Stones and Spark

by Sibella Giorello

  Teddy leans over. "Sieves," he says.

  I crawl into the bottom cupboard. Unlike the Physics teacher, Mr. Straithern, Teddy doesn't have one compulsive bone in his wounded body. So order isn't his priority. The cabinets with geology equipment are as chaotic as the back of his van. I have to shove aside boxes and boxes of donated film canisters—everyone going digital—and more boxes of thin sections for the microscopes. Some sample minerals. Then old microscopes, the ones we used before he won the scopes with polarized light.

  "Bumfuzzled, are ya?" he says.

  "No!" I yell from inside the cabinet. "I'm not confused! The problem is you're—" I yank my head out, holding the sieves I've been searching for, and stand up. "—you're a mess!"

  But then, suddenly I am confused.

  DeMott Fielding stands in the doorway, like he's waiting for permission to enter. My mouth is still hanging open when Tinsley appears beside him, wearing an expression that says if I don't keep my promise, there will be consequences. Serious consequences.

  "I have this same speechless effect on the ladies," Teddy says. "It's amazing."

  Just for that, I recover. "What're you doing here?"

  "I was wondering if you heard anything about your friend."

  He steps into the room, followed by Tinsley, who's also ditched her school uniform but isn't wearing baggy jeans and an old t-shirt like me. Tinsley wears skin-tight brown jeans with a fluffy white sweater. A marshmallow roasting on a stick.

  "Bless her heart," she begins, putting me on notice, "Drew has really pulled off a good trick this time. Like they say, practice makes perfect."

  I have a sudden fantasy about a fire and marshmallows turning black from the flames.

  DeMott is standing near enough to see the counter. “Is that . . . ?" He points to the soil. "From the . . . ?"

  "Yes."

  "And you plan to . . . "

  "Yes."

  Just like yesterday with my mom, he's quick with the clues. Not only will Tinsley have a horseshoe if she finds out he drove me in his truck, but she'll blab all over school about Drew's shoe being found in the quarry.

  "Y'all done gibber-jabbing?" Teddy says. "Because we got work to do."

  But DeMott doesn't seem to hear him. He's reached out and picked up the tweezers, using them to spread the soil out across the paper. I glance once at Tinsley.

  She mouths words at me: You promised.

  "I've seen this stuff before," DeMott says.

  "Yes," I say with emphasis. "We know." Trying to send him another clue, namely, shut up.

  "I mean, from before that."

  Tinsley takes a deep breath and heaves a steaming sigh. "Isn't somebody supposed to be at cross country practice?"

  "No," Teddy says. "They don't allow wheelchairs."

  She gives him a quizzical look.

  DeMott, still holding the tweezers, pinches one of the grains. He lifts it up. "I'd know these things anywhere. They're totally evil."

  "Evil-Stone," Teddy says, rolling his eyes. "Only in the South."

  I look at the grain. It's one of those red icicles. The color of dried blood.

  "I'm serious," DeMott says. "They stick in your socks. You have to pick them out one by one." He turns to Tinsley. "Remember, when you walked on the diamond and got some on your—-"

  "Ohh," she says. "I hate those things, they—"

  Teddy lifts his hand, cutting her off. "Son, start over. You've seen 'em before?"

  "Yes, on the field."

  "What field?"

  "The baseball diamond. At St. Christopher’s. "

  My wrists tingle. "Baseball?"

  Drew.

  "I just despise that dirt," Tinsley whines. "If DeMott wasn't playing varsity, I'd never go near that field. But he made varsity even as a freshman. And varsity cross country, which might change if he—"

  "Darlin'," Teddy says, "close your mouth. DeMott, where's this field?"

  DeMott sets down the tweezers. But he says nothing.

  "Son, spit it out!"

  He looks at me for a long moment. He almost looks like he's going to apologize.

  "It's just down the road," he says. "Right near the . . . "

  He doesn't need to finish.

  I know what he's going to say.

  Right near the quarry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I watch Tinsley picking her way over the baseball field's grass. She looks like a pampered cat being forced to touch water.

  Suddenly DeMott grabs my arm and yanks me to the ground.

  “Duck!" he yells.

  The baseball whizzes overhead, slamming the chain link fence. The metal shivers after the impact.

  "Oh! My! Gawd!" Tinsley screams. "Oh my God! Oh my God! I almost died!"

  Of course, she was nowhere close to the line of fire, but she continues to cry out to God. Since we're made in his image, I imagine God is rolling his eyes, like me.

  "DeMott!" she screams. "What if that baseball hit me?!"

  Oh, the fantasy of it.

  But DeMott ignores her question, lifting me from the turf. "You okay?" he asks.

  I nod.

  He lifts his hand and calls out to the players on the field. "Hold fire!"

  The catcher who threw that wild ball missed first base by a good ten feet. He's a scrawny kid, the facemask making his head look out of proportion with his narrow body. His maroon-and-white uniform—for St. Christopher's—bags around his knobby knees.

  DeMott picks up the ball, waiting for the catcher to hold up his big mitt. When he throws the ball back, it sinks into the leather mitt with a thwack.

  The kid winces. Then checks the mitt. He sees the ball. A smile breaks across his face.

  "There's different dirt on every turf," DeMott is saying, not realizing he's just made that kid's day. "At least, they look really different to me. You're the geologist. You tell me."

  "What do you think is different?"

  "Well, over in the dugout, for instance, there's gravel. It's like the rocks we use at Weyanoke to fill in old wells. Or if we need really serious drainage."

  I glance over at the dugouts. Tinsley stands near it, leaning into the chain link. She lifts her cell phone and calls out. "Why don't I call your coach and tell him you'll be late for practice?"

  "And this stuff," DeMott reaches down, scooping the soil along the first-base foul line. "There's no gravel in it. It's just . . . dirt, I guess."

  He opens his palm, showing me the soil.

  It's dark brown, nearly red, and so fine and soft it must be mixed with silt, which is even finer than sand. I also see those red icicles. I pinch one from his palm and hold it up to the afternoon sun. Those ragged edges, they make me wonder what's in this stuff.

  I look back at DeMott, but he's watching one of the coaches barreling toward us.

  "Hey, you mind?" the coach barks. "We're about to start a game here."

  "Hi there, Coach."

  "DeMott? Is that you?"

  The coach wears a St. Christopher's uniform, the same maroon-and-white as the catcher, but as he shakes DeMott's hand, he lifts the baseball cap from his head, giving me a lightning-fast once-over. I realize now why DeMott picks up clues so quickly—baseball. He reads signals. And he reads the coach's here.

  "Coach, this is Raleigh Harmon. From St. Catherine's. She needs to look at the turf." "Now?"

  "It'll only take a couple minutes," he says, turning to me. "Right?"

  I nod.

  "We've got a game," the coach protests.

  "Yeah, I see your catcher," DeMott says, nodding toward the scrawny kid. "How about a trade. My time for your time?"

  The coach pivots to look at the catcher, who has just missed an easy pitch over the home plate. Scrambling for the loose ball, the catcher trips over home plate, landing on his glove.

  "He needs more than five minutes," mutters the coach.

  "Twenty," DeMott says. "And you give Raleigh ten around the diamond."

  "Done. But step on
it. Game starts in forty."

  The coach walks away, whistling for his players to meet in the outfield.

  "Thank you," I say.

  "Thank me later." DeMott points to the parking lot. Dozens of boys in kelly green uniforms stream from a yellow school bus. "I don't have any pull with the coach from St. Benedict's."

  I jog over to home plate, swing my pack forward, and kneel in the dirt. DeMott waits beside me, which feels sort of awkward. I feel obligated to make small talk. "How long have you played baseball?"

  "Third grade."

  “You must be good.”

  He seems about to answer, but Tinsley appears again. This time her fingers are laced into the chain link above the backboard. All I can see are the shoulders of her white sweater and her face. It reminds me of those empty plastic shopping bags that the wind blows into fences.

  "DeMott," she says in a baby voice, "I'm sure Raleigh would like to do whatever she's doing by herself. You need to get to practice."

  He's got his back to her when he says softly. "Baseball is my best sport. I've made all-state for three years."

  I look up, startled to hear him boast. Not only does he not seem the type, but it's very non-Virginian to brag. He kneels down beside me.

  "But I'm not very good at cross country," he continues. "I don't like running. That's how life works, isn't it? We're good at the stuff we like, so we do even better—because we like it. But we only get worse at the things we don't like."

  I take one of Teddy's canisters from my pack and skim it over the soil, filling the container. "If you don't like to run, why are you doing cross country?"

  He glances over his shoulder. Tinsley isn't looking at us anymore. She's checking her phone.

  "Because other people want me to."

  I take a pinch of the soil, rubbing it between my fingers. Definitely silt in this stuff. It feels soft as talcum powder— silken, buttery—but there's also sand. That part feels gritty. Also, I now see the soil isn't red but orange. Probably full of iron.

  "You're like that," he says.

  I stare at the soil. The red icicles, I decide, are probably clay. But I can't tell if they're manufactured like bricks, or if they were naturally formed.

  "Like what?" I ask.

  "You do things because other people want you to. You like to make other people happy."

  I lift my gaze, meeting his eyes. Home plate sits between us, but the afternoon sun falls against his back, casting his shadow toward me. When I drop my eyes again, the dirt holds our dark outlines. Our foreheads look like they're touching.

  I nod. Our shadows kiss. I feel a flutter below my stomach.

  "You're right," I manage to say. "I am like that."

  I take a Sharpie from my pack and write the soil's location on the canister—HOME. Meaning, home plate. But as I write out the letters, my mind goes home, to the place where I do all the things that make other people happy. Like hide my real life. Eat really bad meals. Pretend Friday night dinners are still held at Drew's house. I do all these things for my dad. And for my mom.

  DeMott scoops another handful of soil, shaking it until only the red icicles are in his palm. "You know what these things are? Pernicious."

  "Good word." I nod, watching our shadows kiss again.

  "I'll bet they're still some stuck in my kneepads from years ago."

  "Kneepads—you were a catcher?"

  "My white socks turned orange in the wash." He lifts his hand, and his shadow seems to caress my face. The feeling in my stomach is so strong I have to look away.

  "And I've played just about every field in town," he says, dropping the stones. “I've never seen another field with these mean red things."

  I stand up, shattering our shadowed embrace, and take a deep breath to remind myself why I'm here: Drew.

  Picking up my pack, I walk down the foul line. The St. Benedict players are dumping their gear in the visitor's dugout. DeMott follows me.

  "I thought baseball was a spring sport," I say.

  "Not for the little guys. Elementary school and younger. The city doesn't have enough fields for everybody to play in the spring."

  At first base, I scoop soil and mark the new canister. DeMott stays right next to me, glancing to the outfield where the St. Christopher's players have paired off to throw and catch. I glance over, capping the canister. They're such little kids. Pipsqueaks. Why would Drew come here, to watch kids who can't even catch? The only reason she even watches the Braves' minor league is because every once in a while a player gets called up to the majors—somebody like Titus—and Drew already has the guy's stats going. She gets all wiggy with math-joy about that head start on numbers.

  But these kids?

  "Have you ever seen her, watching the games?" I ask.

  "Who?" DeMott stares at me.

  "Drew."

  He's still staring.

  "My friend, Drew?"

  "Oh. Right. Sorry." He's blushing for some reason. "From the pictures I saw on her computer, I've never seen her before. Then again, I never really look at the stands. But Tinsley might know. She’s always up there. Gabbing on her phone."

  We both glance over. Sure enough, Tinsley's yakking on her cell phone and hopping foot-to-foot in her cute ankle boots. Like she's cold and trying to get warm.

  "I hate those things," he says.

  "What things?"

  "Cell phones."

  "Me, too."

  He smiles. "That's two things we have in common."

  Now I'm blushing, so I grab my pack and quickly make my way around the diamond. DeMott follows but says nothing more. I take soil samples from all three bases and find a dry top layer, almost flaky, but Saturday's heavy rain has percolated through to the next layer, depositing silt. Eluviated, that's the word. When water carries material through soil. When something's deposited on the lower levels, the prefix changes: illuviated. The same leeching process that forces my dad to add new topsoil to the garden every spring. I keep thinking about geology because it takes my mind of DeMott, standing so close I swear I feel heat from his skin.

  "She's going to be okay," he says suddenly.

  I don't look up.

  "You know that, right?" he says. “She's going to be okay.”

  Finally, I dare to look at him. That steady blue in his eyes never flickers. No wavering. No doubt or pleading or pretending, and a sense of relief floods through me. I keep staring into his eyes, not wanting to break contact, and then I see something else. Sadness. A deep reserve of sadness, going so far down into him it never reaches the surface. I want to tell him we have three things in common.

  I look away, trying to get the courage to speak. I cap the canister, swallow my pride, and the moment is gone.

  "What an honor!" The St. Christopher's coach comes barreling toward us again. "Such a huge honor."

  He's got his hand out, like he's going to shake DeMott's hand. Or my hand? Quickly, I brush my fingers against my jeans then stick out my hand.

  The coach walks right past me.

  DeMott turns, watching him. "Holy Moley!" he exclaims.

  I turn to see what's going on, but the sunlight stabs my eyes. Still holding the Sharpie, I lift my hand to block the light. All I see is a black shirt, and skin as black as the shirt.

  "The boys are over the moon." The coach pumps the black man's hand. "We can't believe you're our umpire."

  The umpire, wearing the black shirt, smiles. He sees DeMott walking toward him with his hand out too. Then the man looks over at me.

  His smile falters. He looks uncertain.

  "Raleigh," he says. "What're you doing here?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Titus.

  The umpire is Titus. He walks toward me. The coach and DeMott shift to either side of him, like he's Moses, parting the Red Sea.

  "Drew with you?" he asks.

  Her name on his lips. It makes me even sadder. But also because I've never seen Titus looking like this. He looks . . . happy. And the man i
s never happy. Ever. If someone cracks a joke in the diner, he never laughs. He doesn't even smile.

  But right now his eyes shine, his teeth glow in a wide white smile.

  "You don't know," I whisper.

  "Say what?"

  "You don't know."

  "Girl," he shakes his head, "plenty I don't know."

  "She's missing."

  "Missing—the game?"

  "She's gone…missing. Nobody's seen her since Friday."

  His smile falters. He turns his head, eyeing me like there's more, like I haven't gotten to the punchline.

  DeMott picks up another clue. He turns to the coach and says, "I'll go work with your catcher."

  The coach nods, whistles for his players again. I watch the catcher come loping over the green grass, a puppy getting used to his big feet. DeMott lays an arm across the boy's thin shoulders, leans down to speak with him, guiding him toward home plate.

  "Raleigh," Titus says. "Talk to me."

  His huge frame seems to swallow the sun. His gaze has gone back to its default setting, a dark heavy expression that's so serious and grave you want to confess every bad thing you've ever done.

  "Remember when I left your place on Friday? I've been looking for her ever since. It's like she disappeared. Her stupid parents think she ran away. But I know she didn't run away, that's not what happened. I know it."

  He frowns. "You know?"

  Just what I need. Another skeptic.

  "Okay, fine. You know those purple Converse tennis shoes she always wears? I found one, buried in a quarry down the road from here. And her bike—"

  He holds up his hand. The palm is pale pink. "You found a shoe—one shoe?"

  "Maybe the police found the other one, but they're telling me they didn't find anything else, which makes no sense. I mean, they were searching that quarry all morning."

  "The police." He takes another step back. "The police are involved?"

  "Titus—she's missing! Officially missing. Why isn't anybody listening?"

  His dark gaze roams over the field. The two teams zip balls back and forth, their bright white socks flickering as they run. Titus's eyes begin to dart, like he's trying to follow every baseball, every player.

  "I need to go," he says.

  He turns, walking fast to home plate. Over his shoulder he carries a black bag. When he reaches the plate, he opens it and removes a small broom. He begins sweeping the plate marker, brushing it with furious energy, rubbing and rubbing. I can see the dust and debris and little red pieces of clay flying in the sunlight. He cleans until the plate is nearly white again.