by Kris Hui Lee
That’s when the most brilliantly stupid idea plants itself in my brain.
It’s such a horribly genius plan that I shut my laptop, grab my wallet, and head downstairs before I change my mind.
“Going to Sara’s house,” I tell Mom, who’s now on the phone and absently waves her acknowledgment at me.
I fish the car keys out of the key dish and fetch my mitt. Then I drive to Uncle Abram’s house.
• • •
Most sidearm and submarine pitchers aren’t starters. They’re usually reliefs. The coach starts off by putting an overhand pitcher on the mound, and then when he gets tired, the sidearm or underhand pitcher goes in. Their unique throwing style throws the batter for a loop. Sure, the batters might catch on after a few times at bat, but for the span of an entire lineup, the pitcher’s got the upper hand.
It’s not like a person can learn an entire style of pitching overnight, but I’ve got years of underhand pitching experience thanks to softball. And I probably wouldn’t have thought about this plan if I didn’t know someone who could teach me how to pitch underhand and/or sidearm for baseball. Except I happen to know someone who’s caught the eyes of college scouts for his mad sidearm pitching style: Santino.
Abram’s house is in a pretty classy neighborhood. I’m talking three-story houses, not including the basement, with huge-ass chandeliers that make you feel like you should be on the Titanic. Think five bedrooms, a trillion bathrooms, and pieces of furniture you can’t touch because they might break if you look at them the wrong way.
Abram used to live in this house alone. Why he needed or wanted such a big house, I have no idea, presumably for all the art he collects. Or because he’s a designer and needed a giant, well-designed house to show clients. Or because he simply likes to feel like a king.
So, when I pull up his ridiculously long brick driveway and there are two unfamiliar cars in addition to his silver sedan, I already feel like I’m in the wrong place.
When I ring the doorbell, Santino Acardi answers the door. He raises an eyebrow, clearly confused at my presence and unsure of how to act after our last meeting went so badly.
He steps aside to let me in and then shouts, “Marnie’s here!” at the top of his lungs, like Nick and I do in our own home. It’s unsettling that Santino acts like Abram’s house is his house. There’s this cognitive dissonance between him being the resident baseball field asshole and him living here. It’s as if he’s phased into two separate beings: Santino-the-Enemy, and Santino-My-Cousin. I can’t reconcile them.
Abram comes down and meets us in the kitchen. He plops into a chair. “Marnie, Marnie, Marnie. This is a first—you coming out here on your own. You must be running away from home,” he jokes.
“If I was running away from home, I wouldn’t go to someone who would immediately call my parents,” I say.
Down the hall, a toilet flushes. I expect Geanna to come out in some super formal outfit because she strikes me as the kind of person who would wear super formal clothes even when she’s chilling at home.
Instead, a girl about my age with light brown skin and big brown eyes and long black hair comes out, wiping her hands on her ripped skinny jeans.
“Hi,” she says when she sees me. She smiles wide, like she’s in a commercial for toothpaste.
“Hi.”
“Uh, Neha, this is Marnie,” Santino says. “My…future…cousin. Marnie, this is my girlfriend, Neha.” He sounds reluctant to introduce us, like he doesn’t want me anywhere near his significant other. Like I might rip out her throat to avenge Cody.
“Hi, Marnie,” Neha says, still smiling. “Nice to meet you. Santino and Abram have told me a lot about you.”
If they have, why is she smiling?
“Don’t be alarmed,” Neha says. “I have no qualms about you being Cody’s friend. Anyway, I think he sounds a lot like Santino, and if you want to really know the truth, I think Santino loooves Cody, which is why he appears to resent him so much. Denial. It’s common among those experiencing unrequited loooove.” She jabs his stomach playfully, and he swats her hand away. If anyone else had put the words Santino, love, and Cody in a sentence, they’d have their tongues ripped out. But Santino laughs when she says it.
“Ignore her,” Santino says. “Sometimes she strings words together that she thinks make sense.” He tickles her side, making her squirm and giggle. I don’t know whether to be disgusted by this overdose of cuteness or just plain confused. More cognitive dissonance.
Abram grins at me. “Told you she was a riot.” For sure she is. Anyone who can turn Santino Acardi into a love-sick teenager can’t be anything else.
Abram folds his hands behind his head and leans back in the chair. “So tell me. What brings you here without parental supervision?”
I glance at Santino.
“Him?” Abram asks.
I nod.
“You’ve come to turn my insides out?” Santino asks.
“Only if you don’t do what I ask.”
“Damn,” Neha says. “No wonder he’s scared of you.”
The corner of my mouth quirks up.
“What do you want?” Santino asks.
“Teach me some of your pitching tricks.”
He crosses his arms. “First your team knocks my team out of the play-offs, and now you want to steal my moves? Are you planning on selling them to your coach?”
“Not steal…” I say. “Borrow. And no, I’m not going to sell them. I’m going to use them.”
He narrows his eyes suspiciously. “For what?” So he hasn’t heard who Cody’s replacement is. I guess he doesn’t really care, now that baseball season is over for him.
“It’s a long story,” I say.
“I’ve got time.”
At least he’s willing to hear me out. It’s more than I could have hoped for. I sit down next to Abram and gesture for Santino and Neha to take a seat as well.
“This is gonna be good,” Neha says. “Is this a popcorn and Coke story?”
“Good idea,” Abram says, getting up, presumably to get the snacks. But I point at his seat so he’ll sit back down. I don’t have time for popcorn and Coke. I need pitching help.
So I tell them. Everything. From Santino benching Cody to me totally sucking ass at the softball sectionals two years ago to trying out for the baseball team to the guys resenting me.
After I finish, Santino leans back in his seat, mulling my story over. “And what do you think me teaching you is gonna do?”
“It will give me something new and different,” I say. “I’ve had years of experience pitching underhand. If I could use that somehow to my advantage…”
“Pitching underhand softball is different than what I do.”
“But it’s similar. If I can get a handle on a good sidearm or underhand pitch for baseball, it’s one more weapon in my arsenal.”
“Why don’t you ask Kinski?”
“Because (a) he only pitches overhand, and (b) if I need to remind you again, he’s injured, because of you.”
“Okay, could you nix it on the guilt trip?” he snaps. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Yeah, okay, and I ate eighty-seven unicorns yesterday.”
Neha and Abram both laugh.
“I’m not gonna help you if you’re gonna be an ass about it.” He looks at Abram and goes, “Sorry,” like Abram might care that he said ass.
“Well, are you in or not?” I ask.
Santino looks at me, then at Neha, then at Abram, then back at me. If he knew how much Cody would hate me even talking to him, Santino would probably say yes just to piss Cody off.
Speaking of which, this is going to piss Cody off.
Which is one more reason that telling him that Santino is going to be my cousin is going to be the hardest thing I’ve done all year, save for playing at s
ectionals.
“Fine,” Santino says. “On one condition.”
I frown at him.
“You stop being an ass.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek so I don’t say anything worth regretting. Then I opt for the mature response. “Fine.”
The things I do for baseball.
• • •
I’m going to burn in hell for betraying my best friend.
Santino is a good pitcher. And he’s a good teacher. He’s actually helping me. And I’m letting him help me. I asked him to help me.
And that’s not even the worst part. He’s actually a decent human being.
Here, in his natural habitat, in the backyard of his new house with his girlfriend, Santino Acardi is not the biggest scumbag to ever walk the planet. It’s almost impossible to think that this guy—who loves joking around with Neha and making her laugh—this guy cannot be the same person who fractured Cody’s ulna with a ninety-mile-per-hour pitch. I mean, shit, man, Santino and Neha are frigging cute.
God.
Cute.
Sleeping puppies and face-planting penguins are cute. Not Santino Acardi and his girlfriend. At least, they’re not supposed to be.
He opens doors for her. He gets her lemonade when she says she’s thirsty. And she’s always going out of her way to make him laugh.
If I wasn’t so jealous of their seemingly perfect, stupid, cute relationship, I’d be absolutely disgusted.
I almost take a picture of them to send to Cody and Sara and Joey because this is an anomaly only they would understand, but then I’d have to explain why I’m witnessing this lovefest in the first place.
And when Santino’s not being one half of the perfect couple, he’s spewing out pitching tips—how to convert my underhand to a sidearm, how to control a sidearm pitch to stay in the strike zone. He even has an entire folder of sidearm pitching videos bookmarked on his computer. He shows me the footage he’s slowed down using some movie editing software. He has sidearm pitching down to a science, and he shares it all with me.
“This is the part where you’re supposed to say ‘thank you,’” Santino says as we go back inside after what seems like an entire week’s worth of pitching camp.
I don’t know if I’m ready to say “thank you” to the person who has been a pain in my best friend’s ass for the last three years, but he did genuinely help me, so I compromise and say, “Thanks,” to please him for a moment, and then I add, “for hitting Cody in the arm and causing all of this madness to happen in the first place.”
“Ah-ah. Not being an ass was part of the deal,” he says. He grabs bottles of water from the fridge for each of us.
“To be fair,” Neha says to him, “it is kind of your fault.”
“Hey, whose side are you on?” he teases.
She puts her hands up like she’s innocent. “I shall be Switzerland.” Then she mouths at me, “Your side.”
Santino shakes his head at her and says to me, “Fine, hold a grudge if you want, but I could give you some pointers for how to take advantage of the North Enders at sectionals. I’ve got a”—he pauses—“former friend on the team, and I used to watch him play a lot. I know their lineup like nobody’s business.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “And what would you like in return?”
“For you to kick their asses.”
“Really? Between us and the North Enders, you’d rather have us win? Cody Kinski’s team?”
He hesitates as he takes in my point and then nods. “Okay, fine. I really couldn’t care less who wins.” He shrugs. “I don’t want anything in return.”
“How do I know that in five years, you won’t come to me one day and be like, ‘Hey, remember that time I gave you all my pitching secrets?’ and then ask me for two hundred bucks?”
He laughs. “I’m trusting that this wasn’t all a hoax for Kinski to steal my moves next year. So you gotta trust me in return.” He chugs a fourth of his water bottle.
We’re silent for a moment, and I think this might be a truce proposition. Perhaps even an offer of, dare I say, friendship?
“By the way,” Santino says, “how did the bastard react when he found out his best friend is going to be cousins with his mortal enemy?”
I want to give him shit for calling Cody a bastard—takes one to know one, that kind of jab—but the fact Santino assumes that I’ve already told Cody the news is a sucker punch. I still haven’t told him.
And for what? I keep telling myself I don’t want to make him any more miserable. Which may or may not be what happens. But either way, Santino is going to be my cousin, and I came to him for pitching help. I mean, Cody doesn’t have a say in who I hang out with or who I ask for pitching tips, but we’re friends. I owe him my honesty. I tell him everything. Except, maybe, for how much I like to be around him and stare at his stupid, attractive face. And apparently about all the interactions I’ve had with Santino in the last week.
Perhaps, in a surprising turn of events, I am the biggest scumbag to walk the planet.
“I take it from your silence that you have not told him,” Santino says.
“Are you guys in a relationship?” Neha asks. “Romantically, I mean?”
“No,” I say. “But I have a feeling there will not be a relationship of any kind when he finds out what a traitor I am.”
Santino nods slowly, as if he’s finally understanding why I’m having trouble being nice to him.
“You know, I’m probably not as bad as he paints me out to be,” he says. As an afterthought, he adds, “And he’s probably not as bad as I paint him out to be.”
“That tends to be the way it is with people you don’t like,” Neha says.
As I talk with the two of them, calling a truce seems so simple. But it’s painful to think how it would kill Cody—and Joey and Carrot and Jiro and Sara, for that matter. I might as well stick knives in their stomachs.
“If it makes you any happier,” Santino says, leaning back in his chair, “I’m not too thrilled about the situation, either. But for different reasons than you.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugs as he spins the cap of his water bottle on the table. “How would you like it if your supposedly responsible mom got knocked up by some guy she’s only been dating for a little while? And then they decide to get hitched as soon as possible?”
Suddenly, the house isn’t big enough. What if Abram or Geanna hear him saying these things?
“You don’t want your mom to get married?” I ask, feeling like I’ve been told top secret CIA information.
“Sure. One day. But not like this.”
“Do you even like Abram?” I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
“I hardly know the guy. Sure, he’s nice, pretty chill. He knows jack shit about baseball, but he plays video games with me. He’s trying. And he makes my mom happy. He’s the only person who can get her head out of her work. But it’s real fast.”
I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with Santino. Has he told anyone else how he feels about this marriage besides Neha?
“Do you want to be an older brother?” I ask him.
Before today, the thought of anyone having Santino for an older brother would scare the hell out of me for that person. I mean, he hit a dude with a baseball. How older brotherly could he be? But after seeing Santino off the field, seeing him as an actual human being…I feel kind of bad for him.
Santino grabs Neha’s hand and absently plays with the rings on her fingers. “I don’t know. I’ll only be here for another year or so before I start college.”
“So where is your dad in all this?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Don’t really care, either. He left my mom right after I was born. Supposedly he’s married and has another family now. Doesn’t want anything to do with us. But I’m
okay with that. My mom and I have gotten along just fine without him. It actually feels weird that our family is going to be twice as big.”
Suddenly a desperate need to get out overwhelms me. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know about Santino’s past. I don’t want to see him doting on his girlfriend. All of that will make it ten times harder to tell Cody the truth.
I make up some excuse about getting home. I find Abram and Geanna to say goodbye, then Neha and Santino walk me to the car.
As I’m about to close the door, Santino says, “Listen, I might not be the most decent person on the field, but you should know that family is the most important thing to me.”
I nod then give a final wave and start the car. Family is important to me too, and that includes my sandlot family. I only wish it didn’t feel like my two families were on opposing teams. I’m a pitcher, not a referee.
10
If it hasn’t been scientifically proven that adorable puppies make everything better, then I can provide the anecdotal evidence. Something about the little fur balls makes life’s stresses seem less daunting. Maybe it’s that musky dog smell or the abundance of wagging tails. All I know is that when I get overloaded with cute, the storms inside me subside.
So when I step into Fox & Hound Rescue to pick up Sara for school, and Moose, the two-year-old border collie mix, comes out from behind the reception desk to greet me, I can’t help but smile.
“Hello, Moose,” I say, scratching behind his ears. “I heard you got up to some trouble.” I pat his head. “Go find Sara.”
This is a command he knows well. He trots off through the doorway to the back of the shelter where the kennels are.
Moose is the only dog they let run loose in the shelter. He’s Sara’s favorite. I think she wants to keep him, but her mom won’t let her because they already have three dogs.
Usually Sara’s ready to go, as she hates to be late. So when I’m still standing at the front desk five minutes later, I decide to go back and see what’s taking so long.