Vision (3 page)

“My brother’s Little League game. Which is probably over by now.”

“Isn’t that the ball park right up the road?”

Bobby nodded. “Yep. That’s why we got to hurry if you want me to drop you at your restaurant. Would help if you just told me which one.”

“Why don’t I come with you?”

The girl was beginning to irk him. Maybe, like the cat that toyed with its injured prey before it pounced for the kill, she sensed her power. Like the girls at school. His high school was located in the bigger town of Waterbury, and the girls there all looked down on the so-called “hicks” from the more rural towns like Graxton and Fernville.

“To the game? Thought you were in a big hurry. I don’t mind driving you to the restaurant, though, if you’d just tell me which one.”

“I love baseball.”

“It’s just a Little League game.”

“I love kids.” She leaned down to pet Pete, who’d been circling her, wagging his tail. “I love dogs, too. I have plenty of time, if you’re giving me a ride.”

“Insistent, aren’t you?”

“I just got up here for the summer and I don’t know a soul. Basically, I’m lonely and bored. Besides, I throw a mean curve ball.”

The girl’s face broke into a wide smile and Bobby’s knees buckled a little. She was pretty. Really pretty. And she seemed a little desperate for company. He supposed it couldn’t hurt to let her join him.

“It’s not even summer yet. Don’t you have school?”

For a flash of a second, Gabe looked fidgety. Then she straightened and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. “My school’s out for the summer.”

“What kind of school gets done in May?”

Gabe looked him square in the eye. “The kind of school I go to.”

“What kind of sch—?”

She brushed past and, interrupting him, said, “C’mon, then. Get in the truck.”

He watched Gabe through the smeared glass of the truck windows. As she opened the door, Pete leapt past her and took his place on the seat next to Bobby.

She laughed and climbed in. “Looks like someone is used to having you all to himself.”

“Guess so.” Bobby started the truck, wishing he weren’t so damned tongue-tied all the time. He cleared his throat and forced out words, hating how gruff his voice sounded. He wished Coco were here. He would know how to talk to a girl like this. Coco could talk to anyone. “What restaurant were you going to?”

The girl smiled and patted Pete on the head. “The Graxton Grill, of course.”

“The Catskill House is where all the weekenders go.”

“Are you implying I’m a weekender?”

“You’re not from here. So that means you’re a weekender.”

The girl rubbed her ankle, then turned back to Bobby. “I’m here for the whole summer. So that makes me more than a weekender.”

“Why the Graxton Grill?”

“What are you, the local food columnist?”

Bobby’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “I think I have the right to know, since I saved you from the corn stalks.”

“My dad owns it.”

The air rushed out of Bobby’s lungs. “Your dad? Your dad is Max Friend?”

“That’s me. Gabe Friend. Sadly, also known as Gabby Friend. Welcome to my nightmare.”

“Gabby Friend?” Bobby stifled a snort. “That’s harsh.”

Gabe fixed him with a wry smile. “Imagine my life in middle school. Especially since I was too shy to utter a peep.”

Bobby didn’t talk much at school, either, but he couldn’t imagine this girl ever being bashful and shy.

“I work at the Graxton Grill,” he said finally. “Your dad is my boss.”

“Is that so?”

Bobby stole a glance at her, but she just stared out the window, suddenly disinterested. Had he offended her? He really had no idea how to talk to this girl. And, though he was pretty sure it was a bad idea, he really wanted to. Max Friend had a policy against employee dating—knives, fire, and romance are a bad combo, he had told them all the day the restaurant reopened. His daughter would be off-limits for sure. “Um, how’s your ankle?”

“Better. It was just a twist.”

It only took a minute to get to the ball field where Aaron’s Little League game was at the end of the sixth inning. Aaron was pitching a shutout, and in minutes the game ended. His team erupted in a roar, ran to the mound and mobbed the triumphant pitcher, but Aaron had already spotted Bobby watching from the sidelines and broke away from the tangle of bodies. Picking up speed, he barreled into Bobby’s arms, a bundle of sweaty hair, grime, and sparkling blue eyes.

“Dude! We won! We won! We made it to the playoffs!”

“I know. I saw!”

Aaron pulled away, noticing the stranger in their midst. “Who are you?”

“She’s,” Bobby stammered, “…a friend.”

Gabe smiled, all freckles and sunshine, and extended a hand. Bobby’s heart revved up inside his chest, but he kept his expression placid and flat, like the waters of Scratch Lake—before the weird turbulence earlier that morning.

“Literally. I’m Gabe Friend,” she said.

Frowning, Aaron looked from her hand to her face. “I never saw you before.”

“No, you haven’t,” Gabe said. “But I’ll bet I can hit any kind of pitch you can throw at me.”

Pete had picked up a stray ball and hunkered down, gnawing contentedly at it on the grass. Barely limping, Gabe strolled over to a bat that had been flung aside in the chaos. “We could go up on that hill and have a practice.” She gestured toward a sloping tract of mown grass that flattened at the top.

“Thought you were in a big hurry,” Bobby said.

“There’s always time for baseball.” Gabe glanced at her watch. “Besides, I still have time, if you’re giving me a ride. It’s only two-thirty and I don’t actually have to be at the restaurant until four for the dinner rush.”

Bobby glanced at Aaron. “It’s laundry night, but I guess it’s okay.”

Pensive, Aaron’s upper lip quivered into a sneer. Bobby laughed under his breath. Aaron never could walk away from a challenge or a fight. Which was why Bobby needed to show up from time to time at Aaron’s school playground at recess.

“Bet you can’t.” Aaron wrestled the slimy ball from Pete’s jaws. “Give me that, Pete.”

Gabe gathered her hair into a hasty ponytail, revealing the sloping curve of her pale neck. Bobby tried to ignore the corresponding shiver that rushed from his thighs to his throat.

“We shall see, won’t we, Little Pendell?” she said, hefting the bat over her shoulder.

“My name is
Aaron
,” his brother said emphatically.

Bobby chuckled as they trudged up to the hill, Aaron and Gabe in the lead. Aaron had no problem dealing with Gabe. Sometimes Bobby wished he were eleven again. In his memories, with Mom still around, those were golden times. But, then again, Aaron was much tougher than him, struggling with things eleven-year-old Bobby had never dreamed of.

Pete straggled behind, investigating the tall grass and weeds that marked the boundary between the neatly mown grass and the woods. The clearing at the top of the hill was bordered on three sides by state land, woods that stretched for endless miles to the east, and ended at the reservoir to the west.

“Go easy on her, A-man,” Bobby said when they’d reached the top of the hill.

“No need.” Gabe was already crouched in a batter’s stance, tapping the ground with the tip of the bat.

“You asked for it,” Aaron said, and let loose a fast, low-riding pitch. Gabe stepped quickly out of the way as it whizzed past.

“What are you, scared?” Aaron called out, laughing.

“That would have been a ball,” Gabe said, back in position, bat slung over her shoulder. “A little higher next time. I’m seventeen, not eleven.”

“Nice and easy, Aaron,” Bobby cautioned. All he needed was for the boss’s daughter to get hurt.

Gabe laughed and blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, c’mon. I’m not made of glass and fluffy stuff. I play softball.”

Focusing, Aaron drew his pitching arm back and hurled the ball hard. It sailed cleanly toward Gabe at waist level and Bobby cringed, imagining it slamming into her stomach. But Gabe took a fierce swing. The bat connected with a loud
crack
and soared above Aaron’s head, clear into the woods.

“Hey! That was our only ball!”

“Pete’ll find it,” Bobby said. “He’s a hunting dog. Get it, boy! Go get the ball!”

The dog tore through the weeds into the woods, the three of them bounding after him. Gabe, apparently recovered from her twisted ankle, was right on Aaron’s heels as they crunched between the towering oaks through the underbrush after Pete.

Pete had already stopped, sniffing at the ball, which had come to rest at the base of a large tree, when a strange tightness in his skull tugged Bobby in the opposite direction. His gaze fell on a faded strip of material snagged in the bark of a dead tree trunk. Drawn inexplicably toward it, he crunched through the ferns and dried leaves, the sounds of laughter and Pete’s barking muted, drowned out by the thump of his heart in his ears.

Standing at the base of the tree, his boots rooted to the forest floor, the back of Bobby’s head had begun to throb.

Not this again
.

He reached for the strip of cloth as if sticking his hand into fire, and…saw the vague form of someone running wildly, breathing hard…

Crashing through the woods. Heart speeding, each beat like the swing of an axe. Can’t do it. Can’t run anymore. Have to stop. To stop
.

Bobby yanked back his hand from the bit of cloth as though it had burned him. The vision still fluttered in front of his eyes like the final images from a broken movie projector. It was as if he
were
that person, hearing fragments of their frantic thoughts, yet he could see them as though he were watching from a distance.

It was like a memory. A vividly terrifying memory.

But it wasn’t his memory.

He had to get out of the woods, but with his knees giving way, the pain from that morning returned, an exploding red agony in back of his head. The woods went crimson, tilting and spinning around him. He lurched away from the dead tree and the bit of cloth, reeling.

No. Not here. Not now
.

Dazed and sickened, Bobby could still see through the red blotches and stumbled toward the brightness where the woods met the open field. He could hear Aaron, Gabe, and Pete race out of the woods, back to the clearing, thinking he was right behind them.

The ground shifted and he fell to his hands and knees. He’d have to ride it out, wait until the spell cleared and the terrifying sense of being chased like a hunter’s prey left him in peace.

Twice in one day. What in blazes is going on with me?

The voices grew louder. And closer. Through the red haze, he could just barely make out their figures approaching.

“Bobby! You okay?”

The pain wrapped around his head like a band and squeezed tighter, stealing his breath. Twice in one day. Not good. Not good. What the hell was wrong with him?

Bobby rubbed his head and looked away so they couldn’t tell he could barely see what was right in front of him. “I tripped. Hit my head, I guess. I’m okay. Just a little dizzy. Can you help me, A-man?” He held out his arm.

Pete licked at him and whimpered. Even the dog was worried now. He felt himself be hauled to his feet and tried to blink away the pain, dizziness, and thick red fog. No go.

“We got you,” said Gabe.

They led him out of the woods into the sun’s glare, where he could make out the shapes of Aaron, Gabe, and Pete silhouetted against a bright red sky, and little more. He groaned and sank to the grass, the back of his head throbbing like it was about to crack open.

“What’s the matter, Bobby? Do you need to go to a doctor?” He heard the panic in Aaron’s voice.

“No. No. I’m fine. I’m just a little dizzy. It’ll go away in a minute.”

“Have some water,” Gabe said and pressed the rim of a bottle to his lips. “Maybe I should call my dad,” she added.

“No! Please. I’ll be okay in a minute.”

“Head injuries can be dangerous. You need to get an X-ray. You can’t mess around with this stuff.”

They sat on the grass for what seemed like forever, the ground shifting and spinning beneath him. When he finally opened his eyes, the red had begun to recede like a storm rolling out to sea. The pain had peeled away to reveal the world in all its color and vivid detail. Bobby sighed, got shakily to his feet, and brushed off his jeans. “There. See? I’m all good now.”

Gabe was looking at him oddly. “You know, for a while there your eyes were all weird and unfocused, like you couldn’t see. That’s not a good sign after a head injury.”

“Thanks for the medical advice, but I think it’s time for me and Aaron to take you to the restaurant, or your dad is gonna kill me.”

Bobby kept silent on the short drive from the ball field to the Graxton Grill. Gabe didn’t seem to notice. Absently petting Pete, who sat between them, she stared out the car window, seemingly as lost in her thoughts as Bobby was in his.

He steered the truck into the restaurant parking lot, trying to work out the best way to leave off without seeming like a jerk. Bobby could tell already that even a little bit of Gabe was going to be too much for him. If being with her made a lump in his throat so tight he could barely force words out, let alone breathe, how was he going to work with her without giving himself away? There was no point in liking her. Max Friend was pretty clear about his no-employee-dating rule. Messing around with the boss’s daughter would get him canned for sure.