My Most Excellent Year (10 page)

Dear Mama,

Anybody who ever thought that Augie was just a lot of hot air really needs to see him in action. He sketched out a backdrop for the show that has a golden sunburst in the middle and stars and sparkles coming out of it (Pop built it for him), he climbed a ladder and aimed all of the lights in different directions and combinations of colors so that each act is lit with its own mood, he figured out the tempos for all of the music and now Mr. Disharoon is afraid to disagree with him (he’d be wrong anyway even if he did), and he designed the programs and posters by himself. All for a hundred dollars.

The kids love him and I can understand why. He’s a natural. When he says something like, “Brucie, you can make that funnier if you say it faster” or “Don’t rush it, Ricky, we’ve got plenty of time,” he says it in a way that doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings but just makes them want to do better instead. I always knew that Augie could push the edge of any envelope whenever he wanted to—but even so, I’ve never been more proud of him in my life.

Actually,
I’m
the one who’s in over my head here. President Kennedy must have really gotten off on the sound of his own voice because once he started talking, he never stopped. And didn’t anybody ever tell him about run-on sentences before? Or were those allowed in 1961?

Eighty words and only one period!!

Pop says it’s not enough just to memorize the speech, because
anybody
can do that. “Tony C, people need to think it’s really JFK on that stage, even if he’s shorter than they remember.” So first we’re going to Filene’s to find a dark blue suit with pinstripes and a light blue shirt and a red and blue tie (which Pop calls “the standard-issue JFK uniform”). After that we’ll watch the inauguration DVD and practice. Practice taking a breath where he took a breath, practice moving my hands the same way he moved his hands, practice punching the key words exactly like he punched them. Pop says to count my blessings that Alé didn’t idolize Gorbachev instead.

I hit my first home run of the fall today, and I’m pretty sure you had something to do with it. We play at Amory Park after school and it’s just the kids from the neighborhood divided in two teams (Grid’s Grenades and T.C.’s Titans), but we still draw a pretty big crowd. My own cheering section is usually Pop (as soon as he gets off work), Phyllis or Dad (depending on which one of them is working the register at the bookstore that day), Augie (always), and Lee Meyerhoff. Lee doesn’t care about baseball all that much, but she shows up anyway just to give me a hard time and to stare at my ass. She’s been doing that since we were eight, even after it stopped making me nervous (which was originally her whole
point, though only girls would understand why). Lee is also one of my most trusted operatives. Ever since she and Alé started hanging out together, I’ve been cornering her for debriefings in coatrooms, library stacks, and once in the computer closet.

“Did you tell her I have a cute butt?”

“I pointed her in that direction. She’ll figure out the rest for herself.”

“Please don’t let her know that I used to be your boyfriend. That could create complications.”

“How? It was in third grade and it only lasted two and a half hours. She’d get over it.”

Today Pop showed up at the top of the fourth and found Dad in the bleachers—sitting with Andy and Augie and trying to make a conversation happen between them like he was a rehab counselor. (Andy is our backup third baseman, so he doesn’t always get to start. Which is actually a good thing this season, because whenever he sees Augie in the stands, he starts getting hit by softballs from not paying attention to what he’s doing.)

But this afternoon I played like a bush leaguer with a broken leg. Eighth inning, I was still hitless, and there were two out with two men on when I came to the plate for my last at-bat. While Grid Tarbell and Kip Tracey held a mound conference to figure out what to pitch to me, I noticed a little boy sitting by himself behind the third-base line and studying every move I made like I was under a microscope: He watched me adjust my helmet, he watched me take a practice chop, and he watched me knock the mud off my cleats (okay, there really wasn’t any mud, but it looks
so
cool when you do that). He was maybe five or six years old, his hair was cut short with a little piece sticking up in front, and he—

“Yo! Keller!”

“Sorry.” By then, Kip was back behind the plate with his mask on and Tarbell was winding up like he meant business, so I had to snap out of it fast. But just before Grid let go of the ball, I glanced over at the kid one more time and saw him shaking his head no. I swung.

“Steee-rike one!”
What kind of a gink ARE you, Keller? Even Grandma Lily wouldn’t have fallen for a meatball like that!
Pop and Dad cheered me on anyway, so I shrugged as if I’d done it on purpose, then cocked my bat and leaned over the plate like I expected Tarbell’s second pitch to be an early dinner. (Pop calls this “an intimidation tactic.” So far nobody’s been intimidated.) But I couldn’t help looking over at the kid first—who was still wearing the same frown and wrinkled forehead and who was shaking his head again. I swung.

“Steee-rike two!”
Dude, this SO isn’t the way to get to the Hall of Fame. Not unless you want to hitchhike there.
Well, by now I was a little weirded out. It almost seemed like he was trying to help me. That’s when I started wondering if it was really you looking over my shoulder, the way Pop always says you do. So when he shook his head
again
, I watched the third pitch go by without doing anything about it.

“BALL ONE!”
It’s just a coincidence! He’s not Harry Potter, dude. Get a grip!
I got a grip, all right. Just before pitch number four, the kid and I locked eyes like we were finally in synch, and he nodded his head yes. This time I swung the bat with every muscle I had, and the next thing I saw was the ball clearing left field—just the way Carlton Fisk’s did in 1975. And while I was circling the bases and listening
to the cheers and watching Dad and Augie and Pop and Andy high-five each other in the stands, there were only two questions on my mind. “How?” and “Who is he?” But when I crossed the plate to score, he was gone.

Was that you, Mama? Or did I imagine the whole thing?

I love you,

T.C.

Dear Nat,

Do you remember what happened in between takes on
Inside Daisy Clover
while you were shooting the circus scene? You and R.J. were already divorced, but as you were going back to your dressing room, you saw him standing on a ladder near the set and you realized he’d come over from the soundstage where he was making
Harper
just to watch you work. You didn’t say much to each other except “Hi” and “That was great” and “You look good” and “So do you”—but the next thing the headlines knew, you were getting married all
over again. It was those couple of words on the ladder that did it.

Even though Andy and I can hardly even look at each other anymore—let alone talk in person—our cell phones and IMs are a whole other story. We’ve had about 100 ladder conversations of our own, and they keep getting more and more unbearable. Especially when he calls me things like Spidey and Wonderboy and (sigh) Sleepyhead. I’ve got a Broadway-bound talent show on my hands and I just don’t have the time for the mess my life has turned into. In fact:

• I know now that Emma Thompson will not be bearing my child.
  
• School shower rooms are evil. I can never figure out what to do with my eyes. I mean, they’ve got to look
  somewhere
  . AND DOES EVERYBODY HAVE TO BE NAKED?? Thank God Andy’s always at least five nozzles away. I’m not cut out for routinely scheduled vascular incidents. (And this doesn’t even include the
  other
  targets suddenly registering on my scope: Kyle. Aaron. Derek. Bobby. Jay-Jay. Zack. Doug.
  Holy shit! When did Micah get cute?!
  )
  
• “Mom? Dad? I’m gay.” Oh, please. That is like
  SO
  pedestrian. What happened to my sense of style?! Maybe I’ll throw a coming-out party. With a grand entrance down a staircase. “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” No. Engraved coming-out announcements.
  
• I can’t stop thinking about him. Andy while I’m brushing my teeth, Andy while I’m pouring Rice Chex, Andy while I’m trying to remember what a pluperfect subjunctive is, Andy while I’m
  lying in bed at 11:30 at night with my eyes wide open and wondering if sleep deprivation ever killed anybody.
  
• These are supposed to be the best years of my life. What’s
  that
  all about?