Bingo Summer, page 14
“There’s no way I’m talking to you about this or anything else.” I pushed away from the wall. Where was the bus? Just let me get away from her, and then maybe this would all go away. I heard her footsteps behind me. Suddenly, she was like Velcro.
“Summer, wait.”
It was windy outside. I wheeled around and waited for her to get closer, so I wouldn’t have to shout. My hair whipped my cheeks. “No, you wait. I don’t think you get it. I don’t want it in the paper.”
Mara threw up her hands. “What’s the big deal? It’s gonna get around anyway.”
“I just don’t want…people to find out.” The bus brakes whined behind me. I heard the doors open. I’ll get on the bus, and it’ll be like we never talked. She’ll forget or something.
Mara looked at me with mock sympathy. “I’m keeping it quiet until my article comes out. And with your help or not, it will come out. This is too big of a story to ignore.”
My stomach hurt the whole way home. The pounding in my head grew louder when the bus dumped me at the end of my drive and left me alone in the dark and the quiet.
Mom took one look at me when I came through the door and put her cool hand against my forehead. “You don’t feel warm. Is it your stomach again? Did something happen at school?”
“No. I just want to lie down.”
The skin wrinkled between her eyebrows. “Okay. Do you want me to bring dinner up when it’s ready?”
I shook my head. “I’m going to sleep.”
And that’s what I did. I didn’t even bother to turn on the lights in my room. I dumped my book bag on the floor, crawled underneath my comforter, and tried to stop my whirling thoughts. I tried thinking about back home, about Stanton, which most of the time worked. Every night before falling asleep, I looked at Dana’s stars and guessed what my friends were doing. I’d made wishes on all five points of the biggest star that I’d stuck right over my bed back in August, too. My five wishes were: that the Cubs would go to the World Series, that I’d find a friend like Dana, that I’d win the election (the only one I’m glad didn’t come true), that I’d make the softball team, and the last was a real long shot, but what the heck, I couldn’t think of anything else. It was that we’d move back to Stanton.
So far, none of them had come true. I could wish that Mara would forget about writing the article, that she’d suddenly grow a heart and decide maybe exposing me wasn’t very nice. But tonight, as I lay on my back searching the ceiling, the stupid stars didn’t even glow. I was all out of wishes.
When I woke up the next morning, I could tell it had snowed during the night by the way the light played on the walls, even before my bare feet hit the carpet, and I could push aside the curtains. Outside, drifts swallowed the redbud tree’s trunk up to its lowest limb. The curved out-line of our sidewalk from the front door to driveway was barely visible, like the footprint of a crescent moon.
I shuffled downstairs for breakfast and found a note from J.C. propped up against the Lucky Charms: Mom will be back by 9. Start shoveling (says Mom). Love, J.C. She probably oozed with glee writing the note. It was my punishment for sleeping in.
After my cereal, I bundled up and found the red-handled shovel against the garage wall. Snow had erased the horizon. Sky and landscape blended together in one solid, white wall. The woods across the road looked like tree-shaped ghosts, draped in snowy sheets. When our red Jeep rounded the corner on Church Road, I blinked from the sharp contrast against the snow.
Mom didn’t seem to notice me as she rolled up the drive, just eyes-straight-ahead, hands-on-the-wheel concentration. The Jeep disappeared into the garage, so I thought I’d seen the last of her for a while. Morning was her busy beading time. But to my surprise, she joined me a mi-nute later with another shovel.
“Where’s J.C.?” I asked.
“Shopping with the Burlingame’s.” Her shovel scratched the brick walk as she got right to work.
We scooped in silence for a few minutes. The quiet pressed on my shoulders. I glanced at her once, trying to read her mind. Mom’s expression was relaxed, but focused.
A few minutes later, Mom stopped shoveling and leaned on the handle. She started to say something, but nothing came out. Finally, she asked, “What do you like best about living here?”
She was joking. Had to be. Was she blind?
“No, it’s not a trick question. I’m just wondering.”
My hurry up answer would have been NOTHING. I chewed on my lip, thinking. We had a nice house, a new car, and furniture and clothes we’d bought from real stores, not second-hand outlets. I didn’t think Mom was asking about the stuff, though.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Mom searched my face. Her eyes looked tired, faint lines creasing the paper-thin skin un-der them. For the first time ever, I saw what she’d look like as an old woman. She shook her head. “I’m always too busy thinking about myself and not seeing the big picture. If only I would have stopped to think about the situation after we won the money. But my first reaction is always to run and not look back.”
“People were being pretty annoying,” I said, remembering the phone calls and news re-porters.
She shook her head. “It would have died down though. We could have disappeared until they weren’t interested anymore.”
I dug into the snow. My muscles had begun to tighten. I’d be in trouble once softball started in a month and a half, sore to the zillionth degree.
“I’ll be fine.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “You’re always fine, even when you’re not.”
“So are you.”
“Yeah, I guess you got that from me, didn’t you?” She leaned the shovel against the light post to retie her scarf. “But when it builds up inside so much that it starts to hurt you and every-one else, Sugar Pie, that’s not good.”
“I know.”
“Are you and Suri still not talking?”
I shook my head.
“She’ll come around. Sometimes best friends fight, that’s all.”
“We’re not best friends, Mom. We’re too different.”
“Just because you like different things doesn’t mean you can’t be friends.”
“No, it’s more than that. It’s just…not the same.”
“As what you had with Dana?”
I nodded again. I couldn’t look at her, or she’d see my eyes glassing over. That’s what Dana had been there for, the talking, the listening. Suri talked and listened, but it had never been the same with her. Being friends with Suri had felt like I was friends with dozens of different people, and they were all competing for her attention, that I was just one of many. I pulled away, blinking back tears and focused on clearing the path. I had to think my way out of the mess with Mara and keep the article from getting published. It had started snowing again. Flakes dotted the bricks we’d just cleared.
“Someone’s telling us that we’re not done shoveling yet,” Mom said, looking up at the sky, and then her eyes fell on me again. “I think it will get better. I don’t know how, but I have a feeling,” she said, rubbing my shoulder. “But you need to be on the lookout for it.”
I sighed. Hadn’t I been looking all along?
CHAPTER 29
When Coach finally scheduled three days of tryouts at the RecPlex, the community center a block away from school, I felt as antsy as a June bug in May. Every one of the girls who came for the informational meeting showed up at the RecPlex ten days later. After the first two-hour session, I would bet one of my signed Kerry Wood rookie cards who’d be starting our first game in March.
He posted the list outside of his classroom after the first weekend in February. A mob crammed the hallway before first period to get a peek at the names. I stood on tiptoe to scan the list for my name. Of course I was listed, and right over Mara’s to boot.
Anna’s head bobbed in the middle. “I made it!” she said when she spotted me. I gave her the thumbs up as the crowd pushed us past each other in a tidal wave.
Starting practice in February meant we worked indoors for a few weeks. When we we-ren’t running through fielding drills, we took batting practice in the balcony of the gigantic RecPlex gymnasium after school. Coach scribbled notes on his clipboard while we rotated, and tucked the pen behind his ear as he watched.
I got a feel for my competition those first few days. Mara didn’t let me out of her sight. When we did base-running drills, she lined up right behind me. When I hit, she stood next in line. I figured she wanted to see how I rated first, and then try to show me up when her turn came. I pretended not to notice, could have pulled it off, if Brill Hannigan wasn’t cheering her on and making a point of letting me know.
“She is so good, isn’t she?” Brill said after Mara scooped up a rolling grounder and fired it to first base. The ball smacked Rachel Gallardo’s glove. I could almost feel the sting.
“She’s all right, I guess.” I wished Brill would go coo in someone else’s ear.
“I bet she’ll be playing third,” said Brill. “We were a pretty good team last year with her at third and me at short.”
“Hmm, I bet.” I sounded indifferent. Brill shot me a look.
A half hour later, Anna and I took a water break after batting practice. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, leaving a wet comma shape on her orange t-shirt. “You’re sure not a mem-ber of the Mara Fan Club, are you?” she asked. “She really has it out for you. What’s up?”
I snorted. “No clue. Just lucky, I guess.”
“You were friends when school started, weren’t you?”
I thought back to September, sitting at lunch with Suri, Tyler, Kate, and Mara. They latched onto me when I agreed to campaign. They didn’t like me for me, only as an obstacle dur-ing the election. “No, we were never friends,” I said.
As the week wore on, Mara and Brill alternated playing shortstop. Coach kept me at third base full-time. While I tried to be all business, I gloated inside. Suddenly, instead of com-peting with me, Mara found herself trying to settle into a new position. That didn’t stop them from ganging up on me. If she couldn’t beat me by being a better player, she’d bully me into get-ting it back.
During the second week of practice, the sun broke through the winter sky one day, and it warmed up to fifty-five degrees. Coach took us outside to one of the community center’s fields. I covered third, and Brill was at short-stop. Coach tapped a grounder to me, and as I got ready to scoop up the ball, Brill shouted that she had it. She knocked me sideways with her shoulder as she made the play.
“Play your own position,” I said under my breath as she dug in for the next play.
Her eyes were on Coach, but I heard her say, “Play yours then.”
Another time, a hard grounder hit a rock two feet in front of me and bounced up, skipping over my shoulder and into left field. Behind me, Mara fielded it and threw it to second base.
“Should have had that one,” said Mara. She and Brill laughed. Their dislike for me bond-ed them like glue.
Mr. Hardesty sensed the friction.
“Attitude will always win over skill level, girls,” he said on Friday after practice in his after-practice team talk. “There’s some personality problems here, and that’s showing up in how you’re playing.” I stiffened when his gaze passed over me. Mara looked at her shoes, the muscle in her jaw rippling. Brill met Coach Hardesty’s gaze.
“If I don’t see an effort to work together, there’s going to be some changes in the lineup on game days,” he said. “You can be the best player on the team, but if your attitude stinks, I’m going to sit you down,” he said. “Your choice.”
Mara whispered something to Brill.
“Is there something I need to know, Mara?” Coach’s voice boomed.
Mara straightened up. “No, sir. Nothing at all.”
After practice, I sat on a bench in the locker room and stuffed my gym bag with practice clothes as I got ready for home. Mara, wearing her black and pink cleats, walked by. I looked up as she sat down on the bench next to me. I’d expertly avoided her since she talked about writing the article. Until now.
“You never gave me an interview,” she said.
I zipped my bag and stood. “That’s right.”
“So I wrote my article anyway. It’ll still work. Even without quotes,” she said, watching my face for a reaction. When I didn’t answer, she scrunched her lips together. “Just so you know, I’m handing it in tomorrow.”
My hands shook while I propped one foot up on the bench to tie my shoe. I breathed deeply. “Great,” I said, hearing a slight wobble in my voice. “Can’t wait to read it.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re scared everyone will find out.”
I huffed. “Think again. No one will care when they do.”
“Then why haven’t you told anyone?”
I didn’t answer but slung my bag over my shoulder and left the locker room for the walk back to the school. Coach ended practice early enough at the RecPlex that we could still catch the school shuttle bus home.
The afternoon light had faded into a lavender and pink sky when the bus dropped me off in my drive twenty minutes later. My footsteps crunched on the gravel. I breathed in, smelling the decaying leaves that had been hidden under snow for so long. Even if it was still February, spring wasn’t that far off. Spring meant softball, warm weather, and fresh starts.
Inside, I shucked my backpack and gym bag at the door. The radio in the kitchen blurted a traffic report, left on by Mom, so I wouldn’t come home to a quiet house while she picked up J.C. from her guitar lesson. I poured myself some lemonade and went up upstairs.
More of Dana’s stars lie sprinkled on my comforter and carpet when I walked into my room. They’d been falling steadily for a few weeks. I’d press them onto the ceiling, only to have them peel off again. A collection of fallen stars sat in a celestial heap on the corner of my desk.
I pulled out a spiral notebook from the upright pile of books from the top shelf of my desk. Inside the cover on the first page, I’d taped the first article that appeared on the front page of the Southern Illinoisan last June. Another article came out the same day in a college newspaper called the Daily Egyptian. For two straight weeks, reporters called and showed up at the door asking for interviews and pictures. I’d clipped all the stories and taped them into the notebook. It was fun to be famous for a while. J.C. ate it up, putting on lip gloss and her silver heart earrings every day after breakfast. But after a while, I felt like my life had been hijacked, like we lived inside a zoo exhibit. I had wanted to be invisible again.
And then we’d moved here, and I’d decorated my room just like my room in Stanton. I’d tucked the spiral notebook away like the lottery ticket had never happened. I’d pasted the stars on the ceiling, the same posters on the wall, and even moved my new bed facing the same direc-tion it had faced back home. But no matter what I did, this wasn’t Stanton. It never would be. I couldn’t wish on stars anymore.
What had Frank said to me on the morning after my Halloween party? “Summer girl, sometimes life feels like a too-tight pair of jeans. If you don’t swap them for a better fit, all heck’s gonna bust loose.” He’d hitched up his jeans by the belt loops for effect. “Sometimes you just need to adjust.”
His advice felt right on. It was time for me to adjust. I’d made small steps—ditching the clothes and the people that made me feel bad about myself. But I was still hiding the real me.
I rolled over and dug my phone out of my front pocket. I dialed Anna’s number. She an-swered on the second ring.
“Hey,” I said. “I’ve got a problem.”
Silence. “What’s up?” Anna said in a low voice.
“Can’t tell you now. Can you meet me at the bakery later? After dinner?”
“Sure,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“Yep. And I’ll be even better if you can help me.”
“Then I’m on it.” I heard the smile in her voice.
“Good. And bring a notebook and pen.”
CHAPTER 30
Mom pulled over to the curb at the corner of Main and Corsica. Muriel McDonough’s bakery was two short blocks away.
“I’ll call when we’re finished.”
“Not a problem, Sugar Pie. Take your time.” She squeezed my hand. “Those group pro-jects can be a bear.”
Yeah, especially this one, I thought, as I opened the door. I tucked my chin into the folds of my coat and hurried along the sidewalk. Each step I took toward the bakery was one step closer to spilling my life story.
Inside the bakery, Anna waved me over to a table in the back corner. I passed the counter and spotted Dink at the same time he saw me. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought he turned a little pink when our eyes met.
A hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles waited for me on the table. Anna sipped hers and eyed my spiral notebook, which crackled with the newspaper articles.
“So, why’d you want to meet?” Anna patted her notebook, ready to get down to business.
“Because you’re a writer.” I held onto my own mug, so she wouldn’t notice my hands shaking. “I need you to write a story for the Banner.”
Anna opened her mouth to say something, but Dink interrupted her.
“Special delivery,” he said, handing us each a warm cookie wrapped in a napkin. “Fresh from the oven.”
Anna looked annoyed. “Don’t be a dork.” When Dink frowned, her face softened. “Sorry. I’m helping Summer with something.”
“Anything I can do?” He glanced from Anna to me. “Haas, what are you doing?”
I’d bit my mug instead of the cookie, clinking my teeth against the ceramic. That’s how nervous I was. Sheepishly, I set the mug down. “Just tired is all. It’s been a long day.”
Anna’s forehead wrinkled. “Maybe you should get back to work,” she said to Dink. “Summer needs my help with this…project.”
