Stealing Parker (6 page)

Laura steps up to bat next. I feel a pang of hatred for her as I watch her dig a trench with her cleat. She taps her bat on home plate then rests it on her shoulder. Terrible stance. How is Coach Lynn standing for this?

I scan the field for her, but she’s nowhere. Then I notice Mr. Majors, the music teacher, is standing by the dugout reading
People
. What? Where’s Coach Lynn? They’ve got the resident accordion player
supervising
practice? Huh. I hope she’s okay.

Laura swings at the first two pitches, missing both.

I pull my knees to my chest and stare at the field, sort of wishing I was out there. Ever since I came here on Saturday, my hands have been aching to hold a bat. I want to slip cleats on and jog the bases and slide into home. I shake these ideas out of my head the moment I see Allie and Melanie pointing at me from first and second bases, respectively.

Boy, have I fallen. I might as well be third-string.

Laura takes a few more practice swings. Hardly any pitchers are great batters, because they spend all their time practicing pitching, but Laura’s worse at bat than most. She makes up for it on the mound—she’s one of the best in the conference. I’m feeling evil, so I pray she’ll strike out.
Strike
out, strike out
. She steps up and swings away at a high ball.

Strike three!

I clap my hands together and laugh.

“Is there something you’d like to share with us, Parker?” Brian asks.

“No,
sir
.”

He gives me a look. He mouths,
sir
?

I salute, which makes him chuckle. His eyes look like melted Hershey’s Kisses.

I can’t wait to find out what he needs help with after practice.

•••

An eon later, practice ends.

Brian beckons me to follow him toward center field, toward the batting cages. He twirls his bat and glances back at me.

I trot up to his side. “So you need my help with something?”

“I do.” His stride is long and full of importance.

I pull my hair over one shoulder and play with a clump of it, trying to de-stress. He smells delicious, like bubblegum, and his frayed sweatshirt looks soft. It’s the kind of shirt I’d love to curl up in to watch TV.

“Have you ever had a haircut?” he jokes.

“Not in a while.”

“Hmmm.” He checks my tangles out.

“I like my hair! Most guys like it too!”

He laughs and chews his gum, making a smacking noise. “I didn’t say I don’t like it.”

“Right. You didn’t say anything.”

“Nothing to say.” He goes silent. Cars roar by on the highway beyond the train tracks.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t totally honest with you about the stats on Saturday…It’s just, I was enjoying talking to you and didn’t want to stop.”

He nods and gives me a smile. “Apology accepted.”

He pulls open the center field gate, and we walk over to the batting cages. The sun has completely set, and only a few floodlights illuminate the field. I shiver, and warm my hands in my armpits.

“You cold?” he asks.

I nod. Normally, this is when the guy would warm me up in some way, by hugging me or giving me his jacket or starting an intense make-out session that would leave me hotter than a volcano. But all Brian does is turn on the pitching machine and swing his bat.

“You want me to load balls for you?” I ask, not totally disappointed. It’s nice he wants my company.

He finds my eyes. “No. I want you to hit for me.”

My mouth falls open. My fingers itch to hold a bat. My fingers itch to hold him too, but that’s beside the point.

I step closer and look up at his face. “Why?”

“Uh…I’m interested to see what you’ve got. You played varsity as a freshman? That’s gotta mean something.”

I shrug.

“Will you hit a few balls? For me?” His voice is soft and pleading.

“What’s it to you?”

He moves a step closer and stares down at me. “I’d hate to see someone with potential throw it all away.”

“If I bat for you, what’s in it for me?”

He smirks slightly. “What do you want?”

You
. I don’t say that though. He watches as I play with my hair.

“In return, I want you to tell me about what baseball means to you,” I say. “Did you play? And you can’t just say ‘something like that.’”

He exhales, and stares up at the stars. “Yes, I played. Now you have to hit a ball.”

I grab his elbow. “That’s not good enough. Where did you play? For how long? What position? What’s your best batting average? Or are you a pitcher? What’s your ERA?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, raising a hand, looking amused. “Bat first, talk second.”

I take the aluminum bat from his hand, run my fingers over the cool metal, and take a few practice swings. My arms feel stiff and weak, but I haven’t lost my mechanics. Batting is like breathing.

He steps over to the pitching machine and turns it off. The whirring sound ceases. He picks up a softball and tosses it to himself. “I’ll throw a few at you first, if you’d rather.”

“Would you turn the damned machine back on?”

He raises his eyebrows, smiles, and laughs. “You’re a feisty one. No wonder all the guys like you so much.”

I shoot him a look, but deep down I’m pleased he called me feisty and knows that guys like me. One point for Parker.

He turns the machine back on and stands behind the protective fence. I put on a batting helmet.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yup.” I take another practice swing.

“You’ve got good form.”

“I know.”

He grins. “Boy, are you humble. Here we go.” He feeds a ball into the machine and it whizzes toward me. I let it pass. I dig my boot into the dirt, wishing I had cleats. I take another practice swing.

“Again,” Brian says, dropping a ball into the hole.

This time I swing and make contact. The ball slams into the fence right in Brian’s face.

“Sure. Take whatever’s wrong out on me,” he says with a smile.

“That’s the plan.” Back into my stance. Practice swing before the real thing. This time I connect. Feel a rush of electricity tingle down my biceps and forearms. I knocked it out of the park. Well, I hit the rear nets. But I bet it would’ve been out of the park. And it feels
good
. I grin.

“Ready?” Brian asks, holding up another ball.

“Wait.” I drop the bat. “You got any more of that gum?”

•••

At 7:00 p.m.—way past the 15 minutes I’d agreed to—Brian turns off the pitching machine. I only missed, I dunno, six or seven balls out of a hundred? My muscles are screaming at me and I’m stiff as stale licorice, but my mind feels clearer than it has in a long time.

“Damn, you’ve got a bat on you,” he exclaims, walking over as I pull off my helmet. “Fun?”

“It was,” I admit. “Now what about my questions? Are you going to answer them now?”

My stomach grumbles.

“Hungry?” He takes his cap off, smoothes his hair, and puts it back on.

“Starved.” I poke him in the chest. “But you owe me a bunch of answers.”

“True, true.” He hesitates. “Would you…”

“Would I?” I’m bouncing on my tiptoes now.

He secures his bat beneath his arm. “Want to get some food?”

Holy scandal!

“What kind of food?” I ask, calm and cool.

“I dunno, does it matter?”

“I don’t eat olives.”

He chuckles. “I once read that there’s an olive in the world for everybody, you just have to find it.”

“I haven’t found any olives that I like.”

“So we won’t get olives.”

I blow warm air onto my hands and rub them together. “Is this okay? I mean, are we allowed to talk off school property?”

He thinks for a few secs. “I haven’t read the school handbook. I have no idea. But we’re not going clubbing or anything. We’re just getting food, right?”

“Right.” Totally cool. I’m totally cool. Breathe. “Why do you want to get dinner with me?”

He lifts a shoulder, chewing his gum. “We both gotta eat.”

“Don’t you have plans? A family? A girlfriend? A wife?”

He laughs and jingles his keys. “Let’s go.”

•••

“This place is a total swamp.”

Brian tosses his beige cap onto the dashboard. “I came here all the time in high school.”

“When? Like fifty years ago?”

“Oh, hush,” he says with a smile. He musses his wavy black curls before we climb out of his truck. The neon Foothills Diner sign flickers in the window. Empty plastic bottles and cigarette butts litter the parking lot. No one from school ever comes here—
because
it’s a total swamp, making it an ideal place where no one will see us.

He opens the door for me; the little bell jingles. Burger stench hits me in the face.

“This is one of my favorite places.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Killer cheese fries.” He points at me. “With bacon bits.”

My mouth waters. “I looooooovvve bacon bits.”

If Brian wants me to eat cheese fries, I’m eating cheese fries. I once read that the bloomin’ onion at Outback Steakhouse has 1,800 calories, so I can only imagine how much fat these cheese fries have. How big are the portions? I take a quick glance around the tiny diner and find that the plates are the size of trashcan lids.
Lovely
.

Brian asks the hostess if we can take the booth in the corner, and a wave of embarrassment floods my body. He doesn’t want to be seen with me. But if he didn’t want to be seen with me, would he risk going anywhere public? Believe it or not, swampy Foothills Diner is a public place.

“Parker?”

I look up to find Brian already sitting in the booth with his arm stretched across the back of the seat, and I’m still standing by the door. I’m such a nerd. I shuffle over and plop down in the seat across from him right as the waitress saunters up to ask for our drink order. She checks Brian out the way I stare at pictures of cupcakes.

Brian reads the drink menu. “I’ll take a PBR on tap.”

He ordered a beer?! He’s a coach at my school and he orders a beer? What does that mean? Does he feel comfortable with me like I feel comfortable with him?

“And for you?” the waitress asks, giving me stink eye. It’s like she’s daring me to order a beer.

I take the menu from Brian’s hand and scan it. My fingers stick to the sticky plastic. “Iced tea? Unsweetened.”

“Coming up,” the waitress says, smiling brightly at Brian, and then goes behind the counter.

“I forgot you can’t drink yet,” he says.

“I can’t even vote yet.”

He examines the mini jukebox on the table. “When can you?”

“April fifth.”

He rubs the scruff on his jaw. “So you’ve got a great bat. I can’t wait to see you in the field.”

“Who says you’re going to see me in the field?” I start looking over the dinner menu, to see if anything might be less than 80,000 calories.

“I figured…You know, since you enjoyed batting tonight, you might want to go out for the team again.”

The waitress sets our drinks on the table.

“I don’t know that I want to rejoin the team, but I do love softball,” I admit.

He rushes to sip his beer. “What happened?”

I fish a Splenda out of the sugar caddy, rip the package open, and stir the powder into my tea. “I’m not answering any of your questions until you answer mine, Brian Hoffman. You must be the king of deflection.”

“That’s me.” He shrugs a little, smiling. It’s cute, and I find myself leaning across the table toward him, cradling my tea glass with both hands.

“Tell me about you and baseball.”

He nurses his beer. “Not much to tell.”

“Not much?”

He swallows another sip. “I got a scholarship to play at Georgia Tech, but I never got much playing time.”

“What’s your position?”

“Right field.”

“You must be a great hitter, then.”

“I was,” he says softly. I get what he means: Playing outfield doesn’t take the kind of skill you need to play say, pitcher, catcher, or shortstop. All the really great batters play outfield.

“And then what happened?”

Half his beer is gone already. Will I have to drive him home?

“Lost my timing…wasn’t as good as I thought I was…coaches thought I’d peak, but I never did.” His brown eyes bore into mine. Embarrassed, but open. My mind flashes back to how he showed me his bitten fingernails.

“Then what happened?” I whisper.

He raps his fork on the table. “In four years of college, I never started. I became a utility player they used only when another guy needed a break.”

“Do you regret playing in college?”

“No…it’s just, I learned from it. That and…well, I learned that I can’t plan anything anymore.” He rubs his eyes and looks out the window, hesitating. A semi pulls into the parking lot. “I need to take it all as it comes.”

“Aren’t some plans important, though?” I ask, thinking of Vanderbilt, where I can start all over.

He shakes his head. “I live for now. Which is why I want to see you play again. I can tell how much you like it. What if you regret it later?”

I lick my lips. He’s right. But I’m not sure I want to reach out again.

That’s when Waitress Seductress Extraordinaire comes back and gets our order. Brian surprises me by ordering for us. “We’re sharing an order of Fries à la Appalachia,” he says, handing over the menus and turning his focus back to me. Le waitress stomps off.

I ask, “Why are they called that?”

“Because when they’ve got the fries stacked up they’re higher than a mountain range.”

I groan and touch my stomach.

“You’re funny,” he says, his eyes twinkling. He scrunches his bangs in his fist.

I pull my legs up under my butt and ask, “So do you know which gym class you’re teaching yet?”

“Right now I’m shadowing Coach Burns…but I’m going to take over Coach Lynn’s classes when she goes on maternity leave the last week of April.”

“You’re gonna be my gym teacher? You’d better not make us do step aerobics or play with the giant parachute or anything.”

“We’re definitely gonna play with the giant parachute…” He runs a hand over his head, looking around the diner. He smiles and focuses on me again. “Technically, I’ll only be your gym teacher for like two weeks. And then you graduate. And then I’m teaching driver’s ed this summer.”