A Rambler Steals Home

by Carter Higgins

  “It’s magical,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

  “Did you know there used to be some boards loose in right field? Smack dab in the middle of the Sweet Street Mart sign. They might have nailed those up by now, but it’s how we all used to sneak in and play catch under the stars when the team was on the road.”

  I thought of the space between FILLING and BELLIES and pictured Garland sneaking in. That secret didn’t only belong to me and Marcus.

  “I got as high as I could in the bleachers, even though there wasn’t a dry seat in the place, and waited out the storm. That’s where I met your mama. She was already up there, watching the storm roll in—​beat me to the idea by who knows how many raindrops.”

  That ringing in your ears that happens between the burst of lightning and a crash of thunder—​that was the thing vibrating all through my body. Garland had never told me this story before, and it settled like a bellyache.

  June and Franklin had second base.

  Garland and my mama had the nosebleeds.

  “Before that night nobody had ever seen her, and a storm had to brew up to stick us together. The storm sure was slow to move in, but my love struck quick like the lightning.”

  And so we sat under that cloud for a while, Garland remembering and me wondering. That’s where he stopped, so he didn’t get to the part about why she wasn’t a rambler anymore.

  Sometimes big hearts make bad decisions.

  Garland looked down at me. “Can I get you more tea? It costs seventeen dollars.”

  With that, the speck of jolly that had gone dark for a while was back. It was my mama who had some other storm to chase.

  Thirty

  BACK in my queen room, I unwrapped my mama’s purple‑and‑silver scarf, the one that was usually stuffed under my mattress, and took a big sniff of it. It was one thing I could touch of hers that still traveled with me, but Ridge Creek’s heat usually had no use for a scarf. Once, long ago, it had smelled like gardenias and marshmallows, but now it smelled more like stale metal.

  The Franklin bucket with the money was still there. Garland must have found it and wondered and had that talk with me so I’d remember about the family part of things. He hadn’t made me tell him all the details. But he did know the kind of heart I had.

  And I knew his.

  I could fix my bad decision, so I walked the Franklin money up to the safe and spun the dial.

  The code and that day, they were the same. That’s when I knew all of the 0621s from then on would be good ones. I’d remember the marquee that said nothing more than RALLY and the medical tape on the other letters and a front door that was the best kind of pink. A fan for June—​well, I couldn’t make that part happen now. And there weren’t any pennies left to wish on.

  “Don’t want to dirty up a plate?” I asked, watching Garland fuel up for his night at the Grill with a pie that he must have braved the storm for.

  And then I wished I had said something different, because maybe he had saved that pie for that particular day. But it turned out that he just had his mouth too full for banter, and his laugh sprayed crumbs across the table.

  “Maybe our next truck should only serve pies—​cherry, apple, boysenberry, lemon meringue, even mincemeat.” He interrupted his train of thought for another bite.

  I stuck my finger into the last untouched frontier of key lime, and agreed with him in one yum.

  “Looks like the storm moved on,” Garland said. “A good afternoon for a game.”

  I’d invited Garland to come, and volunteered Triple to sit with him in the nosebleeds. And when I had put the tip money into the safe, three of the coins were pennies.

  I wished Garland would go to the game.

  I wished storms wouldn’t make him so sad.

  I wished Triple and I were all he needed.

  And right then Marcus shouted from outside the Rambler. The game was on.

  “Derby, are you ready? I have to check on the mower and make sure the bullpen’s in order. I got a little behind this afternoon.” A hint of Franklin showed up in his eagerness to tend to his turf. Franklin had picked a good skipper.

  Garland must have heard a bit of Franklin too. “Wonder who he’ll twirl around second base until forever comes?”

  “Garland!” I squawked out a gasp of surprise and maybe embarrassment.

  His eyes glimmered with that signature St. Nick twinkle. I swung open the door and acted like I was leaving in a huff, pausing just long enough to spruce myself up with a little Christmas Nutmeg.

  “Hey, Lefty.” The Skipper already had his rally cap on—​inside out and sideways.

  “Really, Marcus? Don’t jinx this game, of all of them.” I kept up the pretending, even though I’m sure Marcus could feel my grin oozing out.

  “Maybe that’s true, but a little extra oomph couldn’t hurt.”

  “Good thing you’re into turf management. That job doesn’t require much fashion sense.”

  “And your face paint has made you an instant expert, then?”

  And that’s how we went, back and forth to the stadium until he slipped between FILLING and BELLIES and I circled around to meet Betsy and Lollie at June’s box office. The closer I got, the louder my heart pounded and the less I could see straight. All I could think about was the middle of the fifth inning.

  “Ready?” Betsy’s voice was serious.

  She held out a sign we’d made the other night, one that had NOW written big on the back of the Rockskippers’ lineup. It was rolled up like a sword she was taking into battle, but girls with pink fingernails don’t have much sword‑fighting experience, and a Blue cow didn’t come soon enough to stop my laugh that slipped out.

  “Yes, Betsy. We all are.”

  “Yeah, Betsy,” Lollie echoed. I don’t think Lollie had ever talked like that to Betsy before. So I hugged Betsy Plogger for the second time that day, for the second time ever.

  “Tonight will be perfect,” I said, telling both them and the moving-away clouds that I was ready.

  And then we settled into our spot behind the dugout, squatting and double-checking that the posters were all set, rising only for the national anthem and to heckle Mr. Bell. The air was heavy, like it was stuffed into a balloon and stretched too much.

  We were all just waiting to burst.

  Marcus’s ripples in the outfield were a little bit ragged, since he’d spent most of the Rally grounds-keeping at June’s instead of the stadium, but they were the most beautiful hurried-up ripples I’d ever seen. And there he sat in the bullpen, wild rally cap and all, talking about who knows what with June Mattingly. They were in good hands with each other.

  Even Miss Houston’s plunks felt expectant—​each note hung on, not quite ready to fade away.

  “You did it, Derby,” Lollie whispered, maybe so Betsy couldn’t hear, or maybe because she felt all that wonder.

  “We did. We all did.”

  I twisted my neck to peer up in the nosebleeds above the third‑base line, but Garland and Triple weren’t there.

  Mr. Bell bounded out of the dugout at the top of the fifth. “How about some of those sweet‑potato fries if I strike out the side, Miss Clark?”

  “Deal!”

  Southpaws have to stick together, but also the quicker he could get us through the top of that inning, the closer we were to June. After one strikeout from Mr. Bell on the pitcher’s mound, I made sure Betsy and Lollie knew what to do.

  “Just like leading the wave. On your countdown, and on that NOW.”

  “Nobody better get up to go to the bathroom,” Betsy said. “We need all those letters.”

  She was right. But she’d swapped her old bossy tone for one that sounded like it couldn’t wait to be a part of something big.

  “We’ve got you, Derby.” Lollie unrolled her poster and locked arms with Betsy.

  After the second strikeout and a leaping cheer from the crowd, I scooted over toward home plate and sat down on the steps right behind it.
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  The third batter took his time at the plate, which let me rest in the almost. The noise in the stadium fizzled and froze, and I wondered if that’s what Peter had heard just before Triple snatched him from the creek—​giant voices broken by a swift wind and a murmuring rush.

  A couple of excruciating foul balls later, Mr. Bell pitched a changeup, low and away.

  The batter whiffed, and it was time.

  Thirty-One

  IT was the middle of the fifth inning, and the players cleared the field. I pulled open the rip in the net, twisted through, and then snuck right up to home plate. I caught Ferdie’s eye from the dugout, and he nodded at me, telling me in one swift motion that he’d told the real skipper and that nobody was going to run after me and haul me off the field.

  Above Ferdie, it was Betsy and Lollie’s turn. The two of them scrambled up and down the first two rows, pointing out the posters and bossing people around just enough to make sure everything was in order.

  And then, just like every other evening in the middle of the fifth inning, Marcus’s cart drove onto the field. But this time, the Skipper had a passenger.

  June.

  When Marcus approached second base, Miss Houston’s booth exploded with sounds of life and love, and it didn’t matter if every other plunk was a wrong one. Marcus stopped the cart, offered his hand to June, and pulled her out for a dance. Where he was lanky and short, she was round and sure. He was no Franklin, but he was doing his best.

  The stadium hummed and the crowd hushed and all of Ridge Creek watched Marcus and June, watched a tradition they didn’t know they’d been waiting for.

  The plan was to wait at home plate for Marcus to drive June around the bases to me, but I couldn’t help it. I ran to third, wanting to hurry up those moments. Wanting to bring June home.

  I wish I could’ve heard what he whispered to her at second, what made her throw back her head in laughter, and what made her clutch her cheeks and touch her heart. I bet it had something to do with how much he loved raking the dirt and how pretty her face paint was. Instead, I got to be a part of the stadium’s sighs and Oohs and Aahs. Maybe even a sniffle or two leaked out, but at least I wasn’t the only one.

  And even though I wasn’t waiting in the right spot, Marcus drove June to me. Any good skipper knows how to change his mind in the middle of a game. The James Edward Allen Gibbs Stadium was on its feet, cheering from the bullpen to the nosebleeds. It was the kind of crescendo that echoes in your ears and rattles around in your rib cage. When June saw me waiting at home plate, when she really saw me, it felt like looking into a mirror. We had the same broken heart, sewn up and weaved back together.

  “Well, Sugar Sue. Fancy meeting you here.”

  My hello was muted by her arms wrapping around me and the One, two, three, NOW of Betsy and Lollie far behind us.

  “Oh my,” June said, and I turned to see.

  And there they were, Betsy and Lollie, who each waved a W up high. Plus a whole bunch of folks who had become the real-live marquee.

  WE LOVE YOU’ JUNE

  WE˥COME HOME

  Turns out that the lady holding the squiggle thought it was an apostrophe instead of a comma and one of the Ls was upside down, but it didn’t stop the letters from shouting loud and clear.

  “I know you didn’t want me on the front porch that first morning because of all those weeds and overgrown grasses and vines that wanted to strangle your house itself,” I said. “Franklin wouldn’t like me to see that.”

  “Derby.” June looked over my shoulder at Ferdie’s letters, rearranged just for her.

  “And I know it’s hot in there and that’s why you made tomato‑and‑cucumber sandwiches without the stove and that’s why the puddles of candle wax were stuck to your kitchen table, ’cause they’d melted under the blazes.”

  She squeezed my shoulder with her big hands and shook her head in that Let me tell you something way. “You think I would have wanted to cook anyway? It’s been hotter than a sweater stitched with lava threads and buttons made of coal.”

  “I wish I could have fixed that part, but wait until you see everything else,” I said. “We skipped the Rally to steal your home back for you.”

  Then June and I walked that well-worn path down the third baseline, where years and years of Rockskippers had run before us. And together, we tagged home.

  After that, we gave the field back to the Rockskippers, who saluted her in formation. June waved to everybody—​from Betsy and Lollie behind the dugout all the way up to the nosebleeds, where Garland and Triple weren’t. Even Ferdie stood on the steps of the dugout and tipped his hat.

  All of Ridge Creek loved June. But I would be the one to walk her home to the sweet peas and the best pink door and the wreath of garland and lights. And maybe Betsy, too.

  Thirty-Two

  THE Rockskippers lost that game, but it didn’t even matter. June waited in her box office while we returned Ferdie’s letters to him, even though a couple of them had cracked a bit at the edges.

  “That’s okay,” he’d said.

  “What did you say once, Derby? Something about the pit stinks?” Betsy asked.

  “Sinks. Sometimes the creek rises and the pit sinks.” I was glad Marcus was still in the bullpen, because the last thing we needed was an armpit joke.

  “Well.” She grabbed my hand. “Looks like we got Mother Nature back in order. Calm as the creek, clear as mud. Something like that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

  Before Betsy and I walked June home, I checked in at the Grill, just in case Garland and Triple wanted to come and see our handiwork in the yard. But a Closed sign dangled in the window, the only time I’d ever seen the Grill not serving burgers and fries after a game. I straightened up the greens just in case we opened up, and went to June’s without them.

  June hadn’t spoken many words since the impromptu marquee had cheered her home, and that was okay, because Betsy had found a bunch of them. “Just wait until you see it, June,” she said. “It really is the best pink.”

  Lollie ran to catch up with us once Candy Plogger said she could stay out late, and after the cart was tucked away for the night, Marcus joined us too. The five of us walked to her house, me and June in the lead, and the others a reach back. We didn’t stop until we reached the sweet peas, and June cried and smiled and laughed all in the same breath.

  I know she missed that M.

  And then we walked down the driveway and up the steps to the porch, the porch that looked out over the most important turf that the Skipper had ever managed. June touched the pink and gave Betsy an extra squeeze.

  That’s when I saw them.

  Garland and Triple pushed back and forth on the swing, so slow that it didn’t even creak. On the planks below them was a fan, a big beige box one that looked like it would make the best kind of breeze.

  “Hey there, Ms. Mattingly,” Garland said. “Heck of a summer we’re having, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” June said. “Won’t you all come in?”

  Lollie and Betsy and Marcus filed in behind June, right past the wall of memories that captured Phoebe Susan herself. But I stayed behind, on the front porch with my family.

  “How—” I started, but couldn’t finish.

  Triple stood up then, his small voice shattering the stillness.

  “I heard you talking to Garland,” he said.

  Triple unfolded his fingers from around his turtle‑race winnings, and reached it out to me. It wasn’t twenty-five dollars anymore. It was only two.

  “It wouldn’t have been enough for a banjo anyway,” he said. “But it was enough for Miss June.”

  “Aren’t we lucky?” Garland said, nodding down toward Triple. “The hardware store stayed open even though it was a game day.”

  And then it was my turn for stillness. A flood of Thank you and Peter and Garland must be proud and I am too waited inside. It didn’t take Triple as long as me to see the wonder
of this place, the home that we have here in Ridge Creek.

  But when I hugged him, all he said was “Eww.”

  Inside, I introduced Garland to Phoebe Susan, June’s once-upon-a-time, who had come and gone from Ridge Creek even before his time there. And pretty soon we were all around the table together. The fan whirred a lullaby to our faint voices, and it blew June’s hair out of place just enough to remind me that she wasn’t stuck behind the glass in those photographs lining her wall. The lights were low and warm, and in the glow of the kitchen, we were a family of seven.

  Even though her hair was the tiniest bit tousled, June’s Christmas Nutmeg was radiant. She looked me in the heart, and then she told me the truth.

  “You know, Sugar Sue,” she said, “your home has wheels, but your heart has roots right here.”

  And with that, she made sense of all of Garland’s Aren’t we luckys. It was more than watching baseball and sunsets every night of every summer. It was a whole mess of Ploggers, the Skipper, and Ferdie’s marquee letters traveling with me. Those things reached far beyond Ridge Creek’s limits.

  I had June, too.

  “Hot stove or not, these tomato‑and‑cucumber sandwiches are out of this world,” she continued. “Maybe I should get myself a food truck—​what do you think, Mr. Clark?”

  “Well, careful, Ms. Mattingly. We’ve got vegetables, too—​have you tried our sweet‑potato fries?”

  “They’re vegetaaarian,” I said, reaching to remember a time when Betsy Plogger was a bubblegum-popping speed bump on the porch of the Sweet Street Mart. Turns out we had each been looking at a friend that day in the produce aisle.

  I didn’t sit in that thought for too long, ’cause Triple started up a tune—​“We got greens at the Grill: cucumbers before, and then pickles after, and we’ll shake sweet potatoes with salt and pepperrrrrrrr—” and June was clapping to the rhythm even though it was awfully hard to find, and I had to do a Blue cow.

  In the middle of the song, June picked up the centerpiece of Queen Anne’s lace and placed the small vase in my hands.