Thrown a Curve (7 page)

At least all the running would help me get in shape.

M
onday after school, I tried to get myself ready for baseball practice. Did Coach say to report to the weight room?
Oh, crap!
I didn’t remember.

I changed in the girls’ locker room with the softball players. I felt the vomit building in my stomach. I was already so nervous about the team, and it was only practice. Trudy Harris, a sophomore who was changing across the aisle, stared at me and asked, “Are you on the softball team with us this year?”

“No, baseball, actually,” I answered, swallowing back the barf.

“Seriously?” She looked interested.

“Yeah, for the moment.”

“Wow, great way to meet guys, huh?”

Oh, the thoughts that were running through my head. Should I call her an idiot or just let it slide? She was trying to be nice, and I was too nauseated to get into an argument with her. So I closed my locker, and walking past her, simply answered, “I guess.”

She quickly added, “Hey, after games, we always meet for pizza across the street, if you wanna come some time.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, though I had no intention of going. I hadn’t told Sacamore the whole truth when he’d asked me about girl
friends. The truth was, girls made me feel uncomfortable. They were so feminine and talkative. Even when girls tried to befriend me, I kind of pushed them away. It was easier to be alone. The last time I had a girl friend was in elementary school—Latasha Hendricks. And the only reason I liked her was because she used to make the boys eat dirt. But then she moved.

I went into the weight room. I was less nervous than I thought I’d be. I was there with a few skinny freshman pitchers and Mr. Jefferson.

“All right, Mondays and Wednesdays we’re in the weight room,” Mr. Jefferson said. “Tuesdays and Thursdays we scrimmage until the season starts. We have two weeks until our first game.” He walked over to the free weights area. “I’m going to show you what exercises would be most helpful to you, and then you can experiment on your own. Just be careful you don’t lift too much weight or you’ll be too sore to pitch tomorrow.” He ran through the exercises and posted a schedule on the wall. “Okay. Get to it.”

I’d never lifted a weight before in my life. I stood there, confused, as the boys jumped on the machines.

“Need some help, Dresden?” Mr. Jefferson said to me.

No one had ever called me by my last name before. I liked it. “If you don’t mind,” I said.

He laughed and said, “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” He showed me what to do, one step at a time. He made small talk with me as he taught. “You’re right-handed, right? You have a mean curve, I hear.” I wondered why he was being so
nice. Maybe the evil guidance counselor, Mr. Sacamore, had threatened him.

After a while, I was actually starting to get comfortable with the weights. Lifting them made me feel strong. I liked the idea of being tough—usually I felt like a weak mess.

After the workout, I saw a few of the boys talking to each other by the pull-up bar. One of the taller ones was shoving another guy in my direction.
Oh, great! Now what?
The kid headed toward me. I pretended to tie my sneakers and not notice him. He sat down on the bench next to me.

“Hey,” he said.

I answered suspiciously, “Hi.”

“So, what are you doing here . . . exactly?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Well, why aren’t you on the softball team?”

Because Sacamore’s framing me—can’t say that, though. I quickly came up with some feminist bull. “Because I don’t play softball, I play baseball. Is there any law against girls playing baseball, or is this America?”

He looked shocked. He was speechless. I was shocked myself that I’d actually said that.

I stood up, grabbed my towel, and headed back to the locker room, trying to hold back the tears. When I reached the locker room, I went into the last bathroom stall, sat down on the floor, and cried. How was I going to play on this team? Not one of these guys wanted me here.

I stayed in the stall until I heard the softball girls filtering back
in to take showers. I stood up and brushed myself off, wiping my face with my sweaty shirt.
Toughen up, Dresden.
I punched the stall door as hard as I could—with my left hand, of course.
Stop acting like a girl.
I held my head up and walked bravely out of the bathroom.

On Friday, I had another meeting with Sacamore. He was on the phone when I walked in, so I just wandered around the room looking at his weird collection of pictures. Some were in frames, and some were just laying there, their edges beginning to curl. I was still feeling bummed out about the weight room incident on Monday, but I didn’t want Sacamore to know too much. I felt like less of a loser if I made it hard for him to drag information out of me.

I picked up a photograph of a bunch of kids and an older man sitting in a boat docked on the beach. I figured it must be Sacamore and his family when he was a kid. The side of the boat said “OCBP.”

“Okay, thanks for calling. Talk to you soon,” Sacamore said and hung up the receiver.

“Is this Ocean City?” I asked, walking toward him with the picture.

He took a peek. “I don’t know. Could be, I guess.”

“You were too young to remember?”

He stood up and moved toward the wall of photographs.
“No, I’m not in that picture.”

“Oh, who are they?”

“You got me. I just like the picture.”

I placed the picture back on its shelf. “Okay,” I said, waiting for him to say something more while I shook my head. This guy got weirder and weirder. “So why do you have it?” I said after a long stretch of silence.

He straightened a few of the pictures that were about to slide off the shelves. He smiled at one of them. “This one’s cute,” he said, showing me a picture of a black puppy.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “So why do you have these pictures?”

“Students like to look at them, and I can tell a lot about the kids by the ones they ask me about.”

I was still holding the boat picture. “Oh yeah, like what?” I asked, putting the picture back down.

He immediately picked it up. “Well, what was interesting to you about this picture?”

This guy was sneaky. But I played along. “I guess they look like they’re all having fun,” I said, walking over to take another look at it. “A group of kids and the dad enjoying the day.”

“How do you know the man is the dad?”

“Just assumed. You know, kids on the beach . . . usually a parent would be there.”

“Do you have any pictures like this?” he asked.

I sighed, sitting down in the brown corduroy chair. “Not that I know of.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Umm, ’cause we never go anywhere together as a family, and I don’t have ten friends,” I said, feeling pissed. “Is that what you wanna hear?”

He paused for a while and looked at me. “Taylor, I’m not your enemy. We’re just talking . . . Did something happen this week to upset you?”

“Just boys giving me some sh—” I cleaned up my words quickly, remembering I was in school. “Just guys on the team, asking what I was doing there and why I wasn’t playing softball. You know—typical macho guy stuff.”

He nodded. “Just remember, they’re as confused and afraid of you as you are of them.”

“Yeah, I bet,” I said sarcastically.

“It’s true. It’s easier to say you don’t like the new person than to take the time to get to know what they’re all about. That’s why in movies, aliens are always bad guys. Unfortunately, humans tend to fear differences instead of embracing them. You’re different, Taylor, but eventually, that’s what you’ll find comfort in.”

Huh?
My brain was swelling—Sacamore and his philosophies. Maybe someday I’d know what the heck he was talking about. But, for now, the bell was ringing and I said my goodbyes. As I closed the door behind me, I had to swallow the lump in my throat. It seemed as if I’d had the same lump stuck in there since I first met Sacamore.

The next week flew by. I practiced with the team every day
after school and met with Sacamore again on Friday to “talk.” I wasn’t sure if the talking was helping, but all the practicing made me too tired to think about how crappy my life was, so that was good. I stuck mostly with one catcher during practice—Louis. He didn’t really have a choice about catching for me, and he was low on the boys’ popularity scale, so he wasn’t a complete jerk to me. The coaches kept watching me closely, and I often saw Sacamore monitoring me from the dugout, casually questioning the coaches.

On the last practice day before our first game, I was in the locker room, packing up my gear, when Trudy Harris started talking to me again as if we were best buddies. It was probably because I was the only one left in the aisle, and she needed a warm body. Trudy was a little on the chubby side, and she was at least a foot shorter than I was. She was reaching up to her locker while trying to put her shoe on with the other hand. It was kind of a circus act.

“Hey, Taylor, right?” she asked.

I looked up from the bench and said sarcastically, “Yeah. Trudy, right?”

“Uh-huh. Good memory,” she said. “So is that guy Justin your boyfriend?”

This was amusing. “Justin?”

“Yeah, the guy with the longish hair, who’s really sweet?”

She thought Justin was sweet. Wait until I told him that. “You think Justin is sweet?”

“Oh, sure. I mean, he’s one of those guys who looks kind
of scary, with the dark grungy clothes and all, but in chemistry class, he always helps people out. One time, when we were lab partners, he cleaned my whole station.” She moved closer to me and sat down. “I always see you with him, so I figured you were a couple.”

A couple?
I’d never thought about Justin that way. He was just a great friend. Was she asking me to hook her up with him? I hated when Justin had a girlfriend. The last girl he went out with was a real pain, and I hardly ever got to see him when they were dating. I couldn’t let that happen again. “Are you interested in him?” I said.

Shaking her head, she answered, “Oh, no way. He’s not my type. I’ve got my eye on this guy who’s on the student council, actually. I was just curious about the two of you.”

I responded quickly, “Well, we’re just really good friends. We’ve known each other all our lives.”

She fiddled with her lock. “Too bad,” she said as she got up to close her locker. “I think you guys would make a cute couple.”

Did she just use the words “cute couple” and me in the same sentence? This girl was a loon.

“Well, I have to get going,” she said, throwing her bag over her shoulder. “I’ve got to feed my new kitty. He’s so adorable,” she squealed. “Do you like cats?”

I thought about the kitten I’d found in the yard a couple weeks ago. “Sure. In fact, I found a stray a few weeks ago, but I haven’t seen him since. My dad wouldn’t let me keep one anyway.”

“It wasn’t an orange tabby, was it?”

“Yeah, actually,” I said, surprised.

“One white foot?”

“I think so.”

She laughed and nodded her head. “That was definitely my Trixie. He runs away like every other night. I think your house is only a few blocks from me.”