I get used to it quickly and manage to keep my glove open wide enough to avoid embarrassing myself further. She starts tossing some deliberately off to the left or right, making me chase them, and I return the favor, and soon we're running all over the infield, firing the ball back and forth, running it down until we're loosened up and I'm sweating a little bit.
I'm standing on second, waiting for her to throw the ball from third, when she stops.
"Here's the deal, Josh. I heard you before. OK?" She waits.
"OK?"
"Yeah." This is the part where she tells me to shove my apology up my ass.
"I heard you," she says again. "But we don't talk about it until I say. Got it?"
I don't know about that. On the one hand, I guess it's her right. On the other hand, though, I don't want to be standing here all night with spin-the-bottle and the closet hanging between us like dense fog.
"I said, 'Got it?'" And she fires the ball at me, hard. It stings my palm when it lands in the glove.
"I got it." I throw it back. "It's just that—"
"Jesus!" She jumps a little to catch it—I threw it high. "What part of this don't you understand?"
"I understand all of it, Rache, but I can't just stand here and play catch with you when there's all of this other shit between us."
She hurls the ball again, this time so hard she goes wild and I have to run into center field for it. "God, Josh, you don't get it, do you? We were friends, remember? Good friends."
Yeah, I remember. Our mothers thought it was so cute, a boy and a girl being such good friends like that. They teased us sometimes, said we'd end up married. "I know. But then I—"
"Will you stop talking about that time in the closet? That's all you think about. What about what happened afterward?"
Afterward? I don't get it. "What do you mean? Nothing happened. Not with us, at least."
"That's my point, you jackass! You disappeared on me! You stopped talking to me, you wouldn't come around anymore—"
"Your parents wouldn't let me near you! And I don't even blame them."
"Shit, that lasted all of a year. Once the truth came out, once the trial started, they felt sorry for you. But me, I lost one of my best friends in the world. All because you were so damn worried about what you did that you never stopped for a minute to think about what I needed or wanted. Throw the goddamn ball!"
I realize I've been standing in shallow center, holding the ball, staring at her. I hop into the base path and toss it to her. She grabs it out of the air, savagely.
"You never tried to call me!" She fires the ball back. Hard. "You never look at me in school! You never talk to me. You won't talk to Michelle or Zik about me or go anywhere you think I'll be. God!"
I just stand there holding the ball. She starts pacing, flinging her arms out to punctuate her points. "It was like being exiled or something! And I couldn't figure out why. My parents would watch the news and see Mrs. Sherman and they'd say, 'That poor boy,' and ask if I'd talked to you, and I would always have to say no. I got so sick and tired of hearing about her, about you. It's like you died, but people wouldn't stop talking about you, wouldn't stop bringing you up, so I couldn't even..." She plants her feet. "Throw the goddamn ball!"
I toss it weakly. She grabs it and fires it back, almost clipping my head before I duck out of the way and knock it down with my glove.
"I couldn't even mourn you!" she says. "I couldn't even forget you."
I retrieve the ball. She's not even watching me now. She's wandering around home plate, facing the backstop. If this were Zik, I'd pitch it right over his shoulder and rattle the backstop to scare the shit out of him.
Instead, I tuck it into my glove and walk over to her. She turns when I'm about halfway there and I expect her to tell me to back off and keep playing extreme catch. But instead, she just slumps her shoulders and watches me.
I hand her the ball. "Are we at the part where I can apologize now?"
She shakes her head, but she's chuckling. "Sorry about all that. It's been building up for a long time. I had to get it all out."
"You don't have anything to apologize for."
"You caught me off-guard back then. I wasn't expecting you to tear my panties—"
"I said I'm sorry, Rachel. I swear to God."
"I mean, we were thirteen! And it's not like no one goes to third or hits a homer at thirteen, but it's usually not so aggressive."
"Look, it's what I was used to. It's what ... It's what she—" God, I don't think I can talk about it. Here I have my chance, at last, to make amends, and I can't even talk about it.
"I understand. I didn't know that then, though. And I'm sorry too."
I blink. "For what?"
"For freaking out the way I did. For starting the whole thing. If I hadn't gone screaming out of the basement—"
"Rachel, it's not your—"
"If I hadn't gone screaming out of the basement like that," she insists, "no one would have known. No one would have known and Mrs. Sherman would still have her job and maybe you wouldn't hate me."
"Hate you?" It's like a line drive to the balls.
"Hate you? Jesus! How could I hate you?"
"You never talked to me after that day. You avoided me everywhere. Michelle tried to get Zik to talk to you about it, but he wouldn't..." Good old Zik. "And you wouldn't even look at me. As soon as I'd see you somewhere, you'd leave or look away or find some excuse to talk to someone else."
"Rachel! God! I was—I was embarrassed. I practically raped you in that closet! I couldn't even think about looking you in the eye."
"You didn't practically rape me, you bonehead! I was coming on to you!"
"Oh, right. Like you wanted to have sex with me right there in the closet, with Zik and Michelle on the other side of the door!"
She glares at me and tugs her cap. It's somehow adorable.
"I would have."
"What?" Did I just think adorable?
"Well..." She shrugs. "I might have. I don't know. You were—I was really into you, Josh. I don't know how far I would have let you go if you'd gone about it differently."
I swoon into a flicker, Rachel's lipstick smudging my cheek in the closet, all those years ago.
"Josh? Josh?"
"I'm OK."
Under the brim of the cap, her eyebrows have come together in concern. She comes closer, reaching out. "You looked like you were going to pass out. Don't blow a blood vessel over this."
Her freckles are soft in the moonlight, a faded tattoo over the bridge of her nose. Her eyes glow blue-green. No makeup or eye shadow or mascara. I think of Eve's long lashes, the smoky gray shadow that made her eyes look so deep.
"There's no reason to be afraid," Rachel says, and she's whispering, and I don't know why.
"I'm not afraid," I whisper back, and it's a lie that even I don't believe.
There's a thumping sound, a single, solid plop. The ball has dropped to the ground, along with Rachel's glove. She's so close to me that I can count the freckles. I can smell the sweat soaked into her cap. She leans in closer and kisses me on the lips.
It's not like last time. Her lips are dry, naked, firmer than before. I fight the warring urges in my body; I want to grab her and pull her closer, but that would scare the living shit out of her, so I also want to break away and run like hell. It's been like this with every girl. I flicker, seeing Eve before me, and my reflexes rear up, telling me what to do, what needs to be done, what she needs, what I need, what she insists be done. My hands tremble and the tremble reminds me I'm wearing a glove, and that somehow brings me back to the real world as Rachel pulls back.
"It's better if you open your mouth," she says.
"Yeah. I know."
"I know you do."
Has she read the documents online? Does she know everything I did with Eve? What does she expect from me? How do I act with her?
"I don't know what you want from me, Rache." And I don't. I get that she missed me
. I get that I was a jerk for years. And it ends there.
"I want you back." She blurts it out, then turns away from me, embarrassed. "I mean ... You were a big part of my life. And then you were gone. I always wondered..."
"We were too young for ... for what I tried to do."
"Says who? You had a hell of a lot of experience by then, didn't you?"
"I don't want to talk about that. We're not going to talk about that."
"Why not, Josh? I was a part of it, wasn't I? I brought it to light."
—running from the closet—
—the hell is going on down there?—
And Rachel, at my side all of a sudden, holding my arm to steady me. "Are you OK? You look like—"
"Fine. I'm fine." But I let her help me to the backstop, where I lean against it before sliding down to sit in the dirt behind home. She stands over me.
"What was it like, Josh? With her? You owe me that much."
I shake my head. How can I sum it up? How can I describe it? I'm a completely different person now. It's a different world. Eve's thirty and free and a registered sex offender, and me? I'm just muddling through, hitting the ball, slamming straight A's, doing all the easy things in life.
"I really can't talk about it."
"Things are different now," Rachel says. "For one thing, I'm more experienced."
As experienced as I am? Who knows? How are we counting? Other than Eve, my experience amounts to a slew of aborted attempts over the years, each time arrested by my own fear or something I communicate invisibly and inaudibly that drives the girl away. Like standing perfectly still and close-mouthed while Rachel tries to kiss me.
"Well, that's good."
"We're on equal footing now. Cal Willingham took care of the whole virginity thing two years ago."
"Oh?" She seems to take a perverse pleasure in making me uncomfortable, in talking about this. My sex life is practically an open book to anyone with the time and patience to browse the Internet. Hers is a mystery. As it should be. A mystery she wants to reveal. But why? To shock me?
"Is that all you have to say? Oh?"
I cast about for something, anything. "Is it true what they say about black guys?"
She rolls her eyes in disgust. "Stop changing the subject."
"I've forgotten the subject." Which is true. At this point, my mind is cranking at a thousand rpm.
"Tell you what—I'll make you a bet."
"A bet?"
She stoops to pick up her glove and the ball, giving me a glimpse of her butt as it tenses under the tight shorts. I don't think there's an ounce of unneeded flesh on her. It's all lean muscle, perfectly toned, and I have to stop thinking like this—it's no good.
"Yeah, a bet." She smiles at me knowingly; she knew I was checking out her ass. What's more, she didn't mind. But she should. Doesn't she know I'm a sex fiend?
"Grab your bat," she goes on, and heads out to the mound.
I obediently rise and switch my glove for my bat.
At the mound, she turns. "Here's the bet. Here's where you get to put your money where your mouth is. I'm going to pitch to you, underhanded. If Mr. Hotshot Batter can get a base hit off me, I'll stop bugging you. I'll leave you completely alone and never speak to you again, if that's what you want."
And that's not what I want, I realize with no small amount of surprise. I wasn't sure until right now what I want, but her terms have made me realize: I just want things to be OK, to be like they used to be, before I had to hide my face in shame from Rachel and from everyone else in Brookdale and all of Lowe County and half the state.
"If I strike you out, though, you have to tell me all about you and Mrs. Sherman."
For the first time since Babe Ruth League, I freeze in the batter's box. She could pitch a big, fat slow ball in my strike zone right now and I wouldn't have the presence of mind to swing at it.
"What?"
"Come on, big shot! Didn't you say underhand is different from overhand? Are you really afraid of me and this oversize thing?" She waves the ball at me. It's as big as the moon.
She's right; this is no challenge, really. My batting average is .502, and that's against guys who pitch overhand. Even if she was throwing overhand, she'd have less than even odds on striking me out. And if I just score a hit off her—which the odds say I will—I can make her stop asking about Eve. And maybe we can move on somehow.
"What if you walk me?"
"I won't walk you," she promises. "But if I do, you win the bet."
"What if I pop up or line drive to the mound?" I have no intention of doing either one, but it can't hurt to check.
She grins. "We should count those as outs, but we'll just call them strikes, OK?"
Sounds fair. "Deal."
She takes a step back on the mound, finding the rubber. I go through my batting ritual—step out of the box, knock dirt off my left shoe with the bat, step forward, knock dirt off the other shoe, step into the box, rotate my bat a quarter-turn in my hands. I usually tug my helmet's brim once, then push it back up into position, but I'm not wearing a helmet. I'm embarrassed to find myself miming the action through sheer muscle memory. Rachel doesn't crack a grin. She's a ballplayer; she understands.
"Batter up!" I yell.
She's all legs up there; can't say I've ever been distracted by a pitcher's calves before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. I redirect my attention above the waist, which is nothing special. She goes into her wind-up—it looks weird and backwards from the plate.
I tell myself—I command myself—not to swing at the first pitch. I've never seen her pitch softball up close, never studied her, so I have to have at least one pitch to learn her form, puzzle out the way she tilts her shoulders for a curve or a slider.
But then the ball's right in front of me, it's right over the goddamn plate, just hanging there, fat and slow, like a fucking piñata. I can't resist. No one with a bat in his hands could resist this thing!
I swing with all my might, ready to drive the ball out into the home-run bushes in deep left. But the ball has other ideas—as if it has a mind of its own, as if it has eyes and can see my bat coming, it suddenly drops a good three inches. My bat whiffs where the ball used to be, pulling me around so hard that I think for a second I might have dislocated my shoulder.
That sound I hear? That's Rachel, laughing.
"Thanks for the breeze!" she shouts, spreading her arms out as if I've generated a gale-force wind.
I retrieve the ball from the ground near the backstop. "You're welcome." I toss it back to her, a little harder than necessary.
The ball smacks into her glove. If it hurts, she doesn't show it, which I like.
"You ready for the second pitch?" she asks.
"I'm standing in the batter's box, aren't I?" It comes out meaner than I'd intended.
"Someone's on the rag," she chides, then grabs her crotch as if adjusting a cup. "And it's not me."
"Throw the ball." I twist my palms on the bat, tightening my grip.
Her shoulder cocks back in a blur of motion. Slider? Fastball? I can't tell—the signs are all wrong. Zing! The ball comes sailing toward me at ten million miles an hour, setting the atmosphere on fire and burning a hole in the space-time continuum.
I resist the temptation to swing, even though every muscle in my body wants to lean in and smack the ball into orbit.
"Shit!" she says from the mound. "High."
"Ball one," I tell her.
"Yeah, yeah, you've got one ball." She sniggers as I throw the ball back to her.
"And so do you," I point out as she catches it in her glove.
"Wow, between the two of us, we're a full scrotum!"
"Pitch."
She clears her throat and cocks her shoulder. It's weird, seeing her full-on like this. Distracting. Usually, pitchers stand to the side for the wind-up, then come forward to release. But not for underhanded pitching. She's in my face the whole time. Nothing helps. I'm used to looking ove
r the pitcher's shoulder for the ball, but Rachel's pitch comes from down near the waist. Or the hip. Depending.
The ball whips toward me. Slider. I can tell. It just floats there for a second, then spins off, cutting the outside corner of the plate. I reach for it with the bat and feel the connection, but it's not enough. I just nicked it, just got a piece of it. The ball jerks up into the air and soars off to my right.
"Foul ball!" she calls out, running for it.
Shit.
"Strike two," she tells me when she returns to the mound, as if she has to remind me.
"I know."
The next pitch is another ball—low and inside enough to make me jump back. Rachel giggles. Was that intentional? Was she trying to brush me back?
I foul off the pitch after that, this time popping it up and over the backstop. Two and two.
It's OK, though. I've got her rhythm now. I see how her shoulders work and how her delivery changes for the curve balls. Not a problem.
The next pitch makes the second one look like a slowpoke—I've never seen anything move so fast in my life. I could swear I hear an engine revving as the ball rockets toward me.
It's going to hit right over the plate. It's a perfect goddamn pitch, the kind of pitch I take to the moon on a regular basis. I dig in my right heel for balance, twist, bring the bat around, and listen for the sound of wood on horsehide.
And miss.
The ball slams against the backstop with a clatter like a dropped drawer of silverware.
"Yes!" Rachel cries from the mound, pumping her fist in the air. "Steeeee-rike three! You're out!" She winds up her pitching arm and spikes a finger to the ground. "Out! Outta here, Mendel! Back to the dugout!"
I toss the ball back to the mound. "You got lucky," I tell her, and I regret it as soon as it's out of my mouth. It's the one thing I've said that really gets to her.
Her eyes flare. "Fuck you, Josh!"
"Rachel, wait. I didn't mean—"
"No, fuck you!" She hurls the ball at me, but she's angry, so she throws overhand and has zero control. I don't even flinch, and the ball misses me by miles. "Fuck you, and fuck you again! I didn't get lucky, you asshole! I struck you out. And I can do it again and again and a thousand times again because I'm the best fucking pitcher in the state."