Was that a person behind there?
Becky thought she could see an outline behind the branches, shifting ever so slightly. Without really thinking about it, she started to jog, her books shucking awkwardly and heavily up and down at the top of her back. Soon, she was running as fast as she was able without taking a header, houses flashing by to the sides, the evergreen at the corner of King and Fitzpatrick jerking up and down in her vision like a piece of forest in a Blair Witch video.
At the bottom, she stomped into the cross street, only barely paying attention to whether or not a car was coming, and she almost tripped over the far curb. She slowed at the tree and moved around to the far side, shoving the branches.
No one.
“Hey, Michigan,” a voice sing-songed.
Becky jerked her head and saw someone standing up the hill before her, half behind a butterfly bush. It was Danny, perfect, beautiful Danny, wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a Rutledge Tigers baseball cap which hid those gorgeous blue eyes in a slanted shadow but revealed that little rosebud of a grin.
Becky ran at him, ran right up the hill, knees pumping, arms swinging wildly. There was no way she was going to let him disappear on her this time, not on your life! Her legs were absolutely burning by the time she crested the rise and reached Maple Street, and of course by then, Danny had advanced his position all the way down the next hill, sitting casually at the bottom under a red dogwood at the corner of King and Bedford. Becky’s breath was rasping, her hand pressed to her side, her upper lip and forehead beaded with sweat. Danny gave a little parade wave, pushed up, and moved past the tree, deeper into the lawn bordered by a row of thick hedges.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Becky said to herself, pulling her backpack into place and running like heck down the hill.
At the bottom, she thought she was going to pass out she was breathing so hard, and her body felt drenched, her clothes sticking to her like a clumsy second skin. Naturally, Danny was not behind the hedge. He was, in fact, at the crest of the next rise, waiting there on the sidewalk, chewing a hangnail.
Becky half jogged and half limped up the hill, using her hands to push down on her thighs to make them work this final piece, and this time he waited for her there.
“Hi,” he said when she finally made it to the top of the hill, panting. She bent over, hands on her knees, and put up her index finger.
“One second.”
“You run kind of fast,” he said.
“Thanks.” She pushed up, wiped her forehead, and then wiped her hands on her pants. Too late, now, to be polite. She looked at him, and the sun was behind his head, making him look like a silhouette, like an angel. She put up a salute hand to her forehead to shade her eyes.
“Are you a pitcher?” she said. Yeah, it was awkward, but she had to start somewhere.
“That’s funny.”
“Is it?”
He smiled softly.
“You’re really pretty.”
“Am I?”
His smile widened.
“Well, you’re a lot prettier than you think, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. What’s anything mean?”
Becky shrugged, disgusted with herself over the gesture. She’d been doing it a lot lately, and she wanted to remove it from her repertoire, like yesterday. She gazed at him then, full stare, and for a second she really did feel kind of pretty.
“The Principal wants me to go to this fall ball baseball practice—“
“I know.”
“Are you going to be there?”
Something flashed in his eyes, and Becky couldn’t tell if it was humor or pain.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said slowly. “But you’re going to have to do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Run,” he said. “Every day, home from school like you did today. Up and down the hills with equal speed, total burn, until you can run the whole length of King Avenue without wheezing.”
“Why?”
He moved closer and looked at her deeply, as if it was the most important promise she’d ever make.
“Because pitching is all stamina, all legs, all push and follow-through.”
Becky felt her lips working into a smile.
“Then you want me to make the team? You really do?”
He backed off a step and tilted his head.
“The Tigers? Yeah, for exercise, I suppose.”
“What’s that mean?”
“What’s anything mean?” He started to walk away toward Stonybrook Road, then stopped and turned.
“You’ll build up fast,” he said. “Faster than you’d ever believe. One day of running will be like half a month, trust me.”
“Why am I not surprised?” she said out the side of her mouth. His grin made a half moon as well.
“You’ve seen a lot of weird stuff lately, haven’t you?”
“Oh yeah,” she said.
“Well, it’s only gonna get weirder.”
“Promise?”
“Oh yeah.”
They both laughed.
“Don’t go,” Becky said. He gave his own shrug.
“Have to. I’m on a timer.”
“Tough parents?”
“Something like that.”
Becky crossed her arms along her stomach and a leaf blew against her ear. She shook it out and moved a strand of hair off her lip.
“Will I see you after the baseball practice?” She looked down at the street. “Like, only if you want to, I mean.”
“Sure.”
“Like when?”
She looked up and he had moved off a few feet, standing there at the corner of King and Stonybrook. He had turned the baseball cap around backward now, and the way it framed his face and his neck made him look even more gorgeous than ever, if that was at all possible.
“Run the avenue,” he said. “Every day, both ways. Add two more textbooks and a couple of bricks to your backpack. Really hoof it.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re throwing hard, but not hard enough. Because great ones do the work. Because I’ve waited…”
He looked away down Stonybrook Road, and blinked like he was going to cry.
“Because I love you.”
He said it with a hitch in his voice and then ran down the street, out of sight past some high bushes.
By the time Becky reached the corner and turned the hard left he was gone.
Chapter Twelve
Becky just stood there for a second, shocked and stunned. Did he just say that? Did he really? Becky Michigan had never been in love before, and had never been told by the other that he loved her. The effect was devastating. Her stomach hurt. She couldn’t think. Her heart was thudding, and she was totally overwhelmed. It felt like stupid, dumb pain, to tell the truth. She wanted to scream in absolute joy and cry harder than she’d ever done, not a dainty, lady-like dabbing of a tear with a scented Kleenex, but a floodgate, a mess, the type that took your breath away and gave you hiccups.
Mostly, she wanted to see Danny again. He didn’t give her a chance to say it back! Oh, she wanted to hold him! Kiss him. Give him a hickey maybe—that is, if she could figure out how to do it. She actually ached inside. She wanted to write him stupid poems that he’d adore, and call him every night. She wanted to hold hands, and meet after school, and tell him her life story and listen to his.
Mostly, she wanted to hold him. Forever.
She crossed Stonybrook Road, turning left down toward Rock Ridge Park. Everything was in such sharp focus! The curve of the road was flanked by majestic trees, some of their branches making statements against the sky and others drooping and weeping, their beautiful leaves fluttering in the breeze like they were whispering little secrets to each other.
Becky blinked heavily and wondered why it hurt so bad, loving someone. It was so deep and sheer it almost felt like
she couldn’t bear it another minute. She plodded forward over the small concrete bridge and started making her way up the hill toward her house on the corner of Stonybrook and Violet Street. She raised her chin a little. If Danny wanted her to run, well, she was going to run like heck every day. He wanted her to throw harder, well, she was going to put a smoking hole in that catcher’s mitt. Hopefully.
She let herself in through the laundry room door, and the house felt stale, empty. She passed through the kitchen, stopping briefly to open the fridge, look inside without really looking, and close it with vague disappointment. The hall was thick with shadows and the living room was plain, as always. And she had friends coming over tomorrow after practice! It was odd…back home, everyone had simply migrated to the mall or her other friend’s houses.
People just didn’t visit the Michigan’s, probably because it always seemed her parents were on the brink of disaster all the time. And now she was hosting. She was ashamed of herself, but she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed for what was to come. What if Mother started telling her crazy, neurotic stories? What if Dad came in red-eyed and drunk, slurring and mumbling apologies for no reason, asking incoherent questions? She would die, that’s all. Total flat-line.
Her room was dark, even with the shades up, and she turned on the overhead switch. Now, it was too bright for comfort, and the light cover had Charlie Brown and Snoopy designs on it from the previous home-owners. She had to change that, had to change a lot of things, and Becky realized that it might be months before she really felt at home here in Scutters Falls.
She took off her back pack and removed the textbooks. It was going to be tough studying tonight, especially when she had Danny on the brain, but she was going to try. Well, maybe. What was his last name, anyway? And if he wasn’t a pitcher, where did he play defensively?
Becky reached absently to the lower right corner of her book bag for her pen and pencil case, and when she drew it out, the Rutledge Tigers baseball cap caught on her sleeve, surfaced, and tumbled onto the bed. She picked it up and looked at it. She couldn’t just stick it on her head, because her hair was too big and busy. It would look ridiculous. She turned it to the back and saw there was a pretty big opening there, above the band with the hook and loop strap, so she gathered her hair and did it by feel, pushing the stalk through the hole and pulling the hat over her crown.
Becky looked in the mirror and gasped.
The image looking back at her with the blue hat and waterfall of auburn hair settling behind the shoulders was that of a stranger. Sort of.
Suddenly, she was cute.
For real-cute, like hot.
She yanked the hat off and her hair came back through the hole, a few strands catching and stinging. And there in the mirror was the old sad-eyed Becky. She stared at herself another full second, and then anxiously pulled her hair into a ponytail, took the hat, jammed the stalk through the hole, and pulled it forward by the brim.
Again, she changed, but this time she saw the transformation happen right there before her. It was hard to pinpoint as one thing specifically, but her face did something: moved, shifted, molded, contoured, re-sculpted itself. Everything was the same, but not so. When she focused on a specific feature, it seemed to be exactly as it had always been. It was what she wasn’t looking at directly that changed, the overall impression making her eyes sharper, her lashes longer, her cheekbones higher, her lips more pouty. It was her, but better…Becky Michigan, but more cat-like and girly, as if some hard diamond had been brought suddenly into the light from the shadows.
She yanked the hat off and dropped it to the floor. Her cell phone was in her pocket and it took a second for her to yank it out, punch in Beth’s number, and text: i-Chat right now, SOS, STAT!
She moved to her desk, opened her lap top, and began punching the keys. There was a glare from the window, so once she got on line, she moved her desk chair and then the computer to an angle facing the back of her bedroom where she had hung her Little Big Town, Carrie Underwood, and Lady Antebellum posters, all left over from her country phase really a year stale by this point. Soon, Beth’s image came up, moving in place onto what looked like a love seat in the corner of her own bedroom. Becky had expected hard wood floors, little African statues, and mosaic tiles, or the other extreme, long vases with wildgrass and pots with cacti and everything all health food and peace signs, but that wasn’t what surrounded her new friend at all in her room.
She was a ‘fluffy girl,’ with cushy pillows and teddy bears all over the place. She got her guitar and sat, knees together, thin red hair hanging down. She had so many freckles on her face it seemed she was darker than she really was, especially with the way the computer broadcast her image in that flat manner with the slightest delay, like a cheap movie.
“Hey there weirdo,” Beth said. She tuned a couple of strings, and then put this band over the neck of the guitar halfway up, probably to change the key or something. She started playing a gentle melody that was rather complex, but sweet, like enchanted forest or beach music.
In any other scenario, Becky would have commented on Beth’s insanely awesome ability to provide a live soundtrack, but she was still too creeped out.
“Can you see me?” she said. Beth kept finger picking like it was second nature and gave a real look.
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
“No,” Becky said, trying to keep her voice even. “I mean, can you really see my face? Like, am I half in shadow or can you make out everything, like my eyes and cheeks and my chin and stuff?”
“Well, you’re a bit off center, but I see you just fine. Weirdo. What’s up?”
“Just look,” Becky said. She reached to the floor, grabbed the hat, gathered her hair and put it through the hole. She pulled the brim forward and pushed back from the edge to the middle of the chair, trying to find the exact position she had just vacated. The second she found her place in front of the computer, Beth’s guitar went out of tune. Her fingers jerked, and she almost dropped the instrument. Instead, it fell to her lap on its back and she gripped it there, eyes wide as saucers.
“Wow,” she said.
“What?” Becky said. “Tell me.”
“You look good in that hat.”
“How exactly?”
“I don’t know exactly. Hey Becky, you’re really cute, I mean, you were kinda cute before, but now…wowie.”
Becky moved close to the screen, grabbing her lap top at its edges.
“Look at me!” she said. “Real close. What exactly looks different?”
Beth studied her, and this close up, Becky could see the video lines making up Beth’s moving image before her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t tell close up. It’s an overall effect, like the hat frames you nicely. More than nicely.” Her voice went down to a whisper. “It makes you a sexy kitten, or more like a lioness with that mane of hair.” She sat back, as did Becky. “And you made my guitar go out of tune, el jerk-o. Either that or my Capo is whacked.” She took off the accessory and Becky took off the hat, tossing her hair a bit. Beth looked at her and smirked.
“You shake it, girl.”
They both laughed. Becky’s smile withered.
“This doesn’t freak you out, then?”
“Why should it?”
“Like, I don’t look all plain and normal now, and that’s not strange and creepy?”
Beth tuned a string and then gave a good stare.
“You don’t look all that different to me now. The hat just frames your face. The rest is in your head.”
Becky felt her expression go to a pleading one.
“Then, I’m still pretty, even now?”
“What do you think?”
“What’s that mean?”
“What’s anything mean?”
Becky’s mouth dropped open. Beth stopped tuning.
“Close your mouth, girl. Flies are gonna get in.” Becky shut her trap so fast that her teeth clacked. Her eyes narrowed.
“Do you know a guy named Danny, blond and gorgeous?”
“No.”
“Swear?”
“Oh, I’m cereal. Total.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Really. I don’t know any gorgeous Danny. Why?”
“No reason.” She looked away for a second, bottom lip jutted out. “He’s just a dream maybe. My dream of someone who doesn’t need a magic hat to frame my face for him.” Beth hit something dissonant.
“No one needs the hat, Becky. Except maybe you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. You were a hottie before you decided to try out for the Tigers.”
“Like when?”
“Like when you knocked Cody Hatcher out of his chair. The rest is all angles and shadows.”
“Illusion.”
“More like attitude.”
“And the hat doesn’t scare you?”
Beth put the guitar to the side.
“No. Either way, you’re a sexy lioness. I think I’m going to write a song about you. I’ll call it ‘A Girl and Her Hat.’”
“Shut up.”
“No, you shut up.”
They both giggled.
“See you tomorrow,” Becky said.
“Later.”
Becky hit the buttons that darkened the screen and looked at the Rutledge Tigers hat there on her bed. A magic hat. Or was it really just framing, smoke and mirrors, a simple case of switching up your ‘personal scenery’ so you had the chance to convince yourself you were all that?
The laundry room door opened, and she could hear the heavy tread of her father entering the kitchen and moving stuff around. Time for the grand test. Time to put a measuring stick on this and see if dear old Dad would notice this change, come out of his funk, give up a warm smile—and a hug for once—and realize that Becky was more important than whatever it was he was chasing at the bottom of a glass.
Becky pulled a ponytail, stuck it through the hole, centered the hat, and walked down the hall to the kitchen.
Chapter Thirteen
He was rooting around in the fridge, hidden temporarily by the opened door. Becky stood there for a moment and then cleared her throat.
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