Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape)

  “Crud!” Shawn yells.

  “It’s okay. Good eye! Good eye!” Em yells.

  Shawn moves back to the plate.

  I hate baseball. It’s too tense. I turn back to Andrew’s little sister. She bends her little body backwards so that her belly faces the sky and she balances on both hands and feet. I put my hand under the small of her back and try not to laugh at her T-shirt that says “Just Call Me Princess.” It’s got fudgicle stains all over it.

  “Okay Princess, rock back and forth.”

  She rocks.

  Wood hits ball. Shawn makes contact again, a real hit, not foul this time, which means Tom is coming home.

  “Okay over,” I tell her. I’m trying to hurry her up so I can look at Tom. She pushes up with her feet so that she comes back down to a standing position. It’s her first walkover ever.

  “I did it! I did it!” She bounces her cute self up and down and jumps into my arms. I hug her smiling and look just in time to see Tom cross the plate, Shawn cruising behind him. Tom pulls off his batting helmet and points at me in a totally on-purpose cheeseball way. I smile at him. He smiles back and the princess kisses my cheek. I tickle her side. She screams, all happy.

  Em takes a picture of us. She takes a picture of Shawn and in that moment he looks so happy, but the picture is a lie, really. The picture just shows the surface of things, just one layer of what’s happening, not all the truths, all the scariness underneath. It’s like a bad movie that just shows two people falling in love, but not all the consequences underneath. Instead of showing all their wants, all their problems, it just skims the surface, simplifying everything. It’s really a lie.

  I give up and just say it to Em, risk her being pissed at me. “Em. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be all brave and pretend like nothing is going on.”

  She glares at me. “Yes, I do.”

  And then she turns away.

  The princess is still so excited she’s jumping up and down on her bare feet and she says, “Let’s do it one more time.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Why don’t we?”

  It’s the top of the seventh and the other team is hitting and I have a hard time staying focused, as much as I want to. I am not a baseball person. I never played except in P.E. Why? Well, I stink. But it’s also because I could never handle the tension of everyone watching you, waiting to see you drop the ball, miss the pitch, foul up. Baseball fans want so badly for you to win, but you can’t win all the time and that’s a lot of pressure. I am not into pressure.

  I am not a lot of things.

  This calls for a list, I think. So, I make one up in my head. I have a thing for lists; they give me a little order. I was one of those kids who had crumpled-up homework, smooshed into their books. I was always losing things, forgetting things. I was smart and everything, but disorganized.

  Now, I try to organize everything. It’s probably overcompensating, but I don’t care.

  Things I Am Not

  I am not a baseball fan because it is too hard to be a baseball fan with all the tension and stuff. Plus, baseball games take forever, especially if they go into extra innings, which is what happens when there is a tie. Although, to be fair, if a guy has a good gluteus maximus, those extra innings can fly by because baseball uniforms are good at defining the male figure.

  I am not popular in the POPULAR way, which is that skanky, snarky evil way where people are popular only because they:Drink a lot.

  Are evil to everyone else, so you have to be nice to them and vote for them for MOST POPULAR or MOST SPIRITED or whatever, because if you don’t they’ll start talking trash about you and say things like:

  “You take laxatives.”

  “You’re mother spreads her legs for all the guys on her bowling team.”

  “You’re a slut.”

  I am not a person who can drink caffeine or have aspartame without having seizures.

  I am not anonymous, but I would like to be because being famous is too easy. And according to all the surveys, everyone wants to be famous, instantly famous. In a little town like this everybody’s famous and everyone’s paparazzi. It’s anonymity that takes work.

  I am not pregnant.

  This list is so stupid.

  Em nudges me and I clap because Tom has caught some ball and a guy from the other side is automatically out.

  “That Tommy’s a good player, Bellie,” this crazy lady, who is always trying to convert everyone to her religion yells at me. She winks, and smooths her long, black dress underneath her as she sits down. “That’s what happens when you have God in your heart.”

  I cough. “Yep.”

  Em stashes her Cosmo (TEN HOT TIPS TO MAKE YOUR MAN HOT AND HORNY RIGHT NOW) back in her bag before we get a lecture about Satan and sinners and all that good stuff, which is as American as a baseball game.

  Even at a baseball game against the Sumner Tigers (a regional high school from three towns over) you know pretty much everybody. You know the crazy ladies. You know the sunglasses girls like Mimi who all stretch out in their almost-too-short shorts and spaghetti-strap shirts trying to get a tan and impress each other’s boyfriends. They snap their gum and rate each other in their heads (fat ass, her left boob’s too big, look her nips stick out way too much) and rate other people out loud.

  “Look at her butt in those pants. Those are so Goodwill.”

  They take off their sandals so their feet are bare and they make sticky pink bubbles and blow them up big until they touch everybody around them.

  Em and I do not sit close to them.

  Mimi whistles and yells, “Way to go, Tommy.”

  Em stands up like she’s going to smack Mimi.

  I grab her by the arm and keep her close.

  “She called him Tommy,” she says.

  “She’s an idiot.”

  Tom looks up from the base and waves. At her. At Mimi.

  “He waved at her!” I shout.

  People look. Mimi looks. She smiles.

  Em bites her lip and then says, “Maybe he thought she was you.”

  “What?”

  “No. No. No. You don’t look alike. You might sound alike though, and … ”

  “We sound alike!”

  Em gets frantic. She reaches out with her hand and presses my jaw up. “Close your mouth. It’s nothing. Okay? It’s nothing. You do not sound alike.”

  My mouth pops open again. “I should have yelled his name.”

  “You weren’t paying attention.”

  That’s the problem.

  “A good girlfriend would be paying attention,” I moan.

  “So, you’re not perfect.”

  “Why aren’t I paying attention?”

  She lifts her shoulders up. “You’re too busy obsessing about me.”

  The sunglasses girls start giggling and they all yell in unison, “We love you, Tommy.”

  “I’m going to be sick,” I tell Em, rocking forward a little.

  “Ignore them,” she orders.

  “Okay.”

  I snatch a glimpse. Mimi’s tugging her cami down a little lower. Then Brittney points at her stomach. Other people gasp. Everyone on the bleachers stares at me.

  “Ignore them,” Em repeats.

  “Okay … Okay. I am ignoring.”

  I look away. It’s not just those girls who are here. There’s the kid brothers watching the game, dreaming of being varsity some day, trying not to look at the bubble-gum girls. They race after the fly balls, diving into the woods. They hunker down and spit their own sunflower seeds. They go out by the church next door and play their own pick-up game. Can I focus on them? No. I focus on Mimi. Something horrible knots inside my stomach.

  Even though Tom’s not actual
ly doing any baseball-related amazing thing right this second I yell, “Way to go, Fascist!”

  There’s no way he can’t know that’s me. He smiles and his dimples show. He nods at me. The muscle in his cheek twitches. I can tell. Even from here.

  “You’re biting your lip,” Em says.

  “Oh.”

  “You’re drooling again.”

  How can I be drooling now with everything that’s happening? Is it because I’m a pretender too? I punch her. “Shut up.”

  I try not to focus on Tom or on Mimi and her posse, which is spreading the Belle-is-pregnant rumor right now, I’m sure. I sniff in. There’s the sugar soda smells of Mrs. Darrow, who doesn’t have any kids but feeds us all anyway. Her cooler is like a fridge and before every game Tom and Shawn help her haul it over to her place almost exactly behind the plate. Somebody’s dad always puts out her chair for her, takes her hand, and lowers her down and she always smiles, smiles, smiles at them like they are the angels, when she’s really the special one.

  She gives the princess that is Andrew’s sister and the other tiny kids frozen fudge bars. She gives Em and me cookies and water. She clucks her teeth at Mimi and the tan girls and when one of them opens up a Cosmo she whispers, “Why can’t they even pretend to watch the game?”

  “Because they are idiots,” Em says.

  Idiots like me.

  Mrs. Darrow laughs and then says to me, all whisper-serious, “Don’t you worry about your Tommy, Belle.”

  She touches her chest and adds, “His heart is true.”

  Em and I give each other looks. Em’s look says, See.

  “Mrs. Darrow,” I say, thinking about Eddie and his dad. “Did you hear anything funny Sunday night?”

  “Sunday night?”

  “Yeah.”

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  On the two-lane road we call a highway just beyond the field, logging trucks, SUVs motor on by pretty slow because even though the drivers have places to go, they’d rather be here with us, checking out the game. I’d trade places in a second. These people will be shocked by Em’s secret and then they’ll take care of her. They will. That’s what we do here.

  I hug my knees to my chest and then let go and grab Em and hug her instead. “I love it here.”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy.

  I say it again. “I love Eastbrook.”

  “O-kay,” she says and touches my forehead. “Are you on something?”

  I shrug. “It’s all going to be over soon.”

  “Because of me?” she picks a piece of grass out of the world, shreds it in two.

  “Yeah and because we’re seniors.”

  She nods and watches as Sumner’s Blake Crowley gets called out at the plate. “Yeah.”

  The severed grass blade falls from her fingers.

  “I thought you wanted out of here. I thought you were tired of being stuck.” She takes a cookie from Mrs. Darrow, breaks it in two, rests part on her knee, offers me half. She smells like suntan lotion and long, sunny days that are almost here, and that makes me smile. She breaks her half of the cookie again and inspects it before she eats it. She always does that, just stares at her food, looking for bugs or mold or something.

  Finally I say, “I do, but I don’t. How about you?”

  “Not now, Belle. Now I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  Her fake-happy face cracks and she wants so hard to keep it strong.

  So, I say, “Our white-boy baseball team looks like it’s going to win another game.”

  Her lip quivers. “Yep.”

  I try again and whisper-ask, “Do you think having sex with a straight guy is different than having sex with a gay guy?”

  Em loses some cookie. “Where did that come from?”

  I pluck a cookie piece out of the grass. “I don’t know.”

  Em thinks about it. “Maybe. I mean, the mechanics of it are going to be basically the same. The feeling underneath it might be different. But … um … is it different having sex with different guys anyway? I mean, it can be different with the same guy. But I don’t know if the difference will be a straight guy versus a gay guy difference or just an ‘it’s a different guy’ difference. Did that make sense?”

  “No.”

  She snorts.

  My guitar waits for me to strum her, make her sing out something that’s trying to be true. Em turns the picked-up cookie piece over in her hands. Once, twice, another turn in her fingers and she eats it.

  My half sits on top of Gabriel’s gig case, untouched. I feel bad for it.

  “You and me, baby,” I tell it, and then I chomp it down.

  Mimi starts her super giggling again. “Let’s chant his name. Okay?”

  The suntan girls start chanting, “Tom-my. Tom-my. Tom-my.”

  “Oh, he’s going to hate that,” Emmie says.

  I grab her hand. “I promise you everything will be okay.”

  “Belle, you can’t promise that.”

  When Tom drives me home, it feels like everybody in the whole universe knows that tonight is the night. Well, at least all those people who don’t already think I’m pregnant, thanks to Mimi and Mr. Dow. Poor Mr. Dow.

  Brent, this guy who works at the Y helping out with soccer and Little League sees us in the parking lot post-game and goes, “You gonna be okay without your mom home, there, Belle?

  I nod and grab Tom’s arm, which is warm from the game. Brent is one of those men who wear sweatshirts with the arms ripped off and although he’s big, he doesn’t exactly have muscle tone. This is a style that should be buried, but Brent is nice enough. He leans with his elbows over the back of his truck. It’s all dinged on the sides.

  “How’d you know my mom was gone, Brent?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Everybody around here knows everything. It’s Eastbrook, remember?”

  Tom smirks. “Oh, yeah, we remember.”

  Brent winks at Tom and says, “Well then, have fun tonight. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  This is slimy because despite his unfortunate taste in shirts and overall lack of muscle tone, Brent is pretty well known for taking advantage of many a soccer mom who’s been feeling underappreciated.

  I shudder as we walk across the cooling air of the parking lot.

  Tom bends down so his lips are near my ear and whispers, “In ten minutes we’ll be at your house and it’ll be just you and me. Nobody else. Okay Commie?”

  More than okay. But worries of Shawn and Em and Eddie all swirl around my head. I’m not sure we’re really going to be alone, not if my head has anything to do with it.

  We’ve parked Tom’s truck at the end of the cul-de-sac at the end of a dirt logging road so nobody talks about how it’s at my house all night long. Elbow. Elbow. Wink. Wink.

  “Food first or not?” Tom asks me. We’re barely in the door, but we’re already kissing. Tom kicks the door shut with his foot. Muffin prances down the stairs and then sniffs the air like we’ve brought a dog in the house and she promptly turns around, showing us her little kitty bum before she screeches back up the stairs and around the corner.

  “I think she knows something is up,” I murmur next to Tom’s shirt.

  “Something is definitely up.”

  “Ugh,” I say. “Total slime ball thing to say.”

  He backs away. His lips look wet. He raises his hands, leans his shoulders against the wall and grabs me by the sides of my hips, so that our hips are still connected, very connected, but not connected enough. “Yeah, but it’s true.”

  “Food after then,” I say.

  He presses his hips into me just a little bit more. Then, even with everything about Em, it just happens. It’s hard to think you could ever physically long for a person more than I
long for him right this second. In fact, even though long is an old-fashioned word, it doesn’t work here. Yearn? Maybe yearn.

  “I think I should make a list,” I tell him.

  “A new list?”

  “Yeah, of words that describe how my body feels right now.”

  “Really?” He shifts his center of balance a little and the movement comes to his hips and then translates onto mine.

  “There’s the obvious ones … want, need, long for, and yearn, desire … ” I say, “but they aren’t good enough. I bet Germans have a word for it. Like BodyNeed or AllMoleculeCrave or something.”

  “Commie, you’re crazy.” He shakes his head, pulls his body straight again so our chests gesture against each other. His heart beats below ribs that touch my ribs, which cover my heart. Oh God.

  “We could ask Herr Reitz,” he says. “Want to give him a call?”

  I pretend that I’m going to slug him. He grabs my hand and kisses it, one knuckle at a time. Then I catch his hand in my free one, clutch it and whisper my craving, “Please, Tom. Please.”

  Somehow we make it up the stairs and into my bedroom. I think Tom sort of carries me up, but I’m not sure. His lips are the only thing I really know. His hands against my back, in my hair, on my butt, are the only things I really feel. In my bedroom, I yank off my shirt and start in on his. He laughs because I’m so pushy and since we’re still standing up, we’re kind of off-balance.

  “Belle … ” his voice comes out deep and full of things, promises and emotion and the same craving I have.

  I get his stupid sleeve stuck in his watch.

  “I stink at this,” I say. I wonder if Emmie and Shawn ever had stuff like this happen to them.

  Tom fixes it, untangles himself and cups my chin in his hand. His hand is so steady.

  “No. No, you don’t.”

  My hands slide into the side of his jeans, land in between the hard denim and the soft cotton fabric of his boxers. I move my thumbs just a little and he moans.

  His hands clutch at me hard for a second and then soften, like he’s figuring out how to control himself. “God, Belle. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?”