Tools of Ignorance: Lisa's Story

by Barbara L. Clanton

  “And how come all he wanted to do was go to Lake Birch?” Marlee said.

  “Lake Birch?” Lisa wondered out loud.

  “Sometimes guys can be in an awful hurry,” Jeri said. “You know what I mean?”

  “Oh.” Lisa hadn’t ever let herself think about Marlee and Bobby that way. It didn’t matter, though. They had broken up.

  Of course, neither Jeri nor Marlee knew that Tara had broken up with Lisa just the week before. Her heart still hurt, but she had pretty much known the break up was inevitable. Tara lived downstate, four-hundred miles away, and the only connection they had after camp was through phone calls, emails, cards, and letters. Apparently that wasn’t quite enough for Tara anymore because Tara hadn’t returned any of Lisa’s calls for almost a month. Maybe the relationship was doomed from the beginning, anyway. Lisa sighed and tried to push Tara out of her mind.

  “We’re gonna move on and be just fine,” Jeri said to Marlee.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Lisa blurted before she could stop herself.

  Jeri glanced over her shoulder at Lisa in the back seat, her long black curls swaying as she did. “Move on from whom, girl? Who’ve you gone out with?”

  “Oh, uh…Nobody. I guess I just got caught up in the moment.” Lisa sighed but was sure neither Jeri nor Marlee heard it over the roar of the Mustang’s engine.

  “You’re weird, Lisa,” Jeri teased.

  “So they say.”

  The conversation went back to Marlee’s breakup, but Lisa was relieved when they finally reached Sandstoner Fields, the East Valley Panthers’ home field. Jeri dropped them off on the East Valley side of the field and drove off to park at the far end of the lot. Lisa zipped up her ski jacket to keep out the late-April cold. She pulled her braid free and jammed her hands in her pockets as they walked toward the East Valley bleachers.

  As soon as they reached the fence, Lisa could tell that Marlee was distracted. They stood near the East Valley dugout and out of the corner of her eye, she watched Marlee search the field for someone.

  The East Valley second baseman popped out of the dugout and yelled to Marlee, “Hey, Pitcher.” The uber cute blonde stepped closer and said again, “Hey, Pitcher.”

  “Hey, Second Base,” Marlee said. “What’s up? This is Lisa. She’s my catcher.”

  “Hey, Catcher. Nice to meet you officially.” The girl stuck two fingers through the fence. Lisa grasped the pretty blonde’s fingers firmly in handshake. She didn’t mean to, but she got caught in the girl’s intense blue-gray eyes and held on to her fingers longer than she should have. She pulled her hand away and felt her cheeks flush. The cute second baseman must not have noticed because she said, “Heard you guys beat Northwood on Tuesday. Think we stand a chance?”

  Since Marlee looked preoccupied, Lisa answered the question. “Of course you’re going to win. And you know it, too.” The girl didn’t seem to mind that Marlee was off in space, so Lisa teased, “Geez, you have Loveland pitching, so gimme a break.”

  “Well, yeah, there’s that.” The second baseman smiled, and Lisa became mesmerized by her beautifully smooth skin, her perfectly applied eye liner, and silky blond hair. Lisa’s gaydar pinged ever so slightly. She tried to make her mouth move, so she could ask the girl her name, but couldn’t get it to cooperate.

  “Sam, c’mon!” the East Valley shortstop yelled over. “Coach wants us on the field.”

  Her name is Sam, Lisa thought. Samantha maybe?

  Sam looked apologetic. “Oops, infield warmup.” Sam waved to Lisa and trotted out to her position at second base.

  Lisa thought it strange that Sam waved only to her and not to Marlee, but then again, Lisa’s stomach had done that flippy thing when Sam walked over, so maybe it was okay. She felt a little guilty about being attracted to Sam, a virtual stranger, with Marlee standing right there.

  Lisa watched Sam field a grounder at second base. The immaculately groomed infield and outfield really did remind her of Yankee Stadium. East Valley would probably end up going to States again like they did practically every year. The Clarksonville Cougars had come in second place the year before, and Lisa remembered Coach Spears wondering out loud if her Cougars would ever be able to push the East Valley Panthers off their lofty mountain.

  Sam fielded her grounders cleanly and was quick turning the double play. Their whole infield was good, but their pitcher, Christy Loveland, was phenomenal. She was probably the best pitcher in the entire New York State North Country. Marlee would disagree, of course, but Lisa knew better. Christy threw a lot of different pitches, and she threw all of them well. Even though Marlee was getting better all the time, she still hadn’t gotten a handle on her rise ball and hadn’t even begun to master the screwball. After the game they were going to hang out at Christy’s house. Lisa thought it was weird to even consider hanging out with the team that always beat them, but she didn’t care. Marlee was there. And with a small smile, she remembered that Sam might be there, too.

  Susie, the East Valley left fielder, walked over and said, “Dios mio. There is way too much Cougar blue here today.” Susie’s dark skin and long auburn hair made her look exotic. She was kind of hot, actually, and Lisa’s gaydar went off again big time. She wasn’t sure, but thought maybe Susie was Puerto Rican or something. The “Dios mio” was a big clue. Susie looked at both Marlee and Lisa and said, “Hey, Cougars,” as if she could care less that they existed.

  Lisa knew the girl was teasing and smiled at her. “Hey.”

  Marlee, on the other hand, said, “Hey, Panther,” with the same indifferent tone Susie had used.

  Marlee didn’t introduce Lisa to Susie and talked to Susie as if Lisa wasn’t even there. Lisa felt a stab of jealousy and was relieved when Susie ran out for her own warmup.

  Jeri got back from parking the car, and they found seats on the home team side of the bleachers. The game started, and Lisa decided that she’d probably overreacted. Marlee was just being nice to the East Valley left-fielder, just like Sam had been nice to her. No big deal. Still, she had nagging doubts, especially when all attempts at conversation with Marlee during the game were futile.

  The East Valley team beat Northwood easily, but unfortunately, sitting was not the same as playing, and Lisa shivered in the cold night air.

  When they got back in the car, Jeri put the heater on full blast. Before heading out to Christy Loveland’s house, they drove to Stewart’s, so Jeri could get cigarettes. Once they got to Christy’s house, they had to park down the street because a kagillion cars were parked in front of the house already. Lisa had just about thawed out in Jeri’s car, but started shivering again when she got out of the car.

  The Loveland’s two-story house was so big it looked like it had at least five bedrooms. Lisa couldn’t wait to get her own house with at least three upstairs bedrooms far away from the madness of the kitchen and family room. She wanted a fenced in yard for kids and pets and barbeques and everything.

  Jeri knocked on the heavy oak door, but when no one answered, they let themselves in. The elegant sunken living room and framed art on the walls took Lisa’s breath away. She knew people lived in luxury like that, but she’d never seen it.

  Someone yelled from another room, and Lisa followed Jeri and Marlee into a room filled with East Valley softball players gathered around a ping-pong table. The left fielder named Susie was just about to lose a ping pong game to Christy. Christy stopped the game and had them write their names on slips of paper to get in on the pingpong tournament.

  They wrote their names down and sat on a bench underneath a window. Just as they sat down, Christy sent a hard smash past Susie to win the match. Looking dejected, Susie came over and sat on the floor next to Marlee. Lisa’s chest tightened when Susie oh-so-casually leaned her shoulder against Marlee’s leg. When Marlee’s name was called for the next ping-pong game, Lisa cheered inside because Susie wouldn’t be able to touch Marlee anymore.

  Lisa cheered inside again when the uber-cute Sam stood up as
Marlee’s opponent. Sam had changed from her red and black softball uniform into a low-cut mint green blouse and white Capri pants. Her gold necklace had some kind of charm on it which brought Lisa’s eye directly down to Sam’s generous cleavage. Lisa swallowed hard. She couldn’t take her eyes off the pretty blonde from East Valley, and when the girl pulled her hair back into a ponytail, Lisa almost whimpered because she had imagined running her fingers through it.

  Lisa took a deep breath and let out a sigh. What was the matter with her? She had spent the last month or so pining for Marlee, but now Sam was stirring her up in ways that only Tara had done before.

  Sam scored three quick points and practically had to show Marlee which end of the paddle to hold. Lisa laughed along with the girls from East Valley, but she also felt bad for Marlee. It was inevitable, but Marlee lost to Sam fairly quickly and sat back down next to Susie. Sam went to the white board and wrote her name in the winner’s bracket. She then pulled two more names out of the hat.

  “Mary?” Sam called, and a girl with brown shoulder length hair and bangs stood up and reached for Sam’s discarded red paddle. Sam called, “Lisa?” and looked right at Lisa.

  Lisa pointed to herself and asked, “Me?”

  Sam nodded.

  Lisa headed to the table and picked up the blue paddle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Susie and Marlee leaning close talking. Jeri and Christy got up to leave, and Lisa wondered how long Jeri and Christy had been friends.

  Lisa smiled and shook hands with Mary after Sam introduced them.

  “Okay, girls,” Sam said, “we play to a score of twenty-one. The winner must be ahead by two. We want a good clean fight here. No kidney punches. Okay?”

  “Okay. Bring it on, Mary.” Lisa tapped the table with her paddle.

  Mary served the ball, but Lisa completely missed it because she saw Susie and Marlee stand up to leave. She laughed out loud and tapped the table with her paddle. “Okay, Mary. I dare you to do that again.”

  “Anytime,” Mary said with a laugh. She served the ball again, and even though Susie led Marlee out of the room, Lisa stayed focused enough to return the serve.

  On the outside, Lisa played ping-pong and made it look as if she were enjoying herself with some new friends, which she kind of was, but on the inside, she was desperate to know what Marlee and Susie were doing in the other room. Maybe they were just talking about softball. Marlee was the one, after all, who had invited her to go with them to East Valley. Maybe Marlee was too shy about coming out to her. That must be it. Maybe Marlee wanted to gather up her courage, and that’s why she had left the room for a while. Pfft, yeah, right. In some alternate universe maybe.

  Lisa kept up pretty well with Mary and after a while was only losing by a score of 12-15. It was Lisa’s turn to serve, but she hesitated when she saw movement outside the window. Marlee and Susie walked together in the dark backyard.

  Lisa served the ball over the net, and Mary returned it cleanly. Thinking about Marlee alone in the dark with Susie, Lisa smashed the ball over the net for a point.

  “Yeah!” Lisa shouted and punched a fist in the air. The other girls cheered her impressive smash.

  “Easy, there, tiger,” Mary said. “Don’t kill your first opponent. It wouldn’t look good.”

  “Sorry,” Lisa said, but it had felt good. Lisa snuck another peek outside the window, a peek she instantly regretted. She watched in horror as Susie grabbed Marlee’s hand and led her across the yard behind a shed. Marlee’s betrayal was immediate and deep. White-hot anger boiled in Lisa’s gut. She tore her gaze away from the window and took a deep breath willing herself not to throw the ping-pong paddle through the window toward Marlee.

  Sam put her hand on Lisa’s forearm. “Are you okay? You look like somebody just stole home plate on you.” Sam’s expression of concern made Lisa realize that she probably looked as traumatized as she felt.

  Lisa laughed, even though she had nothing to laugh about. She took a deep breath and looked Sam in the eye. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Whatever.” Lisa rapped the table twice with her paddle and glared at her opponent. “Okay, Mary, bring it on.”

  Chapter Four

  Don’t Look Back

  LISA SLID THE top drawer to her bedside stand open and pulled out her journal. The blue gel pen fell out into her lap. She picked it up and peeked at Bridget. Her little sister looked peaceful in her Dora the Explorer pajamas, her chest rising and falling slowly in sleep.

  Lisa uncapped the pen and opened to the next empty page.

  Friday, April 27

  We lost to Clarksonville County Community College today. Geez! They are soooooooo good! I don’t know why Coach Spears wanted us to play them. I think she’s friends with the CCCC coach. My gaydar went off for their coach, but then again my gaydar goes off all the time lately. It even goes off for Coach Spears, but I’ll probably never know if she’s family or not. Maybe when I’m a real grownup, I’ll bump into Coach Spears at a gay bar in Syracuse or Montreal or somewhere. Ha! That would be hilarious. Her gray hair would fall completely out. Geez, what am I thinking? She’s too old to be clubbing!

  Lisa chuckled at the thought of meeting her softball coach at a gay bar. Tara told her how she used a fake ID to get into the gay bars on Long Island, and apparently there were a lot of them on Long Island. Lisa didn’t know of any in the North Country. It wasn’t like she could use the family computer in the living room to search for one. She had no clue how to get a fake ID, either. She tapped her pen on the journal page with a frown. Even if she did figure out how to get a fake ID, she wasn’t sure she’d feel comfortable using it. She went back to her journal.

  Anyway, we played a good game against CCCC, even though we lost. I saw the pitches really well today, too. Their pitcher had a really, really, really good change-up. Yeah, I struck out on it, but just the first time! She didn’t get me again. I got two singles and went two for three. Yeah, I only got up to bat three times, because nobody else could hit! Grrr! Well, Johnna and Marlee got hits at least, but I don’t want to think about Marlee right now. Jeri’s our leadoff batter, and she struck out every single time! Lead off batters are supposed to get on base! Argh! Julie struck out a couple of times, too. Julie and I are getting really good in the weight room. I’m glad she picked weight lifting for our fitness unit in PE so I wouldn’t be the only girl. All the other girls picked jazzercise or some other stupid thing, but Julie and I want to be strong. Except I think I scared her yesterday. I kind of scared myself, too, actually.

  Lisa chewed on the blunt end of her gel pen remembering her stupidity in the weight lifting class the day before.

  JULIE WHITE STOOD with her hands on her hips and said, “Brown Girl, you’re crazy.” Since Lisa’s last name was Brown, Julie called her ‘Brown Girl’ in fun, and since Julie’s last name was White, Lisa reciprocated by calling her ‘White Girl.’ It was their private joke with each other.

  Lisa didn’t look at her friend as she put ten more pounds on each end of the bar.

  “Lisa, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Julie pleaded.

  “C’mon, White Girl. Are you chicken? Let’s do this before Mr. Mullins sees us.”

  Julie shook her head as if she didn’t want to be part of it, but stood behind the bench by Lisa’s head. She put her hands around the heavy metal bar, without touching it, and waited. Lisa took a deep breath, and let it out. She wrapped her middle fingers around the bar a little more than shoulder width apart and then gripped it firmly with both hands. She pushed the 130 pounds up off the rack and held it with her arms extended. Holy Jesus, that’s heavy. She picked a spot on the weight room ceiling, so she’d know where to aim once she pressed the weight back up. She slowly lowered the bar to her chest.

  This one’s for you, Marlee, for breaking my heart. “Unghhh,” she grunted and pressed the weight back up slowly.

  “I’m right here, Lisa.” Julie leaned over the rack, ready to grab the bar if necessary.

  Lisa almost
lost her concentration when she pressed the weights to their full height. It was so heavy.

  “I’m right here, Lisa,” Julie said again, but Lisa barely heard her.

  This next one’s for you, Susie, for stealing my girlfriend. Lisa lowered the weight, felt it brush her chest, and pressed it back up immediately. “Unghhh!” she grunted even louder, sure she’d attract Mr. Mullins attention with that repetition.

  “That’s two, Lisa,” Julie said.

  Lisa lowered the bar for a third rep.

  “Push it now, Brown Girl, push it!”

  Lisa thought about Susie holding Marlee’s hand in the backyard and used that to fuel the third repetition. She brought the weight back down, aware that Mr. Mullins and a few of the guys in the class had surrounded her and Julie. She couldn’t stop now. She had at least one more in her.

  What did you and Susie do behind that shed, Marlee? Lisa practically threw the weights up over her head.

  “Nice one, Lisa,” one of the guys in the class encouraged.

  “You got one more in you, Brown Girl. C’mon,” Julie pushed.

  Lisa considered racking the bar, but lowered it instead when she remembered the look on Marlee’s face after she and Susie came back into Christy’s house. It was so freakin’ obvious something had happened between them that Marlee could have been wearing a neon sign.

  “Ahhh!” Lisa yelled and heaved the weights toward the ceiling. Her classmates cheered and clapped for her, but she didn’t take any satisfaction in it. She let Julie guide the weights back on the rack.

  Lisa sat up, and the guys surrounding her clapped her on the back and told her how awesome she was. Weight lifters, Lisa had come to realize, were competitive, but they recognized individual accomplishment when they saw it.

  “Great job, Lisa," Mr. Mullins said. “One hundred and thirty pounds. I never would have thunk it.” He shook his head and pointed to one of her classmates. “Marcus weighs one thirty. You just bench pressed Marcus.” Marcus Ranley was a sophomore whose surfer blond hair made him look more like a California beach boy than a North Country weight lifter. Mr. Mullins waited until the boys had gone back to their own workouts before saying, “Honestly, I don’t think half the boys in this school can do five reps at one thirty.”