Center Courtship (16 page)

“What's that?”

“You, I wouldn't have gotten to meet you.”

I smiled and looked away, my face had to be red.

We sat in silence as we ate our lunch. I had been there so often that I had the names of the McGritter family memorized. “I sometimes sit here and imagine what their lives were like.” I said after finishing off my iced tea.

“Whose?” he asked.

“The McGritters',” I pointed to the graves in front of us. “There's James McGritter, his wife Martha, their daughter Angel who died at only two weeks of age. I often wonder if they knew she was going to die so they named her Angel. They also had two sons. Richard and James the Second.” I pointed to my right
where their markers rose from the ground. “They each had wives, they're laid behind them.” I pointed above them.

“Hmm, you have to be pretty close to your parents to want to be laid with them,” He said. “And then convince your wife to do the same? They must have been good in-laws.” We both laughed.

“Neither one of them have children laying near them, so maybe they went off and made lives of their own. Or did they even have children?”

“You have a vivid imagination, Mae.” He smiled at me as he balled our garbage into one bag.

“It keeps my mind off of reality sometimes.”

“Like Bart and his brother?”

I nodded without speaking. I looked up at him and saw that he had tomato sauce from his sandwich on the corner of his mouth. Without asking, I reached up and wiped it away. His skin was soft and warm. We didn't have napkins with us and I now had a big glob of sauce on my thumb that I didn't know what to do with. Elsu guided my hand to his mouth and put my thumb to his lips to lick the sauce off. Electricity shot straight through me as I felt his wet tongue rub across the pad of my thumb. I smiled and pulled my hand away quickly.

“So, Mae. Tell me something about you.” He must have felt my discomfort because he was changing the subject.

“What do you want to know?” I asked as I turned and faced him, crossing my legs between us.

“Why isn't a pretty girl like you dating anyone?” he asked.

I laughed openly. “A pretty girl like me?”

“What did I say that was so funny?”

“Girls like me don't get married. Or date for that matter,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘like you'?”

“Homely, unattractive girls. Our job is to wait for the pretty girls to sweep up all the eligible, virile young men to make babies with. We get the leftovers if we're lucky when we're forty and shouldn't be having kids anymore.”

“What the f kind of nonsense is that?” he seemed angry. “Who fed you
that
crap?”

“My mom,” I said.

“I don't much care for your mom,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “She doesn't much care for me.” I could feel the tears welling in my eyes.

“Why would a mother not care for her own child?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

I looked at my watch gauging the time it would take for me to tell my story versus when I should get back to work. “I don't tell that story to many people,” I said as I folded my hands in my lap and looked at Martha McGritter's tombstone. I wondered quietly if she had been a better mother than mine.

“I'm not going to force you, but it might help me get to know you better. I have a feeling it's a big part of who you are now,” he put his hand on my knee.

I smiled at the hand. I lifted it by his wrist and put my hand to his to compare the size. “These things are massive!” I said.

“You know what they say about a guy with big hands, right?”

“No, what do they say?” I grinned, slyly.

“Big gloves.”

I looked at his eyes, he was watching to see if I'd laugh at his lame attempt at a joke. “I thought that's what they said about feet and shoes.”

“No, big feet equals big penis.”

I laughed out loud. “You are so bad!”

“So, your mom. What's her deal?”

“You're not going to let this rest, are you?”

“I can let it rest, doesn't mean I won't ask about it again.”

“You're a very trying individual, Elsu Benjamin.”

He grinned. “Eugene.”

“What?” I asked.

“My middle name is Eugene. I figured you were angry with me. My mom always includes my middle name when she's about to read me the riot act.”

“I bet you hear Eugene a lot, then.”

“Hey now, I'm not always bad. I'm not always good, either.”

“What kind of name is ‘Elsu' anyway?”

“It's Native American for ‘Soaring Falcon'.”

“So you're Native American?” I asked.

“Half. My mom is African American.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“A sister. Litonya.”

“Litonya?”

“It means ‘darting hummingbird.'”

“That's pretty. And you play for the Owls. I see a theme.”

“It seems to have worked out that way, doesn't it?”

I looked at his light brown skin and smiled. His black, wavy hair which was normally kept cut close to his head was a little longer than what the pictures in Brandon's room showed. The light filtering through the trees gave it almost a blue shine that made it look like it must be as soft as the finest silk. I looked at his face and my eyes were drawn to his lips. Plump and soft, and
No, Mae. Leave those alone.

I looked to my folded hands.

“So what kind of name is ‘Mae'?” he asked. “Is that May, like the month?”

“No, M-a-e,” I rolled my eyes. “It's short for Mae-Belle.”

“Mae-Belle?” he seemed to find it amusing. “I'm sorry, but you do not look like a Mae-Belle.”

“Thus the reason I go by Mae,” I said. “I was given the name before I was born. I was supposed to be a pretty baby. I was not.”

“Who told you you weren't a pretty baby?”

“Oh, no one needed to tell me. You could ask my mom, she has the proof.”

“But most babies are beautiful in their mother's eyes.”

I sighed, this conversation wasn't going to end until he got the whole story out of me, and so I decided to just get it over with. “After Max was born, mom was upset because she didn't get a girl. Dad and Max bonded right away. Mom felt lonely. Five years later, they got pregnant with a girl. She was going to be in pageants, the princess of the family. Unfortunately, that baby was me.”

“Unfortunately?” asked Elsu.

“Yep, mom tried putting me in pageants as a baby, but I never won anything. Apparently I cried a lot and was never very agreeable to wearing those big dresses. I was a major disappointment. Honestly, I was an ugly baby and child. So, mom and dad decided they'd try one more time for a ‘pretty' girl and got pregnant with the Wonder Twins.”

“Holy shit!” said Elsu.

“They were perfect. You haven't had the pleasure, but maybe someday you'll see, they're beautiful people. Well, that's what mom thinks. They kind of remind me of Children of the Corn kids all grown up. Blond, and if they weren't boy and girl, I'd swear they were identical.” I adjusted my position on the hard bench. “So, mom put them in pageants and they won everything. They CREATED categories at more than one event because they were so cute together and people couldn't decide who was better. After a while mom ran out of pageants to put them in and whisked them off to Hollywood where they started to do commercials and got some work in various TV shows. They ended up having their own show for a few years on one of the big kid's channels. ‘Twinners.'”

“I remember that show, my little sister used to watch that,” said Elsu.

“Eventually the show ran its course and it got canceled. Mom kept getting them bit parts in different shows, and they even cut an album. If you want to let your ears bleed out, look up that piece of work. Anyway, they just couldn't seem to get back the gusto they had in ‘Twinners' so they had to move back home. They've been back for about eight years. They do local commercials and mom is trying to get their foot in the door for the news affiliates that have sprouted up since we've gone through all these changes. Massillon has really grown a lot. We even have our own branches of the big three networks now.”

“So your mom ran off with them and you didn't see her all that time?”

“No, they would come back between seasons, or whenever they had breaks. But I wasn't allowed to play with them because I was a tomboy and they might get hurt playing with me in the creek behind our house or at the shop.” I looked at Elsu's hand that had returned to my knee. “They're not that much younger than me and I was too young at the time when they left to know any better. How cool was it to know I had siblings in Hollywood? But every time they came home, it was like mom had brought home China dolls that were put up on a shelf and not to be touched. Everything they wanted or needed was
granted. God forbid they were ever upset, sad, or dirty. I finally gave up on them and stayed connected to Max.”

“That's messed up. I'm sorry you had to put up with that.” He put his hand on my shoulder and I slouched away. Touching Mae was still not cool.

“You don't care to be touched, do you?”

“Sorry, but no. I don't.”

He leaned in, his forehead near mine. “Maybe we can fix that someday.” I shuddered. A few beeps came from his jacket pocket and he pulled out his phone. I saw Saraya's face and I cringed.

Elsu looked at me with confusion. “Answer it.” I said as I started to get up to give him space but he put his hand on my knee telling me to stay.

“Hi.” He said. I could hear Saraya's voice yelling through the phone.

“What are you doing hugging that weirdo in a low class diner?”

“Ok, first of all, it was taken way out of context, it was a friendly goodbye. Second of all, Mae is not a weirdo. Third and last of all, that diner was pretty damn good.”

“Well, I don't like it at all!” Elsu held the phone away from his ear to avoid any hearing loss from the screeching.

“I'm taking a tour of Massillon…A friend is showing me around. The dinner is tomorrow night…yes, it's formal…I won't be able to get you from the airport, I have practice tomorrow…Ok, I'll see you then.” He hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket.

“That's right, the big dinner is tomorrow. My guys are going to be helping with the valet parking for a little extra cash,” I said, trying to ignore the fact that my heart was kind of breaking and I had no real idea why.

“Oh? Your guys?”

“Yeah, my mechanics and the two warehouse guys. In exchange, our name will be in the list of contributors.” The city had asked us weeks ago to help with the big to-do at one of the new fancy restaurants that had opened up in the last few months.

“I completely forgot all about it until she said something. I don't really like those kinds of things. Everyone is so uptight and snooty. Not my scene at all,” he said.

“Are you guys ready for the big game on Saturday?”

“I guess. It's really a weird sensation starting a team from the ground up. It's not something that happens very often. Luckily, most of us aren't new to playing for the pros.”

I looked at my watch and it was nearing three. “I really need to get back to work. I hope you enjoyed your tour.”

“Best tour I've ever had that ended in a cemetery.”

“And how many of those kinds of tours have you had?” I asked as we walked towards a trash can that sat near the road.

Elsu held out his fingers and pretended to count. “Including this one? Just one. But I doubt it will ever be topped.”

I smiled. What was I getting myself into here?

“You have practice tomorrow?” I asked as we got into Little José.

“Yeah, have to be back down here early. Practice and get ready for the dinner.”

“Why do you live so far away?”

“I honestly don't know. I like the house? My uncle says I should have found something closer to Massillon.” I nodded, remembering the conversation I had with Richard at Elsu's house.

Once we got back to the shop, I turned off the truck and looked down at the paper bag that was on the floor. I smacked myself in the forehead.

“What's wrong?”

“I forgot to take that stuff you guys signed to Brandon. I was going to run it over at lunch. Then someone came by and took me away.”

“I'm sure he'll be ok if you don't get it to him right away. He's probably still going through the stuff the guys left him with on Sunday.”

“What did they leave him with?”

“Oh, I think each guy brought him a jersey or something. He definitely made out.”

“That was very nice of you guys.”

“So,” he turned to face me. “You said there were three things that defined who you are. I think we covered one, Bart is another, will I learn about the third?”

UGH!
Why did he have to keep bringing this stuff up? “I don't think so.” I shook my head and ran my hand around the steering wheel.

“Gotcha. Well, I will let you go. If I don't see you before the game, have a nice week.”

I smiled at him. “You too, and good luck with the game! Hope you get a home run, while making a touchdown.”

We both laughed.

We stared at each other for a while, then I looked out the window of the truck. Aaron was walking toward the truck. He was dirty from head to toe. He actually had a way of making grimy look really rather hot. “Thanks again!” I said to Elsu. “I'm going to go see what he wants and get back to work.”

“Thanks again, Mae.”

I smiled and got out of Little José to greet Aaron.

Aaron filled me in on the work he had done and was excited about bringing the piece by the next day. I was sad that I hadn't had a chance to see him much, but he seemed to understand when he saw I had spent the afternoon with Elsu. He made me promise to do lunch with him soon so I could fill him in.