"I'm listening." My voice cracked. It hadn't done that in months.
George's hands were clenching and unclenching in time with each other. His eyes were narrow and red. "I can't believe what you did to me. You ruined my life. Do you even know that?"
I flickered again. Eve's leg, cocked—
"Answer me!" George took a step closer to me, and even though I had a baseball bat, I was suddenly terrified. He seemed like a giant, so much taller than me. All I could think of was the Xbox games we'd played together. I was seized by a vast, almost uncontrollable urge to ask him whether he'd ever beaten the game with the dinosaurs.
"Say something! You fucking ruined my life! Why did you do that? Why did you have to do that?" A tear slipped down his cheek.
"I'm sorry," I said. My voice shook and cracked again.
"Sorry?" he exploded. "Sorry?"
I flickered. I was in Eve's bed for a single, glorious instant.
And then the baseball bat was in the air, jerked from my grasp, spinning as it tumbled, then dropped to the ground ten feet away. I watched it land.
And George started hitting me.
He was taller than I was. Stronger. He wasn't in good shape—all those days and nights of video games and nothing else—but he was a man and I was a boy. I tried to protect myself, throwing my hands up between us, trying to block his blows. He backed me up against the tree—my head smacked into it, hard, and the next thing I knew I was down on the ground and George was crouched over me, his face a twisted mask of rage, pounding me again and again and again.
I imagine that he could have beat me to death right there under the cherry tree in my own backyard if only he could have managed to keep his mouth shut.
But instead, he couldn't seem to stop screaming, bawling at the top of his lungs, as if it wasn't enough to hurt me with his fists—he had to batter my mind with words, too. "You little fucking perv! This is your fault! You ruined my marriage! You fucking piece of shit!"
I heard something above his cries. One of my eyes was already swelling shut, but through the other I could see Dad only a few yards away, the back door standing open. He must have heard the commotion from inside.
I wanted to yell out, Dad! Help!, but I couldn't catch my breath. Dad stood there for a second, frozen, as George kept hitting me, popping my nose. Blood ran down my face.
And then Dad finally moved, tackling George off me. They struggled together as I lay no more than a foot away, dazed, battered, staring up at the darkening sky through the branches of the cherry tree. George's words rang in my ears, echoing over and over. Your fault. Fucking perv. Piece of shit.
Mom was there suddenly. "I called the police!" she yelled. "I already called 911!"
George and Dad stopped wrestling. Dad got up first, watching George carefully as he used the tree to support his way to his feet. Mom came over to me, cradling my head in her lap. "Oh, God. Oh, Josh, don't worry. They're sending an ambulance, too. Don't worry. They're coming."
My nose was bleeding. My mouth was bleeding. Both eyes felt puffy and swollen. My stomach and chest ached.
George heaved his breath, glaring at me from under the tree. Dad stepped closer to me.
"You maniac!" Mom yelled, holding me tighter. "You're an adult! He's just a child!"
George's fists tightened again. Dad took a step closer. I thought it was all going to kick off one more time.
"He fucked my wife!" George wailed. "He ruined my life!"
"Your wife was a goddamn whore!" Mom screamed, and to this day, the most shocking thing about that evening to me was hearing my mother say such a thing in my presence. "You should be beating up your wife, not my son! He's a child! She abused him! He's innocent! "
George stared at her like she'd just told him the earth is flat and she had proof. "Oh, really?" he said. "Is that what you think? Really?" He reached into his pocket. Mom shrieked and Dad jerked forward.
But he wasn't pulling a gun out of his pocket. It was a cell phone.
I recognized it. My parents couldn't, but I did. It was Eve's.
George flipped it open and dialed a number, then pressed another key to turn on the speakerphone. We all heard a voice start to ask for a password. George interrupted it by punching in the number.
A second later, my voice came out of the cell phone, loud and clear:
"Hi, it's Josh." Mom looked down at me in shock. "I can't wait for two Saturdays from now," I went on from the past.
After a brief pause, my voice continued: "I love you."
Those words. The words on Eve's card. The words I spoke to her on the phone. The words my mother said I couldn't understand.
"Innocent, huh?" George said, and cried like a baby.
A second later, sirens sounded in the air.
I made my third return to school a couple of days later, owner of a puffy lip, a swollen jaw, and a black eye. Two fingers on my left hand were broken—I wouldn't be playing baseball for a while.
No one knew what to make of me, and I didn't blame anybody. I didn't know what to make of me.
Dr. Kennedy told me over and over that the fight was George's fault.
I knew that.
He told me George was angry at Eve and taking it out on me.
I knew that, too.
Mom and Dad told me the same things. So did the school guidance counselor and the school district psychologist they sent to talk to me.
I knew all of it. I was tired of hearing it.
One thing they never told me, though ...
No one ever said, He was wrong, Josh. You're not a little fucking perv.
Other than Zik, no one talked to me. If someone brushed up against me or bumped into me, I would just glare murder until I got an apology.
And that was it. Because I didn't want to be fucked with anymore. From then on, everyone was just better off pretending I didn't exist.
Fielder's Choice
Chapter 19
Three Thousand
I wake up to confusion—the bed's strange and thin, and there's someone next to me.
It takes a second for it all to click: the hotel. Rachel.
Rachel sits up next to me, pulling the open ends of her top together with one hand, whether from sudden modesty or simple reflex I can't say.
In fact, I can't say much of anything. I don't know what to say to her. I can barely look at her. I'm a eunuch in bed with a woman.
No, I'm worse than a eunuch. Eunuchs have an excuse for not performing. I don't.
"Morning," she says, using her free hand to pat down her hair, which is sticking up in every direction.
"I guess I'll, uh, get a shower..."
She's just about off the bed when Zik bursts through the door from the bedroom in his boxer shorts, shouting, "Firsties!" as he dashes into the bathroom.
Michelle sweeps into the room in satin pajamas and a matching robe, elegant and sexy, her makeup perfect, as if she didn't just spend the night as a willing victim of the Zik-love.
She flounces down on the bed next to Rachel, noting the unbuttoned top. "So, how'd it go last night?" It's like I'm not even here.
How did it go last night? I can think of plenty of ways to describe it: Pathetic. Embarrassing. Mortifying. Uneventful. Or: I don't know, Michelle, what's the word for holding your boyfriend on prom night while he practically cries over his last fling?
"It was great," Rachel says, saving my sanity and the remaining tatters of my reputation in one fell swoop. I'm sure she'll give Michelle the real scoop once I'm not around.
Rachel and I get dropped off at my house, where her car awaits. She hugs me, but it's strained. I want so badly to kiss her, but I don't think I'm allowed. I don't know. I settle for the hug and then, unable to resist, I kiss her on the cheek.
"Thanks for listening," I tell her, because there's nothing else to say, at least not while Zik and Michelle are still around.
"We have a lot to talk about," she says, and then has to leave for an afternoon shift at the Narc.
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Yeah. Yeah, we do.
Mom's car is missing. It's too early for her to be out shopping, and even my mom doesn't work on Sundays. She must have stayed out all night with her girlfriends.
The digital camera is sitting on the kitchen table. I flick it on and scroll through the pictures of Rachel and me. Smiling. God, I'm actually smiling, and it doesn't seem forced or fake! How could I have felt so good? Didn't I know what was coming?
Unreal. I'm feeling nostalgic for something that happened less than twenty-four hours ago. This has got to be a record.
Rachel's season is over, so she comes to practice Monday to watch Zik and me get ready for the Heat. She sits in the stands with Michelle and the two of them shout out obscene versions of our cheerleaders' usual chants, much to the amusement of the team. coach, who probably lusts after Michelle as much as any other red-blooded American male, pretends he can't understand what they're saying.
Rachel and I still haven't talked since yesterday. I don't know what I would say.
"You gonna be ready, Mendel?" Coach asks me every three point two seconds.
"Yeah, Coach. I'm gonna be ready."
"I don't care about going to State," he reminds me. "I don't care about winning the championship. All I care about is that scout in the crowd on Wednesday, you got it?"
"Can you go over it one more time, Coach? I think somewhere between the fifth and sixth hundredth time you mentioned it, I got confused."
Coach turns purple. "Get your ass out there and do ten laps on the field, Mendel. You need it."
I shrug and do the laps. Michelle and Rachel cheer my laps as if I were a long-distance Olympic runner.
My laps keep me on the field longer than everyone else, so by the time I hit the locker room, everyone else is already out of the showers. Zik sees me and hoots and claps his hands until everyone's quiet.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he shouts. "May I introduce to you the savior of the South Brook High Bobcats, the man who will put the Heat on ice, the man who will put Brookdale on the map..."
"Christ, Zik." Everyone's looking at me.
"Joshua 'Iron Man' Mendel!" He whistles through his teeth in that loud, piercing redneck way he has and claps his hands. After a second everyone else joins in, hooting and hollering and applauding something I haven't even done yet.
"Speech! Speech!" Zik cries.
"You're an asshole."
"The man has a way with words!" Zik yells. "Two days from now," Zik goes on, even though no one's really listening anymore, "Josh 'I'm only halfJewish' Mendel will stand in the batter's box and wield a mighty Hebrew National against the goy Heat. We'll see who's stronger—Jesus or Moses. And let me tell you, it took some mad skillz to part the Red Sea, folks!"
I pummel Zik's shoulders and chest when I'm done in the shower. "You're a total dickhead. A total dickhead."
"I know! I know!" he says gleefully.
Outside, Michelle's waiting alone. "Rachel had to go to work," she says with the air of an appointment secretary, "but she says for you to call her when she's on her break, which will be around eleven." Then, with a disapproving glare: "You need to get a cell phone."
I'm exhausted by the time I get home. No one else is home, so I check the mail. In among the bills and junk mail and catalogs for Mom are three envelopes:
Stanford.
Yale.
MIT.
My heart should skip around, but it doesn't. It just keeps beating along reliably, as if my whole life hasn't just changed. Maybe it's because I'm too tired even to get stressed/excited/ freaked out.
Dad gets home a little while later and finds me sitting at the kitchen table with the three envelopes spread out in front of me.
"Where's Mom?" I ask as he slides his briefcase onto the table.
"Had to work late. She'll be home later." He pauses. "What have you got there?"
"Stanford, MIT, Yale."
"Oh. You haven't opened them."
"Dad..." I point. "I don't need to open them."
He nods slowly. There's pain in his eyes. "Josh, look, your mother and I may not have explained this as well as we could, but money—"
"I know, Dad. Lawyers. My therapy. I know. Money's tight."
Dad sighs. "We'll try to do what we can. We—"
"I know." I gather up the envelopes and go to my bedroom, where I lay them out on my desk in alphabetical order.
I'm in at College park. Full scholarship. Same thing at Lake Eliot. I was accepted to two other schools, both safety schools. Both affordable with decent math and decent baseball.
But don't I want more than just "decent"?
I sit at my desk, staring at the envelopes. Hours go by and Mom comes home. She comes into my room and stands behind me to hug me, her chin resting on the top of my head. It's like her boobs have become a neck brace for me. How the hell can she not be aware of it? How the hell can she do this? "We'll figure out something for college. Whatever we can."
I struggle a little bit, wriggling until she pulls away from me. "OK, Mom." But I don't know. I just don't know.
***
So at eleven, after my parents have gone to bed, I call Rachel on her cell. The three envelopes are still unopened on my desk, though now I've rearranged them: Stanford, Yale, MIT.
"You really have to get a cell," Rachel says. "This nonsense about your parents going to bed—"
"I got the envelopes today, Rache."
She doesn't say anything.
"From the Holy Trinity."
"Yeah, I figured that's what you meant. And?"
I take a deep breath.
"Don't drag it out, Josh. Tell me."
"I got into Stanford."
I can almost hear the calculations in her mind through the phone connection. Distance in miles. Distance in time. Distance in days and semesters.
"What about the others?" MIT and Yale are both a lot closer than Stanford.
"No."
"What does the letter say?"
"The letter?"
"The acceptance letter from Stanford. Read it to me."
"I haven't opened it yet."
"What? Josh! How the hell do you know that—"
"Rache, I got three envelopes today, OK? The ones from MIT and Yale are just regular business-size envelopes. The one from Stanford is a big eight by ten and heavy. Jeez! It's obvious!"
"Bring them here," she says quietly after a moment. "We'll open them together."
Chapter 20
The Proposal
At the field at SAMMPark, we sit on a blanket from Rachel's trunk and open the two rejection letters first. They're amazingly similar. They're the only rejection letters I've gotten from colleges. MIT and Yale have decided that there's no space in their upcoming freshman classes for me.
I let Rachel open the letter from Stanford.
Dear Mr. Mendel:
I am pleased to extend to you...
She does well. She reads the whole letter loud and clear. Along with the letter is a bunch of brochures and a booklet on student life at Stanford. There's also a letter saying that my financial aid information has been received and is being evaluated. I should hear from the financial aid office within a week. And, of course, "the athletic department will contact you under separate cover as regards the status..." blah blah blah. As regards the status of Coach Kaltenbach's recommendation, that is.
"So, that's it," Rachel says, forcing a smile. "California bound." She hugs herself, even though it's not cold out.
"Not for sure. I mean, I might not get the scholarship. I might not be able to afford—"
"You'll be able to."
"Maybe. It all depends on fucking Kaltenbach."
"There's student loans."
"Yeah, I know. But they scare the hell out of me. I mean, to graduate from college and owe all that money right from the get-go?" And I don't know who I'm trying to convince, her or me. I don't know who I'm trying to reassure or what would be reassuring. Stanford has been, in so many respects, my
dream school. An unbelievable math department and a baseball team that's good enough that I might not cut it. And let's not forget the reason I looked there in the first place: three thousand miles away from Brookdale.
Three thousand miles away from Rachel.
Three thousand is a funny number. You get three thousand hits in baseball and you're instantly a member of an elite club. Only twenty-six ballplayers have done it in history. Cal Ripken hit 3,184 in his career. Roberto Clemente hit exactly 3,000 in 9,454 at bats. Wade Boggs was the only 3,000 hitter to hit a home run for his three-thousandth.
I think of these things because I can't help it, because I always think of these things, because it's infinitely easier than thinking of the other things that are crowding my brain and clamoring for attention right now. Money problems and Rachel and Zik and being here...
Pete Rose has the best hit total in all of baseball: 4,256. That's superhuman, godlike, and he'll never get into the Hall of Fame because he was a dumb jackass and he gambled on baseball.
Is that how it works, in the end? You make one mistake early on and it haunts you for the rest of your life?
Rachel comes closer to me. "Josh, talk to me. Come on. Say something."
And I say the thing I've been thinking deep down, somewhere in the lizard part of the brain, the thing I've been thinking and dreading for weeks now, ever since Rachel first called me her boyfriend, really.
"Maybe I could..." I swallow. "Maybe I could go to College Park instead. I'd definitely get to play ball there, and their math program is decent. Maybe I don't have to decide between baseball and math. Stanford's not gonna give me the money. Coach is gonna screw me over. I know it."
"You don't know that. You shouldn't give up on that yet."
"Well, it's just that ... you know, that way I'd be near Zik. And you." I look at her with all the earnestness I can muster. It's the closest I can come right now to answering her "I love you" from prom night. Staying here, so close to Brookdale, where everyone will still know me. But for her. I could do it. I would do it.