The Circus in Winter (18 page)

He paused, letting the crowd cheer for their native sons.

"AND THE ORIGINAL FOUR-MAN SOFTBALL TEAM, THE KING AND HIS COURT!"

Everyone clapped politely.

"WE'RE PARTICULARLY HONORED TO PLAY IN LIMA, BECAUSE OF YOUR HISTORY AS A CIRCUS TOWN!"

The clapping was a little louder this time, and Laura looked around to see who was hooting. She saw Mrs. Hobzini, a former trick-horse rider who owned the local bakery, and then the hooter: Rowdy Rubens, a human cannonball turned farmer. Rowdy stood up, waving his hat, whistling. Laura's dad used to troupe as a clown with the Great Porter Circus, and he said Rowdy came by his name for a good reason.

"YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHAT SHOWMANSHIP REALLY MEANS, AND I'M SURE YOU'LL APPRECIATE WHAT WE'VE GOT IN STORE FOR YOU! LET'S PLAY BALL!"

The King's cleats clinked down the metal staircase and across the cement walkway to the field.

During the game, Betty and Carol kept up a steady stream of chatter, and Laura wished she hadn't sat between them. Every once in a while, they stopped gossiping about other people's lives long enough to pry into Laura's.

"You must be so proud of Ethan," Betty said, lighting a cigarette. "Going off to college and all." Laura almost asked to bum one, but decided against it. Ethan didn't like it when she smoked in public.

Carol nodded. "You going off to school, honey?"

Laura blushed. "No, not right now. I'm going to stay on at the bank."

"Oh, that's what I did, too, before I got married," Carol said. "Had to give it up when the babies started coming."

Betty sighed. "Wish I could give it up, but we need the money." Laura knew Harvey Pollard worked at a variety of jobs, none of them for very long.

Laura stared at the field. "Well, I don't think I want kids for a while yet." She wanted to say, "not at all," but it wasn't something you said in Lima in 1967.

Carol touched Laura's knee. "Honey, sometimes they come whether you want 'em to or not."

The Softball Wives stopped chattering only when they heard the crack of bat meeting ball, and just then, a member of the King and His Court sent a line drive up the first-base line. Ethan dove and caught the ball easily, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to hit the dirt with your chest. Betty and Carol clapped, then turned the discussion to Tupperware. Laura excused herself to get a Coke.

 

HERE'S SOMETHING
you need to know about Laura Hofstadter: She was not a nice girl. Oh, on the outside, sure, she looked just fine, but on the inside, Laura was all bad, and she knew it. Laura was a chronic stealer of lipsticks, always red, which she never wore. She liked to drive too fast with the radio too loud. She drank and smoked when she could get away with it. She enjoyed sex, but sometimes just pretended to, and she couldn't decide which was worse. Laura felt bad that she didn't like women much; they prattled on about nothing, which always turned out to be something. Men, on the other hand, said what they meant. She liked when men looked at her; she felt it deep inside, like needing to pee, but later, when she thought about what their eyes had said, Laura felt frightened and small.

Sometimes Laura thought she was a little insane, as if she might fly apart at any second. When those moments came, she looked at the people around her and did whatever they were doing, or whatever she thought they wanted her to be doing. Sometimes Laura thought she wasn't alive at all, only sleepwalking. When she looked back on her life, she could remember what people had said to her, never what she'd said back. Every day, Laura's mouth opened, but the words always seemed to come from somewhere else, like she was a character in a story—a stupid boy-meets-girl-story someone else was writing.

 

IT WAS THE
bottom of the fourth. Dust hung in the fecund air from a stolen base two batters ago—it was that kind of summer night, the kind that hovers like a hot fog. Ethan Perdido stepped up to the plate. The King had been pitching blindfolded for a while, fanning Roustabouts one after the other, but when Ethan—the only batter who had managed to get any wood on his pitches—stepped up, the King removed the handkerchief from his eyes and settled in to hurl for real, without gimmicks. The King windmilled his arm when he pitched, picking up velocity, and then shot the ball from his hip so it zinged toward the batter. No arc whatsoever, no lofting the ball toward the plate like a red-stitched gift. With a count of one and one, Ethan swung at a pitch that came in at his thighs, sending a long pop-up toward left field. The shortstop for the King and His Court took off at a dead run and caught the ball midfield. Everyone had stood up to watch the ball's flight, as if standing would help them see it better, but now they settled back down, waiting for the next sound that would bring them to their feet.

Ethan was the only person at Winnesaw Park who didn't watch that ball. He'd already rounded second and was almost to third when he heard the crowd groan and the third-base coach told him to hold up. Ethan was quick, on the field at least. Quick bat, quick feet, quick hands. Laura liked having a boyfriend who always did well, who never needed consoling after a poorly played game. Harvey Pollard played right field for the Roustabouts, struck out more often than not, and committed at least two errors every game. Betty always kept a smile on her face, but Laura could feel her shame. She wondered what it felt like to love a man like that, and how often Harvey Pollard dropped the ball elsewhere: in the car, at work, in bed. What did Betty say to him when he cursed his performance? Laura knew what a woman was supposed to say in moments like that, but she also knew she didn't have it in her to speak those words. She'd tell Harvey to get a job. She'd tell him to let her drive. She'd tell him to take up bowling or golf. She'd tell Harvey practice makes perfect. Laura knew she was lucky; Ethan always came through, in every way, and she knew that was a rare, rare thing. Ethan was like a very pretty, dependable car, one that always started and never needed oil, the kind you can drive forever.

 

THE FIRST TIME
Ethan and Laura had sex was after the Christmas Dance their junior year. Laura knew it was the night. She wasn't scared, but she wasn't excited, either. She felt like she had a dentist's appointment, something to be gotten through. They cut out early, and Ethan headed west of town, toward his family's cabin. It wasn't a cabin at all, actually, but rather a two-story lakefront home with a pier and two boats—a fishing boat and a motorboat for skiing. The first time she saw the place, she marveled that the Perdidos had enough money to fill not one, but two, houses. The Perdidos spent their summers at Yellow Lake, but rarely used the place during the rest of the year, which is why Ethan forgot it had no electricity or heat. Laura stood with him, shivering in the kitchen as they drank half a bottle of vodka from the liquor cabinet. They were still in their winter coats when Ethan carried her upstairs, although Laura had asked why they didn't just do it in the running car, where it was warmer.

"I love you," he said. "I want this to be special. I want to do it right."

He carried her to the queen-size bed in his parents' room, which had a picture window overlooking the frozen lake. The full moon lit the room a glowing blue, and they undressed in its light, shedding their heavy coats, then the formal skin of tuxedo and red satin gown.

"What's this," Ethan asked when she'd removed her dress. "You look like Scarlett O'Hara."

Laura stepped out of the crinoline, but it remained standing at attention on the floor. "It makes the dress stick out, silly."

"We could take it camping. Use it for a tent."

"Very funny." She tried to kiss him, but her teeth were chattering.

"Come here," Ethan said, taking her hand and leading her to the bed. Getting in was like sliding between slabs of ice, and they moved together quickly, looking for the warmth inside each other. Until that night, they'd done pretty much everything but what they were about to do, and Laura feared Ethan would forego it all. But bless his heart, Ethan took his time and went to every base: first, then second, then third. When he rummaged for his wallet, she wanted to ask when he'd bought them and where. He turned on the transistor radio beside the bed, and she heard a faint, big-band ballad. Sitting with his back to her, Ethan put it on, and Laura wished she could see this part, but instead she felt herself and discovered that she was hardly even wet, which scared her a little, and then he was on top of her, and the radio turned to static, and then it was happening.

The bases probably helped a little, but Ethan couldn't get inside, so she put her hands on his buttocks and brought him into her. She felt the tearing, then the give, then the movement in and out of her. It felt horrible, like being cut slowly with a serrated knife. His head was down in the crook of her shoulder and he never saw the way she looked, only heard the sharp intake of breath, which made him moan and move faster. She put her hands on him again, pushing him, thinking it would make things go more quickly. But there was all that vodka, and it took a long time. Afterward, they lay quietly for a few minutes, and Laura felt something inside she thought was love, but wasn't. It was the astonishment you feel after you sleep with someone for the first time, like you've just survived some small danger together.

Ethan found a flashlight in his father's bedside table and shone it under the sheets, like a child playing a game. That's when he saw the blood streaking the bedsheets and her inner thighs. "Jesus. Are you okay?" In the cold, he'd shrunk back into himself, but Laura could see the red on him and in his dark, curly hairs. The water was turned off to keep the pipes from freezing, so they stood shivering in the bathroom, cleaning themselves with toilet paper. "What'll we do with the sheets?" he asked.

She sat on the icy toilet. "Take them home and wash them. Make sure it's cold water. Not hot."

"How do you know that?" he asked.

Laura gave him a withering look. "My dad owns a laundry. Plus, I'm a girl."

"Oh, right."

She watched Ethan stride into the bedroom, strip the bed, and remake it without sheets. Maybe seeing this, her naked boyfriend bent over the bed, should have filled Laura with warm, domestic thoughts, but it didn't. She made a sanitary pad out of toilet paper and laid it in the crotch of her underwear. If she asked, would Ethan give her his handkerchief for this purpose? Yes, he probably would, and it made her feel sorry for him.

They dressed, and with each step, Laura felt the knife again. As they drove down the snow-blown highway, she groaned every time they hit a bump. Ethan said, "I'm sorry about the radio. Now we don't have a song to remember this by." Laura didn't tell him that the whole time, she'd been playing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in her head. Already, Laura knew there were some things about what happened between two people in bed that you just can't ever say.

 

THE SCORE WAS
one to nothing. The King had tripled in the fifth, driving in the only run scored. It was the bottom of the last inning, two outs, the Roustabouts' last chance to get something going. Ethan dug in, his foot at least six inches behind the now-blurry batter's box, but nobody said anything. More than likely, he was the last out anyway. The King threw his first pitch, a sinking curveball. Ethan had guessed a heater, and so he swung at the spot where the ball would have been. The crowd groaned, and Laura felt her heart tighten a little. The King's next pitch came from between his legs, a perfect strike, but Ethan missed that one, too. The crowd oohed and ahhed a little, and Ethan stepped out of the box to knock the dirt from his cleats and take a few mean swings. Laura could tell he was mad, and she sent a thought out to him:
Knock his block off.
Ethan stepped back in, down 0 and 2, and the King wound up like a spring. The bleachers were silent, so everyone heard the King's"
Unnnhh!
"as he whipped the ball from behind his back.

Ethan got ahold of it, of course. A drive up the middle, over the King's outstretched mitt, into the stubbled grass of center field. The first baseman got to the ball quickly, and Ethan pulled up with a double.

Harvey Pollard stepped to the plate.

Betty and Carol yelled in unison, "Bring him in, Harvey!"

Laura hoped he would, but doubted it.

Harvey swung at the first two pitches, the second one so hard he almost fell down. A chuckle rippled up and down the stands.

The King wound up and threw. Laura heard the ball's slap and saw the catcher rise from his crouch and toss the ball back to the King. All of this—the pitch, the catch, the throw—happened seamlessly, like still images you finger flip into a moving cartoon. Harvey's bat never moved. The umpire paused, then said, "Strike three!"

Harvey whirled around. "You call that a strike! It was high! It was way high!"

Laura whispered to Carol, "He must have thrown that awful hard. I didn't even see it."

The King stood on the pitcher's mound, grinning and tossing the ball up and down. Ethan came trotting in from second base, pulled Harvey away from the ump, then whispered something. Harvey's face turned red, and he shook his fist at the King. That's when Laura got it.

"He never threw the ball," she said to the people sitting around them. "The catcher just held another ball."

"That's not fair!" Betty yelled. "He gets another turn!"

Laura heard the King yell back at the crowd. "The ump called it strike three, folks. Never argue with the ump." The King and his Court trotted to their dugout, threw their red, white, and blue mitts on the bench, then came back out to shake hands. The game was over, but it took a few minutes for everyone in the crowd to understand what had just happened. Laura heard weak laughter, followed by applause. During the hand slapping and good game-ing, Harvey Pollard stayed on the bench, pouting, with his arms folded across his chest. Laura stood behind the dugout's chain-link fence and heard the Roustabouts' teasing.

"So how high was that one, Harv?"