Blind Your Ponies (35 page)

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“My son of a bitchin’ father wouldn’t let me take the pickup.”

“Do you think you should play?”

Tom looked out of his thawing face at his coach. “If I don’t play, they’ll win. If I don’t play, my
dad
will win. I didn’t come through that hell out there to
lose.
”

They guided him into a lukewarm shower and gradually made it hotter. Through the remaining halftime, while Rob and Curtis went out to play in the band, Tom stood in the comforting shower, restoring the feeling in his feet and hands.

The four players started the second half with Tom still in the locker room. They held their ground for most of the third quarter, falling back only by another four points. By then Tom was dressed and ready. When
he loped out of the locker room with his J. Chisholm boots under arm, the hometown fans stood and applauded; word had spread that he had come through a blizzard. Rob noticed the commotion and saw Tom coming down the sidelines. He immediately called time out.

“Okay, we held the fort,” Sam said, “and they couldn’t burn it down. Now let’s chase them back to their ships.”

“Chase, hell,” Tom said, “let’s run them into the ground.”

“Okay, back to regular zone,” Sam said. “Be careful, Olaf, you’ve got three fouls. Have fun!”

Sam glanced at the scoreboard:
VISITORS
51,
HOME
37.

It took the rest of the quarter for Tom to recover his coordination, but he warmed up banging Reedpoint’s strong front line for rebounds. With Olaf beside him, they began to take their toll. Tom crashed the boards with such intensity that Chad Olson, the husky Reedpoint boy he propelled out of bounds, looked back in shocked surprise to see what new force had exploded into the game.

The Willow Creek boys were rejuvenated, feeding off Tom’s will and ferocity. Amos Flowers, perched in the bleachers with his hat dripping melted ice and snow, shouted hoarsely whenever Tom had the ball, to the amazement of those who knew the reclusive man. When Willow Creek caught the Pirates with little more than a minute to go, Sam dared to believe. But Olaf fouled out and Reedpoint won, making four straight free throws, 71 to 68.

T
HEY FOUND A
barn in town for the two horses. Amos Flowers had increased his mystique as a local folk hero and Coach Pickett and Miss Murphy bought Tom all he could eat at the standing-room-only Blue Willow where everyone from the game, including the Reedpoint bunch, had holed up as the blizzard raged. They scrounged up blankets and pillows around town and bedded down the opposing team and its few fans in the gym, and Truly Osborn assigned Miss Murphy to take charge and oversee the night on the hardwood.

Pete and Grandma brought Tom and a reluctant Amos home to sleep with them, and Grandma figured she’d finally solve the mystery of his celebrated hat—whether or not he took it off when he slept. After everyone was tucked in and the house was dark, Grandma crept into the front room in
her bear-paw slippers. The wind hummed outdoors, rattling window panes and eliciting creaks and groans from the walls. From the many drafts, she could smell the sweet, fresh snow. In a shadowed silhouette she could distinguish Amos, stretched out on the sofa. The rumor was true—he slept with his hat on.

T
HOUGH THE BLIZZARD
was abating, only a few of those who lived close ventured out of town for home. Sam managed to kiss Diana in the hallway outside the girls’ locker room before heading into the wind-driven snow, aching to bed down with her. He was startled at how treacherous it was for him, right in the middle of town, to trudge the two blocks to his house and then find it.

How on earth had Tom found his way for more than an hour through this assault? Better yet, how had Tom found his way for more than seventeen years through his father’s insane asylum?

The following day the little yellow bus slipped and skidded on ice-slick highways while carrying the team fifty-five miles south to Sheridan. Though the cheerleaders tried to pull enthusiasm out of the winter sky, the team traveled without much promise. They left Curtis behind, a victim of the flu, and by the time they arrived Rob wasn’t feeling too well either, though he insisted he could play.

In the shoe box of a gym that had Panther Country emblazoned across its back wall, the Broncs gave all they had. Rob had to empty his stomach halfway through the second quarter and from then on Willow Creek played four against five and the Panthers ran them into exhausted defeat. Several carloads had followed the team despite the road conditions and weather, having seen victory against Shields Valley and daring to believe it could happen again.

The highlight of the game was provided by Dean in the fourth quarter, though the game was well out of reach by then. With the manner of an unattended fire hose, Dean leaped for an errant pass and landed pell-mell on top of the scorer’s table, touching off the buzzer as though trying to end the game three minutes prematurely and stop the carnage.

During the treacherously slow drive home the mood in Rozinante was subdued, sometimes deathly silent, as each of them brooded over his or her inner thoughts. Sam knew the boys were hurting. They had played with their hearts and been thrown off the porch again. With an inner agony that devastated him, he finally gave up on his dream. They just didn’t have enough players to keep up with teams of ten and twelve. He chastised himself for even considering such expectations. This was Willow Creek. There was a difference between appearance and reality. They were 2 and 8. Incredulously, somehow, they had
won
two games!

They arrived home past midnight and when Sam saw to it that things
were put away and the building locked, he left the school and saw the Volvo was gone.

T
HROUGH THE WEEK
, Diana became a wild creature that one senses is there but can never catch sight of. Though warm and friendly when they talked briefly between classes and at practice, she disappeared into the landscape the moment Sam turned around. He knew it wasn’t coincidence. She didn’t answer her phone; she wasn’t at home the few times he drove out. When he asked her to dinner at the Blue Willow, she was going out to Ellie and Randolph Butterworth’s.

At the end of Thursday’s practice, she agreed to go for dinner and he picked her up after he’d showered at home. On the drive to Bozeman they talked basketball, seemingly a relief to both.

“You looked really down after the game Saturday,” she said, “and I’ve noticed less enthusiasm in you during practice.”

“I think I’m just tired, maybe a touch of the flu.”

“Are you giving up on the boys?” she said.

He didn’t look over at her. “I’ve learned to keep expectations down. It hurts less.”

“The boys can tell when we’re faking it.”

“Are you faking it?” he asked.

“No, I believe they can win… if we could just keep all five of them
in
a game.”

“Would you like to try Chinese?” he said, glancing at her.

“That’d be fine, but don’t change the subject. How about Harrison and Lima?”

“My head says we should beat them, but my heart…”

“Don’t give up on them, Sam. They’re so dedicated and brave. They’d follow you through a mine field.”

Her words hit him with sorrow. “Maybe that’s the only place I could lead them.” They were silent on the final fifteen miles into Bozeman.

Sam parked the Ford beside the Great China Wall Restaurant, and once at their table Diana ordered Chicken Lo Mein and a glass of Fuji plum wine. Softened by traditional Chinese music, the dining room had a faint aroma
of fresh vegetables and peanut oil. There were only a handful of patrons scattered among the tables. After appetizers of egg rolls and fried wontons, Sam went for the pizazz, ordering the Szechuen Beef Hot Plate War Bar delivered to him on a sizzling platter.

“That not only looks delicious, it sounds delicious,” she said.

Sam smiled. “Sounds like someone I know.”

“How about taste?” she said.

“When I thought of you as ‘Delicious Diana’ I had no idea how you’d taste.”

“Stir-fried. Anyway, these victory dinners are a good excuse to enjoy the local cuisine. And it’s my turn to treat. I’m a coach, too, remember.”

Sam couldn’t get used to the lady picking up the check, but that wasn’t the cause of the stressful stomach he experienced throughout the meal. After interminable small talk, he took a deep breath and stifled his terror.

“Have I done anything wrong?”

“No… why?”

“I don’t know. I get the feeling you want to… avoid me?”

She regarded him and set her chin.

“You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s too good.”

“Too good?”
Sam said.

“What if, when you were seven, you were a rather plain little girl who no one noticed? And what if one day an uncle who lived in, um, Switzerland sent you an elegant music box that played beautiful songs when you wound it up? And suddenly other kids started noticing you, hanging around, paying you a lot of attention, even though you knew it was your gorgeous music box that they wanted to play with, to wind it up, turn it on, stroke its satin-smooth surface.”

“Everyone wants to be your friend,” Sam said.

“Exactly. Well, that didn’t last long but I remembered how it felt. And then it happened again when I became sixteen. My body bloomed and that made gawkers out of boys who had never given me a second look, made tongue-tied boys who had never spoken to me. Just like with the music box, they wanted to wind it up.”

“I know exactly how they felt,” Sam said.

“I didn’t know what to do. Resent them because I knew it was only my
body they were interested in, or savor their attention, let them play, and enjoy the music with them.”

She avoided his gaze.

“And?” Sam asked, dreading her reply.

“I let them play, at first. I basked in the attention, but eventually I knew it went against something inside me. I stopped. I only dated guys I liked, guys I thought I could get serious with. And then along came Greg. We married, we were happy. Along came Jessica and for four years it was perfect. Then Jessica died and it all unraveled. We couldn’t handle it. I had failed him and he couldn’t live with it.”

“What do you mean you failed him?”

“I wasn’t the woman he thought I was.”

“How did Jessica die?”

“She… she just did.”

Diana took a drink of water and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I left San Diego. I was scared. My self-worth was shattered. I thought I’d never be loved again, though I had lots of boyfriends—no, I didn’t have boyfriends, I slept around. I wanted reassurance that I was desirable, lovable, that someone would want me. Well, After a while that old feeling came back, that it wasn’t methey wanted, only my body.”

Sam frowned, trying to blur the scenes she was describing.

The waitress, a lovely Chinese woman named Jean, interrupted. “Would you like anything more?”

Sam nodded at Diana.

“No,” Diana said, “thank you.”

The waitress smiled, left the check, and was gone.

Diana leaned toward Sam and spoke as if she were being timed.

“Well, I began to feel ugly and unclean, I stopped altogether, several years ago, fretting over the possibility of having picked up some form of VD or even AIDS, loathing myself, distrusting all men.”

“Did it work?”

“After a while. Most of those feelings went away. When I came to Willow Creek I was somewhat content with my life. I thought you were cute, absurd, straight-laced. Too serious. Dying.”

“Dying?”

“But there was something about you that was different, something good and fresh and untouched. Now that I’ve gotten to know you, seen you with the boys, now that we’ve made love, it’s too good. Those old feelings are flooding back and I’m scared. That’s why I’m pulling the Cinderella-at-midnight act. I’m afraid.”

“You’re afraid!” Sam exclaimed. “
I’m
afraid. I’ve always been afraid. I grew up being afraid. I won the grade school championship for utter fear. I was all-conference in high school. I was on the all-fear team in college. I won medals, scholarships, trophies. I have a masters in fear, a Ph.D., I won the Nobel Peace Prize for being afraid.”

By then Diana’s smile had cascaded into a belly laugh. “And you say
I’m
crazy?” she said.

“You’re the only woman I ever heard of who continues making love while her partner is ramming her Volvo down the center aisle of the local Methodist church.”

She caught her breath and leaned toward him across the table.

“I’ll tell you when I was scared, really scared. When I came to my senses I went to one of those places where you can have your blood tested anonymously. It took three days, I nearly died, imagining all kinds of symptoms, reading pamphlets, figuring the odds were stacked against me.”

“What did it show?” Sam said with growing anxiety.

“It was clean, I was clean. God, I was relieved. I thanked my lucky stars and began a do-it-yourself sex life.”

“I had to have a similar test last summer when I changed my health insurance. It came back with the rating of a celibate monk in some Tibetan monastery where it’s so cold every body part is shriveled twelve months of the year and the only thing that gets hard is the ice.”

They laughed.

Then, turning somber, she reached across the table to take his hand.

“I care for you a great deal. I’m afraid that if I fall in love with you, one day you’ll tell me you don’t love me, that I’ve failed you in some way, that I wasn’t the good person you thought. I know this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my history, but I need to work this out, so please have patience with me.”

“Patience! I’m the definition of patience. I won the grade school championship for utter patience. I was on the all-patient team in college. I won medals for patience, scholarships, trophies. I have a masters in patience, a Ph.D…”

She bridled her laughter to speak. “You’re not like any man I ever knew.”

“Did you really get a music box from Switzerland?”