County Line (24 page)

He stood and showed her the pistol, a small revolver.

“Put it away, Jimmie. If Grandfather catches us up here—”

“He’ll send us home?”

He had a point. “You still shouldn’t fool around with that thing.”

“I’m just looking.” He turned it over in his hands, enthralled. She could smell machine oil. “I think it’s a twenty-two.”

She didn’t know how he could tell. The metal finish was dark, the barrel stubby and menacing. She didn’t want to touch it.

“Put it away.”

Instead, he rounded the desk and crashed into the dictionary stand. The big book went flying. The stand crashed against the bookcase. At that moment, they heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Jimmie, put it
away
.”

“I dropped it.”

“
Find
it.”

Jimmie dropped to his knees to grope under the desk. She righted the stand. He pulled himself upright as she put the dictionary back in place, open to the D’s. She turned. His hands were tucked under his arms. She didn’t see the gun.

“Roo—” His voice cracked.

“Don’t talk. I’ll take care of this.” Her stomach turned over as the footsteps reached the landing.

But it was Dorothy, not her grandfather, who opened the door. “What are you children doing here?”

“We wanted to see. The door was unlocked.”

Dorothy looked from her to Jimmie and back again, her gaze more worried than angry. “You need to run along.”

The cook locked the door behind them with her own key and followed them down the spiral staircase. When they were alone again, Jimmie promised to return the gun to the hidden compartment as soon as possible.

But now the gun was in his hand. A caustic reek clung to him.

Moments before, light had flashed in the cab of Dale’s pickup.

“Jimmie—”

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked.

She looked over his shoulder at the truck. The driver’s side door hung partway open. Headlights bright, cab dark. No dome light.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t mean it.” He seemed to choke on his words.

She moved past him, her eyes burning.

“It was an accident.”

Dale slumped in the front seat, mouth loose, eyes half-open. His pallor matched his grey Dickies work shirt. A moist blotch darkened the area below the left pocket. Ruby Jane backed away from the truck.

“Jimmie—”

“I didn’t mean it. She made me—”

She turned and staggered toward the opposite ditch. A stream of vomit preceded her.

“I’m sorry.” Jimmie was behind her, right behind her. She felt his presence like a shadow, like a breath of cold, stale air.

When he put a hand on her shoulder, she screamed.

- 27 -

Game Time, December 1988

Ruby Jane’s eyes were fixed on a spot at the far end of the scorer’s table, the patch of floor beneath the feet of the opposing center: six feet of hard-muscled Femzilla, the girl who’d been making Clarice’s life miserable for the last twenty-nine-and-a-half minutes. Clarice hadn’t sat all game, was playing like it was tournament time, not an early-season, non-league game no one expected them to win.

The wood beneath Femzilla’s feet didn’t buckle. The girl had held her ground in the paint like a granite obelisk all night. Ruby Jane wiped sweat out of her eyes. Down nine with ninety-three seconds to go.

“Whittaker, eyes in, please.”

Coach was feeling it. Feeling the chance in the air like the hum of an electrical transformer. Princeton girls were Division I, two years off a state championship, and had no interest in being shown up by a pack of Division II farm girls.

“Ladies, we’re finishing as if there’s a twelve second clock, okay?” Coach didn’t wait for an answer. “These big girls are getting tired. Our speed can beat them. So I want clean shots up by ten, okay? Keep ‘em off-balance.” He drew himself, a field general tasting a change in the wind. “You know what to do, same thing you been doing all night. Bring it in.”

Gabi inbounded to Ashley at half-court, who bounced to Ruby Jane on the outside. She held the ball half a tick, juked a move and pulled the Femzilla off Clarice with a dribble.

“You not going past me.”

Ruby Jane met her eyes, tried to read her intent. The words meant nothing. In her periphery, she absorbed the motion of the players. Someone called out,
open, open
. Femzilla pawed at the ball. Ruby Jane adjusted, spun on the ball of her foot and dropped a bounce pass to Clarice under the basket. Easy lay-up.

“Try that again, bitch.”

“Next time.” Ruby Jane backpedalled up the court. Coach shouted as she passed. “Great pass, Whittaker!” She fell back into D.
Next time
.

But it wasn’t next time. Gabi went vertical to pull in a long rebound and dished to Clarice on the break. Ruby Jane pushed up court as Clarice dribbled at the double-team. But then she pulled up and dropped a nine-footer over the defenders, and they were back again.

“Ain’t no next time, bitch.”

Ruby Jane didn’t see Femzilla, not as a person. She was an impediment, a thing to get past. An empty voice in a cavern of sound. Cheers from the bleachers, Ashley calling the play. Whistles, the squeak of soles on polished wood. Her breath in her ears.

“Bitch, ain’t no next time.”

“Next time.”

Another rebound, this time under the basket. Clarice flipped the ball to Moira, who lost it. Gabi twisted past her and snagged the loose ball before Femzilla could snatch it up. The Princeton girls were faster than Coach liked to think, but Gabi dribbled through a closing gap as Clarice charged up the court. Ruby Jane broke half a step behind her, the impediment on her arm, hanging on tight. No whistle. Clarice had been hitting jumpers all night from eight, nine feet. But Princeton was learning and set up before she reached the top of the key. No one else was scoring. Ruby Jane glimpsed the clock above the backboard, under a minute, down five. The double-team closed on Clarice and she pulled up too deep. Ruby Jane broke for the basket.

“Bitch, what—”

Clarice passed, first goddamn time ever. Ruby Jane caught the ball, two hands, dropped a quick dribble.

“—happened to your—” The defense rolled off Clarice, and the impediment stretched, a wall between her and the lay-up.

“—old man anyway?”

Ruby Jane didn’t see red—she saw white, the white-hot darkness of a long night under the trees. The impediment grinned, long-toothed. RJ lowered her shoulder and knocked her on her ass, moved into the gap beneath the net. Femzilla twisted toward the ref, screaming for the charge. Ruby Jane ignored her, heard no whistle. Wouldn’t have stopped if she had. She was already off her feet, feeling the air thrum. She slammed the ball through the hoop, caught the rim on her way down. Femzilla stared up at her, eyes like saucers. Ruby Jane dropped to the floor.

The ref grinned and shook his head in disbelief. She looked down at Femzilla. “What was the question?” Princeton called time out—up three, forty-seconds to go—but it was too late. Clarice knocked out a monster block on Princeton’s next trip up, and then a fiercely grinning Gabi dished to a waiting Ruby Jane in the right corner. Nothing but net. Princeton never scored again.

— + —

On the bus afterwards, Clarice paused at Ruby Jane’s seat. “Bet you think you’re special now.”

Ruby Jane stared through the dark window. There was only one way Femzilla could have known to ask that question. But she knew Clarice would have handled the hole in the woods no better than she handled the double team. “I’ve always been special.”

Coach made a speech. No one listened. Too excited. He let them have their fun. They’d beat Princeton. Ruby Jane heard Clarice shout from the back seat. “Division-fucking-one!” Coach grinned. Plans were made for a party, but Ruby Jane didn’t participate. She felt good, tired, aware of every muscle. Glad she wasn’t part of the crowd. She looked forward to a long shower and sleep. Saturday night meant her mother wouldn’t be home, not til late and maybe not at all. From the seat beside her, Gabi squeezed her hand. Ruby Jane saw her face in the gleam of an oncoming headlight and smiled.

A good night.

Once off the bus, Clarice insisted everyone meet at her house. “Even you, Ruby.” No one was driving to Farmersville. Another time, she might have run home, but her legs were dead weights. Unable to resist, she climbed into Clarice’s Rabbit for the first time since being dumped on Gratis Road two months before.

Gabi’s grandmother picked her up at the school. She was allowed to play basketball only so long as she came home immediately after every game. At Clarice’s house, Ruby Jane hovered at the margins, her head pounding from the music, the voices, the shrieking laughter. She found herself unable to avoid being dragged into group hugs and exuberant, congratulatory gropes from people who normally wouldn’t spare two words for her.

Hardy Berman handed her a drink. “What is it?”

“Dunk Juice, baby. My own recipe. Drink up!”

She sipped the sweet and sour concoction, heavy on grapefruit and carbonation. The bubbles felt good on her throat, and her sore muscles craved the sugar. Soon she was onto another, and another. Ashley Wourms cornered her to insist, “I always thought you were the greatest, Ruby
Jane
.” Even Clarice pretended to like her. There was talk, and Dunk Juice, and more talk. Moira Mackenzie insisted everyone feel her boobs, then got mad when Junus Malo took his turn. “You got no business feeling me up with Ashley right in the room, asshole.” More Dunk Juice. Later, she’d barely remember when Officer Callan appeared at the door, Bella beside him. The argument which followed was a blur of volleyed accusation.

“You got some nerve bitching me out for drinking.”

“I’m an adult. You’re lucky Officer Callan doesn’t arrest you.”

She awoke Sunday wishing someone would saw her head off. Her mother was gone until nightfall, the only bright spot in a day made of shit.

Monday morning, when Ruby Jane went out to catch the bus, Clarice was waiting for her at the end of the front walk. Alone.

“Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. You said such interesting things about your father on Saturday night. I must hear all about it.”

- 28 -

Interview, April 1989

The last thing she wanted to think about was the basketball team. Not the practices, not the games, not the season. Not the Dunk. In the long, empty days which followed that night in the woods, she found equilibrium in the swish of the ball through the hoop and the long road miles in the early mornings before the sultry air rose like steam above the fields. The team and the games—those barely registered. Win or lose, none of it mattered. Only motion, sweat, repeated effort. If Gabi hadn’t appeared at a crucial moment, the forlorn girl far from home, Ruby Jane might have skipped the season. She could get everything she needed on an empty court, shooting threes from the corner for hours. She played for the Spartans only because she knew no other way to protect Gabi from Clarice.