“We can go to the pool if you want. Or we could go to the lake.” She lowers her voice, not that there’s anyone who could possibly overhear. “I’ll go in with no clothes if you do.”
Collie glances at her, but his eyes seem flat. Any other boy would race Kat to the lake right then and there, he’d bind her to her promise and watch bug-eyed as she ran naked into the cold water. But Collie’s not any boy, and Kat can see she hasn’t managed to shock him or even to interest him. She hasn’t managed anything at all.
“I don’t think so.” Collie’s face looks different, older, somehow. and more pinched, as though her offer has disappointed him, as though disappointment is the only path he knows. “I’m going for a ride.”
Kat understands he means alone. She knows where he goes when he leaves the library; she’s followed him out to the end of King George’s Road, past the hospital, to the abandoned house she herself showed him a few summers back. People don’t come out here much, in part because the land abuts the psychiatric hospital. But anyone interested in local history knows this dilapidated house had once been the grandest in the county, with the land for miles around belonging to the Monroes, acres of Christmas apples and sugary Nonesuches and crinkly Blue Permains, pippins that are said to have skin the color of plums. But that was long ago, and none of the Monroe family remains, no matter how much acreage they owned; raccoons have taken up residence in the ruins, along with wood rats and voles. None of these creatures have frightened Collie away, however. He spends hours there, Kat knows, time he no longer wishes to spend with her. She can’t bring herself to look at him when he turns his bike toward the road. Instead, she stares straight ahead, at the dust rising when Jesse Meyers rounds third base, the first among his peers to do so. A hot breeze comes up to ruffle the leaves of the linden trees, and Kat shudders, then huddles against the fence. Some people say the dead can speak to you whenever the wind blows. Listen carefully, that’s what people say. Listen and you’ll hear everything you need to know.
Collie has hurried away without noticing that the book he filched from the library has fallen out of his shirt, tumbling onto the grass. Kat bends to retrieve it. She glances at the illustrations, then turns to the back of the book. It hasn’t been checked out for over three months. Stealing is not like Collie; it’s more the sort of thing Kat would do, so she tosses the book into the basket attached to her bike, an accessory Rosarie has always ridiculed as childish. The least she can do is take the blame for this one small act of thievery, even though she knows she’ll never be able to make up for the hurt she’s caused him.
Out in the field, Barney Stark has spied the children through the haze of floating milkweed. The sight of Collie biking away makes him feel like running to catch up so he can promise everything will turn out all right in the end. But this isn’t a promise Barney is able to make, so he stays where he is, coaching third base, exactly as he has every Saturday for the last six years. This afternoon is different, of course, for Barney is coaching alone. He knew something irrevocable had happened in that moment when Dave Meyers opened the door to his office and there Jorie was. sobbing, her hands covering her face, the sound of her wailing drawing them in, like a riptide. It was dark in the office, the shades drawn, the air murky. Ethan Ford had glanced over; his face was ashen and Barney had known what they were up against right then. Here before them stood a guilty man.
“Give me two minutes,” Barney had begged Dave, and once Dave left them alone, he’d turned to Ethan. “Don’t say anything. Do you hear me?”
Ethan shook his head. He had the clear, unworried countenance of a man who didn’t understand the measure of his own actions. “I just told Jorie. Now I want to tell you.”
“Yeah, well, don’t. Don’t say another word until you have proper counsel, because whatever you say can’t be taken back, and I don’t want to be in the position to have to testify against you.” Barney had glanced over at Jorie, whose hands still covered her eyes. “Do yourself a favor,” Barney said to his neighbor, a man he was beginning to wish he’d never met. “Keep your mouth shut.”
Ethan has always done most of the coaching, and maybe that was why the Bluebirds have headed toward a losing streak ever since his incarceration. He was a man who had infinite patience, even with players who seemed constitutionally unfit to catch a ball. He’d go over basics, again and again, without ever losing his temper like some of the coaches you saw, browbeating eleven-year-olds every time a ball was fumbled. Now they are on their own, and under Barney’s guidance, the Bluebirds are failing. A mantle of gloom hangs over the field, and some of the players haven’t attempted to catch the ball, even when a hit is headed straight toward them.
Barney’s youngest daughter, Sophie, comes running over as the sixth inning approaches. Sophie is an upbeat kid and Barney’s greatest joy, but today she seems wary and out of sorts. All the kids are in a bad humor, as a matter of fact, so at the end of the game. when they have lost and shaken the hands of their opponents, as Barney insists they do no matter how bitter their defeat, he gathers the players together in the bleachers.
“Most of you already noticed that Mr. Ford isn’t here today.” Barney says. It’s getting near supper time, but the sky is still China blue and the temperature is as hot as it was at noon. Usually when Barney calls the team together he has to hush them a couple of times, maybe even threaten to call off next week’s game until he has peace and quiet, but now they face him expectantly They look so young and confused, Barney can hardly bring himself to go on. Most have already heard bits and pieces of rumors they can make little sense of, and Barney, more than anyone, knows the gossip will only get worse. “At the moment, Mr. Ford is having some legal difficulties that make it impossible for him to coach.”
Joey Shaw raises his hand, and the sight of his earnest expression makes Barney want to turn around and jog down to the Safehouse, where, for once in his life, he might manage to get good and drunk. Instead, he nods to the boy. “Yes, Joe?”
“Will he still be our coach when he gets out of jail?”
Barney is walking the thin line between preparing these kids for the truth and protecting them, if even for one more day. Ethan Ford no longer has any chance to have bail set, let alone return to coaching Little League.
“We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we’ll just play our best.”
This answer satisfies no one, especially as the Bluebirds’ best is nothing short of disastrous, but Barney dismisses his kids, telling them they played hard and honest, which is the most anyone can ask for.
“Everyone knows he’s in jail for murder, Dad,” Sophie says as they load the equipment into the trunk of the car. “Most people think he’s innocent, but some people are waiting to hear all the facts before they make up their minds. They want to see how he pleads and what his alibi is.”
“How does everybody know this?” Barney studies his daughter. Before long, she’ll be going out on dates, and he’ll have to worry about whom she’s with on Saturday nights, the way he does with Kelly and Josie. His older girls have grown distant, more interested in their friends than in him, and he dreads the same thing happening with Sophie once she hits adolescence with full force.
“Everyone knows everything, Dad.” Sophie sighs. She looks like her mother, especially when she’s exasperated, but she has an empathy and a warmth her mother lacks, at least in relation to Barney. Sophie is one of those girls who has always seemed older than her age. Her brown hair is plaited into a single braid that falls past her waist and she has a lovely, serious face. “It’s like when Kat Williams’s father killed himself. You and Mom thought it was a big secret, but everyone knew. Even the little kids who were supposedly being shielded from the horrible news. They all knew.”
“Little kids like you?”
“Dad!”
“Sorry.” Barney opens the cooler he always brings to games and fishes out the last two root beers for them to gulp down as they watch the sky deepen into azure, then damson,
then inkberry blue.
“I’m older than you think,” Sophie says. “You should tell me when things happen to the people we know.”
Barney mulls this over while he finishes his root beer. He wonders if she’ll feel even more betrayed when she finds out he hasn’t told her the whole truth. “Okay. I’ll try not to keep you out of the loop.”
“Does that mean you’re going to tell me if he’s guilty?” It’s the question she and every other kid on the team want to ask. but Sophie is the only one with enough nerve to actually do so. Barney thinks of the way she looked when she was born, how tiny she’d been and how amazed he was that he could be party to the creation of something so perfect.
“Lawyer-client privilege.” This way he’s not lying to Sophie, at least not directly. “In other words: none of your beeswax.”
They get into the Lexus, which Sophie thinks is ostentatious, a car Barney cares about far more than he should, especially when he runs into someone from high school out in the parking lot behind the courthouse.
“Like I said. You think I’m a baby.” Sophie is huffy and refuses to talk to him as they drive home. But when they get to the house, she helps Barney unload the equipment, and they’re horsing around by the time they’re headed for the door, tossing a ball back and forth, each trying for more height with every throw, aiming for the branches of the crabapple tree they walk beneath on the way to the house.
The remains of a pizza and some salad have been left out on the kitchen counter. Barney eats standing up, bolting his food. More and more often, he finds that he feels like an intruder in his own home, and there are times when he has the sense that he’s blundered into the wrong house, that he was never meant to live in the posh neighborhood of Hillcrest, and that the life he’s been leading is an experiment of sorts. Mark Derry is still working on the bathroom, and there is a fine film of plaster dust everywhere, a small price to pay, his daughters insist, for another shower and tub. Still, the dust in the house and the pipes left on the front lawn remind Barney of the house he grew up in, a cramped ranch knocked down years ago when the county offices were built, a place he is more nostalgic for than he’d ever imagined possible.
Dana Stark comes into the kitchen when she hears the racket as Sophie takes some mugs from the cabinet, then slams the refrigerator door, having collected a bottle of root beer and a pint of vanilla ice cream so she can fix one of the brown-cow floats her father always enjoys.
“What’s happening with Ethan Ford?” Dana asks. She and Barney met in law school, and of the two, she was clearly the better student. Barney was surprised when she gave up working so soon after Kelly was born. Dana has an especially suspicious nature, which would have given her an edge had she chosen to practice law.
Barney nods to Sophie. “Don’t you want to know if we won the game?”
Dana takes one look at her daughter’s face; it’s all she needs to determine that the Bluebirds have lost. “Better luck next time, kiddo.”
“She’s psychic.” Sophie says with her mouth full. “Sees all. Knows all.”
“Chew your food,” Dana suggests. “Otherwise, I predict you’ll choke.”
“Fred Hart’s coming down from Boston in the morning. He’s taking the case,” Barney tells his wife.
When Sophie takes her dishes to the sink and is out of earshot, Dana says, “I’m glad it won’t be you. It could be a real stinking mess if he happens to be guilty.”
“I heard that.” Sophie calls. “I heard every word.”
After dinner. Barney gets back in his car, having decided to call on Jorie. But the truth is, he’s hoping he’ll run into Charlotte Kite again. Maybe if he saw her he could forget what he knows to be true about Ethan, at least for a little while. Funny how often he spies Charlotte in the neighborhood, and tonight it happens again; Charlotte is backing out of her driveway, so Barney slows to below the speed limit, then follows her car down Hilltop, through the posts that mark the entrance to the neighborhood, cruising behind her all the way across Front Street. At the stop sign on the corner of Maple and Westerly. Charlotte reaches out her window and signals for Barney to pull alongside. She has had a hellish day, first meeting with her doctor, then spending hours waiting to have her arm pricked, over and over, in the pre-surgery unit of Hamilton Hospital. She has blue circles under her eyes and her auburn hair is carelessly pulled away from her face. All the same, Barney Stark smiles when his car pulls up next to hers.
“Are you following me?” Charlotte asks him.
“I was going to see Jorie.” Barney is aware of the lump in his throat that he always feels in Charlotte’s presence. He is known throughout the Commonwealth for his oratory skills and can argue against the best of them, but whenever he sees Charlotte words escape him; he is as mute as a bear walking through the apple orchards on the outskirts of town, and just as single-minded.
“Uh-uh.” Charlotte shakes her head. “I’m going to see Jorie.”
“That goes to show you. We’re very much alike.” Barney Stark is staring at her, and he doesn’t seem the least bit concerned that he’s blocking the street, not even when a car comes up behind them. It’s Warren Peck, the bartender from the Safehouse, who is said to be as angry as he is distraught over Ethan’s arrest. Barney waves, then signals for Warren to drive around. “You’ve got plenty of room,” Barney calls.
“What do you think this is? A damn parking lot?” Warren shouts, and then he hits his horn and lets it blare until he disappears down Westerly.
“We are nothing alike,” Charlotte says through the window of her car. She thinks about the way Barney Stark used to galumph around the hallways in high school. She thinks about the moony expression he has on his face right now. They are worlds apart, that’s the truth, and they always have been, and yet whenever Charlotte sees Barney something strange happens: she finds that she says whatever comes to mind, no matter how personal. Except for her health. She’s definitely not talking about that. “I heard you refused to be Ethan’s lawyer, I thought you were his friend.”
“I don’t do criminal cases at that level. But Fred Hart from Boston is an excellent lawyer.”
“Are you saying that Ethan needs an excellent lawyer?”
Barney appraises Charlotte, fully appreciating both her insight and her common sense. “The situation will be cleared up. That’s what the law is for.”
“I thought the law was meant to punish people.”
There’s a Volkswagen honking madly behind him, and when Barney peers into the rearview mirror, he sees Grace Henley’s familiar face. Barney signals for the librarian to go around his car, but Grace is stubborn; she won’t cross over the yellow line. Instead, she continues to lean on her horn. Barney has no choice but to drive on with Grace Henley beeping at him like crazy.
“Just as well.” Charlotte tells him. “We can’t both visit Jorie at the same time without her thinking we’re ganging up on her. This time, it’s my turn to check up on things.”
“Right.” Barney feels exactly as he used to back in high school; whenever he saw Charlotte he felt elated in some odd way. Her presence made him far more aware of everything around him, and it still does. He notices the inky coloring of the darkening sky; he spies the halo around the lamp lights and the thin wafer of an ice-colored moon already rising in the sky. “You’re right,” he says, with such a strange expression on his face that Charlotte feels puzzled long after he has driven away.
“Guess who’s been following me?” Charlotte lets herself in through the back door to Jorie’s, the way she always does. “You’ll never in a million years guess who.
Jorie, who’s been loading a day’s worth of dirty plates and cups into the dishwasher, is relieved to find that someone wants to discuss a topic other than Ethan. She would hate to have to lie to Charlotte outright, but she’s not prepared to discuss the truth, not even with her dearest friend. She turns from the sink and nearly manages a smile. “Barney Stark.”
“There’s something wrong w
ith that man. He’s absolutely peculiar.” Charlotte has had a nervous stomach today, and because she’s starving she starts in on a box of wheat crackers left on the table. “He said he was coming to make sure you were all right, but I got the distinct impression that I was the one he was after. Why would he do that?”
“Barney Stark has always been after you; you just never noticed.”
Jorie turns her attention back to the dishes. She and Charlotte have been friends since nursery school, and their friendship has always been easy, but now things have changed. They’ve started to keep secrets from each other, and although they have each other’s best interests at heart, in staying clear of the truth they’ve begun to forge a long, blue hallow where before there was only candor. If Jorie could speak, she would cry out that she’s drowning in a thousand different ways, on dry land, in her own kitchen, prey to an undertow so dirty and deep she’s unable to call for help. This is her best friend at the table, the woman who knows her dreams better than she herself does. But a nightmare is a different case entirely, it’s a box of black shadows and vicious red stars, something to keep carefully closed, lest the ground below be broken in two.
“If that’s true, it just goes to show you what a fool Barney Stark is,” Charlotte says. for who but a fool would love a woman like herself? Her luck is about to take another terrible turn; she is on the edge of the terrible kingdom of illness. Charlotte’s biopsy will confirm what her doctor suspects, that the lump in her breast is malignant. Sitting in Jorie’s kitchen, Charlotte already knows this, she’s certain of it in the way people in this part of the country can tell when snow is about to fall simply by taking note of the stillness of the air, or the huddled sparrows on the lawn, or the cold blue bark of the lilacs. All the same, Charlotte keeps her secret close, a painful ember tucked beneath her skin.
“How’s Collie?” she asks. Collie was the one child whose presence on earth Charlotte did not resent while she was trying, and failing, to get pregnant.