Pretend You Love Me (12 page)

She circled back around her desk and opened her top drawer. Withdrawing a glossy white folder, she said, “There’s a softball
camp this summer I’d like you to apply for. Jerry says it’s brand-new, open only
to top flight players. You get personalized instruction, a batting coach, a catching coach. It’s three weeks of intensive
training. I know you’ve been working out on your own, strength training, but at your level you need a personal trainer. You
can’t get that here.” She shook her head and added, “They expect so much of you girls these days. Small towns don’t have the
facilities or resources. But, Mike,” she looked at me hard, fixed on my face, my expressionless eyes, “this camp is doable.
The recruiters who come to observe are thick as thieves, Jerry says. You’re sure to attract attention. He says you have the
raw talent—anyone can see that—but what sets you apart are your leadership skills. He says that’s what recruiters are looking
for. And the commitment, the hunger. Do you have the hunger?”

I used to. I ate up the game. I loved the game. More than she could know. More than anyone could know.

It was quiet, still. A magpie squawked outside her window. She was waiting for an answer. “Where is it?” I asked.

“The camp? Michigan,” she said.

“Michigan!”

“It’s expensive.”

She had to be kidding. Michigan?

Dr. Kinneson handed me the folder across the desk. I made a show of opening the folder and glancing briefly at the papers
and brochures inside. Lots of words, promises, hype. No dollar amounts. “How much?” I asked.

She made this clicking sound in her mouth with her tongue, like a human calculator. “With airfare and incidentals, it runs
around three thousand dollars.”

I choked on a laugh. Pushing to my feet, I said, “Thanks, anyway, Coach.” And headed for the door.

“This is your future, Mike.” Her voice stabbing at my back. “There are scholarships for players with financial need.”

My eyes narrowed. Charity. Handouts. Help for the needy.

“Check with your mother,” Dr. Kinneson added. “See what she thinks.”

My gut twisted. My mother? Who would that be?

Jabba the Hutt was splayed along the entire breadth of the sofa with a TV tray perched between her tree trunk legs. She was
eating a Mrs. Smith’s cherry pie directly from the tin. Dr. Phil was on. All she ever watched were talk shows—Regis, Dr. Phil,
Oprah, Jerry Springer. Since she never left the house, it was her only link to reality. If you call that real.

Two years. Ma hadn’t talked to me in two years.

She didn’t acknowledge me as I crossed in front of her to head for my room. Or on the return trip to the kitchen to make myself
dinner. It’d gotten windy during practice after school. Cold. A storm blowing in. I’d snuck into Ma’s room for a pair of Dad’s
long johns, just in case I might be working in the yard out back of the Merc.

What I’d said to her that day was bad, I admit. The day of Dad’s funeral. The words were spoken aloud and I could never take
them back. Every day, every time we breathed the same air, I wished I could take them back. She acted like I blamed her for
his death. I didn’t blame her. That’s not what I said.

Darryl oozed into the kitchen. He grabbed a jar of Jif off the counter and looped a leg over his chair at the dinette. Leafing
through a new car zine, he dipped his grimy index finger into the peanut butter jar and said, “Where’ve
you
been?”

“School,” I answered. “You’ve heard of it. You learn stuff, then take that knowledge and apply it to some useful activity
in the world. It’s called work.”

He flipped a page. The peanut butter smelled good. I shoved the box of mac and cheese I was going to cook up back into the
cupboard and opened the fridge to fish around for jelly. Miracle of miracles.
Faye’s homemade jam was only half gone. I retrieved the loaf of bread and slid across from Darryl at the dinette table.

“You got a call from Charlene,” he said. He sucked peanut butter off his index finger.

“Charlene? Why would she be calling me?” Charlene was Darryl’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend, I should say, from high school.
She’d dumped Darryl for Reese Tanner right after graduation. Which was the smartest decision any girl ever made.

“She said you fixed Nel’s john so would you come look at her leaky tub. I left the message on the machine.”

Huh. I knifed out a mound of peanut butter, not being all that careful about whether I sliced off Darryl’s finger or not.

He added, “You getting back in the biz?”

That hacked me. “What biz? Oh, you mean the one you never gave a rat’s ass about so it all just dried up and dwindled away?
That biz? That the one you talking about?” My voice sounded hard, bitter. Gee, I wonder why. I slathered the PB on a slice
of bread and globbed on jelly.

Darryl said, “Look, I told him it wasn’t my gig.”

“What is your gig?” I folded the sandwich, trying to calm myself. “You don’t work.” I chomped into it. “You don’t take care
of the house. You don’t fix anything around here.” I chewed and swallowed. “What the hell do you do all day? Besides waste
gas.”

He turned a page in the magazine. With a thumbnail, he loosened the staples and carefully removed the centerfold. Which he
handed across to me.

I snatched it out of his grubby paws.

Sliding the peanut butter jar my way, he stood and dumped the zine onto the head-high stack of newspapers and magazines accumulating
near the back door. He could at least take them out to the incinerator, I thought. Or do the dishes, fix the roof, clean up
the yard. Something, anything. “You know, Dad’s survivor benefits are meant for me too. They’re not yours to blow on your
wastoid life.”

He balled a fist in my face. “What do you know about my life, Mike? You just shut the fuck up about my life.” We had a brief
staredown, then he slammed out the back door.

I heard him trip over the oil pan he’d left on the porch and curse. The pan clanked into the aluminum siding on the house.

What was his problem?

I could understand Ma’s reaction—maybe—but what happened to my brother? When did he check out? What happened to the guy who
used to let me tag along with him to the town pool every summer? The one who’d play three-around with me and Dad for hours
and hours out back so I could practice my catching and hitting. Where was the Darryl who’d fixed up that old Mustang and won
the stock car races in Goodland three years running? Or the guy who’d gotten voted homecoming king his senior year, with Charlene
his queen. He’d lettered in track. He’d set a school record for the long jump. Which I’m reminded of every day when I pass
by the office and see his trophy all lit up in the display case. Where did that Darryl go? How did he deteriorate so fast?
After Charlene ditched him… after he crashed his Mustang… after Dad died…

It was as if Darryl died too. Or went away, same as Ma. Someplace far, distant, removed. They left and they didn’t take me
with them.

A crash in the living room propelled me off my chair. Ma grunted and groaned. She sounded hurt.

I raced in there. “Ma, you okay?”

She was trying to push to her feet. Grappling with the sofa slipcover and heaving, falling back. The TV tray had tipped over
and spilled what crumbs of crust remained in the pie tin all over the floor. I reached out to give Ma a hand. She slapped
me away.

Fine, I thought. I hope you have a heart attack and die.

I hated myself for wishing that, but it seemed to be what she wanted. She finally levered herself up by swaying side to side.
She
kicked the tray across the room, then thundered down the hall. Her bedroom door whooshed shut.

If Darryl was numbing his pain with anger, Ma was medicating with food.

Anger surged up from my core. How could they? How could they let him do this? They were giving Dad exactly what he wanted—the
satisfaction of knowing we couldn’t live without him.

Not me. I could. I could live without him just fine.

I
called Charlene to see how bad her leak was. Bad, she said. I told her I could stop by either early tomorrow morning before
school, or after work tonight, around nine.

“Tonight, please,” she said, adding, “Mike, you’re an angel.”

I made a mental note: The shortest route to heaven is a plumber’s license. I wish I had one.

Junior had finished all the stocking out in the yard, so Everett put me to work at the cash register. As I was ringing up
Mrs. Ledbetter’s ten bags of Meow Mix for all her feral cat colonies, I spied Jamie rushing through the door. Was that snow
on his hair?

“Looks like we’re in for a doozie,” Miz Ledbetter said, tying a scarf on her head. “They’re forecasting at least a foot around
Sharon Springs.”

Great, I thought. That’ll screw up the softball schedule. “You want help with that?” I asked her.

“No, I’ve got it.” She rolled her cart to the front and the door opened automatically. My eyes strayed back to Jamie, who’d
made a
beeline for the candy aisle. He motioned me over. I held up an index finger. Miz Ledbetter didn’t need to strain herself loading
all that cat food into her car. That was my job.

When I got back, Jamie was ripping into a supersize Tootsie Roll. “You’re paying for that, you know.”

“ShaneandIaregoingtomeet,” he said so fast it took me a minute.

“When?”

Jamie broke off a nub of Tootsie Roll and offered it to me. I declined. He popped it into his mouth. “We haven’t set a date,
but he’s checking out fares to Wichita and Topeka. I told him try Denver, it might be cheaper. I told him I’d drive to wherever
he could fly into.”

I just looked at Jamie. “You told him you’d drive.”

Jamie ripped off another nub, ignoring me.

Jamie didn’t drive. He’d tried it once. I took him out on the farm roads so he wouldn’t kill anyone, but he said the speed
scared him. Speed? He’d only gotten it up to forty. Jamie was strictly a moocher for rides. Wait a minute…

He grinned. “Yeah, that’s where you come in.”

“No.” I snatched the Tootsie Roll from him. “I’m not chauffeuring you all over the country just so you can be some pervert’s
piece of ass.”

Jamie blinked. “Excuse me?”

Did I say that? Darryl had gotten to me. Ma too. Everyone lately. “Why don’t you ask your mom or dad to take you?”

“Well, now, there’s a good idea. I’m sure Geneviève and Hakeem would be thrilled to meet my cyber-boyfriend. Say, we could
double. The four of us could have a gay old time clubbing around Wichita.” He grabbed back the Tootsie Roll. “Honey, I don’t
want my mother or father around when I finally hook up with a guy. Know what I’m saying?”

I did. Of course I did. “What makes you think
I
want to be there?”

He gnawed off a nub. “I know you like to watch.”

I turned away.

“Come on,” he said in that whiny voice that irritates me so much. “You can be my fag hag.”

“I have a customer,” I seethed. Mr. Blaylock, from the dairy. He’d come in out of the lumberyard with a stock tag. I trailed
him to the cash register and Jamie called out, “There’s a lifetime supply of curly fries in it for you.”

After I rang up Mr. Blaylock, I sensed a presence behind me. “Why are you being such a bitch?” Jamie said. “I thought you’d
be happy for me. One of us, at least, deserves to be happy.”

I wheeled around and met his eyes. My mouth opened, then shut. I said it anyway. “We both deserve to be happy.”

A moment passed between us—an understanding, an acknowledgment. I held out my hand. “That’ll be a buck twenty-nine for the
Tootsie Roll.”

He slapped an invisible dollar bill on me and said, “Keep the change.”

When their family got too big for a trailer, the Tanners moved into one of the show homes on First Street. Show homes. Right.
None of the homes in Coalton was ever going to appear in
Architectural Digest
. Back in the sixties we had a big population boom—three whole families had migrated to town. They’d restored the most dilapidated
houses on First Street. It was front-page news. The
Tri-County Gazette
called it “the redevelopment.”