Fast-Pitch Love

by Clay Cormany

  Stick pulled his car into the Waldrons' driveway. Jace eased himself up and opened the door.

  "You know, this is going to get out sooner or later," Stick warned.

  "Let’s try to make it later."

  "You know me," Stick said and pulled an imaginary zipper across his lips.

  Jace got out of the car. "Thanks for the ride."

  "Anytime, hero."

  Jace scowled but didn’t say anything more. Right now his top priority — indeed his only priority — was to take two aspirin and fall into bed. When he came through the front door, he saw Phoebe sitting at the kitchen table finishing a bowl of cereal. She looked at him as he put his water bottle in the sink but didn’t say anything.

  After climbing the staircase, Jace went into the bathroom, gulped down the two aspirin, and went straight to his room where his bed awaited. Taking off nothing more than his shoes, he flopped onto it like a bale of hay falling from a wagon. Sleep came swiftly. But before it did, Stick’s words rang in his mind one more time — "this is going to get out sooner or later."

  Chapter Forty

  The rest of Sunday crawled by without incident. Jace woke up just before one p.m., took a shower, ate a ham-and-cheese sandwich and a banana, pulled weeds in the backyard until it started to rain. Read the sports page. Played gin rummy with Phoebe — she took all three hands. Worked a couple of hours at Farrell's.

  Just after dinner, Sylvia called.

  "Carson’s listed in fair condition," she said.

  "Doesn’t sound too bad," Jace said with relief. "So I guess he’s not paralyzed or anything?"

  "They wouldn’t say," Sylvia continued. "Some privacy law. The only other thing they told me was that Carson can’t have any visitors right now except immediate family."

  "I guess that makes sense." Jace thought for a moment. "Did you tell Stephanie what happened?"

  "Just that Carson collapsed at the stadium and had to be rushed to the hospital."

  "Did you tell her I was there?"

  "No. Did you want me to?"

  "Not really."

  "Listen, cowboy. This is going to get out before long."

  "Stick won’t say anything. You can trust me on that one."

  "Okay, but Ron and Ned will."

  "Maybe they won’t say why we were racing. Just that Carson and I were running laps, getting ready for football and cross-country. If that’s all they say, maybe this thing will blow over before school starts."

  "You better not count on that."

  A thought occurred to him. "What did Stephanie say when you told her that Carson was rushed to the hospital?"

  "She asked what happened to him. I told her that he collapsed while running on the high school track and that his heart stopped for a while."

  "What else did she say?"

  "Nothing much. She wanted to know what hospital he was in and if he was okay. I told her what I told you."

  "That’s all?"

  "Yes, that’s all. Like I said before, Stephanie doesn’t care that much about Carson."

  Jace’s mind went back to his Ferris wheel ride with Stephanie at the carnival. She sure sounded like she cared about Carson then, even if she did want to break up with him. But he decided not to argue.

  "Didn’t she ask you how you knew about Carson?" he continued.

  "Yeah. I just said I ran into Ned and he told me."

  There was silence for a moment. Sylvia broke it with a question that caught Jace off guard.

  "Are you going to ask Stephanie out again?"

  "Huh?"

  "I said, ‘Are you going to ask Stephanie out again?’ Carson certainly isn’t going to stand in your way anymore."

  When Jace hesitated, Sylvia went on.

  "I think Stephanie hopes you will. There’s still a month before school starts. You could spend a lot of time with her before then."

  Jace didn’t want to answer the question, but he knew he had to say something. "I could if I –"

  "My mom thinks the two of you make a great couple."

  Now Sylvia’s words sounded rehearsed, as if she felt obligated to say them.

  "Maybe we do," said Jace. And then like water cascading through cracks in a dam, words he tried to hold back spilled out. "But so would you and I."

  "Yeah, I guess we did okay with your mom’s softball team."

  "That’s not what I mean."

  The pause that followed seemed endless. When Sylvia did speak, her voice sounded strained.

  "What do you mean?"

  Maybe he was still worried about what happened that morning, maybe he wanted to tell Sylvia face-to-face how he felt, or maybe he was confused or just plain chicken. Whatever the case, the words he wanted to say didn’t come this time.

  "I’ll tell you later. My mom needs me now."

  Chapter Forty-one

  Two other phone calls made it clear that the events of Sunday morning had taken on a life all their own. The first call came just after lunch on Monday. Phoebe answered it and then shouted into the backyard where Jace and Martha were pulling weeds from the flower bed.

  "Mom, there’s a newspaper reporter on the phone. He wants to talk to you."

  "Me? Why?"

  "I don’t know."

  Jace watched his mother head into the house. Maybe the call had nothing to do with what happened Sunday morning, but then again, why else would a reporter be contacting his mother? He dropped his trowel and ran into the house and to the den where he found his mother, telephone to ear, sitting on the sofa. She looked bewildered and a little angry.

  "You say this happened yesterday morning at the football stadium?" she said. After apparently receiving a response, she continued.

  "No, I didn’t know a thing about it." His mother’s eyes narrowed when they fell upon Jace. "He didn’t say a word — at least not to me. But you may talk with him, if you like."

  His mother held out the phone and scowled. "This reporter wants to talk to you about saving a student’s life yesterday at the football stadium. So go ahead and tell him."

  Jace reached for the phone as if it were a glass of poison. Before letting go of it, his mother spoke again. "After you tell this complete stranger what you did, then you can tell me, your own mother."

  Martha headed back outside, leaving Jace standing there, wondering how this man found out about the incident. Not that it mattered. The guy wanted answers and probably wouldn’t go away until he got them.

  "This is Jace Waldron. What can I do for you?"

  "Hello, my name is Alec Flynn," the caller responded in a smooth baritone voice. "I’m with the Ridgeview News. I just went through some police reports and saw that you saved another student’s life over at the stadium Sunday morning."

  "Oh well, uh, sort of."

  "Do you have a few minutes to tell me what happened?"

  "I suppose I could talk for a little bit," Jace said, fidgeting with a loose thread hanging from his t-shirt.

  "The young man you saved … um … Carson … Carson ..."

  Jace heard paper rustling as Flynn searched for the last name. Jace decided to make it easy for him.

  "Carson Ealy."

  "Right, isn’t he a star player on Ridgeview High’s football team?"

  "Yeah."

  "What exactly happened?"

  As he answered the man’s questions, Jace had a strong sense of déjà vu, which wasn’t surprising, since Flynn wanted to know many of the same things as Officer Shupe. Throughout the conversation, Jace saw Phoebe watching him from the kitchen, doing her best to hear his words. She tried to be subtle, sipping lemonade and pretending to read, but Jace wasn’t fooled.

  Once Flynn finished his questions, Jace threw one at him.

  "Are you going to put this in the Ridgeview News, Mr. Flynn?"

  "I’ll write a story about it and give it to my editor. Might not be on the front page, but it should be somewhere in next week’s edition."

  "I see," said Jace. He wasn’t listening that much to Fl
ynn anymore. He was watching Phoebe, who peeked at him over the top of a magazine.

  "One more thing," added Flynn. "I’d like to mail your parents a release form that will allow us to put your school photo in the newspaper along with the story about you and Carson."

  "You want my photo in the newspaper?"

  "Yeah, it adds to readers’ interest if they can see who we are talking about in our stories." Flynn paused. "Your address is twenty thirty-five Bradley, right?"

  "Yes," said Jace.

  When he finished with Flynn, Jace flopped onto the sofa and tried to bring some order to his jumbled thoughts. He noticed his sister left the kitchen and now stood just a few feet away, her eyes begging for some explanation of what she heard.

  "Phoebe, go get Mom."

  Like any eleven-year-old girl, Phoebe seldom did what her older brother wanted. But this time was different. She bolted out the back door at a full gallop.

  Jace got up and went into the living room, where he seated himself on the red armchair that once belonged to his grandfather. His mother already knew something was up, so he might as well give her the whole story.

  Chapter Forty-two

  When his mother arrived, Jace told her that he wanted to talk to her "in private." Martha sat in the love seat, which faced the armchair. She ordered Phoebe to her room, but before Jace could say a word, he caught sight of his sister's impish face peering around the top of the staircase. Realizing he saw her, Phoebe jerked back, the hair on either side of her head flying out like whisk brooms. Seconds later, her face reappeared at the same spot.

  Jace ignored his sister’s antics while he told his mother what happened in the parking lot after the last softball game and on Sunday morning at the football stadium. When he finished, his mother put her hands together with fingers interlocked beneath her chin. She didn’t say anything for a moment, but a range of feelings — worry, confusion, irritation played out across her face.

  "How’s the Ealy boy doing?" she asked.

  "Sylvia found out he’s in fair condition, but that’s all the hospital will tell us."

  "You don’t know when he’s getting out?"

  Jace shook his head.

  After another moment of silence, Martha looked her son in the eye. "Jace," she said, "do you think Stephanie is worth all that you’ve been through?"

  "A month ago I would have said yes," Jace replied, "but now I don’t think so."

  "What changed your mind? You still like her, don’t you?"

  "Yes, but…" Jace took a deep breath before continuing. "There’s another girl I like even more."

  "Sylvia?"

  Jace’s jaw dropped. "How did you know?"

  "I didn’t know, but it’s not surprising," his mother explained. "You and Sylvia grew closer because you’ve been working together as partners. You’ve come to trust each other and rely on each other for the sake of your team."

  "Yeah, but softball season is over now. We aren’t partners any more, and yet…"

  "And yet you still want to see her, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Maybe that’s because the respect you gained for her during the season is still there," Martha advised. "And so is the friendship."

  "That’s another thing. I think Sylvia might want to be more than just friends."

  "I’m not surprised by that either," Martha said. "You’re a pretty good catch for her, too."

  Jace rolled his eyes, and Martha gave his arm an affectionate squeeze.

  "What I mean is, Sylvia probably likes you for the same reason you like her. She’s come to admire your character and personality. So now you should talk to both girls and tell them how your feelings toward them have changed."

  "I was about to do that with Sylvia after our last game, but we got into a fight before I had the chance."

  "A fight over what?"

  Jace recounted the argument over the illegal bat, and when he finished Martha shook her head. "Why do people make such a big deal out of these games?" she seemed to ask heaven. She brought her head down and continued. "But I can’t be too hard on Sylvia. With so many adults getting carried away by kids’ sports, it’s bound to rub off on teenagers, too."

  Jace nodded. "Anyway, Sylvia didn’t stay mad. She came to the stadium to root for me in my race with Carson."

  "Then you need to try again and talk to her about how you feel toward her. And her sister, too."

  "I’m such a fool," Jace said, dropping his head. "I spend the whole year hoping for the chance to make it with Stephanie, and then when I get it, I go after her sister instead."

  "Jace!" His mother embraced him and kissed his cheek. After she let go, she spoke in her most serious tone. "Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s okay to make a mistake or to change your mind once or twice. You’re not a fool if you do that. A fool is someone who makes the same mistake over and over again without learning from it. Or who knows he’s made a bad decision, but is too stubborn to admit he’s wrong."

  Jace heard his mother’s words, but they competed with the image of Stephanie that still floated through his mind. The flowing auburn hair, the blue eyes, the heart-shaped face, the perfect curves. He knew Sylvia was the right choice, but that image wasn’t making it easy. "Mom, if you saw Stephanie, you’d realize why I was attracted to her for so long."

  "I’m sure she’s beautiful, but you can’t base a relationship just on how a girl looks. If that’s all you’ve got, the relationship will fail. You’ll have nothing to share or enjoy later when that beauty starts to fade."

  Jace frowned. "It’s hard to think of that happening, even though I know you’re right."

  His mother’s face crinkled in thought. "Wait here while I get something." She climbed the stairs, and Jace heard her tell Phoebe to "stop snooping and get into your room." A few minutes later, Martha returned with a large photograph that she handed to him.

  Jace had seen old photos of his mother before but not this one. It was an eight-by-ten color photo of her on her wedding day. Martha's dark hair, longer than it was now, swirled around beneath a gleaming tiara. Her face was young, even innocent, and beamed with the joy that goes with being a bride. Manicured hands held a mixed bouquet of summer flowers, and a short-sleeved silk gown outlined a figure that carried fewer pounds than it did today.

  "Wow, Mom," said Jace in admiration. "You were gorgeous. No wonder Dad fell for you."

  "Your dad fell in love with the way I looked," Martha said somberly. "But not with who I am. He loved the outside of me but not the inside. We didn’t even share that many interests or enjoy the same things. So later, when the physical attraction began to wear off, we didn’t have much else to keep us together. If we didn’t have you and Phoebe, we would have split up much sooner."

  Jace pored over the picture for another minute or two and then handed it back to his mother. She started to walk back toward the stairs but then stopped. "I’m not going to question you anymore about Stephanie and Sylvia," she promised, "but I hope you’ll think about what I’ve told you."

  ****

  The second call came Thursday evening, and by chance, Jace answered the phone.

  "Hello, is Jace Waldron there?" a woman with an unfamiliar voice asked.

  "He speaking," Jace replied.

  "This is Lorraine Ealy, Carson’s mother. I just want you to know how grateful I am to you for saving my son’s life. If not for your quick thinking, I would have lost him."

  Despite being surprised by the call, Jace didn’t feel as anxious as he did when reporter Flynn called three days earlier. Maybe he was getting accustomed to being a local celebrity, or maybe it was the heartfelt sincerity in Mrs. Ealy’s voice that put him at ease.

  "I’m glad I could help," Jace said. Then after a slight pause, he added, "So how’s Carson doing?"

  "He’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow," Mrs. Ealy said. "He’s in a wheelchair now, but the doctors don’t think that will be permanent."

  A wave of guilt engulfed Jace. At the sam
e time, he found it impossible to picture Carson in that condition. The image of that gridiron Goliath wheeling himself about was too surreal, too alien for his mind to grasp. "I’m sure he’ll be okay," Jace said, not knowing if that were true or not.

  "He’ll be starting physical therapy next week," Mrs. Ealy said. "Since he’s young and in good shape, the doctors are optimistic that he’ll walk again."

  "That’s good," Jace said, but he feared that Carson would never be the same because of that race — that race, which was Jace's idea.

  There was another pause, and then Mrs. Ealy spoke.

  "If you don't mind, I'd like to meet you in person. Could you come over to my home sometime this weekend?"

  "Uh, yeah, I suppose so," Jace answered. He hadn’t expected the invitation, so he had no quick excuse for saying no. "When should I come over?"

  "I have to work on Saturday morning, but I’ll be home in the afternoon with Carson, so you could come then if you like."

  Jace hesitated. Sensing his reluctance, Mrs. Ealy came to his rescue.

  "Jace, I know you and Carson aren’t friends. I know you were both interested in Stephanie Thornapple and were going to have a fight over her. None of that matters anymore. Please come and see us."

  "Okay. Where do you live, Mrs. Ealy?"

  "We’re in a red brick house on the corner of Stanford and Wellington. Do you know where that is?"

  "Yeah. I’ll stop by around two on Saturday."

  "Good! I’ll see you then."

  After he hung up, Phoebe bounded into the den. "Bet I can beat you in Go Fish!" she shouted, holding up a deck of cards.

  "Bet you can't." Jace motioned for her to follow him to the kitchen table. With so many unexpected things happening, it was nice to have a sister who, despite her flaws, was refreshingly predictable. But while Phoebe dealt the cards, Jace found himself wishing he hadn’t agreed to the visit. He worried that Mrs. Ealy might blame him for her son’s misfortune. Even if she didn’t, a visit with Carson’s mother would likely mean a visit with Carson, too.