Out of Left Field

by Kris Hui Lee

  Under the lights, his brown eyes brighten, and my own eyes start drifting, from the glint in his iris, to the nearly invisible freckles on the bridge of his nose, to his lips, down his neck, and inevitably to the muscles on his arms.

  And then to his cast.

  “True,” he says. “I would hope the girl who used to eat pickles with ice cream would not judge me for being crazy.”

  I shove him. “I was five.”

  He laughs, and we continue on our way. We talk about the most random things on our walk home—like how sea cucumbers puke up their guts as a defense mechanism against predators and how we saw a stray cat maul a bird when we were eight. We talk about unimportant things, because we’re done talking about the important things. (Or, in my case, avoiding the important things.)

  It’s easy to talk to Cody, and when we talk like this, I realize how impossible it would be to be anything more with him. However much my hormones want to touch him all over, the ease we have with each other is too much to jeopardize. It’s the age-old “dating ruins friendships” saying. But it came from somewhere—namely, the truth.

  “Hey, remember in sixth grade I made a list of my least favorite people?” he says as we turn the corner onto our street.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I found it in some old junk I was sorting through in my room. Any guesses as to who was on the top of the list?”

  “Probably me.”

  He smirks. “Yes, you were. But if it’s any consolation, I’ve decided that you’re no longer my least favorite person. Santino is.”

  My brain yells at me that this is another chance to tell Cody about the wedding. After he just said that Santino is his least favorite person? Yeah frigging right. I shove all my sensibility aside and tease, “So now I’m your second least favorite person?”

  “I suppose so,” he says with a laugh.

  We stop under a streetlamp in front of his house.

  “You know,” he says slowly, turning to face me. “You can always petition to be taken off the list.” His gaze flickers down to my lips then back to my eyes. Oh, hell. Then he nonchalantly takes a step toward me, leaving less than a foot of space between us. One corner of his lips pulls up into a seductive grin. “Like maybe over dinner after the game tomorrow?”

  Half my brain is like, Oh, dear God. Be still, my beating heart. The other half of my brain is like, The game is tomorrow?! Already?!

  I push all thoughts of baseball from my mind and focus on this moment. On how I’m pretty sure Cody just asked me out? This evening he has given me multiple opportunities to divulge my secrets. To tell him about Santino. To tell him about the way he makes the pit of my stomach flip just by looking at me. All I have to do is say okay, and at least one of those secrets goes away.

  But instead of letting myself be vulnerable, I narrow my eyes in teasing suspicion and go, “Are you asking me on a date?” It comes out jokingly, but inside my heart is pounding at the prospect of him saying yes.

  “Marnie!” he scolds playfully. “I would never do something so preposterous!”

  He delivers the line so smoothly that I can’t tell if he was joking all along or he’s hiding his disappointment at my response. But that’s all it takes for us to destroy the moment. I hate him for backing down so easily. I hate myself for making it so easy for him to back down. I hate myself for lying to him about Santino and my true feelings, for offering no useful advice to him, and for liking him when it’s so pointless and impossible.

  “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he says, holding out his fist.

  I halfheartedly return the fist bump.

  “Sleep well, so you can kick the North Enders’ asses tomorrow.”

  I nod, and he heads up his driveway without another word. I try not to watch him, his crazy-ass calf muscles, bare arms, disheveled hair, or fractured wrist. But I do anyway.

  I’m almost compelled to call out after him. To tell him I’ll take a rain check on dinner, to tell him us going on a date is not that preposterous.

  But he opens his garage door and slips underneath without a glance back at me, so I walk home. And all I can think about is how right Sara was. About how we both have two big, fat chicken hearts.

  But maybe it’s better that way. Maybe that’s how my friendship with Cody has endured the chaos for so long.

  13

  So here I am, in the girls’ locker room, half an hour before the first pitch, staring at myself in a mirror. It seems like a lifetime ago that I wore these gray softball pants and a black-and-red jersey with Corrington scrawled across the front in white and Locke printed across the back. The last time I put on this outfit, I was preparing for my softball regionals game. If I had known it would be my downfall, I would’ve faked sick and let someone else shoulder the burden of pitching. Maybe we would have won. Maybe I would still be playing softball. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like I’m about to die right now. How do I know I’m not walking into my second pitching demise? Returning from the ashes only to burn down again?

  I take a deep breath and braid back my hair. Before that last softball game, my mom braided my hair because my hands were trembling so hard. My hands are trembling now, but there’s no one here but me.

  I asked Mom this morning if she was going to come to the game.

  She was busy wearing her accountant hat, and without looking up from her desk, she said, “Mmm… I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on today.” Then she glanced up briefly. “I’m sorry.”

  I could tell she was sorry, not because she was going to miss the game, but because she knew she was disappointing me.

  “You used to come to my games,” I reminded her.

  She smiled sadly but didn’t say anything. I know there is a difference between her going to the games and liking the games. She only used to go because Dad told her she should support me. He probably never wanted me to hear him tell her that, but I heard anyway. Kids always hear things they shouldn’t. If I had to bet my measly life savings on it, I’d guess that now that I’m seventeen and get that my mom is not a sports person, she figures she doesn’t need to go. She might not care about sports, but it would still be nice for her to be proud of me. I don’t know if she is. Dad’s always been proud enough for the both of them.

  I wind the hair tie around the end of my braid once more for good measure. I take another deep breath, wishing my heart wasn’t beating a million miles an hour.

  Across the hall, the guys are gathered in the boys’ locker room. They’re waiting for me.

  As I head over for the infamous pregame speech, I’m in a dreamlike haze. My feet move on their own, carrying me down the hall. My fist knocks on the door like Chizz told me to, and when I hear someone shout, “NO ONE’S NAKED!” my hand pushes the door open, and then my feet take over again. They bring me to the bench in the center of the locker room where fourteen guys, plus Chizz, are assembled. All thirty eyes turn on me, and my eyes—braver than the rest of me—dare to meet their gazes.

  Chizz offers me a smile and then launches into the obligatory pregame pep talk, but my mind retains only arbitrary pieces: be proud that you got to the sectionals, focus hard, trust one another, and most of all, the dreaded have fun.

  Ha.

  Fun.

  Why the hell did I try out for this? Exactly what am I trying to prove here? And who exactly am I trying to prove it to? Is this an “F you” to Joey, for doubting me? To Ray, for being a complete douchebag? To Nick, for being the untouchably perfect big brother? To my mom, for my not being “girly” enough? To myself?

  Before I know it, everyone’s standing. The guys whoop loudly, practically leaping out of the locker room, getting pumped up. I’m the only one left on the bench.

  “Look alive, Marnie,” Chizz says, tapping me on the shoulder with his baseball cap before following the rest of the guys out to the field.

  I sh
ake my head to clear my thoughts. Don’t think too much, my softball coach used to say. Overthinking derails your focus.

  I get up, stretch my arms, and force myself to take one step after another until walking doesn’t feel like a struggle anymore. Outside the locker room, Cody is waiting for me.

  He looks at me expectantly.

  “No pep talks, please,” I say.

  He nods like he totally understands.

  “Yo, Marnie,” Davis says, slowing down so we can catch up. He waves a sheet of paper at me. “The lineup.” I fall into step beside him as he runs his finger down the list. “We’ve played the North Enders a lot, so I’m pretty familiar with how they bat. Their coach always puts the light batters—you know, the guys who usually only hit singles—first and then follows them with his big batters.”

  That’s a common strategy. I could have guessed that myself.

  “This guy,” Davis says, pointing at the fourth batter on the list—number twenty-eight, Harold Mathers. “He’s a doozy.”

  “Doozy?” It sounds ominous.

  “Think Ray, but on steroids.”

  My eyes widen, and I look to Cody for confirmation. He nods.

  Well, shit.

  As we approach the field, I scan the bleachers, wondering if Ray had the balls to show up despite his suspension from the team. Then I realize I don’t care and stop looking.

  Davis points to the back of the crowd. “See those four old, white dudes back there? Those are college scouts, all here to watch Mathers.”

  Damn. Four scouts for a junior at a small sort-of-out-of-the-way suburban high school. That takes some serious badass baseball skills, not unlike Cody’s. Badass baseball skills that I have to play against.

  We go into the dugout, and I stake a spot at the end of the bench, setting down my mitt and water bottle. Near the guest dugout, the North Enders team is stretching. I’ve spent a good amount of time with our baseball team, so you’d think I’d be prepared for all the buff, tough-guy looks. But when I see them all sneaking peeks at our team—or, mostly likely, me—I start freaking out again. They seem meaner. Stronger. So much testosterone should not be allowed in one place at one time.

  “Marnie.”

  I force my attention away from our rivals. Joey stands in front of me.

  “If you’ve come to give me a hard time,” I say, “can you wait until after the game is over? And if you’re going to curse me before the game starts, could you do it without me knowing? And also, in case you need a reminder, we’re on the same team.”

  I expect him to go, Ha, ha, very funny, and then proceed to give me a hard time anyway. But his face is stoic, which is highly unusual for Joey. “I just…” He starts hesitantly. I have never known Joey to be hesitant. “Have you talked to Sara?”

  Sara? Should I be concerned? Before games, Joey can talk only about baseball and only think about what’s happening on the field. That thoughts of Sara are even floating around in his brain right now is cause for suspicion.

  “I always talk to Sara,” I say.

  “I mean, did you talk to her about…a thing…?”

  “A thing…?”

  “Never mind.” He turns, but I jump in front of him.

  “What thing?” I ask.

  “The fact that you’re asking means that she didn’t talk to you about it, so…” He tries to move around me, but I step in his way again.

  “What did you do?” Memories of yesterday morning fill my mind. How Joey and Sara had made cryptic eye contact, and then he practically ran the other way.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Joey says, avoiding my scrutinizing gaze. He picks up a nearby baseball and shoves it in my hand. “You should warm up.” And then he hurries away from me.

  I look at the ball in my hand then scan the bleachers by our dugout. Sara is sitting toward the top by my dad and Nick. She waves to me and smiles so widely that I can’t imagine there’s anything bothersome on her mind. Even earlier today, when I saw her in physics, at lunch…she seemed normal.

  “Heads up, Locke!” Carrot shouts and attacks me from behind. “Don’t look so down!”

  I try shoving him away, but then he shakes my shoulders and yells, “Awaken, Beast of the Mound! Rise! Release thy fury on thine enemies!”

  Laughter rises out of me, pushing away all other thoughts.

  “Yooo,” Jiro says, pulling us into a huddle. “Look who had the balls to show up.” He points to the bleachers on the North Enders side.

  It takes me only a second to spot Santino and Neha. They catch me staring. Thank God Santino has the brains not to wave. He holds Neha’s hand down before she can give away our secret.

  “What a dick,” Carrot says, dropping his hands from my shoulders. “Injures our pitcher, still loses the game for his team, and then shows up to watch us. Bet he’s mumbling voodoo spells under his breath.”

  “Should we tell Cody?” Jiro says. “Maybe they can duke it out.”

  “Yeah,” Carrot agrees. “We all know that fight is overdue.”

  Jiro turns to me. “What say you, Marnie?”

  “I say…” What do I say? Definitely not the truth. Not right now. “I say the best way to spite him is to win this game and move onto the semifinals.”

  Jiro claps me on the back. “Well said.”

  “In the meantime,” Carrot tells me, “we better keep an extra eye on you. Can’t lose another pitcher.”

  And then, sooner than I’m ready, the ump is giving me a baseball, the first North Enders batter is approaching the base, swinging his bat in a windmill-like motion, and Davis is crouching behind home plate, his mask pulled over his face.

  A last-minute straggler from the North Enders team jogs across the infield to his dugout. He doesn’t even attempt subtlety as he stares at me while passing the pitcher’s mound. It’s a loaded stare, intimidation mixed with curiosity. I’m sure they’ve heard they’ll be facing a female pitcher, but still, I must be an anomaly to them.

  The guy continues to stare me down, and though all my instincts tell me to look away, to pretend I’m getting situated on the mound, I force my gaze to stay level with his. It’s only when he finally turns away that I see what’s printed on the back of his jersey: Mathers.

  Number twenty-eight.

  He joins his team in their dugout and starts whispering conspiratorially. Identical smirks grow on their faces as they all look at me and laugh. That can’t be good.

  Behind home plate, Davis gives me a slight reassuring nod.

  My mind races. My heart pounds. I feel like I’m about to take a math test, like I’m sitting at my desk in the back of Mrs. Hollis’s classroom, and she’s coming down the aisle with the stack of papers, dropping an exam unceremoniously on each student’s desk, getting closer and closer to me, when suddenly I can’t remember anything I’ve learned.

  The ump pulls on his mask and positions himself behind Davis. “Play ball!”

  Not even a second passes before someone shouts, “You know they have a sport like this for girls! It’s called softball!”

  The comment comes from the fan section for North Enders.

  I would not be surprised if they’re here to shout obscenities at me rather than cheer on their team.

  No matter, I tell myself.

  “Come on, Marnie!” someone cheers.

  And by someone, I mean Nick. And my dad. And Sara. They’re in the bleachers together, watching me. Even if my mom isn’t.

  Stop it, Marnie. You don’t have time to be bitter about it.

  I roll my shoulders to loosen up. First things first—block out the spectators. I focus on Davis. He’s giving me the sign for a curve ball.

  I position the ball in my hand. If I can get this ball past the first batter, maybe the rest of the inning will turn out okay.

  Deep breath. Good posture. Strong stri
de. And—

  “Ball!” the ump calls.

  Not exactly the way I hoped to get the ball past him.

  Someone from the North Enders side whistles for me.

  Ignore, ignore, ignore, I repeat.

  Davis gives me another encouraging nod, but I already want out. I want out of this game, out this responsibility, out of this pressure.

  But life only goes forward, and sometimes there’s no way out but through.

  Davis signals for a fastball.

  I throw hard. The pitch breaks down and away from the batter. He swings.

  “Strike!”

  “DAMN STRAIGHT, MOFOS!” Sara yells from the bleachers behind our dugout. Chizz throws her a chastising look because she doesn’t just say “MOFO.” She says the full thing. But he gives me a satisfied nod.

  I’ve thrown a strike on my second pitch. It’s not an out, but it must be more than the North Enders were expecting. Both the team and their fan section have gotten abnormally quiet. The batter seems perplexed.

  I’m not one to give weight to signs, but this seems like a good one.

  • • •

  By the bottom of the second inning, the score is still zero to zero. I’m on the bench next to Jiro, and we’re watching Carrot bat.

  We barely made it through the top of the second. At one point, North Enders had guys on first and third, and they almost scored, but Joey made a miraculous catch out in left field and finished the inning unscathed.

  Luckily, our team’s killer defense (and I guess the one strikeout I threw) curbed the North Ender team’s will to be antagonistic. Sure, I can feel their disapproval, but at least they’re not voicing their opinions out loud anymore.

  There’s a clink! on the field, and Carrot sprints to first, then to second. But that’s as far as he gets, because then Brayden bats our last out, and I’m back on the mound.

  I’m about to pitch to the first batter, when out of the corner of my eye, I spot Santino and Neha waving at me. It’s almost like they’re here to sabotage me, so I freak out that Cody and our entire team are going to see them and start a brawl.

  “You got this, Marnie!” This from Cody, completely unaware that right across from him on the other side of the field is his archnemesis, also cheering for me, albeit incognito.