“How’s your mom?” he asked at last.
She shrugged, giving a little tug at her blouse as the wind momentarily blew it off her left shoulder. “She’s all right. Kind of busy with work, so I don’t see her very much.”
They visited for a few minutes, talking about safe things. Bucky had never felt this way with Lisa before – safe again and yet tingling with a trace of the romantic impulses that undoubtedly nothing would ever erase in his heart. All he knew was that he didn’t want the moment to end.
“I still think about you a lot,” he said at last, hoping the admission wouldn’t throw the conversation off course.
She gave him a smile. “I know, Bucky.”
He gulped. “You do?”
“Sure.” Lisa gave a little laugh that so reminded him of their freshman year it almost brought tears to his eyes. “I’m a woman.” She put a bit of deliberate sultriness into her voice, and they both laughed a little.
“I felt so lousy after Hawaii,” he finally confessed, breathing a silent prayer as he told her. “It was dumb to call you like that.”
A school bell buzzed in the distance. Most of the campus was empty now as Bucky waited to see what she’d say. She looked right at him, her face tightening at the memory,
“I just . . . couldn’t help it.” He groped for the right words. “I had been thinking about you and just on an impulse went for it. But I caught you at a bad time, and I’m really sorry.”
Again a long moment of quiet. Had he gotten into something he should have left alone? Bucky desperately wanted to know that God was directing whatever should happen next.
All at once Lisa slid over until she was right next to him. Wordlessly she reached out and clutched at his right arm until her cheek was against his shoulder. He flushed.
“I want to tell you what happened,” she said at last.
For a moment he thought he saw moisture in her eyes, but she was almost too close to see. He couldn’t tell. “OK.”
Her fingers tightened, digging into his biceps. “It was something like January two. Right?”
“Yeah.”
She looked away from him for a minute, and when she turned her face back toward him, he noticed a tear trickling down her cheek.
“Oh, babe.” It came out before he realized it. “Lisa, what . . .”
“I get a call from Steve . . . and then I get a call from you. Maybe fifteen minutes apart.”
So? He waited, but it didn’t seem like she was going to say any more. Reaching with his left hand, he moved his fingers against hers. “What happened?”
She didn’t shift away, but something inside of her stiffened. “Sorry,” he whispered, waiting.
At last she took a deep breath, her voice catching as she spoke. “Well, it’s kind of hard,” she said. “You tell some guy, ‘I think I’m pregnant!’ . . . and he says to you back, ‘So? How could you be so stupid, you dumb bitch?’”
Bucky’s mind reeled. What did you say? A violent knot began to form in his stomach.
“And then he hangs up.” She looked at him, her eye flooding with tears. “I’m crying, and he tells me I’m a stupid . . . you know. And then he hangs up.” All at once her body was shaking as she buried her face in her knees. “After everything we’d . . . done together . . . he just hung up on me.”
Her raw pain tore at him. Despite how shocked he was, Bucky found tears in his eyes too. He looked through them at the top of her head as her muffled sobs continued. “It’s OK,” he whispered, repeating the words over and over. He really didn’t know what else to say.
For at least a minute there was nothing but the muffled sobs. He racked his brain, trying to take in what he’d just heard. Lisa and Steve. Something inside of him involuntarily railed at the thought. How could she! Then he remembered how he’d almost failed with Deirdre, and suddenly he felt flooded with shame. Carefully pulling his right arm free, he slid it around Lisa and held her close. For just a moment, the sobs intensified as she buried her face in his shoulder. “Oh, Bucky . . .”
After a long painful silence, she finally pulled away a little bit. “I must look a mess.” Her voice was shaky.
“It’s OK.” He reached in his pocket but realized he didn’t have a handkerchief. “Sorry,” he murmured.
Lisa took a deep, trembling breath. “I didn’t really mean to tell you all of that. But . . . I guess, deep down, I did. Or I had to. Or something.”
His voice was carefully gentle when he responded. “So what happened?”
Lisa looked away from him, toward the distant hills on the other side of I-80. “Well, after all of that, it turned out to be a false alarm. I mean, yeah, I’d been late. Really late. And then when I took that, you know, drugstore test you buy, it said I was too. So that’s when I went crazy, of course. But about a week later . . . obviously, I wasn’t.” Bucky waited, trying to understand it all. “But by then everything had collapsed.”
“With Steve?”
“Yeah. Steve.” She said the name with a grimace, almost choking up again.
“Did he ever call back?”
“Nope.” She wiped at her nose. “Not a single time. Not to find out what happened, not to say, ‘I love you.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘Lisa, can I help you get through this?’ Nothing. He changed his cell number and made sure I didn’t get through to him again. Ever.”
“Man.” He turned to face her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well, that wasn’t all,” she continued. “Right when I thought I was, you know, pregnant, I was stupid enough to tell one of the kids here. You know that real loud girl in government, the one on the front row who keeps shooting off her mouth?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed hard.
“Her. Like, how stupid could I have been? But she caught me in a vulnerable moment, and I told her. Next thing I know, half the school was in on it.” Her lip trembled for a moment and she clenched her fist. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I heard. From girls in the locker room after gym. From guys. I heard some real sweet stuff from guys. Asking, like, could they go next?”
Bucky didn’t know what to say. “I’m just glad you’re OK now.”
“A couple of them brought you into it,” she told him, shaking her head. “Like, ‘Who’s the helpful dude?’ And then wondering if it was you.”
“Me?”
“I don’t know why. Somebody remembered . . . us . . . from before, I guess.”
Bucky digested that thought, his brow furrowing.
At last Lisa pulled herself free and stood up, adjusting her blouse and pulling her hair away from her face. “Anyway, that’s it,” she told him. “That’s how things are going for your little, almost got baptized once, ex-girlfriend Lisa Nichols. She paused. “Aren’t you proud of me?”
He didn’t say anything.
The slim girl’s voice tightened as she thrust her fists into the pockets of her tight jeans. “Wouldn’t you like me back now? All of a sudden, I’m real available.”
Slowly he stood and faced her, balancing on the narrow metal beam. For a moment he didn’t say anything, but then he reached out and took her hand in his. “I don’t care about all that,” he murmured, his voice low, his heart not meaning a word of it.
Chapter Eight: Beat By Your Own Brother
Although he had a big English assignment due the next morning, Bucky simply pushed it to one side. He’d take a ten-percent hit in his grade for it being late, but he had to think. After supper he quickly did the dishes and then excused himself.
“I’m going for a walk, Mom.”
Jenny Stone looked at him curiously. “Everything OK?”
The look in his eyes must have told her something, because she didn’t press him.
It was a beautiful April evening in the Bay Area, with the soft twilight of Daylight Savings just kicking in. But Bucky’s mind was in turmoil as he did the extended three - mile loop that the Stone family sometimes toured on Saturday evenings. He replayed the afternoon’s conversation.
“But how can you blame her?” he muttered to himself, hating his thoughts. After all, he was a born - again Christian, the most dedicated believer at Hampton Beach High, and he’d just about given in himself. What right did he have to expect someone like Lisa to make it? The fact that she’d kind of lost her way spiritually wasn’t even really her fault – it was the move to Seattle.
And then there was the sudden, jarring return of all of his emotional feelings. In at least one sense, the Lisa he had known before had returned. She had come to him! The girl wanted to talk, to share, to sit close to him. He still remembered the softness of her cheek pressed against his shoulder, her hand clutching at his arm. Did he still love her? Could he possibly think about putting the horrible experience behind him and starting all over?
Angrily he kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk, and it skipped away from him, bouncing crazily until it hit a sprinkler head on someone’s lawn. It was impossible not to have a mental picture of Lisa with Steve. And the sensation caused his fists to tighten, until he remembered again how the path to physical intimacy had seemed so easy for him as well. Stuff like this happened. It was wrong, but it was easy too . . . and it happened.
As he slowly looped back toward Woodman Avenue, a strange kind of anger began to fill him. He didn’t really feel it toward Lisa – at least, he didn’t think so. She was so vulnerable, still so . . . good. Maybe he could never really hate her or even be mad. But his face tightened as a quiet rage against sin seemed to settle in his mind.
How could Satan use love the way he did, and twist it around until people were in tears like Lisa had been? To feel so used afterwards, so carelessly discarded? Again he wondered what might have happened if God hadn’t intervened to protect him in Room 1929 in Honolulu a few short months before. What might have happened to his own spiritual relationship with God? How would he have felt going down the elevator to the hotel lobby, knowing he’d betrayed Jesus? The little glow of sexual release stacked up against all Jesus had done for him these last four years. Bucky weighed the two and felt sick. Tears moistened his cheeks and he brushed angrily at them.
“Help me,” he groaned, half - aloud. “Help me to be a man.” Somehow he knew that God still needed him. He glanced up at the moonlit night, trying to feel that He was still up there. “A spiritual man,” he added. The whispered prayer didn’t sound stupid, but like the biggest challenge he’d ever considered.
• • • • •
The Panthers’ third game was another road contest at San Ramon. Bucky contributed with a sparkling two-for-four day at the plate, including a timely single up the middle in the last inning to help ice the contest. And both he and Dan played flawless baseball in center and left field. Dan, in particular, brought groans to the frustrated home crowd as he threw a runner out at the plate with a one-hop screamer.
“Good job!” Bucky grinned in satisfaction as they took the three - run victory into the locker room. He walked over to where Paul was just unbuttoning his jersey. “Hey, Crook. Good hit there at the end.” The outfielder, who had been royally dressed down by Coach Demerest for his mental wool-gathering, had gotten his act together, and come through with a timely single in the last inning.
The other player glanced up, a bit wary around the popular center fielder. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Bucky edged a little closer. “Listen, man,” he managed, “I’m sorry about Coach ripping into you. It’s hard to take. But you were awesome today, man.” He knew it was an awkward overture, but didn’t know what else to do.
The other senior hesitated, then gave a little shrug. “It’s OK. I mean, I had it coming.”
“Well, look. Let’s just totally be a team, man. You got my back and I got yours. I mean it.”
“Thanks.” Paul’s gaze followed Bucky as he returned to his own locker.
As they walked together out to the team bus, Dan suddenly turned toward Bucky. “You see who our next game is against?”
“Huh uh.”
“Dixon. And your friend Jeff Hilliard.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup. I wonder if he’ll be pitching?”
“He gave me his cell number,” Bucky said, remembering. “I guess I could call him.”
“Are you kidding? And ask him if he’s pitching?”
“Sure, why not?”
“I don’t know. Just seems weird. ‘We’re coming up to cream you, and just hope you’re the pitcher of record when we do.’”
Bucky thought about that. “Actually, I don’t know if I want to face him or not face him.” He shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t matter.”
As the Panthers suited up for their second consecutive road game, he glanced out at the stands. With Dixon being quite a ways up the interstate, the stands held only a handful of Hampton Beach fans. And sure enough, over on the home - team side of the diamond, he could see Jeff warming up as the starting pitcher. A strange feeling came over him, as the scene from two years ago flashed into his mind once again. It was strange how the resentment from that hot afternoon back home had vanished.
Just before the game he and Dan walked over to where Jeff had just finished his pitching routine. “How you doin’?” Dan said.
“OK, I guess.” Hilliard grinned. “Here we go.” He paused. “Good luck to you guys. I mean that.”
“Sure. You too.” Bucky was still tugging at his batting gloves. “Looked like some heat you were throwing. Go easy on us, OK?”
Jeff glanced around. “You guys want to have a prayer or something?”
Something inside Bucky did a flip - flop. This couldn’t be happening. “Yeah.” He and Dan bowed their heads as the opposing pitcher from Dixon said a short prayer. “And Father, bless these two friends of mine,” Jeff said, his eyes tightly closed. “Protect us all during this game. Help us to honor your holy name by our attitudes and how we play. And . . . Lord Jesus, I just want to thank you again that you gave me this chance to ask forgiveness and gain Bucky and Dan as my brothers in Christ.”
Bucky was flushed with emotion as the two Hampton Beach players returned to their dugout. “Unbelievable,” Dan muttered. “Absolutely unbelievable.”
“How are we gonna go up there and hit off him now?”
Suddenly Dan laughed. “Oh, no problem there. I’m still gonna nail that boy’s pitches.”
But it was Jeff who had the last laugh, as he hurled a complete - game shutout, beating the Panthers two to nothing on only three hits. Bucky managed a harmless bases - empty single in the sixth inning, but Dan struck out twice and didn’t get the ball out of the infield.
“Man!” The stocky player was grumpy as he stalked into the locker room. “I couldn’t hit the side of a barn today!” He tossed his glove onto the floor and gave it a little kick. “That Hilliard is wicked, Stone.”
“I know it.” Bucky had visions of getting shut down in a crucial playoff game against the big Christian hurler. “At least today, he was just plain better than us.”
Coach Demerest came over and put a hand on Litton’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he advised. “That Hilliard was in a zone, that’s all. There wasn’t nobody going to hit him today, not with that sinker he had. One of the guys here told me he isn’t usually that good.”
“What’s their record?”
“Three and one, just like us.”
Outside the locker room a reporter from the school newspaper was waiting. “Are you Stone?”
“Yeah.”
She tugged at a strand of hair. “Everyone says our team and you guys are the best. What’d you think of the game today?”
“Well, you saw it. Hilliard shut us down.”
“Think you can beat him next time?”
“I hope so.”
The student paused. “Some kids were saying something about him and you and that other guy all praying
together, before the game. Did that really happen?”
He nodded slowly.
“So . . . how? I mean, just out of the blue?”
Choosing his words carefully, Bucky described in very brief detail what had happened two years ago, and how reconciliation between the two Christians had finally taken place. The young girl listened carefully, scribbling down a few notes.
“But you ought to ask Jeff,” he finally told her. “He goes to school here. It’d be a better story from him. I mean, he’s your guy.”
“I guess you’re right.” She shut her notebook. “But I never heard anything like that before. That’s kind of cool, actually.”
“I better run,” Bucky said suddenly. “I think our bus is just ready to leave.”
It was a thoughtful ride back home as Bucky reflected on the pregame prayer and then the intensely competitive game itself. Jeff was a completely professional pitcher, hard - driving and totally absorbed during the game. And yet . . . a beautiful, compassionate Christian. A prayer – and then a three - hitter. As the miles slipped by, he commented about it to Dan. “Man, that’s what I want for us too,” he confessed.
“Yeah.” Still stinging a bit about “drawing the collar” with no hits that afternoon, Dan nodded. “He was good all right.”
It was late that evening when his cell phone rang. For a moment he thought about Lisa and the unresolved problems she had. “Hello?”
“Stone?” The voice sounded familiar. “It’s Jeff. You know, from the game.”
“Oh yeah.” He grinned to himself. “Called to rub it in, huh? You kicked our tails pretty good, man.”
“I know. Sorry about that – I just got lucky.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Listen, I know it’s kind of late. But some guy at our church who owns a massively successful business just handed me a whole row of tickets to Sunday’s game. You know the Giants have that big double - header. First one in, like, a long time.”
“Against Colorado?”
“Yeah. And you know how those guys can hit. Do you and Litton want to go?”
Bucky hesitated for only a moment “As far as I know, sure. Our next game’s not until Tuesday, so Monday’s light.”
Bucky Stone: The Complete Adventure (Volumes 1-10) Page 98
