See No Color (2 page)

“John,” Dad said, thrusting his hand toward the wide, lumbering man who approached him wearing a cockeyed East High cap and sweatpants that were a little too big. “So good to see you,” said Dad. “How are Katie and the kids?” He and Dad had gone to Clemson together. Dad had broken every record while he was there, while this other guy had been more of a fixture on the bench.

The man smiled warmly, and grasped Dad's hand. “They're great, Terry. Great. And Rachel and the kids?”

“Good, good. Everyone's good.” Dad paused, looking down into the other team's dugout. Lots of pale, skinny Wisconsin kids. Not much power. “Looks like you got a promising bunch this year. We're ready for a first-rate outing today,” said Dad.

The man beamed, then slapped Dad on the back. Both of them laughed and then stared up at the sky. I got the feeling that they really didn't have that much more to say to each other, but they had to wait for the umpire to meet them up there to begin.

“Been hearing about this center fielder you got. A girl, I hear—a black girl. Heard she's got some legs on her, that she can hit, too.”

“That's Alex,” Dad said, crossing his arms over his chest. “My daughter.”

The man had tiny, beady eyes, but they fluttered open. He brought his left hand to his neck and began to rub it. You could almost hear the thoughts running through his head:
black daughter, white father, white mother, white brothe
r …

“You adopted,” the man said, finally getting it. “You and Rachel.” He squinted into the sunlight. “I'm sure you told me before, and I just forgot.” The umpire was finally making his way toward them. I thanked God because all the warm-up chatter had died and no one was even throwing anymore. I could feel the tension collecting under my shoulder blades, the hiccups forming in my windpipe.

“She
is
a great player,” Dad said. “Phenomenal for a girl, really.”

“That so?” asked the man.

Dad shifted his weight and nodded. “She's mixed, not black. She's half white.”

The man nodded, and the umpire approached them about beginning the game. I exhaled as the subject changed to defining the exact location of the strike zone, how many umpires were on the field for the day, and where they would be standing.

• • •

I led off the bottom of the fifth. Since I had an on-base percentage of .403 so far this season, any inning where I was up first had possibilities. I never had power, but I could always get on base since I could hit into the holes and had speed.

We were up, three to two. They had this black pitcher who was supposed to really be something. Apparently, he had just moved to Madison a few months before. He had perfect location in the strike zone and could throw a changeup that would leave you cross-eyed as the ump called you out.

“Look for the fastball and try to adjust to anything off-speed,” Dad told me before the game. “And try to pull it to left.”

The light spring breeze felt a little too cold on my cheeks, and the sun was already too bright for my sunglasses. I lifted my bat up over my shoulder and planted my feet solidly into the ground. I knew that the pitcher had looked at the scouting report on me, too: .311/.403/.561. You didn't get good without knowing exactly what you were up against. He brought his left hand out of the glove and went into the windup. I knew it would be a high fastball—the pitch that always looks good to hitters but rarely is. He was counting on me to swing, to give into temptation, like Jason had at the end of the last inning when he had struck out. It was coming at me, fast and hard, but I knew it was too high, so I took it. The umpire called a ball.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pitcher flinch. I could hear Dad's voice in my ear:
There's no preparation like over-preparation. Remember, every second, how lucky you are to be playing the game. Appreciate it—really feel it. Because you never know when it could all be taken away from you.
I stepped back into the box. The pitcher was shaking his head at the catcher. Shaking again; they must not be on the same page. I had seen his team.

Finally, they agreed on something. He stretched and delivered. Right up the middle. He wanted that strike, no matter what. I brought the bat around fast and connected. There was a whack, and it flew over the pitcher's head. I pumped my arms, dragged my legs toward first.
Come on, Kirtridge, come on
. Why was first always so incredibly far away? It blurred ahead of me while dust flew up and curled under my cleats.
Come on, come on
. I knew the ball had dropped in the infield, near the shortstop. I brought my foot down on the bag and ran through. My lungs tightened, constricted even though they wanted more air. The umpire stretched his arms out to either side. I exhaled. It was then that I saw the shortstop still holding the ball. I laughed. He hadn't even tried to make the play. The pitcher lifted up his glove, motioning for the shortstop to throw him the ball. You could see he was angry from the way he moved: exaggerated and agitated. I had done my job.

I touched the base and then took a reasonable lead as my teammate stepped up to the plate. The black kid on the mound looked back at me once, over his glove, but I was confident that he wouldn't try to pick me off. He knew exactly how fast I was now. Today, anyway, I was stronger than he was.

CHAPTER THREE

A
fter we beat East, we went out to dinner with them. This was a league tradition, and when we won, it was a tradition my father loved. In his postgame glee, Dad insisted on paying for everyone. “To my old friend, John,” he said, raising a mug of Heineken. “A great coach and a great friend.”

You could see that John really didn't want to raise his mug to meet Dad's, that what he really wanted to do was get out of that pizzeria. However, he managed to stick a fake smile on his face and clink his glass with Dad's.

Dad put his arm around John's shoulders and squeezed hard. “This team of yours is really something, John. Really something.” Dad rarely, if ever, got drunk in public, but he often got happy. He raised his glass again. “A toast. To the team.”

John's face became clouded, but he made the toast. The rest of his team followed with their Cokes and Sprites.

Jason and I exchanged glances across the table; I covered my mouth with my hand and hoped no one could hear me laugh. “He's so crazy,” I said in a low voice. You couldn't blame him for being excited, though—we were one step closer to the state tournament.

Jason shook his head. “Man,” he said, stirring the ice in his glass with his straw. “I played so bad today.”

In truth he had. 1 for 5, 2 SOs, 0 BoBs, 1 E, 0 R. I leaned toward him. “Look, all you have to do is adjust your stance a bit. Keep your shoulder in longer. You're bailing out.” Dad would have this all on film and would no doubt make Jason watch all his at bats in slow motion high def tomorrow in the den.

Jason drummed his fingers on the table, eyes drooping. His closely-cropped blond hair barely covered up a welt on his head that he had gotten from a badly played grounder a few games ago. “Don't you ever wonder if this is what you're supposed to be doing?”

I stared at him: his perfectly ironed jersey, his big ears. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the game. At this level, all the time.” He threw up his hands. “Alex, you're sixteen, I'm fifteen, and we practice three or four hours a day. Crazy.”

I couldn't believe what he was saying. “That's what it takes to be the best, Jason.” I put my hand over his, stopping his drumming. I leaned toward him and whispered, “And we are the best. Maybe not right now. Everyone has slumps. You'll pull out of it. The numbers will turn around.”

He drew his hand away and shook his head. “I'm sick of being a slash line. I don't love it like you do,” he said. His gray eyes looked away from me.

We ran four miles a day at five thirty every morning and lifted weights in the basement when we got home from school. Since I was a girl, Dad said I had to work twice as hard to develop strength, so I lifted ten pounds more than Jason and at more reps. Practice was an hour and a half after weight lifting and usually lasted for two hours, four days a week. I knew what Jason meant about the intensity; I could see he was tired of thinking about it every day. But I didn't believe he didn't love it. That was impossible.

“He would kill me if I told him I wasn't sure about it,” he said.

“Shut up. You're sure.”

“It's my whole life.”

“That's why you'll work harder, get better,” I said, sipping my Coke.

He sat up, took a deep breath. Dad was still at the center of the table, lecturing a couple of our teammates—always looking to the next game. “Sometimes I hate him for that,” Jason said quietly. Then he stood up and walked to the bathroom. I turned to watch his tall, skinny back recede into the dim lighting of the pizzeria.

“How you doing?” someone asked me from behind. I turned around to see the black pitcher.
He has a good face—high cheekbones and deeply set eyes
. My stomach flipped. He stuck out his hand. “Reggie Carter.”

I grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “Alex,” I said.

He gestured toward the chair across from me. “Mind if I sit down?”

I shook my head. “No, please do.” I wondered how long Jason would be in the bathroom.

The pitcher looked over me slowly, and my stomach flipped again. “Girl, you know how to play some ball. How long you been playing with the guys?”

“Always,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
A black guy wants to talk to me
.

He raised his eyebrows. “Always as in … Always?”

I laughed nervously. “Yeah. I know that's crazy, but, you know, my dad started me early.”
But I'm not really black
.

“Your dad.”

I gestured toward Dad, who had finally sat down at a table overflowing with beer and pizza. “My dad.”

Reggie looked from Dad to me and back again a few times. “Your … oh. Your dad! Terry Kirtridge, right? Oh yeah, I think I can see it.” He leaned toward me, examining my face carefully. “Yeah, ya'll got the same pretty eyes, and the same killer swing.” When he smiled, a dimple appeared to the right of his mouth. I shut my eyes as my face started to heat up. I could see the black kids at West High, clustering at all the entryways, looking and laughing at me. There was no way through.

“So your mom then,” he was saying. “She's black.”

I laughed. “No. She's … I mean …” He was giving me his full attention. I glanced toward the bathroom; no sign of Jason. “That's right,” I told him.

“Wow,” he said, looking at Dad again. “That's cool.”

I laughed nervously. I had been enjoying his proximity, but now I wished he would just leave. My pulse felt like it was speeding up every second.

“You know, I think it's cool they let you play with the boys and all,” he said. “Because I'm sure you would whip some ass in softball.” He grinned. “Bet them girls don't like you too much, do they?”

I cringed. “What do you mean?” I fiddled with my unruly hair, which had been in a ponytail as it was for every game, but I was pretty sure that it was frizzing wildly by now.

“Well, you know,” he said. “Folks don't usually like people who show them up.”

“I guess so,” I said. “I don't really have too many girlfriends.” Jason rounded the corner, out of the bathroom, fiddling with his fly. In a few strides, he would be beside us. I stood up, rattling the table and almost knocking over my Coke. Reggie caught it before it spilled.

“I've got to use the bathroom,” I said. I started walking away from him. “I'll be right back.”
He will never talk to you again
.

“Sure,” he said. I felt his eyes on my back as I almost ran away.

I stayed in there for almost fifteen minutes, standing on the toilet seat with the door locked. When I finally came out, Reggie and Jason were engaged in a lively conversation—something about East High versus West High parties. I snuck over to the other side of the room and absently pushed the buttons of the pinball machine. Its lights flashed as the metal ball sped and careened off the walls. I wished I could get inside the machine, underneath the glass, and hide. I looked down at the burnt brown skin on my hands, arms, and legs, and wondered how it had come to cover me, how it
was
me.

When I turned around, Reggie was staring at me in confusion. He knew I was a liar. I wanted to walk up to him and say that I hadn't wanted to lie to him, tell him why I had done it. But I had no idea what I would say.

CHAPTER FOUR

D
ad's favorite place to go running was by Lorraine Creek on a small path through the woods that he had beat out himself through running there over the years. He said that the trees and the water always felt like they were running with him, like they were the only things moving in the twilight of the early morning. I knew just what he meant.

“Creek's high this season,” he said, his breath jagged. It was the Monday after our win against East.

I jumped over a sinkhole. “Yeah.”

It had snowed a lot that winter and had only recently begun to warm up. The snow went straight into the waterways, filling them with a ferocity that kept on rising.

“Wish I had that much energy,” Dad said.

I tried to laugh, but I was so cold that it came out more like a cough. Some mornings, our four-mile, five-thirty run really kicked my ass, and this was one of them. My sweat felt like a wet blanket wound tightly around my whole body, and I wasn't really awake. Still, it was my favorite part of the day, especially when it was just me and Dad. Jason's shin splints were flaring up again and he had been ordered not to run for at least a month by our doctor. Unlike me, he hated running and was relieved to have an extra hour of sleep. What he hadn't realized yet was the power that came from pushing your body farther than you thought it could go, the mental fortitude it took to push past shaking legs and wheezing lungs. That was the knowledge that Dad and I shared.