Thrown a Curve (9 page)

I jogged out to the mound, and it became obvious that everyone knew I was a girl. The stands were crowded and noisy. So many people were squeezing onto the bleachers, I could barely see any of the silver metal showing through. As the first batter entered the box, someone from the crowd yelled, “Take the bitch deep!” In response to the profanity, a teacher ran over to the disruptive student and asked him to leave, which he didn’t.

I wasn’t offended by it, but it made me realize how ridiculous this whole thing was. I was going to pitch my game and then get out of there. Sacamore was right. Baseball was supposed to be fun, the way it was when I was little. We got older and turned
everything into these
big deals
. Why was it that the more we learned and experienced, the dumber we got?

I looked up to the bleachers and saw a few kids from my school on the visitors’ side, including Justin and my brother Danny. How’d
they
get here?

Then I realized everyone was waiting for me to pitch. I wondered how long I’d been daydreaming. I gathered up my strength and began the game by hurling the ball toward the plate.

“Strike one!” the umpire yelled.

The batter stepped out of the box and shook his head. I’d never thrown so hard in my life. I quickly wound up and delivered another pitch, a curveball.

“Strike two!” the umpire bellowed.

I lifted my hat slightly and pushed my hair back under it. I turned and threw a fastball toward the batter. He swung and popped out.

Yes! One out!

The rest of the first inning was easy enough—a fly ball and a groundout. And the next two innings went fairly easily, too. In the fourth inning, though, I walked the first two batters and was facing the clean-up hitter. I had been throwing good stuff. My pitches had been catching the outside corner of the strike zone, and many of the batters weren’t swinging, hoping for a walk. This inning, it seemed as if the umpire had turned on me. The pitches he’d called strikes before were now balls.
Hometown sexist umpire!
How was I going to get out of this? I should’ve let Sacamore call the cops on me.

The umpire called four balls in a row as the number four batter stood there, barely lifting the bat off his shoulder. “Shoot,” I mumbled to myself as I paced around the mound. “Those last two were perfect strikes.” A few boos went up from our dugout as the batter trotted to first to load the bases with only one out. Coach Perez emerged from the dugout. I thought he was coming to take me out, but instead he approached the home plate umpire.

“What was wrong with those last two?” he asked the ump.

“I call them like I see ’em, Perez. Always have.”

“Well, maybe you need to start looking closer, ’cause the girl is throwing dead-on strikes.”

“Talk to your pitcher or get back in the dugout,” the umpire said.

Perez threw his hands up and headed toward me. He put his arm on my shoulder and turned me toward the outfield. “Listen, this guy’s not going to call strikes on your curveballs, so just throw fastballs and hope the batter makes contact and grounds out.”

“But my fastball’s not going to have anything on it. He’ll crush it,” I said.

“Just force him to keep the ball on the ground. I smell double play,” he said, then jogged back to the dugout. He’d smelled right. The next batter grounded into a double play to get us out of the inning.
Yes!
I slammed my hand into my glove as I hustled off the field.
How’d you like that, stupid ump?

During the next few innings, the umpire still called a lot
of balls on me. By the end of the sixth inning, the score was 1-1. Perez took me out and put in Frank Lowell. I was annoyed—I hadn’t won or lost the game. I’d proven nothing to the team or to myself. I sat by the wall in the damp dugout and watched Frank give up two runs in the bottom of the seventh. We lost—again. I felt all alone as I boarded the bus to go back to school.

Not one person said a word to me. I sat in the front of the bus next to the cooler of Gatorade and the equipment. Coach Perez was busy with his stats book, so I just sat and stared out the window. It was pretty sad when you looked for someone who’d talk to you, and you knew the only person who would was the teacher. And he got paid.

The bus was really noisy. The guys were complimenting each other on their few hits and Rick’s stolen base. I was listening to them, but trying to act like I wasn’t, and then I felt it—something had landed in my hair. I wanted to reach back to see what it was, but I was afraid. They wanted me to grab for it. I pretended I hadn’t noticed and just sat there frozen. I felt like crying, but I sucked it up. Twenty minutes went by. I never moved.

When we reached the school parking lot, I flew off the bus as soon as the doors opened. If everyone was going to laugh at me, I didn’t want to hear it. I ducked around the side of the building and used my fingers to feel my hair.
Gum!
I yanked at it and cursed as I tore at a clump of hair. But the gum was completely stuck. Oh great, as if my hair could look any worse. Why did they hate me? I’d done my best. Why’d I have to get drunk and throw those stupid bricks? Hadn’t I suffered enough?

I snuck through the back door of the school and into the locker room. I stopped to listen for any movement. Good, no one was here. I had to get this gum out before it left a permanent knot in my hair. But it wasn’t the knot in my hair as much as the knot inside my chest that was causing tears to form in my eyes.

Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I stood over the sink to examine the damage. I remembered Justin’s mom doing something with an ice cube years ago to get gum out of his brother’s hair.
Cold water maybe?
I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water at the ends of my hair, but the gum was too far back for me to see what I was doing. As I battled with my mess, I heard a creak at the other end of the locker room. The door! Shoot, was someone in here?

“I think I left it in my locker. Just give me a sec to check,” the voice said. Someone was walking toward my end of the locker room, and the second person seemed to be holding the door open, from the look of the shadow running across the floor behind me.

I stood frozen. She was getting closer.

The footsteps stopped. “Taylor? Is that you?” I recognized Trudy’s voice.

I turned around to glance at her and tried to act normal. “Oh, hey, Trudy.”

She moved closer. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just got gum stuck in my hair. I guess it was on the back of the bus seat or something. I dunno,” I stammered.

She walked up behind me while I stared at myself in the mirror. It was so obvious I’d been bawling before she came in, but she pretended not to notice. “Ooh, that sucks. I have just the thing for that, though.”

“Trudy,” the girl at the door yelled. “You coming?”

Trudy turned toward the door and yelled, “You go ahead. I have to pee and stuff. I’ll meet you over there.”

The springs of the locker room door squeaked shut.

“Don’t move,” Trudy said. “Let me get my purse.” She hurried her short body out of the bathroom area and returned quickly with a huge bag. After rifling through the bottomless pit for a while, she pulled out a tube of gel. “This should do it,” she said, waving the tube. I was silent. I was afraid if I talked, I’d cry.

Trudy proceeded to squeeze out a huge glob of clear gel into her hand. It smelled like peaches and vanilla. Then she slathered it on the gum and smushed it all around. “Okay, hold still.” She took a big brush and ran it through my hair toward the gum. I felt it stop, and I winced as it pulled at my scalp. “Sorry,” she said sympathetically. “No pain, no gain, right?”

I forced a smile. “Go ahead,” I said softly.

There was a loud rip as she pulled the brush through my hair. She held up the brush, which had grabbed quite a bit of my hair, and more importantly, the nasty piece of chewed gum. “Got it!” she said.

I felt the back of my head. It was sore but gum-free. “Thanks,” I said, still fighting my need to cry.

“See, I’m good for something,” she said, pointing at the
brush full of gum and tangled hair.

“I’ll get you a new brush,” I offered.

“Oh, no need. I have tons.” She opened her bag to show me a massive quantity of hair products, brushes, and clips.

I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. I was glad the gum was gone, but I felt uncomfortable, thinking I had to stay and talk with Trudy when I really needed to run away and hide. I couldn’t think of anything to say. As if she could read me, she said, “Well, I have to run. I’m late.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “Thanks again.”

As she walked toward the door with her huge purse, she stopped and turned. “Hey, Taylor?”

I glanced over at her.

“I just want to say that there are a lot of jerks in the world, especially guys, but not everyone is like that.”

I felt the tears returning, and I looked down at the floor. Trudy seemed to understand what I was going through, and she kindly left the locker room so I could cry.

After what seemed like hours of isolation, I wrapped my coat around me and walked toward Justin’s house. I didn’t want to face my dad when I was in my uniform and upset like this. He’d only make me feel worse.

J
ustin’s mom was a great cook. She always made delicious food that was good for watching movies and lounging around. When I turned into Justin’s driveway, I could smell nachos and chicken wings. I tapped on the screen door to the kitchen, thinking I must’ve looked like a mess.

“Hi, Taylor. Come on in, honey,” she said as she wiped the counter. “Justin’s down in the basement, as usual.”

“Thanks, Mrs. K,” I said.

“How was the game?” she asked.

I just shrugged and said, “Okay.” I didn’t feel like getting into details.

“You look like you could use a shower and some of my super nachos.”

“Yeah, would you mind? I have my clothes and a towel and everything with me. I didn’t get a chance to shower at school.”

She shook her head. “Feel free. Go on up and get clean. I’ll tell Justin you’re here.”

Being nice obviously ran in this family. I hurried up to the bathroom and thought how glad I was I’d come over here. I felt better already.

After I showered and ate, I headed down to the basement and joined Justin. He was watching
The Matrix
for the four zillionth
time.

I didn’t feel like telling him about the gum incident. I figured it would make me feel worse to rehash the whole thing. So I just sat back and tried to enjoy myself. Justin’s basement was probably my favorite place to be.

After an hour or so, I started to become very aware that he was leaning against the same pillow I was leaning against. My arm was killing me from the game earlier, and it was propped up on the pillow so my hand was inches from his cheek. When I moved my hand, I let it brush his cheek. I don’t know why I did it.

He looked up at me and smiled. “Does your arm hurt?”

“Nah.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re a tough girl.”

“It hurts a little, but it’s fine,” I said, finally giving in to the pain. “Got any ice?”

Hopping up from the couch, he said, “I’ll bring you some of my best ice, madam!” He hurried up the basement stairs and quickly returned with two large bags of frozen peas. “Will this do?”

“Perfect. I love peas.” I secured the bags around my elbow as Justin sat back down on the couch.

“What else do you love?” he said, way too seriously.

“What do you mean?”

Justin shrugged. “I’m just breaking your chops. Watch the movie, girlie.”

I continued to stare at the side of his face. I examined the
dark shadow on his upper lip and chin. He needed a shave. I watched him tuck his longer strands of hair behind his ear and smile at the screen. Wait, what was I doing? Why did he say that? Was he hitting on me? Justin? my friend?

I reached toward his face with my good arm and touched his cheek again. This time, I let my hand linger there. Without looking at me, he laid his hand lightly on top of mine. I felt really warm and really weird. Our two hands then played a little game back and forth for a long time. I’d never felt this way before. How could touching someone’s hand feel so good? What was going on? Were we hooking up?

The peas were starting to thaw and drip all over the pillow. I took the bags off and tossed them onto the side table. Justin slowly reached for the pillow that was between us. I swallowed the thrilled lump in my throat. He was going to kiss me. What if I was bad at it? All of a sudden, all I could think about was wanting to feel his lips touch mine.

“Justin!” his mother yelled from the kitchen.

We both sat there, frozen. We smiled nervously as he tossed the pillow onto the floor. He jumped up and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face, but he kept looking straight into my eyes, prolonging that feeling I had when he was holding my hand.

“Yeah, Mom. What?” he answered.

“I’m going to the store. Could you watch your movie up here, so you can keep an eye on Karl?”

Karl was his crazy little brother.