Nobody's Hero

by Melanie Harvey

  “The other problem with country music,” Rick said, leaning back in the seat. “Is they always singing about love. And somebody told me the other night that I might not — ”

  “I don’t really believe in love,” she said quickly.

  His eyebrows shot up. The train stopped again, the voice announced 149th Street, Grand Concourse.

  She forced her tone lighter. “Not like that, I mean.”

  “I heard that on the radio.”

  She still couldn’t believe he’d listened.

  “What was you saying? Everybody thinks they’re in love, but it’s just chemicals in the air?” He grinned when she stared at him. “I told you it’s easier when I can’t see you.”

  The smile faded from his mouth, but not from his eyes, where it mixed in with the blatant lust that he didn’t need to spell out. The vibrations that ran through her felt consuming. He wants me. She couldn’t make herself care why, or for how long. She’d passed out advice by the bucketful, but not a single drop leaked out to relieve the dryness in her mouth when he looked at her like that.

  It was just chemicals in the air. Carolyn swallowed. “Opera.”

  Rick gave her a blank look.

  “You couldn’t sing opera.”

  He made another small hold-back-the-vomit move. “Why would I want to?”

  “I’m not saying you would, just that it’s too different to even be possible.”

  “So the difference between you writing and Octavia Butler — ” he checked to make sure the name was right “ — is like the difference between me rapping and me singing opera?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I don’t want to sing opera.” He shrugged. “Maybe you don’t want to be Octavia Butler.”

  “I don’t want to be — ”

  Rick sighed. “Write like her. Maybe you just write the way you write. Why ain’t that good enough for you? I mean, who’s saying opera’s better than rap?”

  “Probably a lot of people.”

  “Probably a lot say the other way around, too. Different don’t mean better or worse. It just means different.”

  She started to say that of course it was all opinions, but stopped herself because her analogy had failed. All music was created.

  Rick caught her shaking her head. “So what is it, then? You wrote a book. You probably already know where all the commas go.”

  She nodded. “And what a double negative is.”

  “What I’m saying. I don’t know none of that shit.”

  She was about to point out his perfect example, until she saw the look in his eyes. He’d said that on purpose.

  “You’re kinda quick on the assumptions, Carolyn Coffman.”

  “I’ll try to avoid that in the future,” she said slowly.

  “Probably your safest move,” he said, just as slowly.

  She didn’t know how a lack of assumptions would keep her any safer, but she’d take anything at this point. As if in answer to her prayers, the early evening sunshine overpowered the artificial light in the train. She’d almost suspected his fear was just an act, but Rick took a long breath the instant the train was above the ground. He relaxed, and his shoulder rested against hers. In the chilled car, the warmth spread through her own, straight to her stomach.

  The train slowed as the voice announced 161st Street. Yankee Stadium. Carolyn stood and reached for the pole to steady herself. He raised his eyebrows at her hasty leap from her seat. Did he miss anything? Ever?

  “I’ve never been here before,” she said.

  “I know I’m excited.”

  She tried not to smile. When the train stopped, he didn’t even brush against her accidentally, all the way out of the train and down the multiple flights of stairs from the platform.

  She didn’t notice anyone else stopping on the pavement to take it all in. All those years watching games on television, going to Jacob’s field and rooting for the wrong team amidst a sea of Indians’ fans. This time they were the outcasts. She took a deep breath at the sight of the stadium rising up from the pavement, the souvenir stands crammed under the train tracks. Carolyn spotted a guy wearing a “Boston Sucks” t-shirt and grinned.

  Rick was silent, a few feet away. His hands were in his pockets, and he didn’t return her smile. His eyes looked dark. She could ask what had happened, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She knew it was easier to keep her distance when he was joking.

  A portable souvenir stand was planted in the flow of the foot traffic. A middle-aged black woman sat in a chair, looking bored with her banners and blue foam fingers. And baseball caps.

  “Wait here a second.” She slipped through the traffic to the stand.

  As the other customer finished his purchase, she glanced back to Rick. He leaned against a hip-high cement planter filled with wilted flowers, watching a cluster of men who probably wore three-piece suits during the day. He looked like he was studying them, and she wondered what he was thinking. If she’d seen him like that, would she have given him a second glance?

  Probably a fourth. From not an inch closer than this. He caught her looking, and she turned to the woman and pointed to a cap on the top shelf. After pocketing very little change from her twenty-dollar bill, she cut in front of two men with large guts and larger complaints about Steinbrenner.

  Rick raised his eyebrows. “Won’t that mess up your hair?”

  “No.” She reached for his stocking hat.

  His hands flew from his pockets to clamp it down.

  “Would you relax?” She held up the new cap. “It’s only a few hours.”

  He just frowned at the cap.

  “I know it’s not original.” She tilted her head at the fans around them, all wearing Yankee hats, but he didn’t smile at the joke. “But since you’re such a big baseball fan … ”

  Still nothing, but he loosened his grip. She pulled it off and the sun’s heat, absorbed by the black knit, warmed her skin. “Too hot anyway.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “For a stocking cap,” she explained.

  She caught a hint of amusement in his eyes before her gaze drifted up to his hair. It was longer than she’d imagined. Maybe it had been buzzed off before. Now, with the extra inch of length, the light brown strands curled at the ends. “You need a haircut.”

  Rick held a hand out to the side and caught his old hat when she dropped it. Sunlight glinted off the curls, pressed down and darkened with sweat at his temples. She couldn’t keep her fingers from slipping in. When her hand paused, locks of hair curved over her fingers in warm cocoons of silk. She could feel her own heartbeat in her fingertips.

  Rick didn’t move. When she met his eyes, they were no longer inward, no longer dark. No longer amused. Her palm grazed his cheek — rough, unshaven — and the urge to slide her hands to the back of his neck and pull him closer was almost overwhelming. She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t. But if he did …

  The cap suddenly slipped from her other hand; she caught it and stepped back with great relief, because she would have hated for that brand new baseball cap to touch the pavement.

  She popped it on his head with the bill forward. “I can never remember which way these are supposed to go.”

  His smile returned when she shifted the bill sideways.

  “How do you do that?” she asked. “Smile with your eyes like that?”

  It disappeared immediately.

  “See, there it goes,” she said.

  He didn’t speak as she settled the cap backwards so that the white script ‘Yankees’ on the size adjuster crossed his forehead. His hair curled out above his left ear. Her hand felt shaky, as if once her skin had felt any part of him, it burned with the memory of it, wanted it back. No more smile in his eyes, no anger, no confusion. The tip of his tongue grazed his lower lip. Only for a second, the sunlight glistened off the moisture. She tried to swallow and couldn’t.

  “You gon’ kiss me now, Carolyn?”

  The noise of the train ove
rhead rushed into her ears. He’d hit the word ‘kiss’ like it was some surreal imagining from an Octavia Butler story, matching her own astonishment, but she couldn’t drag her gaze from his mouth. He licked his lips again. Would the taste of his mouth leave that same indelible memory on her own?

  She shook her head slowly — no no — and stepped back from her lie, felt her tongue on her own lips, felt heat flooding through her that had nothing to do with the sunshine.

  Rick blinked, shaking his head, his eyes wide. Carolyn wrapped her arms around her stomach. He was looking at her like she’d lost her mind. She probably had.

  He stuffed the stocking cap in his left pocket, pulled off the Yankees hat and crushed the bill between his palms to force a curve. Then he ran his fingers through his hair and resettled the cap on his head. He accomplished all of it in under thirty seconds before looking back at her. She hoped that was long enough to get her expression under control.

  “Don’t scare me like that no more.” He tugged the cap, front to back. “Guess I’m ready for the game now.”

  Carolyn swallowed again. She was ready for a cold shower. Thinking about baseball would have to do.

  17: Intentional Walks & Claustrophobia Cures

  Carolyn was right; it was better being there. The game was just as boring, but it was farther away. No voiceover of inane stats after every play, either. You know, Bob, it’s been seven hundred forty-three innings since a leftie scored on two outs in the sixth when the sun was shining in Cleveland …

  Jesse and the damn Indians. The Tribe was even here, and although Jesse was back home now, if he ever found out about this, Rick would never hear the end of it.

  Some kids about five rows down seemed intensely interested in something around where he and Carolyn sat above the first baseline. Rick looked over his shoulder, but the kids turned around before he figured out what they were looking at. If he was one of them, at least one of the boys, he’d be looking at Carolyn. What Rick was mostly doing, uninterrupted, since she’d transferred all awareness of Richard Allen Ranière to the green and brown field below. She reacted to every pitch, every swing, every whatever else was going on down there. Rick leaned back, watched her, watched the people, and waited for the hot dog man. Carolyn traded comments with an older white lady on her right with a voice raspy from long years of smoking. They were in complete agreement about … something.

  When everyone stood up for the last strike, Carolyn grinned down at him over her shoulder. In two innings, she’d figured out he really didn’t care, and she stopped trying. Only the game mattered, which was relaxing, because not talking left less room to say the wrong thing. The faded streaks on her skirt rode up to mid-thigh when she sat down, leaned forward again, her hands clasped together, elbows on bare knees. The view was nice, but when they got off the train, he’d been wondering why he was wasting time he couldn’t spare — at a damn baseball game — for a woman who wouldn’t …

  Don’t scare me like that no more.

  He’d been about to put his arms around her, when she was a second away from doing it. If he hadn’t popped his mouth off, she would have.

  The hot dog man finally showed in the fifth, and he handed cash across the row. Carolyn ate hers without taking her eyes off the game, and no way she even tasted it.

  Rick didn’t realize the ringing phone was hers until she apologized.

  “My dad,” she said before she answered. “Guess where I am. No. You need some help?” She rattled off the measurements on the outfield walls then laughed. “Admit it, you’re jealous. You wish you were here.” She smirked at whatever response she got, but it faded. “No … he … ” She glanced at Rick. “He had to work.”

  Oh. Rick watched one bare leg cross over the other as she leaned back in her seat. Hope you’re enjoying your pictures. Sucker.

  “No, I’m not, I’m … um … ” She shot another glance at him. This was great. Carolyn listened for a second then sighed. “His name is Rick, okay?” Her eyes widened. “Yes, that’s — yes. On the Late Show.”

  Nice guess, Pops.

  “I don’t think so. I’m twenty-seven years old.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Rick didn’t do fathers. Then an impulse hit, and he held out his hand for the phone. Scared her to death, what he’d been going for.

  She said, “Hold on,” and dropped her phone into his hand.

  Second bluff called tonight, and he couldn’t fold. He tapped the “Coffman” stitched across her shoulder blades, then pointed to the phone in his hand, and she nodded.

  “Mr. Coffman? Are you the man to blame for your daughter’s baseball obsession?”

  “I only started it,” he said. “But I went wrong somewhere. She’d never go to the Jake with me unless the Yankees were playing. I think when she was a little girl, she thought those overpaid pinstripes actually fought the South.”

  Rick glanced at Carolyn, his mind tripping over something he couldn’t get a hold of.

  “I hope you’re not partial to the Indians,” Mr. Coffman continued.

  “Frankly, I’m not partial to baseball,” Rick said. “I can root for the home team.”

  With no warning, Pops switched gears. “Hell of a performance last night, by the way.”

  Rick said, “Thank you,” because he didn’t know what else to say.

  “I enjoyed the cutaway myself,” her father added.

  So did I. “Guy who claims to be my friend said that was the best part, too.”

  Dad chuckled, but Carolyn’s wary eyes made Rick grin.

  Then her father said, “Don’t let her ignore you too much,” and Rick didn’t say he was really hoping she’d be paying him a whole lot of attention later. He said, “Good night,” and handed Carolyn back her phone.

  She told her father it was the bottom of the fifth and still waiting for a score. She shot Rick another apologetic look after she closed the phone.

  “He’s protective,” she said. “He always has been.”

  When she was a little girl. Had he ever talked to anyone’s father, much less in the middle of a damn-near compulsion to get his hands all over the daughter? He thought about what Kale would do to any man thinking about his daughter Kiara like that one day. Thought about how much he’d want to help.

  So when he opened his mouth, what came out was the other thing he’d thought.

  “He sounds white.”

  Carolyn’s eyes widened. “Do you mean to say that you can actually determine the color of someone’s skin by the sound of their voice? Because that seems like quite a … ”

  Rick didn’t hear the rest of it, because that wasn’t what he was saying. But if there was money on the bet, he’d have bet white. And if he’d heard her on the phone first, he might have thought the same thing about her.

  “Or does how someone speaks actually say anything about who they are?”

  She’d lost all interest in the game now. Rick wondered whether her “if I didn’t want to know the answer, why would I ask” deal applied to this particular question. He knew he’d just talked himself into a damn minefield and all he wanted was to pick his way back out.

  “I ain’t sure what I meant,” he said. “Maybe we could just forget I said it.”

  Carolyn narrowed her eyes for a second, and it must not have been one of those kind of questions, because she returned her attention to the game. Rick exhaled just as she turned to look at him over her blue and white striped shoulder. Caught him looking like he’d dodged a bullet. He kept his mouth shut and waited.

  “Actually,” she said. “He is white.”

  A corner of her mouth twisted into a grin, then the full smile, and Rick lost his annoyance over getting taken for that ride. “Christ.”

  She laughed. “You almost sounded white, too.”

  Then something — or maybe it was nothing — happened on the field, and she was back to the game before he realized she was making a joke. He shook his head and went back to wa
tching her. Top of the sixth, and an Indian was on second. Carolyn was edgy, glancing at the scoreboard. He wished they’d break this game open; he didn’t want a bunch of overpaid pinstripes messing up her mood.

  Then she jumped out of her seat. “Goddamn it!”

  Rick was so startled he didn’t think to watch the better view in front of him before she plopped back down with a groan.

  He checked the plate, one guy throwing the ball, another not hitting it. “This is bad?”

  “They’re walking him.”

  The Yanks catcher was way off the plate, glove far out to his side. The batter had nothing to swing at.

  “And that’s bad because … ”

  “It’s an intentional walk,” she said. “And the theory is that since this is a good hitter, and we only need one more out, just give him first. Get the next batter out. He’ll be easier for you.”

  She was very sarcastic about it, but the theory seemed sound to him, and Terrance’s strikeout metaphor wasn’t making any more sense. Carolyn slumped in her seat, watching the field with annoyance.

  She glanced at Rick and caught his confusion. “It’s bad because essentially you’re telling the pitcher that you don’t trust him. You don’t believe he has the stuff to strike this one out.”

  The guy in front of her turned around and appeared to agree with her. The look on his face was entertaining. Don’t matter what sport, what girl. It’s hot.

  And that was about enough of that shit. Rick leaned toward Carolyn to hit the guy’s peripheral vision and shift his gaze. Uh, yeah, asshole — I’m sitting right here. The guy blinked and turned around. Carolyn’s focus stayed on the batter, walking to his base.

  Rick checked the scoreboard. Nothing yet. “So … ”

  “So what sometimes happens is that it doesn’t work. Pitchers are human beings, you can’t tell him that one’s too much for him, but he can handle this one, because even if he can strike this one out with his eyes closed, sometimes he won’t believe it — see! Damn it!”

  Rick confirmed the ball on the board.

  “Shoot someone’s confidence like that and expect them to perform. Shit,” she muttered.