Susie, the East Valley left fielder, walked over and said, “Dios mio. There is way too much Cougar blue here today.” Susie’s dark skin and long auburn hair made her look exotic. She was kind of hot, actually, and Lisa’s gaydar went off again big time. She wasn’t sure, but thought maybe Susie was Puerto Rican or something. The “Dios mio” was a big clue. Susie looked at both Marlee and Lisa and said, “Hey, Cougars,” as if she could care less that they existed.
Lisa knew the girl was teasing and smiled at her. “Hey.”
Marlee, on the other hand, said, “Hey, Panther,” with the same indifferent tone Susie had used.
Marlee didn’t introduce Lisa to Susie and talked to Susie as if Lisa wasn’t even there. Lisa felt a stab of jealousy and was relieved when Susie ran out for her own warmup.
Jeri got back from parking the car, and they found seats on the home team side of the bleachers. The game started, and Lisa decided that she’d probably overreacted. Marlee was just being nice to the East Valley left-fielder, just like Sam had been nice to her. No big deal. Still, she had nagging doubts, especially when all attempts at conversation with Marlee during the game were futile.
The East Valley team beat Northwood easily, but unfortunately, sitting was not the same as playing, and Lisa shivered in the cold night air.
When they got back in the car, Jeri put the heater on full blast. Before heading out to Christy Loveland’s house, they drove to Stewart’s, so Jeri could get cigarettes. Once they got to Christy’s house, they had to park down the street because a kagillion cars were parked in front of the house already. Lisa had just about thawed out in Jeri’s car, but started shivering again when she got out of the car.
The Loveland’s two-story house was so big it looked like it had at least five bedrooms. Lisa couldn’t wait to get her own house with at least three upstairs bedrooms far away from the madness of the kitchen and family room. She wanted a fenced in yard for kids and pets and barbeques and everything.
Jeri knocked on the heavy oak door, but when no one answered, they let themselves in. The elegant sunken living room and framed art on the walls took Lisa’s breath away. She knew people lived in luxury like that, but she’d never seen it.
Someone yelled from another room, and Lisa followed Jeri and Marlee into a room filled with East Valley softball players gathered around a ping-pong table. The left fielder named Susie was just about to lose a ping pong game to Christy. Christy stopped the game and had them write their names on slips of paper to get in on the pingpong tournament.
They wrote their names down and sat on a bench underneath a window. Just as they sat down, Christy sent a hard smash past Susie to win the match. Looking dejected, Susie came over and sat on the floor next to Marlee. Lisa’s chest tightened when Susie oh-so-casually leaned her shoulder against Marlee’s leg. When Marlee’s name was called for the next ping-pong game, Lisa cheered inside because Susie wouldn’t be able to touch Marlee anymore.
Lisa cheered inside again when the uber-cute Sam stood up as Marlee’s opponent. Sam had changed from her red and black softball uniform into a low-cut mint green blouse and white Capri pants. Her gold necklace had some kind of charm on it which brought Lisa’s eye directly down to Sam’s generous cleavage. Lisa swallowed hard. She couldn’t take her eyes off the pretty blonde from East Valley, and when the girl pulled her hair back into a ponytail, Lisa almost whimpered because she had imagined running her fingers through it.
Lisa took a deep breath and let out a sigh. What was the matter with her? She had spent the last month or so pining for Marlee, but now Sam was stirring her up in ways that only Tara had done before.
Sam scored three quick points and practically had to show Marlee which end of the paddle to hold. Lisa laughed along with the girls from East Valley, but she also felt bad for Marlee. It was inevitable, but Marlee lost to Sam fairly quickly and sat back down next to Susie. Sam went to the white board and wrote her name in the winner’s bracket. She then pulled two more names out of the hat.
“Mary?” Sam called, and a girl with brown shoulder length hair and bangs stood up and reached for Sam’s discarded red paddle. Sam called, “Lisa?” and looked right at Lisa.
Lisa pointed to herself and asked, “Me?”
Sam nodded.
Lisa headed to the table and picked up the blue paddle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Susie and Marlee leaning close talking. Jeri and Christy got up to leave, and Lisa wondered how long Jeri and Christy had been friends.
Lisa smiled and shook hands with Mary after Sam introduced them.
“Okay, girls,” Sam said, “we play to a score of twenty-one. The winner must be ahead by two. We want a good clean fight here. No kidney punches. Okay?”
“Okay. Bring it on, Mary.” Lisa tapped the table with her paddle.
Mary served the ball, but Lisa completely missed it because she saw Susie and Marlee stand up to leave. She laughed out loud and tapped the table with her paddle. “Okay, Mary. I dare you to do that again.”
“Anytime,” Mary said with a laugh. She served the ball again, and even though Susie led Marlee out of the room, Lisa stayed focused enough to return the serve.
On the outside, Lisa played ping-pong and made it look as if she were enjoying herself with some new friends, which she kind of was, but on the inside, she was desperate to know what Marlee and Susie were doing in the other room. Maybe they were just talking about softball. Marlee was the one, after all, who had invited her to go with them to East Valley. Maybe Marlee was too shy about coming out to her. That must be it. Maybe Marlee wanted to gather up her courage, and that’s why she had left the room for a while.
Pfft, yeah, right. In some alternate universe maybe.
Lisa kept up pretty well with Mary and after a while was only losing by a score of 12-15. It was Lisa’s turn to serve, but she hesitated when she saw movement outside the window. Marlee and Susie walked together in the dark backyard.
Lisa served the ball over the net, and Mary returned it cleanly. Thinking about Marlee alone in the dark with Susie, Lisa smashed the ball over the net for a point.
“Yeah!” Lisa shouted and punched a fist in the air. The other girls cheered her impressive smash.
“Easy, there, tiger,” Mary said. “Don’t kill your first opponent. It wouldn’t look good.”
“Sorry,” Lisa said, but it had felt good. Lisa snuck another peek outside the window, a peek she instantly regretted. She watched in horror as Susie grabbed Marlee’s hand and led her across the yard behind a shed. Marlee’s betrayal was immediate and deep. White-hot anger boiled in Lisa’s gut. She tore her gaze away from the window and took a deep breath willing herself not to throw the ping-pong paddle through the window toward Marlee.
Sam put her hand on Lisa’s forearm. “Are you okay? You look like somebody just stole home plate on you.” Sam’s expression of concern made Lisa realize that she probably looked as traumatized as she felt.
Lisa laughed, even though she had nothing to laugh about. She took a deep breath and looked Sam in the eye. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Whatever.” Lisa rapped the table twice with her paddle and glared at her opponent. “Okay, Mary, bring it on.”
Chapter Four
Don’t Look Back
LISA SLID THE top drawer to her bedside stand open and pulled out her journal. The blue gel pen fell out into her lap. She picked it up and peeked at Bridget. Her little sister looked peaceful in her Dora the Explorer pajamas, her chest rising and falling slowly in sleep.
Lisa uncapped the pen and opened to the next empty page.
Friday, April 27
We lost to Clarksonville County Community College today. Geez! They are soooooooo good! I don’t know why Coach Spears wanted us to play them. I think she’s friends with the CCCC coach. My gaydar went off for their coach, but then again my gaydar goes off all the time lately. It even goes off for Coach Spears, but I’ll probably never know if she’s family or not. Maybe when I’m a real grownup, I’ll bump into Coach Spears at a gay bar in Syracuse or Montreal or somewhere. Ha! That would be hilarious. Her gray hair would fall completely out. Geez, what am I thinking? She’s too old to be clubbing!
Lisa chuckled at the thought of meeting her softball coach at a gay bar. Tara told her how she used a fake ID to get into the gay bars on Long Island, and apparently there were a lot of them on Long Island. Lisa didn’t know of any in the North Country. It wasn’t like she could use the family computer in the living room to search for one. She had no clue how to get a fake ID, either. She tapped her pen on the journal page with a frown. Even if she did figure out how to get a fake ID, she wasn’t sure she’d feel comfortable using it. She went back to her journal.
Anyway, we played a good game against CCCC, even though we lost. I saw the pitches really well today, too. Their pitcher had a really, really, really good change-up. Yeah, I struck out on it, but just the first time! She didn’t get me again. I got two singles and went two for three. Yeah, I only got up to bat three times, because nobody else could hit! Grrr! Well, Johnna and Marlee got hits at least, but I don’t want to think about Marlee right now. Jeri’s our leadoff batter, and she struck out every single time! Lead off batters are supposed to get on base! Argh! Julie struck out a couple of times, too. Julie and I are getting really good in the weight room. I’m glad she picked weight lifting for our fitness unit in PE so I wouldn’t be the only girl. All the other girls picked jazzercise or some other stupid thing, but Julie and I want to be strong. Except I think I scared her yesterday. I kind of scared myself, too, actually.
Lisa chewed on the blunt end of her gel pen remembering her stupidity in the weight lifting class the day before.
JULIE WHITE STOOD with her hands on her hips and said, “Brown Girl, you’re crazy.” Since Lisa’s last name was Brown, Julie called her ‘Brown Girl’ in fun, and since Julie’s last name was White, Lisa reciprocated by calling her ‘White Girl.’ It was their private joke with each other.
Lisa didn’t look at her friend as she put ten more pounds on each end of the bar.
“Lisa, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Julie pleaded.
“C’mon, White Girl. Are you chicken? Let’s do this before Mr. Mullins sees us.”
Julie shook her head as if she didn’t want to be part of it, but stood behind the bench by Lisa’s head. She put her hands around the heavy metal bar, without touching it, and waited. Lisa took a deep breath, and let it out. She wrapped her middle fingers around the bar a little more than shoulder width apart and then gripped it firmly with both hands. She pushed the 130 pounds up off the rack and held it with her arms extended. Holy Jesus, that’s heavy. She picked a spot on the weight room ceiling, so she’d know where to aim once she pressed the weight back up. She slowly lowered the bar to her chest.
This one’s for you, Marlee, for breaking my heart.
“Unghhh,” she grunted and pressed the weight back up slowly.
“I’m right here, Lisa.” Julie leaned over the rack, ready to grab the bar if necessary.
Lisa almost lost her concentration when she pressed the weights to their full height. It was so heavy.
“I’m right here, Lisa,” Julie said again, but Lisa barely heard her.
This next one’s for you, Susie, for stealing my girlfriend
. Lisa lowered the weight, felt it brush her chest, and pressed it back up immediately. “Unghhh!” she grunted even louder, sure she’d attract Mr. Mullins attention with that repetition.
“That’s two, Lisa,” Julie said.
Lisa lowered the bar for a third rep.
“Push it now, Brown Girl, push it!”
Lisa thought about Susie holding Marlee’s hand in the backyard and used that to fuel the third repetition. She brought the weight back down, aware that Mr. Mullins and a few of the guys in the class had surrounded her and Julie. She couldn’t stop now. She had at least one more in her.
What did you and Susie do behind that shed, Marlee?
Lisa practically threw the weights up over her head.
“Nice one, Lisa,” one of the guys in the class encouraged.
“You got one more in you, Brown Girl. C’mon,” Julie pushed.
Lisa considered racking the bar, but lowered it instead when she remembered the look on Marlee’s face after she and Susie came back into Christy’s house. It was so freakin’ obvious something had happened between them that Marlee could have been wearing a neon sign.
“Ahhh!” Lisa yelled and heaved the weights toward the ceiling. Her classmates cheered and clapped for her, but she didn’t take any satisfaction in it. She let Julie guide the weights back on the rack.
Lisa sat up, and the guys surrounding her clapped her on the back and told her how awesome she was. Weight lifters, Lisa had come to realize, were competitive, but they recognized individual accomplishment when they saw it.
“Great job, Lisa," Mr. Mullins said. “One hundred and thirty pounds. I never would have thunk it.” He shook his head and pointed to one of her classmates. “Marcus weighs one thirty. You just bench pressed Marcus.” Marcus Ranley was a sophomore whose surfer blond hair made him look more like a California beach boy than a North Country weight lifter. Mr. Mullins waited until the boys had gone back to their own workouts before saying, “Honestly, I don’t think half the boys in this school can do five reps at one thirty.”
Lisa smiled.
“But, hey, next time? Ask one of the senior guys to spot you.”
“Okay, sorry. Next time I will.”
Once Coach Mullins was out of earshot, Lisa smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Julie. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
Marcus slid back over and said, “Damn, Lisa. One thirty. That’s pretty good for a girl.”
Lisa knew by his grin that he was teasing, so she wrinkled her nose at him and scowled. “Thanks. I think.”
Marcus laughed and smiled at Julie, “How much do you bench, Julie?”
It was a little hard to tell with Julie’s dark brown skin, but Lisa was sure she was blushing. With Marcus, it was way easier, because his lily-white skin had turned red all the way to the roots of his blond hair. Lisa busied herself putting the weights back, so she could give them some privacy.