High Heat (5 page)

"I let him down, Mom."

"No, no, no," she said, coming to me. "Don't say that. Don't think that. What happened isn't your fault. None of it.
Your father just couldn't see his way anymore. He loved you, and he loved Marian, and he knew you loved him. He always knew it, even at the end. He just couldn't see his way."

After breakfast on Saturday, Mom took Marian to the house of her friend Harmony. Marian was nearly crying at the breakfast table, but Mom made her go anyway. About ten minutes after Marian left, a silver BMW pulled up in front of the house, and a well-dressed woman came up the walkway. Mom opened the door for her. "Please come in."

While I waited downstairs, Mom took the woman through the house. The woman took notes and mouthed compliments. "Lovely details. I can see the house has had a lot of TLC."

The woman was in the house for over an hour before she and Mom made their way back to the front door. "I'll work these numbers up," the woman said, "and call you. I doubt you'll have any trouble getting a good price. The market is hot right now."

"You're selling the house?" I said to my mother once the woman had left.

She sat down on the sofa and looked out the window. My eyes followed hers. Right then the sprinkling system kicked on, the little spurts of water giving way to steady fountains. "I have no choice," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"I think you know, Shane."

I did know. Criminals don't get to keep their money. And neither do the families of criminals. Not even suicide changes that.

"Will we have anything at all?"

She managed a smile. "We'll have a little." The telephone rang. She let it ring twice, then stood up. "I'd better get that."

She took the call in the kitchen. I sat on the sofa where she'd been and looked out. The sun was shining out of a blue sky. Our front lawn was deep green, our flower beds tilled with tulips and daffodils. The cherry trees were in full bloom. It was impossible to think that soon some stranger would be sitting where I sat, looking out our windows, eating in our kitchen, sleeping in our rooms.

If it had been up to me, I'd have skipped the rest of the school year and waited until fall to start some new school, but Mom wouldn't hear of it. "You've got to get your credits. I expect you to graduate on time and go to college."

Marian wasn't any happier about returning to school than I was. After Mom dropped us off at Shorelake, we stood at the bottom of the stairs for a long time before we finally climbed up, and when we reached the spot where we usually split, Marian hugged me, which she never does. "I'll meet you here right after school ends," I said. She nodded, then trudged away.

I had ten minutes before school was to start, just long enough. I cut straight to the gym and knocked on Coach Levine's door.

"Come in," he called.

He'd been working at his computer, but he stopped as soon as he saw me. "Shane," he said, standing up. "It's good to have you back. Sit down."

"Coach, I just wanted you to know that I'm quitting the team."

His mouth turned down. "Are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"I'm sure."

"Well, I'm not," he said. "I think that—"

"Here's my uniform," I said, putting a grocery bag on the floor just inside the door. The five-minute bell rang. "I've got to go."

"Wait a second, Shane," he called, but I didn't turn back.

My first-period class was social studies with Mrs. Judd. I wanted to hide in the back and let the minutes tick away, but I'd hardly sat down when an office assistant brought a note into the room. Mrs. Judd read it, then turned to me. "Shane, you're to report to Mr. Porter."

Porter was the vice principal, a little bald guy with big ears. He met me at the door to his office, had me sit on his cheap sofa. He sat across from me at his desk, his hands folded together, his thumbs tapping each other. "I want you to know how saddened all of us at Shorelake are," he said. "We think of this school as a family, so whatever happens to one of us happens to all of us." He cleared his throat. "It takes time to get over a shock. We know that. So you're excused from all the class work that you missed. As for the rest of the year, do what you can, but don't worry. Do you understand what I'm saying, Shane?"

"I understand."

"There's one more thing. Tell your mother that if tuition is a problem for you and your sister, she's not to worry. We have funds for situations like this."

"I will," I said.

"All right then. That covers it."

He stuck his hand across the desk, and I shook it. "You can go back to class, Shane. And remember, we're here to help. Don't be afraid to ask."

As I made my way down the long empty hallway leading to Mrs. Judd's room, I realized there must have been a meeting about me, with the principal and the vice principal and my teachers. They must have talked about my father's suicide, about the charges against him, about our money. I wanted to walk right out the main door and never come back.

In the halls and at lunch I avoided Greg and Cody and the other guys on the team. When school ended, I saw them heading in small groups toward the baseball diamonds. That was harder. I still didn't want to talk with them, have them "help" me, but I did want to step up onto the pitcher's mound and fire fastball after fastball right past them. I wanted to strike out the world.

I hung around the library for a few minutes, waiting for the campus to empty. Finally I dragged myself down the main set of stairs. Marian was waiting at the bottom. "How was your day?" I asked.

"Okay."

We headed up to 145th.

"Isn't Mom going to pick us up?" Marian asked.

"I don't think so. If she were, she'd be here."

The bus took us to the gate of Sound Ridge, but from there we had to walk. That was the first time I'd ever done that. It was a hot, still day. I'd never noticed how long the roads were. Marian didn't complain as we trudged along, but when at last she saw our house, she let out a sigh of relief. Then she spotted the For Sale sign planted on the lawn. I could feel her tense up. When we opened the front door, we saw the real estate agent sitting on the sofa. "And hello to both of you," she said cheerily.

They say time cures everything, but wherever I turned, my father's suicide was there: his chair in the front room, his magazines in the mail, his Lexus in the garage, his crackers in the kitchen.

Things went a little better at school. I kept to myself, and within a week my classmates had basically forgotten about me and my father. How much had they really cared in the first place?

I didn't want to follow the baseball team, but I couldn't keep from checking the scores, which were posted in the main hallway. You want to think you're important to the team, no matter who you are. I figured Scott Parino and Terry Clarke would wear out without me to finish games for them. But those two stepped up to the challenge, and the whole team caught fire, winning everything in sight. The last two games of the regular season were such routs—15–2, 17–1—that the umpires called them after five innings.

Clarke and Parino kept rolling when the playoffs began, shutting down Bothell, Redmond, and Edmonds in the district tournament, Stanwood and Ferris in the state. When Clarke shut out Gonzaga to put Shorelake into the championship game, my feelings were all over the place. Sometimes I felt as if those guys were still my teammates and that I wanted them to win. Other times I'd picture Greg and Cody holding the trophy over their heads, and I'd want anyone but them to win.

The championship game against Lincoln was on a Saturday afternoon. That same Saturday the real estate agent had arranged another open house. During the previous open houses, Mom had taken Marian and me to a matinee. She wanted me to go again that day, but I couldn't stay away from the game.

They played at Graves field on the University of Washington campus. I picked up a bus on Greenwood Avenue, and then transferred once down by the zoo. After that it was a short bus ride to the baseball field. I showed my student body card and got in for a couple of bucks. Shorelake had the third-base dugout, but I didn't want to sit near anybody who knew me, so I headed down the first base line.

According to the
Seattle Times,
Lincoln had a great pitcher, a blond kid named David Johansen. Watching him warm up, I could tell he was the real deal. There was a looseness in his arm, in his body, that oozed confidence.

Still, nerves can hit anybody, and he started out nervous. We batted first, and Johansen walked Brian Coombs on four
pitches, none of them close to the plate. Coach Levine had Jeff Newman bunt, figuring the game would be tight and playing for one run. The third baseman fielded, fired down to second to try to force Coombs. He would have had him, too, but his throw sailed out into center field, and Coombs trotted to third. Shorelake fans were up and screaming, and they kept screaming as Brad Greenberg, who was the DH, blooped a single into short left. Coombs scored, but Newman had to hold at third.

The Lincoln coach called time and trotted to the mound. I watched, wondering what he was saying. Then something unexpected happened—Johansen laughed, and the coach laughed along with him. The umpire came out and broke up the conversation, but whatever the coach had said worked. Johansen struck out Beanie Cutler, Alvin Powell, and Greg Taylor. What had looked like a big inning had fizzled out.

Parino came out and took his warm-ups. He was deliberate with all his movements, as if he were afraid of wasting one ounce of energy. He struck out Lincoln's leadoff batter, then gave up a double. The runner took third base on a groundout. A base hit would have tied the score, and the momentum would have shifted right back to Lincoln, but Parino got a pop-up for the third out.

After that, the game settled into a classic pitchers' duel. Johansen looked like Cy Young. He had a moving fastball and a nasty curve, and he was wild enough to keep batters scared. Hitters jumped back—afraid they were going to be hit—only to have the umpire yell "Strike!" As the innings rolled by, that run in the first inning seemed like a miracle.

By the sixth inning, Parino was exhausted. He took forever between pitches, and all he threw was change-of-speed stuff: little curve balls and changeups. His fastball had stopped popping Hearn's mitt. The Lincoln hitters weren't able to string together any hits, but in every inning they were getting better and better cuts.

Johansen didn't pitch the seventh for Lincoln. Instead they brought in a reliever. The guy's arm was fresh, and he struck out Greg looking, got Cody to bounce to first, and then fanned Richardson. Before Parino could catch his breath, he was trudging back out to the mound.

My fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the wires of the chainlink fence as Parino lobbed his warm-ups in to Hearn. The ball went around the horn, and then it was crunch time. The leadoff batter for Lincoln was their center fielder, a fast kid who batted from an exaggerated crouch. Parino started him off with two dead-arm fastballs that were a foot outside, then threw a strike, then threw two more balls. The center fielder, representing the tying run, clapped his hands together and trotted down to first.

Lincoln's big first baseman stepped into the batter's box. Parino tried to sneak a first-pitch fastball by him, but he sent a single whistling into left field. Had the ball been up in the air, it would have gone four hundred feet.

Coach Levine called time and went out to talk with Parino. I tried to imagine what he would say, because there really wasn't anything to say. Clarke had pitched a complete game on Thursday. There was nobody warming up, nobody to warm up. Finally Levine patted Parino on the back, then returned to the bench.

Parino peered in, got the sign from Hearn, checked the Lincoln base runners, delivered. High—ball one.

The Lincoln fans roared with delight. Again Parino went into his stretch, delivered. High again—ball two. The Lincoln fans were stomping on the bleachers, screaming.

Parino checked the runners, came to the plate. The batter swung, stinging a line shot into deep left center. Coombs was off with the crack of the bat. For a moment I thought he'd track it down. But he stumbled a little, then flung himself out in a wild dive. The ball landed about two feet from his outstretched glove, took a big bounce, and skipped all the way to the fence.

The tying run scored before Coombs reached the ball; the winning run came across before the relay throw to the plate was even made. Immediately, the entire Lincoln team charged out of the dugout. Within seconds, parents and girlfriends and buddies joined them on the field. They mobbed the guy who'd scored the winning run, then high-fived one another. They were state champions.

I left as quickly as I could. I found a seat alone in the back of the bus. Once the guys thought it through, they'd blame me. They'd say I was like my dad, a coward and a quitter, that if I'd stuck with them, they'd have won it all.

The next week was finals' week. I'd taken advantage of Mr. Porter's offer, skipping most assignments, not doing the reading for social studies or English, missing labs in biology and Spanish. At first the teachers had been sympathetic, but after a while I could see the irritation in their eyes.

I didn't sweat my final exams either, writing a sentence or
two when I knew I was expected to produce a page. After that I'd pull out a book and pretend to read when all I was doing was listening to the scratching of pencils on paper.

As soon as I finished my last exam, I headed for the stairs leading off campus. John Schwartz, the dean of men, stopped me. "Where do you think you're going? There's an end-of-the-year assembly. Required."

Schwartz had been a famous athlete in his time—baseball and boxing—and he was big enough and gruff enough to scare almost everybody. But I was past being scared.

"I'm going home. And I'm never coming back."

For an instant he looked like he might challenge me, but then he recognized me. "No, Shane, I don't suppose you will." He moved aside, then motioned with his hand. "Go."