by Carl Deuker
Around five o’clock Coach Cliff blew his whistle and we headed to the lockers. The shower area is shaped like a T. When I saw Josh at one end, I turned and went down as far as I could away from him.
I got a good shower nozzle, not one that feels like a thousand needles are pricking your body. I soaped up, closed my eyes, and let the water pour over me.
Carlos Hernandes came in about a minute later. As I was rinsing off, he asked if I knew Monica Roby.
“Sure,” I said. “Everybody knows her.”
He grinned. “Some guys stripped her yesterday up in the music portable. Word is they got her good.”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, trying to sound calm.
“My girlfriend is an office assistant. She heard Haskin talking to Monica’s parents.” He snorted. “Monica thought they were going to rape her, and maybe they were, though I can’t imagine anybody wanting to have sex with her. Anyway, my girlfriend says Monica’s so flipped out she’s not coming back to school.”
“Really,” I said.
Hernandes opened his mouth and let water fill it. Then he spit it all out. “I never liked that Monica,” he said. “She thinks she’s so great. It’s about time somebody put her in her place.”
Mike Nelson came up then. “Put who in her place?” he asked.
I didn’t stick around to hear Hernandes’s answer. I had to get away from there, away from the steam and the heat and the talk. I shut off my shower, hustled to my locker, dressed quickly, and walked straight home.
As I headed up the walkway to my house, I sensed something was different. I didn’t know what, but something. I opened the front door, and Grandpa Kevin was sitting on the sofa. He stood, a big smile on his face. “Hey, Ryan, good to see you.”
I felt a surge of joy. I stuck out my hand, but he pulled me to him and gave me a big hug. “Maybe you’re too old for hugs, but I’m not,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, once he let go.
“What am I doing here? You think my grandson is going to play for the state title and I’d miss it? And no sooner do I arrive than a lady detective comes to the door and tells us you’re a hero.”
He looked to my mother and father, who were both beaming at me. All the excitement drained out of me as my mother began speaking.
“She told us what you did. She’s coming back later to talk to you personally.” She paused. “Ryan, why didn’t you say something yesterday? Weren’t you ever going to tell us?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I muttered.
“What do you mean, there’s nothing to tell?” my father put in. “You were very brave.”
The three of them stood there gaping at me as if I was a hero. I wanted to disappear, to go back outside and not come in until it was midnight and they were asleep. I couldn’t think of one thing to say, but it seemed we were going to stand there until I came up with something. Grandpa Kevin rescued me.
“I’m hungry, Caroline,” he said. “And I bet Ryan is hungry, too. How about if we eat some of that lasagna you’ve been cooking, before the detective comes back.”
That was an awful dinner. I tried to talk baseball with Grandpa Kevin, and he tried to talk it with me. We both tried to be excited about the tournament coming up. But it was no good. Monica Roby might as well have been sitting at the table.
We were finishing our cake when the knock on the door came. “I’ll get it,” my father said excitedly. I heard him talking at the front door, heard a woman’s voice answer him.
“Ryan,” he called to me. “Can you come out here now?”
In the front room stood a young blondish woman. She looked more like a teacher than a detective. But when we shook hands, I was surprised by the strength of her grip. “I’m Detective Denise Langford,” she said.
“Ryan Ward,” I answered.
“Sit down, please,” my mother said, coming in from the kitchen. “Would you like coffee or cake or anything?”
“If you’ve got coffee made, I’ll drink it,” Detective Langford answered.
There was a little polite chitchat. I kept waiting for my parents to leave, for Grandpa Kevin to leave. I think Detective Langford was waiting for them to go. I don’t know when it hit me that they weren’t leaving, but when it did, I went cold all over.
“Well,” Detective Langford said, taking out a little yellow notebook, “shall we get started?” My mother smiled at me, and my father gave me a nod of encouragement. They were so proud they were just about bursting.
I began by telling her about my home run, and how Wilsey had said what he’d said, and how I’d gone into a little trance. Then I told the rest of it. As I spoke, she scribbled away.
“You were a good citizen,” she said when I finished. “The kind of citizen every community needs.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She made a tent with her hands and tapped her fingers together. “Now I’m going to ask you to be an even better citizen. I’m going to ask you to give me the names of the boys who attacked Miss Roby.”
I felt my palms go clammy. “I told you. I didn’t recognize them.”
She flipped through her notebook. “And I heard you. You said you didn’t recognize them when you first saw them. You said you didn’t recognize them when they ran up toward the portable. You said you didn’t recognize them when they were in the portable. You said you didn’t recognize them as they ran away.” She smiled bitingly. “In fact, you said you didn’t recognize them so many times that I’m sure you did. What do you think about that?”
My father rose out of his chair. First there was a look of shock on his face, then anger. “Wait a second here! Wait one second! Are you accusing my son of lying?”
Waves of heat were moving up and down my body.
Detective Langford kept her eyes on me. “Your son is telling the truth, but he’s not telling all of it.”
My father turned to me. “Do you know anything else, Ryan? Anything you haven’t told Detective Langford?”
I shook my head. “They were wearing masks, Dad. How could I recognize them?”
Detective Langford kept her eyes on me. “Maybe you didn’t have to recognize them,” she said.
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” my father asked.
“It means that maybe Ryan was in on it. Maybe he was the lookout but changed his mind when things got a little too rough.” She looked back to me. “Is that what happened, Ryan?”
“That’s enough!” my father said, jumping to his feet. “My boy saves a girl from maybe being raped, and you accuse him of being a criminal! I think it’s time for you to leave our house.”
Detective Langford still kept her eyes on me. “You shape your own world, young man. If you tell the truth, justice will be done. If you don’t, it won’t be.” She stood, handed me a card with her name and telephone number on it, nodded curtly to my parents, and left.
Once she was gone, my father and mother spent about fifteen minutes taking turns saying how outrageous she was to have insinuated I was a liar. “I want you to know,” my dad said, and I could see his love for me in his eyes, “I want you to know that your mother and I believe you, one hundred percent. We know you, and we know that you would never hold back the truth in a matter of importance. Never. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded. My mom hugged me then, and when I started to pull away she pulled me even tighter. Finally she let me go.
It was Grandpa Kevin’s turn. “Ryan, can you give me a hand moving my suitcase downstairs?” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I put my things in your room. If you’re going to be playing for the state tide, you’re going to need your own bed.” I put up a halfhearted argument, but I was glad to get my room back.
But that didn’t mean I was able to sleep. For the second straight night, I lay staring at the ceiling, thinking. I thought about Monica and the wolf masks and the hands grabbing and tearing at her; about my mother hugging me and my father saying ho
w much he trusted me; about Josh’s slider and what Hernandes had said in the shower. But always my mind came back to Detective Langford and one thing she had said: You shape your own world.
8
What I needed was time—time to think things through, to get a grip on what to do. But time was one thing I didn’t have. Everything was racing along, carrying me with it whether I was ready or not. The first game of the state tournament was Thursday at three o’clock in Tacoma.
There was a pep rally last period on Wednesday. The baseball team sat down on the floor of the gym while the pep team did flips and the band blared the fight song. It felt strange sitting there with everybody staring down at us. My head was pounding from the music and from lack of sleep.
Eventually Coach Wheatley walked to the microphone. “On behalf of the team,” he said, looking up into the stands, “I’d like to thank you for the support you’ve given us this year. Now it’s our turn to give something back to you.” He reached under the podium, retrieved a gleaming silver trophy and held it high above his head. He read the inscription: “Crown Hill Vikings—Metro Region Champions!”
The place went nuts. Kids stomped and screamed. Chanting started: “Take the State! Take the State! Take the State!”
Wheatley held up his hand for quiet. “I know you love us,” he joked. “But I also know you want to go home on time. So let me move on.” The place quieted, and he continued. “Individual awards don’t mean a whole heck of a lot if a team doesn’t do well, but when a team does well, then it’s a pleasure to give them out. This year it is a pleasure. The trophy for Most Valuable Player goes to . . . Josh Daniels!”
Again the gym exploded. Kids rose to their feet; they stomped; they whistled. Josh strode to the podium, shook Coach Wheatley’s hand, and took the trophy. A new chant started: “Daniels! Daniels! Daniels!” Josh thrust his trophy into the air in rhythm.
“The coaches decide the MVP award,” Wheatley went on. “But this next trophy is voted by the players. It goes to a young man who was the last player to make the team. I penciled his name in only when I’d counted the uniforms and was sure I had enough. He doesn’t have big numbers, but he’s got a big heart. Our Most Inspirational Player is Ryan Ward.”
I was so stunned that even after I heard my name I didn’t move. Garrett Curtis had to nudge me to get me up to the podium. But once Coach Wheatley put that trophy in my hand, once I grasped it tight, waves of pleasure, of excitement, rolled through my body. I looked to my teammates and they were all smiling and clapping for me. “Ward! Ward! Ward!” was the chant that was coming down from the rafters. Josh came over to me, put his arm around my shoulder, and the two of us raised our trophies into the air together.
Coach Cliff came up, put his hand out to me. “Congratulations,” he said. “Congratulations.”
Mr. Haskin took over the assembly. The baseball team moved to the first few rows of the bleachers as he read off all the other prizes and awards. Chess Club, Math Club, Cheerleaders, Choir. On and on he went. I wasn’t listening. I was holding that gleaming trophy so tightly my knuckles were white.
“Finally,” Haskin said, and when I heard that word I came back to attention, “this year, for the first time in the history of our school, a Crown Hill High student has been named the Seattle Times High School Student of the Year. Her achievement is really quite remarkable. So even though she’s not here today, let’s have a round of applause for Monica Roby.”
9
I had another bad practice that afternoon, only this time Coach Wheatley was there to notice. “Something wrong with you, Ward?” he asked after the third routine throw home skipped by me to the backstop.
“I’m okay,” I replied. “I just haven’t been sleeping.”
“Well, you look terrible and you’re playing worse. Go home and get some shuteye. I want you ready tomorrow.”
I argued, but just a little. The prospect of lying down, of actually sleeping, seemed wonderful.
I didn’t need to shower; I’d hardly worked up a sweat. I changed out of my cleats and went straight home. My parents would both be at work. I could go to my room and sleep, and not think about anything.
But I’d forgotten about Grandpa Kevin. When I opened my front door he was there, sitting in the big easy chair, reading a book. I think I startled him as much as he startled me.
“No practice?” he said, when he’d recovered himself.
“No,” I said. “I mean yes. Actually I’m not feeling real hot, so Coach sent me home.”
He smiled. “Well, that was smart of him. You don’t look one hundred percent to me either. You’re no good to the team sick.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just tired. I think I’ll try to get some shuteye.”
I crossed the room and had one foot on the staircase when his voice stopped me.
“Ryan, is there anything you want to talk about?”
My face went red. “No, nothing.”
“Because if there’s something you couldn’t tell your parents or that policewoman, you might try me. I’m not such a bad listener. And I’ve been alive a few years, too, so nothing much shocks me.”
“There’s nothing, Grandpa.”
He sort of winked at me, and I knew he knew I was lying. I felt like a little kid who’d been caught stealing quarters. “Get some sleep, then. And if you do want to talk sometime, I’ll be here.”
Upstairs in my room I dropped onto my bed, but I still couldn’t sleep. I felt like my head was going to explode. I didn’t want to have to look at anybody or talk to anybody or do anything. I wanted everything to be over with—the baseball season, the school year, everything.
My parents came home, and somehow I made it through dinner. My mother helped. She’d been to an open house up in the Highlands, the fanciest neighborhood in Seattle, and she went on and on about all the rooms and the view of the Puget Sound and the gardens.
Once dinner was over, I went back upstairs to my room. I had homework, so I unpacked my school bag. Down at the bottom I found my trophy. I held it in my hand, thinking how happy it would make my mother and father and grandfather to see it. But I couldn’t bring it down to them. I ended up shoving it into a bottom drawer under some shirts I never wear.
I sat at my desk and looked at my chemistry book for about five minutes. Then I closed it and went downstairs. My parents and Grandpa Kevin were watching television.
“I’m going to go see Josh,” I said as I pulled on my shoes. “Go over our game plan for tomorrow.”
“Don’t be out too late,” my mother said.
When Josh saw me at his front door, his body flinched. But he gave me his usual smile. “You okay?” he asked. “I was worried when I saw you leave practice. I need you tomorrow, you know.”
I shrugged. “I know. And I’ll be okay. Look, can we go someplace and talk.”
“Sure,” he said. “For a while. But I’ve got stuff to do.”
We ended up sitting on the stairs in front of the Community Center, sipping Cokes we’d bought inside the building.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I said. “Maybe you can, but I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Haskin, the police, my grandfather, my parents. I’m sick of lying to them, Josh. I can’t look anybody in the eye. I can’t even look you in the eye.”
He took a long swig of his Coke, wiped his mouth. “Listen, Ryan, I know how you feel. I’ve gone through the same thing. Haskin grilled me. The police have been over, talking to me and my mother and my old man. Even Wheatley pulled me in. But it’s over, buddy. They’re done. There’s nothing more they can say or do. It’s like I told you right at the start. They can’t prove anything.”
We both were silent as two girls walked by us, up the stairs, and into the Community Center.
“Unless somebody tells them,” I said once the girls were gone.
He smiled. “Who would tell them? I’m not going to. And—” He stopped. “You’re
not thinking of talking, are you? That’s not what this is all about, is it?”
I sucked in some air. “I don’t know, Josh. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I could see the astonishment in his face. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’re thinking of selling me out for Monica Roby?”
I felt my whole body sag. “It’s not for Monica Roby,” I said, trying to explain. “And I don’t want to sell you out. It’s . . . it’s . . .”
“It’s what?” he interrupted. “What? Tell me.”
I’d thought that talking to him would help me pull my thoughts together, but it hadn’t. “Nothing feels right anymore, Josh,” was all I could manage.
He was quiet for a long time. “Okay. I shouldn’t have done it,” he finally said. “It was stupid. I should have just left her alone. But it’s not like I really hurt her or anything. She’s still alive. She’s still winning her little prizes. Besides, it’s done and there’s no undoing it. What matters is what’s ahead of us. The games are what matter. Winning the championship is what matters. You know that.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “But that’s just it. I don’t know it. Or at least I’m not sure about it.”
“Come on, Ryan,” he said, almost pleading. “What are you talking about? We’re a team, you and me. Setting a batter up with fastballs inside, then striking him out with the slider away. I love doing that, and I want to keep doing it, all the way to the end. I can’t believe you feel any different.”
I sat thinking for a while. “I do want to keep doing it,” I said at last. “More than anything in the world.”
He stood. “Okay then. So it’s settled. We’ll just play ball like always.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get back now. But I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
He started off, but before he’d gone far I called to him. “Josh,” I said, “who was the other guy with you?”
He started to answer, then checked himself. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.” He let those words hang in the air a moment, then he walked away.