game.” Secretly, Marlee had been more excited about watching Susie’s team play that evening than pitching her own game that afternoon.
Lisa chimed in from the back seat. “I know. I’m so tired. But at least we beat Racquette today.”
“Yeah, really,” Jeri said. “Do you guys think there’s such a thing as too much softball?”
The three girls looked at each other and said “Nah” at the same time.
“It’s never too much,” Marlee added. “I mean, first of all, we have to wait all winter to play. And then when March finally gets here, we can’t even play outside. We have to play in the gym for a month since the field’s still frozen. I mean we had, like, what, three practices outside before our first game?”
“Tell me about it,” Jeri said through a mouthful of french fries.
Lisa added, “And then the season is over so fast. So, no. You can’t get too much softball.”
Jeri waved a fry at Marlee. “And thank God we have the summer league at Nichol Park. But this is my last summer in the eighteen and under league. I’m gonna have to play in the women’s league next year.”
“That’s gonna suck.” Marlee frowned. “My mom definitely thinks we’re too preoccupied with softball. She doesn’t really understand why I have to pitch at home with Lisa. She always says we get enough practice after school every day.”
Lisa called out from the backseat. “I’m glad we can practice at your house, because we’d break my neighbors’ windows for sure.”
Jeri laughed. “Like you almost did with your homerun on Tuesday. You were, like, three feet from hitting Mrs. Stratton’s window again.”
“Oh, my God, I know. The Board of Education would probably make me pay for it, too.”
Marlee agreed. “Yeah, they probably would.”
Jeri reached in the bag for her hot apple pie. “My folks think I spend too much time playing ball, too. They want me to spend more time working in the restaurant. No thanks.”
“Yeah, really. And Bobby, oops, I wasn’t going to talk about him tonight.” Marlee choked up thinking about her recent breakup only three days old. She was surprised at how fast her emotions overtook her. She looked out the passenger window into the darkness. Although she couldn’t see much, she knew they were passing wide open fields where corn would soon flourish.
“No, c’mon,” Jeri encouraged. “What were you gonna say?”
Marlee continued to stare into the darkness.
Jeri said, “Hey, it’s just us here. You gotta share your pain. Girl, I shared my pain when Dave broke up with me.”
“No kidding,” Marlee teased. She took a deep breath. “No, I was just gonna say that Bobby said I spent too much time with softball, too. He said something about not competing with softball and girls’ nights.”
“Well, I think—” Jeri started, but Marlee interrupted.
“He’s cute, though, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Did you know that I could never get him to understand the infield fly rule? I mean he’s a jock, so how can he not understand a simple rule like that? And how come he never watched an entire game of ours?” Marlee was on a roll. “And how come all he wanted to do was go to Lake Birch?”
Lisa broke in then. “Lake Birch?”
Before Marlee could answer, Jeri turned her head toward Lisa in the back seat and said, “Sometimes guys can be in an awful hurry. You know what I mean?”
“Oh,” Lisa said with understanding.
“Yeah.” Marlee continued to look out the window. “I think I liked it better when the four of us hung out. You know? You and Dave and me and Bobby. I’m sorry you and Dave broke up, but when you did I realized that Bobby and I weren’t exactly right for each other.” She turned to Jeri. “Did you ever get over Dave?”
“Pssht,” Jeri said with disdain. “Girl, I hardly had a chance to get to know him. I think my family scared him away. You know how loud my obnoxious Italian family can be. That’s okay, though. There’s somebody out there for me. And you, too!”
“Agreed.” Marlee scooped up the last of the fries that had fallen in the bottom of the bag.
Jeri proclaimed, “We’re gonna move on and be just fine.”
Lisa added her voice to the proclamation. “Yeah, me too.”
“Move on from who, girl?” Jeri demanded. “Who’ve you gone out with?
“Oh, uh...” Lisa seemed to fumble for words. “Nobody. I guess I just got caught up in the moment.”
Jeri teased, “You’re weird, Lisa.”
“So they say.”
Marlee added her two cents. “What did my mom say to me last night? Oh, yeah. She said, ‘And this too shall pass.’”
Jeri tossed her now-empty pie box in the now-empty food bag. “Words to live by.”
“Yeah, and let’s go to East Valley and forget all about this.” Marlee sat up taller in the passenger seat.
“Yeah. And you know...” Jeri looked at Marlee with a serious expression. “You can tell me anything. No more holding back. Okay?”
Marlee mentally crossed her fingers. “Okay.” But how could she be totally honest with Jeri? How could she tell Jeri that she had imagined kissing Susie when she couldn’t quite admit it to herself? How could she tell Jeri that thoughts of Susie occupied some parts of her brain even though other parts of her brain denied these thoughts? How could she tell Jeri these things when she could barely deal with them herself?
Two blocks away from the Sandstoner Fields of East Valley, Jeri put the top down so they could arrive in style. She pulled the car into a spot well away from the action on the fields.
“Damn. I don’t think anybody even saw us. Hey, you guys, I’m gonna let you out closer to the dugout, like last time, and then go park.” She backed the Mustang out of the spot and made a slow drive toward the busy part of the lot near the home team dugout.
“Are we sitting on the home team side?” Marlee asked with a grin.
“Wow,” Jeri said. “I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess we kind of have to.”
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Marlee said.
Marlee got out of the car and flipped the front seat forward so Lisa could unfold her 5’9” frame from the back seat. Lisa, once out, stretched to her full height and zipped up her ski jacket in defense of the cold night air. She pulled her long, dark braid out from her jacket so it could hang free.
Marlee pulled the drawstring tighter on the hood of her Clarksonville sweatshirt in an attempt to keep out the late April cold. She didn’t put the hood up, though, because that would ruin the look she was going for. The look where Susie would notice her blue eyes and stylishly short blond hair. And, besides, she didn’t want to look like a dork in front of her new friend, so cold ears would be a necessary sacrifice. She and Lisa walked toward the bleachers as Jeri pulled away.
“Hey, Pitcher.” Marlee heard someone yell in their direction. She looked up. One of the East Valley players waved frantically from inside the fence. Sam, the second baseman, came toward them. Sam had pulled her pretty blond hair into a ponytail high on her head. She put her softball hat on and pulled the ponytail through the hole in the back. It almost looked like a horse’s tail, but she managed to make it look good. Marlee and Lisa walked up to the fence. “Hey Pitcher,” she said again when they reached the fence.
“Hey, Second Base. What’s up? This is Lisa.” Marlee introduced them. “She’s my catcher.”
“Hey, Catcher. Nice to meet you officially.” Sam stuck two fingers through the fence in greeting. Lisa grabbed both fingers and pumped them a couple of times in handshake. Sam said, “Heard you guys beat Northwood on Tuesday. Think we stand a chance?”
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Marlee rejoiced when Sam directed her question to Lisa because that left Marlee free to search for Susie.
Lisa said, “Of course you’re going to win. And you know it, too.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Geez, you have Loveland pitching, so gimme a break.”
“Well, yeah, there’s that,” Sam agreed, still directing her statements to Lisa. Someone called Sam’s name and she said, “Oops, infield warmup.” Sam jogged off to her second base position, her ponytail bouncing with every step.
Since Lisa seemed absorbed watching the East Valley infield practice, Marlee scanned more openly for her favorite left fielder. Her heart melted when Susie finally popped out of the dugout, glove in hand. Susie’s smile, bright against her dark skin, sent Marlee’s pulse soaring. And Jeri wants me to be honest. How can I ever tell her how this girl, my new friend, makes me feel when I just look at her?
Susie walked over and then looked up at the night sky. She shook her head. “Dios mio. There is way too much Cougar blue here today.” She looked at Marlee and Lisa and said with mock indifference, “Hey, Cougars.”
Lisa said, “Hey,” in response, but Marlee answered with matched indifference. “Hey, Panther.”
Marlee never knew what a “twinkle” in someone’s eye looked like until she saw it in Susie’s. She smiled. She liked it.
“Did you guys win today?” Susie shifted to a friendlier tone.
Marlee had already forgotten about their win over Racquette that afternoon. “Yeah, 7-2. Not too many hitters on that team.”
“Cool. Did you hit a homer today, like you did against...” Susie gestured at the Northwood team, “those guys on Tuesday?”
“Nah,” Marlee responded. “Lisa hit a homer on Tuesday, too, but hers went over the fence and hit the school. Just like yours did last time. Think you can hit one tonight?”
“Humph,” Susie said. “Probably not. I only hit homers off that Cougar pitcher from Clarksonville.”
“Oh, now you’ve gone too far, Panther,” Marlee said with mock aggression. “Why don’t you step outside this fence and say that again?” Marlee gestured to a spot on her side.
Barbara L. Clanton - Out of Left Field Page 7
