Home Field (15 page)

“How long did that take?”

“Longer than I thought it should. People around here are friendly, but they're not as friendly as they think they are.”

Laura nodded. “Most of them have never had to start over. They don't know.”

Dean remembered a secret wish to start over with Nicole. To move to a place where people would assume he was Nicole's only love and that Stephanie was his biological daughter. There were times when he almost had Nicole convinced, when she and Joelle had one of their minifeuds or when her father, Paul, was being especially rigid. But then she would worry about leaving her mother alone, or about taking Stephanie from her grandparents. And Dean would see that these were excuses, that she was too scared to go someplace new. He might have coaxed her, but his own fears intervened. The last thing he wanted was to get stuck someplace where they knew no one and she was pregnant and resentful and borderline depressed. He didn't think their marriage was strong enough for that. Or maybe he wasn't strong enough for it. Same difference.

“Maybe I'm having a midlife crisis,” Laura said. “I'm getting it out of the way early.”

“You would know if you were having a midlife crisis,” Dean said. “Trust me.”

“Oh, Dean,” she said. “I'm so sorry. Here I am, talking about my stupid life and you have real problems.”

“I like talking about your stupid life,” Dean said. “You know that.”

T
HE BARTENDER KNEW
Laird, and they bought drinks without any trouble. They sat in the back where no one would notice them, a corner booth that afforded a glimpse of everyone in the bar. Stephanie had never really seen Willowboro's nightlife and on some level she assumed there was none, that everyone did their socializing at football games or church. She associated bars like this—wood-paneled and sports-themed—with movies and TV shows, and so its very banality struck her as exotic. She felt almost glamorous sitting with this good-looking boy, a boy who was trying to impress her by bringing her to a place he considered adult. They drank rum and Cokes, and Stephanie felt the booze hitting her in a floaty, festive way.

“I knew we would see some teachers from school,” Laird said. He nodded toward a woman standing at the bar. She wore a cap-sleeved tee and jeans with a beat-up old belt that Stephanie admired. Her hair was in a low ponytail from which wispy strands had escaped, framing her face. She looked familiar but Stephanie couldn't quite recognize her in the dim light. Stephanie wondered how you got to be like her: young but grown-up. She wished she could leap over the next ten years and just be an adult with a job and a boyfriend and a vintage belt.

“Is she new?” Stephanie asked. “I don't remember her.”

“That's because you're not a guy,” Laird said.

“You think she's sexy?” Stephanie was surprised; she thought this woman's appeal was too subtle for teenage boys.

“Definitely,” Laird said. “Especially for a teacher. She talks like us and she has this leather jacket she wears.”

“Oh my God, you totally know all about her.”

Laird shrugged, unembarrassed. “I would see her in the halls. I wonder if she has a boyfriend. She wasn't married.”

They both watched as she carried two drinks across the crowded room. A man was waiting for her at one of the small square tables against the wall, a graying older type, but Stephanie barely glanced at him; she was more interested in this woman. She tried to picture her walking down the hallways at school, wanting to remember how she knew her.

“Uh-oh,” Laird said. “We better get going.”

“Why?” Stephanie said, unnerved by Laird's tone.

He looked confused. “Isn't that your dad?”

Stephanie looked back at the woman, now sitting at the table with the older man. Her first split-second thought was that Laird was mistaken, that her father was not as old as the man she'd glimpsed, but all at once she realized he was right. Her heart began to pound, as if her blood was actually pulsing with this new information. And she had gathered so much more information than she realized: In those objective seconds, before she recognized her father, she had seen a portrait of two people who were more than acquaintances or even friends. They had the kind of physical attraction that you could see across a room, like someone had drawn a circle around them, bringing them together.

“We have to go,” Stephanie said. But she didn't make a move to leave. She couldn't stop staring at the woman. She recognized her now; she was the lady from church, and before that, the lady in the cafeteria. Stephanie had never given any special thought to her, but it was as if some part of her mind had detected something amiss and held on to the memory of her.

“Come on.” Laird guided Stephanie out the back door. Outside it was unexpectedly chilly, as if autumn had arrived while they were inside. Stephanie shivered in her thin cardigan and jean skirt, and Laird put his arm around her as they walked to his car. When he pulled away to get his keys, she wouldn't let him and instead put his other arm around her. He laughed and said, “Okay,” even though she hadn't said anything, and he kissed her softly, their lips barely touching because his head was bent awkwardly. Stephanie leaned back against his car, and they began to kiss in earnest. He was calm at first, deliberate, but as their kisses deepened, his breathing got heavier and he took a step away from her. “What?” she said, feeling her cheeks redden. Her whole body felt like it was blushing. All she could think was
more
. Nearby they heard someone getting out of their car, the doors slamming shut, laughter.

“I was just thinking—we could go to my old house. No one bought it. I still have the key.”

D
EAN THOUGHT IT
would be exciting to be in Laura's car, this small, intimate space, but instead he felt cramped. He was disappointed to learn that she was messy, to see the empty soda can in her cup holder and the backseat cluttered with papers and binders. She was a good driver, but she drove fast,
especially considering how much she'd had to drink. The familiar countryside spooled past, everyone's house lights out, everyone's lawn full of dark, innocent shapes: hedges, lawn ornaments, picnic tables. Sheetz loomed in the distance, an alien, neon-lit structure. If Dean were alone, he would stop and get something to eat. A slushie, a sub, a chocolate-frosted doughnut. Anything to extend the night. That was the problem with staying up this late. Something happened after midnight; he lost his strength, the tiny bit of willpower he needed to get through those chasm minutes alone in bed before he fell asleep.

Laura almost missed the turnoff that led to Ed and Joelle's farm, swerving at the last minute. The farm's long driveway, which snaked behind the town, parallel to Main Street, was a mixture of gravel and dirt, deeply rutted by tractor wheels. Laura struggled to fit her little car's wheels into the ruts and they bounced uncomfortably. “Sorry, sorry.”

“I hope you can find your way home,” Dean joked. But he was actually a little bit worried.

“This is good, it's sobering me up.”

She had her high beams on, and to Dean's relief she turned them down as they approached the farmhouse and barn. Still, her headlights caught the night-shining eyes of some little animal—probably a cat—and she lurched to a stop. “I don't want to hit a skunk,” she said. “I did that my first week here. Oh my God, it was disgusting. I had to take it to a mechanic to get the smell out.”

“You can pull in over there,” Dean said, pointing toward the barn.

Laura came to a surprisingly smooth and quiet stop, shut
ting the lights and engine off. The music cut out abruptly and all at once it seemed very dark inside the car.

“So here we are.” Laura kept her hands on the steering wheel, her bare arms looking slender and pale in the darkness. She turned toward him. “I shouldn't have bombarded you with all my issues. I've ruined any chance of helping you. Or Robbie.”

“You haven't, I promise,” Dean said. He wanted so badly to touch her. But her mention of Robbie was a jolt to his conscience. He slid his hand into the door handle, cracking the passenger door. Cool air rushed in.

“I guess I'll see you around,” she said.

“Yeah, soon.” Dean's leg was out the door now; it was as if his body was coaxing him out of the car, away from the fantasies his mind was spinning.

Dean watched as she drove slowly down the lane, the brake lights flashing every few seconds. After a few moments, the landscape was dark again. Dean walked over to his car. Ed had left his keys on the seat. The last thing he wanted was to drive home. In the distance, he could hear Laura's car making its way down the driveway; but it was odd, it sounded as if she was getting closer. His heart began to beat more quickly as he saw headlights swinging toward him. They cut two silver paths down the lane, illuminating swaths of gravel and leaves. But it wasn't Laura's car; the headlights were too square, too wide apart. It was Geneva, Dean realized, in her shitty old Ford sedan. He couldn't help smiling, even though he was disappointed.

Geneva came to a stop and leaned out the driver's-side window. Her gray hair was slicked back, held in place by a
puffy cloth headband, and she wore bright earrings. “Get in,” she said. “Come have a nightcap with me.”

“I've already had a lot.”

“Come on, I want someone to celebrate with. I won fifty bucks tonight!”

He got into her car, which smelled like her lilac perfume. Geneva had stopped the car in second and it stalled when she pressed the gas. “Whoops!” She shifted back to first and gunned it. The road became less defined the farther they went. By the time they reached the end of the lane, it wasn't much more than a cow path. Geneva pulled to a stop beneath a sycamore tree. “Here we are.”

Dean breathed in the damp, sweet, faintly rotten smell of the pasture that was Geneva's front yard. At night, in the dark, it seemed especially expansive, a lake that kept the entire farm at bay. He could see why she preferred to live down here instead of in the farmhouse up by the main road.

“You stay on the porch,” Geneva instructed. “I'll bring out our drinks. I think I have some of Paul's old liquor.”

Dean sat down in the rocker his father-in-law used to inhabit, up on the farmhouse porch. It creaked as he leaned back. He looked up at the night sky, watching as the half-moon slid out from behind the clouds, casting its cobweb light across the field. Dean didn't know how Nicole could stand to leave the world behind.

Geneva emerged from the house with two neat whiskeys.

“So guess how I'm going to spend my winnings?” she said, settling into her chair.

“Filet mignon for the buzzards?”

“Ha, no, I'm buying lingerie! Joelle leaves her Victoria's
Secret catalogs in my mailbox now; she doesn't want the girls seeing them. I told her, it's Ed you have to worry about. Which she did not appreciate. I told you, she has no sense of humor anymore.”

“Did she ever?”

“You'd have to have one to marry someone like Ed.”

“He's not so bad,” Dean said, thinking of how Ed had left him alone at the bar with Laura.

“He came down here the other day with this hangdog expression. He says, ‘Geneva, I have to talk to you about those buzzards. It's against the natural order of things for you to feed them. They're supposed to eat dead things, not cat food.' I said, ‘I know, that's why I've started feeding them roadkill.' He gives me this look like he doesn't know what to think, so I go on, I say, ‘What do you think I do in the mornings when I take my car out?' And he turns pale and says, ‘Geneva, please tell me you're not picking up dead animals.' I said, ‘I wear gloves, don't worry.' And he gets all concerned. And then I start laughing and he's so nervous he has to wait a minute, to be sure I'm kidding. Oh, you should have seen his face!”

“You shouldn't pull his chain like that. Or Joelle's. They're going to think you're losing it.”

“They already do!” Geneva's bright earrings bobbed as she laughed. “I have to admit, I like having those buzzards around. I don't know why; maybe it's because they're not afraid of death.”

“I can see that.”

“Can you?” Geneva said. “I wonder about you, Dean. You're so self-contained. The way I see it, when something bad happens to you, you either button up and batten down, or you go
a little crazy. Obviously, I chose the crazy route. But you? I'm not so sure.”

“I'm battening, I guess.”

“I couldn't do that,” Geneva said. “I don't have the self-control.”

“I don't know that I do, either.”

“Oh, please. I've never met anyone more disciplined.”

“That's the problem. I need something to be disciplined about. Something to do. I can't go to another football game and sit in the stands and eat hot dogs. And I can't go to work every day, come home, and be with my kids. I can't. I'm not built that way. I have to have some sort of goal, some sort of fight. Sometimes I wonder if that's why Nic, if that's why she—if she didn't have a sense of purpose. And maybe that's my fault, maybe I should have given it to her.”

“Dean, you could have given her the world. I can't make sense of it, Jo can't make sense of it, and if Paul were alive, he wouldn't be able to, either.” She paused. “Actually, maybe he would. He had his dark days. Nicole always took after him. Joelle takes after me. Not that it's that simple. Paul was happy when he was old. He turned a corner after he had grandchildren. Life has many phases. That's what I would say to Nicky if I could talk to her now.”

Dean looked toward the southern end of the pasture, trying to see if he could make out the little cemetery just beyond it.

“Have you gone to Nic's grave?” he asked.

“I go every Sunday.”