Pretend You Love Me Page 4

  I’d almost mowed Miss Millie down in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Miss Millie.” I reached out to steady her. “You okay?”

  She blinked at me, her rheumy eyes sloshing around in loose eye sockets.

  I reeled back. The odor emanating from her set off my gag reflex.

  “Two years.” Her face flooded with recognition. “Two years today,” she said, aiming a limp finger at my face.

  Great. If Miss Millie remembered, the whole town did.

  There was no river in River View, no river anywhere in Coalton. The streambed that ran along the south side of town had been dry as a cracker barrel as long I’d lived here. Which was forever. I guess it was supposed to sound serene: River View. View of the river. What view? Floating corpses?

  I pulled up alongside the row of junipers that had been planted on Arbor Day last year as a wind break. Waste of money. Once the wind began to blow on the Kansas plain there wasn’t any living thing that could break it. I grabbed the beer and took off in search of Dad.

  He was in the same place. Duh. What did I expect, that’d he get up and leave? He lay between Darryl Michael Szabo II—Grandpa—and Camilia Lynn Szabo. INFANT, the headstone read. Sister. My sister.

  “Hey, Pops.” I curled cross-legged in front of his headstone, setting the beer beside me for the moment. Propping my elbows on my spread-apart knees and lacing all ten fingers together, I rested my cheeks on my knuckles and asked, “How’s it going?”

  Just once I’d like to hear his voice. In my ears, not my head. I couldn’t remember the last thing he’d said out loud to me. It wasn’t, “Goodbye.” It wasn’t, “Have a nice life without me.” I squeezed my eyes shut. A breeze prickled my skin and I shivered in my sleeveless uniform. The wind rustled the trees. Was that him? I’d take it as a sign. I’d take anything.

  I opened my eyes and tried to feel his presence, his warmth surrounding me. His strong arms around me. “Jamie says hi.” I plucked a few blades of grass and tossed them aside. “Dad, guess what? I met someone.” I smiled at his imagined surprise. “Well, yeah she’s pretty. Think I’d pick a dog? Actually, she’s bee-oo-tiful.” He’d laugh to hear me imitate him. He used to say the exact same thing about cars and women: “Ooh, baby. She’s bee-oo-tiful.”

  “Xanadu. That’s her name. Cool, huh? You’d like her, Dad. Except, she’s a talker. Man, can she talk. I know you always say when people talk too much there’s something they’re not telling you. Usually, the truth. I don’t get that with her. She’s totally honest. I wish you could meet her, Dad. You’d see. I wish—”

  The words stuck in my throat. I fought them down. Wishing, hoping. It was destructive. “Doesn’t matter. She’d never be interested in me. What?” I paused. Unfurling my legs, I bent forward and put my ear to the ground. “Anything’s possible? Yeah, you would say that.”

  I straightened to sit up. “I do think she likes me. She isn’t repulsed, let’s put it that way.”

  A prairie dog chirruped a few feet away. The colony was growing larger. Last time I was here, on Christmas day, there were half as many mounds. I’d counted. Twenty-five. I’d thought it was a sign. Twenty-five, December twenty-fifth. Weak. I watched as the prairie dog sat up on its haunches and barked a warning. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I won’t be here long.”

  “So, anyway,” I said to Dad, “things are about the same. Darryl’s a wastoid. But you knew that. What else is new?” We miss you, I wanted to say.

  I couldn’t say it. I wasn’t sure Darryl did miss Dad. They were always hacking on each other. Especially the last year. Darryl and his cars. Dad and his drinking. Dad telling Darryl to get off his butt and get a job. Right, Dad. Talk about wishful thinking. Darryl was a slacker. Dad knew that. He reminded Darryl often enough. Darryl probably praised the Lord the day Dad offed himself.

  My stomach knotted. Two years today. I removed the bottle of beer from the paper bag and unscrewed the lid. “To celebrate your anniversary.” I saluted him with the bottle. “Here’s to ya, Pops. Cheers.” I scrambled to my feet. Ceremoniously, I sprinkled the beer all up and down his grave. “One for the road,” I told him. “Drink up.”

  Did he laugh? Did his hearty boom echo across the open cemetery? Did I feel him take me in his arms and smother me in a hug? Then smell his stinking boozy breath all over my face. God. I hated him.

  No, I didn’t. I loved him.

  I hated him.

  I loved him.

  I lingered another minute until all the foam was gone, swallowed up by earth, guzzled in the ground by him. Absently, my hand ran along the curve of his marble headstone. Too big, too expensive. They didn’t have to buy a headstone this ornate. They didn’t have to buy one at all. I read the engraving aloud, “Darryl Michael Szabo, the Third.” He never went by Darryl. “Here come the Mikes,” people would say. “Mike and Mike Junior.” Or as Jamie called me, “Miss Junior Mike.”

  People. They were still talking about it. Two years. They couldn’t let it go.

  I touched my baby sister’s headstone too. She’d only lived five days. I couldn’t remember how she died, or why. Not for the first time, I wondered if life would’ve been different with three of us, a younger sister. If Camilia would’ve looked like me. Hopefully not. If Mom would’ve loved her, the way she did Darryl.

  Never me.

  Back to Dad. He loved me. He loved me more than anyone in the world.

  “Rest in peace, Pops.” I broke the bottle across his headstone. “If you can.”

  Chapter Five

  The team was in the outfield warming up when I finally found Cleaver Field. You could get lost in the maze of streets and avenues and courts and drives in Garden City. Coalton was easy. First Street through Tenth, east to west, square grid. We only had the one stoplight at the west end of town as you came off Highway 40.

  I parked the truck in the paved lot behind the dugout. Which was an actual dugout, rather than a lean-to aluminum shell like we had. As I started toward the field, I remembered this wasn’t Coalton and returned to remove the keys from the ignition. I noticed then how the insignia on the side panel of the truck was fading. SZABO PLUMBING AND HEATING. Italics underneath: THE NAME YOU KNOW AND TRUST. The name was running a little low on trust these days. I rubbed off the grime around SZABO. The least Darryl could do was keep the truck clean. Out of respect, if not for Dad, then for the family name. The business.

  What business? I asked myself. The business was in the toilet.

  “Mike, there you are. I thought you weren’t going to make it.” Coach Kinneson scribbled a hurried note on her clipboard as I rounded the dugout.

  “I made it,” I told her. “I’ve never missed a game in my life.” If she didn’t know that by now… A ball came whizzing in from the field and my hand shot up in reflex to cup it.

  “Just seein’ if you showed up to play,” T.C. called to me, grinning.

  I sidearmed a stinger back to her. “There’s your answer.”

  “Five minutes,” the ump hollered from behind home plate.

  Garden City was already through with warm-ups and they looked good. Prepared. At least prepped-out in their flashy new yellow-and-brown uniforms. BUFFS, their uniforms read on front. Short for Buffalos. Who’d want to be called buffalos? Big, lumbering animals. Every player’s last name was appliquéd on the back. Shoes to match. La di da. Coalton Cougars wore your basic black-and-gold jerseys with ironed-on numbers. So what? I loved my uniform, the feel of it, the way the stretchy fabric fit nice and tight around my quads. My cleats were getting a little stretched and holey, but they’d last another season—I hoped. I couldn’t see dropping a hundred bucks on new cleats if I was only going to be wearing them one more year.

  I gathered my team together in front of the dugout. “Huddle up, ladies.” We jammed into a closed circle and put our arms around each others’ shoulders. “What do we know about buffalos? They’re hairy and they smell bad.”

  Everyone snorted.

  “They almost went exti
nct,” T.C. chimed in.

  “Right,” I said. “Let’s finish the job.” We stacked hands. “Go Cougars!”

  It looked like most of Coalton had driven down to watch us play. Which wasn’t unusual. Didn’t matter if we had a winning season or not, girls’ fastpitch always attracted a crowd.

  For some reason Coach Kinneson put me first in the batting order. I would’ve asked her strategy, but was afraid she didn’t have one. She’d only volunteered to fill in while our real coach, Coach Archuleta, was in St. Louis helping his mother through hip replacement surgery. He was planning to be gone for a couple of weeks—five or six games—but his mother wasn’t recuperating as fast as he’d hoped and we were stuck with Coach Kinneson. Supposedly, she’d coached a junior rec league somewhere in Pennsylvania. A league with lower standards, obviously.

  As I took my practice swings in the warm-up circle, I heard Jamie start a chant: “Sza-bo. Mighty Mike. Sza-bo…”

  The audience picked it up: “Sza-bo. Mighty Mike. Sza-bo…”

  Shit. I shot eye daggers at Jamie. Like the rest of the squad, Jamie was dressed in the official CHS cheerleading uniform, only instead of a short skirt he wore skintight short shorts. You could see everything. I kept telling him he should wear a cup. He did a split jump in the air and landed it splayed on the ground. Ow. That had to hurt.

  Jamie finger-waved to me. I pretended not to know him.

  On the first pitch I hit a solid double. Could have been a triple, or a homer. Next up I’d adjust to this pitcher. She was new, a freshman. Fast, but she telegraphed with her eyes where she was going to place the ball. I read the catcher’s signals. Same as last year. Not smart. I had a good memory.

  T.C. advanced me to third with a sacrifice fly and I stole home on a wild pitch. We scored two more runs in the first inning.

  Amy Babcock was the best pitcher Coalton had ever had. Unfortunately, Amy graduated last year and her sister Gina was our starter now. Gina wasn’t Amy. Her first three pitches scudded off the plate. She was rushing it. I rose from my crouch behind home base and signaled her to slow down, take a deep breath. On her next pitch, the ball hit the strike zone, at least, but the Buffs batter connected and tripled to left.

  Gina looked shaken.

  I called time and loped to the mound. “Forget it,” I told her. “She got lucky.”

  “Yeah, right. That was my best pitch.”

  “Gina…”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” She shook her head at the ground.

  I smacked the ball down hard in her glove. “You got the whole game, girl. Show ’em what you’re made of.” If not steel, I thought, aluminum foil. Don’t crumple.

  The next pitch was a rocket, in there for a strike. Atta girl, I sent Gina a nod of encouragement. The Buffs batter popped the next pitch high in the air over my head and I threw off my catcher’s mask to snag it. Easy out.

  Their third batter singled up the middle, then made the mistake of trying to steal second. Guess she hadn’t heard—no one steals on Mike Szabo. My bullet smoked her so bad, she’d be embarrassed to show her face in Garden City again.

  After the first inning jitters, we settled into our game.

  Bottom of the last inning, it was Cougars nine, Buffs eight. Two outs. Gina had hung in there. She was getting tired, though, a little wild. Garden City’s power hitter was up next. Lacey Hidalgo. I’d been hot for Lacey since Little League, not that she knew it. She pumped twice and took her stance at the plate. “Nice ass,” I said under my breath.

  “What?” She turned as the ball whizzed by.

  “Stee-rike one,” the ump called.

  Lacey slit eyes at me. I grinned behind my mask. Signaled Gina, inside corner. Lacey’s weakness. I don’t know if the ball got away from Gina or her arm gave out, but the pitch sailed. Lacey’s bat caught the ball high and ripped it.

  T.C. sprang like a cat toward second base and nicked the ball with her glove, but it dropped behind her and rolled into the outfield. I groaned inwardly. The runner on second tagged up and sprinted to third. Then T.C. mishandled the ball and the runner got waved home.

  “Throw it, T.C.,” I hollered.

  T.C. whirled. I kept my focus on the base runner. As she went into her slide, kicking up a cloud of dirt, the ball smacked into my outstretched glove. Perfect throw. I brought my glove down hard on the runner’s ankle an inch away from the plate.

  “Out!” The ump punched the air.

  I said to the runner, “Gee, sorry. Didn’t mean to soil your new unie.”

  She nailed me with a death look.

  I loved this game. I don’t remember when I started playing softball. Probably the day I was born. Dad said I had a sixth sense about the game, that I could size up a hitter with one swing of her bat. An accurate assessment, if I do say so myself. I was built to be a catcher. Strong leg muscles, center of gravity low to the ground. Speedy too. I could fly. I had to improve on timing, though, and upper body strength to turn those doubles into homers.

  For the limited time left I had to play, that is.

  “T.C.” I caught her arm on the way into the dugout to gear up for the second game of the night. “Dead-on throw, girl.”

  T.C. beamed. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  We knocked fists.

  In a doubleheader you can’t let the first loss affect you, but the Buffs did just that. By the end of the fourth inning it was clear they’d checked out. We routed them twelve-zip.

  Most of the people who’d driven down from Coalton made a point of coming by to high-five, or say, “Good game, Mike.” They congratulated the other girls too. It wasn’t like I was a one-man team. Maybe I did bring in the majority of our runs, but I didn’t win the games singlehandedly. That’s the thing about softball; it’s a team sport. No one player can determine the outcome.

  As I was removing my knee pads, I saw Coach Kinneson over by the backstop, jabbering away with a couple of suits, gesturing at me. What were guys in suits doing here? It made me feel uncomfortable. Guilty. Like I was wanted by the FBI or something.

  Jamie flounced up beside me. “Kicked their asses, Szabo.” He held up a palm to high-five me. When I went to slap his hand, he jerked it away and jutted his hip into mine. God. He was so queer.

  Kimberleigh Rasmussen, head cheerleader, bounded up behind Jamie and poked him in the ribs. He yelped and slapped her away. “Hi, Mike,” she said. “Awesome games. You busted butt.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Jamie, we’re going to the A&W in Garden City,” Kimberleigh told him. “You want to come?” The rest of the squad was piling into Kimberleigh’s SUV in the parking lot and hollering for Jamie. “You too, Mike,” she added.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I gotta get back.” I didn’t really; just didn’t feel much like partying today. The end of every game was a letdown. But especially this year. One less game to play. Counting down.

  Jamie looked from Kimberleigh to me. “I’ve got to get back too,” he said. Shocking the hell out of me. Why would he choose me over “his girls,” as he referred to the squad?

  Oh. I got it. “Go,” I told him. “I don’t need your pity party.”

  He looked at me funny. “If anyone’s throwing a party, you weren’t invited.”

  I sneered at him. He pressed his cheeks together and pooched his lips.

  Kimberleigh gawked at us like she didn’t know what the hell was going on. Me and Jamie did seem to have a language all our own. Jamie said, “I’m scheduled to work at two, okaaay?” he drew out the word. Waggling a finger at Kimberleigh, he added, “Don’t you girls do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Kimberleigh said, “What would that be?”

  Jamie smiled. “Good point. Don’t get caught.”

  She pinched his arm and he yowled. He was eating up this cheerleading crap. How he ever got voted onto the squad is a mystery. His tryout cheer in front of the whole school went:

  “Strawberry shortcake

  Banana split

  We t
hink your team plays like—”

  It must’ve been a joke to vote for Jamie. Maybe not. He was popular. Class clown. Athletic, though. Into gymnastics. He was fun to be around, even if he was the world’s queerest queer. People seemed to get past it. Jamie was just Jamie. He’d always been this way.

  “Hey, you all right?”

  I blinked back to the moment. “Yeah, why?”

  He stared into my eyes the way he does, like he’s trying to see down to my soul. Sorry, closed for repairs. Jamie said, “Let’s climb the water tower tomorrow and work on our bods. It’s perfect weather for sunbathing. Not so hot we French-fry our fannies.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Eleven o’clock.” Jamie ground a stiff index finger into my bicep. “Don’t be late.”

  “You’re the one who’s always late.” I slapped him away.

  He clucked his tongue. “I operate on gay time. Oops, forgot.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face. “So do you.”

  I clubbed his hand down. “I have to get my gear.”

  “Meet you at the truck,” he said.

  Coach Kinneson clomped into the dugout as I was guzzling the last of my ice water. I was starving, eyeing that hoagie in my bag. I should’ve eaten on the way down. “Great game, Mike,” she said. “Both of them. You’re amazing.”

  I might’ve blushed. She was always doing that, singling me out. It was embarrassing.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, adding as an afterthought, “You too.”

  She gave a short laugh. “What do I do except make sure we have enough players on the field? Six, right?”

  I smiled. She knew her limitations, anyway.

  “I talked to Mr. Archuleta yesterday and he said his mother is better. They’re planning to bring her home from the hospital tomorrow. If he can get a nurse to come in for home visits, he’ll be back next week.”

  “Yeah?” My hopes soared. I suppressed my urge to jump up and holler, “All right!” I don’t know why the news excited me. We were holding steady in the standings, despite Coach Kinneson. Oh, that was mean. She was doing the best she could. She was new to the team, new to Coalton. Most of us had been playing together long enough that the game was second nature by now. We knew the teams, the competition. Winning was simply a matter of confidence and execution.