by Sara Zarr
“They say we’re attracted to people who look like us,” Megan said. “It’s science.” The waiter came over and set the pie down, with two forks. When he was gone, she continued, “Emily is cute. Though I think she’s probably gay.”
“Okay, this conversation is over. Seriously, dude.”
Megan cackled and dug into the pie. “I’m just messing with you. It’s one of the few things I miss about home.”
“Um, okay, thanks.”
She pointed her fork at him. “This pie is actually not the worst. Have some.”
He took a few bites. “Also, she’s not gay.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me. She’s like . . . I don’t know. She’s not really into guys or girls.”
“Asexual? Aromantic? Gray-asexual-nonromantic? With a thing for cousins?”
“Oh my god, please stop.”
“But giving you shit is my love language.” She took another bite. “Seriously, though, that’s cool that Emily shared that with you.”
“Yeah, and she’s kind of private about it, at least with the family, so.”
“Got it.”
He ate more of the pie. “I was thinking I should get a job.”
“Don’t sound so bummed. Working is good. I love earning my own money, even though it’s barely enough. Would it interfere with baseball, though?”
Might as well tell her. Everyone was going to figure it out anyway when they realized he hadn’t played a game in weeks. “I’m not doing baseball anymore.”
She put down her fork and pointed to her face. “My mouth is literally agape. While I’m talking. And eating. It’s a skill.”
“No one knows,” he continued. “I mean, Mom and Dad don’t. That’s how I ended up here today. I just kind of drive around during practice time. I haven’t actually quit, but I’m pretty sure I’m fired. I mean, I know I am. I just haven’t gone in to talk to Coach Ito.”
“But you’ve always had baseball. That’s you. That’s your thing.”
“Not anymore.”
“Why? Did something happen?”
“Not really.” If he went too far down this path, he might end up peeling back the lid on the whole stinking mess of everything. “I should get home.”
“Well, now I’m worried about you,” Megan said. “You love baseball.”
He did. He had. The smell of the glove, grass. The sound and feel of hitting or catching a ball. He and Coop turning a perfect double play, his body running on instinct instead of thought.
“I guess I miss it.” The confession sort of surprised him. That he said it aloud and that he felt it at all. He’d been almost successfully stifling every emotion that tried to rear its head.
“You said you haven’t really quit?”
“I’m supposed to talk to Ito. He keeps calling me.” He rubbed his face. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I’m going through a thing. It’s hard to explain. Don’t tell Mom or Dad I haven’t been going. Or Taylor or anyone.”
“Don’t worry, Taylor’s too wrapped up in her own life to pay any attention to me right now.”
Kyle rarely talked to Taylor either, unless she was right in front of his face. Not that they didn’t get along, but like Megan said, she seemed totally consumed by being at school and trying to be the best college student in the history of ever.
“And I don’t talk to Mom,” Megan added.
“Are you ever going to again?”
She dragged her fork through the last of the pie. “Someday, probably.”
“What about the farm this summer? Are you coming?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Most families have a reunion like every ten years, Kyle, not every single summer plus, like, five holidays or family events every year. I can miss some.”
“So you’ll come in ten years?”
“Sure.”
The way she said it—a throwaway, a kind of “Who cares?”—stung. Also she was so sure there’d be a family to get together within ten years. “Okay. So, thanks for bailing me out at the gas station. And for dinner.”
“I’m glad you called. You don’t have to be such a stranger.”
“Really, Megan? You’re the one who left.”
“I know. I just need a break from the whole . . .” She made circles with her hands. “Baker thing.”
“What is the whole Baker thing?”
“You know,” she said with a shrug.
“No?”
“Keeping up appearances, playing it safe, never getting too close to anything uncomfortable. Come on, Kyle.”
“Oh.” He didn’t really know what any of that meant in the context of his family, other than what was happening right now, which Megan didn’t even know about. Was he an idiot? Had he been completely misreading his life this whole time?
“I like you, though,” Megan said brightly.
“Lucky me.” He got out of the booth and zipped up his jacket.
She grabbed his wrist. “Don’t leave mad, Kyle. I’m super happy I got to see you. I’m sorry you got stranded because of Mom and Dad not dealing with their bills. You have to start making your own life so that their problems don’t drag you down, okay?”
Kyle tried to pull his wrist away gently; she squeezed harder.
“Get a job, do your own thing. Baseball or not. Actually, I think you need baseball. Can you talk to Ito? I know he’s a hardass, but I bet if you groveled, tell him you need it, he’ll give you another chance. Even if it means you’re benched for a while.”
More like the whole season, knowing Coach and knowing how badly Kyle had screwed up with the team.
“You can be happy, Kyle,” she continued. “Even if Mom and Dad aren’t.”
Did she know something he didn’t know she knew? She was swinging his arm like they were holding hands. He thought about blurting out the question, “Do you know Mom is screwing around?” He couldn’t.
“Okay,” he said. “You can let go now.”
She released him.
It didn’t look like there was anyone home when he got there, but maybe an hour later, when he was at his desk doing homework, there was a knock on the door.
“Kyle?”
His dad. He came in and sat on the bed. He had on a Baker & Najarian polo. “Can I talk to you about something real quick?”
“Is ‘no’ an option?”
“Funny. No.”
He seemed nervous. Was this it? The divorce announcement?
“There was bit of a mix-up,” he said. “At the bank, with some of our credit cards.”
Kyle’s face got hot; he had to look away. So embarrassing that this was happening again, the money thing. Only they’d never had their cards cut off before.
“So hold off on using them for a while.”
“Okay.”
He stretched one leg out, dug into his pocket. “Here’s some cash if you need it. Let me know if you need more, but maybe, you know, maybe kind of try to make it last.” He got halfway off the bed, tossed a few folded twenties on Kyle’s desk. “Until we figure out what the heck is going on at the bank.”
“I was thinking about getting a job anyway.”
“Hey, it’s not that bad. You don’t have to do that.”
“Why is it so bad to have a job? Megan has two.”
His dad looked startled at that. “You talk to Megan?”
“Sometimes. Don’t worry. Not about that.” Quality father-and-son time here. “Anyway, jobs look good on college applications.”
“What about ball?”
He shrugged. “I can fit in a day or two a week of working. Other guys do.” He didn’t actually know if this was true of anyone on the team, but it sounded plausible in theory.
It could have been Kyle’s imagination, but his dad seemed relieved. “All right, well, keep me posted.” He got up and put his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels. “Megan has two jobs now? Is she doing okay?”
“Yeah. She’s
fine.” Kyle stared down at his history book, took in a quick breath. Before he could change his mind, he asked, “Who’s the guy?”
“What?”
“Who’s the guy?” he repeated. “Mom’s . . . guy.”
His dad stopped rocking. “You don’t know him.”
How could he be sure about that? “Do you?”
“It’s not anything you have to worry about.”
“I’m not worried. I’m just asking.” He forced himself to look his dad in the face. “It’s not fair. For her to be living here like it’s not happening. For you to have to act like . . .”
Now it was his dad’s turn to get red. Kyle could see his hands in his pockets, balled into fists. “It’s between me and Mom.”
“No, it’s not!”
His father took his hands out, held them up. “I’m sorry. Honestly, when I told you, I thought she was close to leaving. Leaving us. I thought you were going to find out anyway.”
Kyle nearly flinched at the words, a painful zap to the brain. “Actually, when you told me, you said you were waiting it out. You didn’t say she was close to leaving.”
His dad rubbed his hand over his head, the way he did when he was figuring out how to tell a client about another missed deadline on a project.
“Which is it?” Kyle asked. “Which one is the lie? Or maybe I should ask . . . is anything not a lie?”
There it was, the anger that Kyle had only allowed himself to see in himself sideways so far.
“We’re not going to talk about this anymore right now. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” His father tapped the money on the desk. “Let me know if this isn’t enough.”
As soon as the door closed, Kyle said, “You suck, Dad,” hoping his dad heard him through the door.
He had unanswered texts from Emily and Nadia and Megan, and he hadn’t finished his homework. He turned off his phone, turned off the lights, and crawled into bed with his clothes on.
5
COACH ITO swam laps in the pool every morning, legendary for being there at five thirty a.m., Monday through Friday. The story was that no one in the history of his employment at the school, student or faculty, had ever gotten there before him—not even his wife, who worked there a few days a week. So Kyle knew he would be in his office in the locker room by seven, in his red windbreaker and white shorts, literally the only outfit anyone at school had seen him wear.
Kyle tapped on the office door, but Coach had already seen him through the glass. He waved him in and took off his reading glasses. No hello, no how’ve you been, just, “Okay, Baker, what’s your story? Please make it interesting.”
He hadn’t exactly thought through what to say. He knew if he obsessed about it too much beforehand, he’d never do it, because of the way Coach was looking at him right now with that skeptical and annoyed thing that was his permanent expression. Ito might have the body of a man half his age from all that swimming, but his face always said, I’m too old for this shit.
“Um, I know I’ve missed—”
“Are you really going to lurk in the doorway for this whole conversation? Sit down.”
Kyle stepped into the office and sat in the chair across from Coach, the desk between them. For a guy who kept his workout routine so tidy, his desk was a mess. There were three half-full coffee mugs, a blackening banana peel, stacks of forms, a couple of jerseys. Kyle set his backpack at his feet.
“Well, I mean, I know I’m benched for games, but—”
“Yes. And we’re doing fine without you. Ellison stepped up.”
Kyle nodded. “Yeah, that’s good.”
“That’s lucky. What if he hadn’t, Baker? What if we hadn’t had depth?”
He didn’t have an answer for that, and Ito knew it. “I was wondering,” he said, forging ahead, “if I could come back just to practice and work out?”
“You skipped over the interesting part,” Coach said. He picked up one of the mugs, looked into it, grimaced, and set it back down.
“I know I screwed up. I’m really sorry.” He tried to think of everything he was supposed to say. “I let you down, I let the team down. I didn’t show leadership, and my excuses were flimsy.”
“But what happened, Baker? In your life? In over twenty years of doing this, I’ve never had a guy with a starting position just drop out and not have a reason.”
Hell if Kyle was going to sit there and tell Coach Ito about his family falling apart. They did not have some father-son Friday Night Lights kind of relationship. He shrugged. “It’s personal, I guess.”
“That’s disappointing. And not interesting at all.” Coach rolled his chair back and put his feet up on the desk. He was wearing pool slides. His toenails were short and smooth. “I’m probably supposed to teach you a lesson. Make you run laps, be the equipment boy, scrub the locker room toilets with a toothbrush. But I don’t care. I’m not into that macho humiliation bullshit. It’s high school. Baseball is supposed to be fun. It’s a game, okay? I know I’ve got a reputation for being a son of a bitch, but that’s only when it comes to playing the game hard and winning. Because winning is more fun than losing, and I want to have fun.”
Parts of this speech were familiar, but now Kyle heard them as promising and started to get excited despite himself.
“But like you said yourself, you know you can’t play in the games. Ellison is doing great and that wouldn’t be fair to him, and I can’t send that message to the rest of the team. Not now, and not in the future and not in the past. That their showing up and my showing up and all the showing up in the history of the team doesn’t matter, and commitment is optional.”
Even though he’d known this would be the outcome, Kyle couldn’t help but be hurt as it sank in what a mess he’d made. This speech, and the shame and guilt it made him feel, was what he’d been avoiding.
He nodded. “I get it.”
“And I’m not sure what you hope to get out of working out with us for the rest of the season when no one on the team wants to see your face right now. We can’t use you at practice or scrimmage because we need to keep our game-day team warm, and you’re not on it.”
I said I get it.
“However,” Coach continued, “you can try showing up to conditioning workouts in the gym, see how that goes. And maybe you’ll be in a position to reclaim a starting spot again next year if you do me a favor.”
“Oh, yeah, anything.”
“Don’t be so sure. The district wants to implement this mentoring program with the elementary schools next year. Fifth graders.” He shuffled through papers on his desk and pulled one out, reading aloud. “They want to make ‘the transition to middle school easier.’ Not like one-on-one big-brother stuff, but bringing some high schoolers into the mix with their after-school activities. It’s all supervised. They want to try it out on a smaller scale before they make it official. I assume they thought, hey, let’s pair athletes with athletes. And nerds with nerds, I guess, down the line, but I don’t know, they only told me so much. I’m just a dumb coach, and the school district in all its wisdom didn’t ask for my advice. But of course they want me to do something. Anyway, you could go hang out with the Jackson Elementary team once a week, maybe twice. At their practices.”
“Fifth graders? They have a team?”
“Well, no, ‘team’ is the wrong word. It’s just an after-school activity for any kids who want to. My buddy Greg is a history teacher there, and he put it together.”
“So, more babysitting than coaching?” This wasn’t what Kyle wanted or expected. It sounded like a punishment to Kyle. He’d rather run laps or drag the buckets of balls out for practice every day.
“A little coaching,” Ito said. “Mentoring. Helping out. Cheering them on. These aren’t exactly elite athletes.”
“Does it pay?” Kyle asked.
Coach took his feet off the desk and leaned forward. “No, it doesn’t pay, Baker, what the hell do you think being a mentor is? You do it because it’s a good
thing to do. And as a favor to me to get you off my shit list.”
The goal here had been to put something in his life back the way it used to be, not to add a whole new thing.
“I’m taking your silence as a yes,” Coach said. “I’ll email you the details later.”
All Kyle could do was nod and say, “Can I come work out this afternoon? With the team?”
“No. We’ve been going hard and I called a rest day. Come tomorrow.”
“Yep, okay.” He got his backpack and ducked out.
“You’re welcome, Baker,” Coach called after him.
When he came out of the locker room, Nadia was waiting, leaning against the wall.
She looked extra pretty with her dark hair down and wavy, messy instead of ironed out and sleek. Either way, any way, she’d be beautiful. But today it really hit him.
“You can’t escape,” she said. “I got here early to run around the track with Hailey and saw your car.”
The first words out of his mouth were “I’m sorry.” He braced himself for what he deserved.
“Don’t look so scared, Kyle.” She put her hand on his waist, pulled it back. “I just want to know what happened. I know it’s not something I did. I know that. So what is it? What’s so awful you couldn’t talk to me?”
“It wasn’t you,” he said, wanting so bad to reach for her hand, but afraid to.
“Like, we talked every day and told each other everything for months? You told me you loved me? Then you weren’t there and there wasn’t any warning or reason or . . . You could have said, ‘Hey, I’m going through something and need some space.’ You could have said, ‘Let’s take a break.’ That would have been shitty and selfish, but you didn’t even do that.” The hallway was getting busier, people were sneaking glances at them. Nadia’s eyes remained fixed on his.
“You dodge me in class and around school like a coward. Where do you even go at lunch? Everyone’s asking me what’s up, and I have no answer. Cooper and Mateo come up to me all ‘Why is Kyle bailing on baseball?’ and I’m like, ‘Kyle bailed on baseball?’ and you don’t even . . .” Her eyes welled up. “You left me. We built this whole you-and-me thing, and then you disappeared.”