Scarred (7 page)

“Come on, let me get you seated.” He took her hand and motioned for her to precede him up the metal trimmed steps. The two seats in front were empty, and Benjamin showed her the one behind the driver’s seat. There was only space for one adult, or two small children on the slick cushion but she didn’t remark on it.

He walked down the aisle and the kids were quiet, as if every word that fell from his lips was pure gold. “Alright, I’m only going to say this once. I want us to win, but having a good time is more important. As a team I am very proud of our season thus far, and no matter what happens tonight, you are all winners in my book. Just make sure that none of you vomit on the field this time, and make sure to keep all of your teeth. If we do that much, I’ll consider the night a success.”

The kids laughed en masse. Amelia couldn’t help joining in, and with her overactive imagination she couldn’t help envisioning what that particular game would have looked like. Afterwards, Benjamin opened the cooler positioned at the back of the bus where the assistant coach sat.

“Everybody, we have a special guest today. Her name is Amelia.”

“Hi Ms. Amelia!” She heard several variations of the greeting from the hyper children around her and even the assistant coach gave a quick greeting by way of a tossed up hand.

Amelia smiled, how could she have thought to turn this offer down for her usual night of boring, lonely nothingness? “Hi everybody.”

When the children were silent again, or a quiet as a group of kids could be when armed with the energy of youth and the natural excitement that went along with it, Ben piped in. “Okay you guys, Conan’s mom was kind enough to supply some snacks for the ride. We’ve got,” Amelia watched as he leaned over and began pulling out small foil packets. “Juice pouches, and in several different flavors too. Looks like apple, grape and fruit punch.”

There were lots of oohs, ahhs, and a few kids called out, “Awesome!”

“Okay, give me a show of hands, who wants apple?” About half of the kids tossed their hands up.

Benjamin handed the right number of pouches to the assistant coach, who passed them out.

“Who wants grape?” The remaining hands went up.

“Nobody wants fruit punch? Mmm, more for me.” Ben chuckled.

“We know that one’s your fav-rit, coach.”  The boy she saw with his mom earlier piped up.

Ben’s smile was radiant, and enthralling. The man truly enjoyed children, and the little ones seemed to like him back just as much.

“It’s the best of…” Ben was cut off before he could finish.

“Both worlds!” A small group of kids completed the sentence, and Amelia knew that this was a running joke among the team.

After everyone was calmed and seated again, Amelia watched Ben climb into the driver’s seat and turn on the bus. He pumped the brakes over and over again for a few minutes.

”So you’re driving?” She leaned forward to ask him the question as the volume of chatty children was an ear splitting decibel.

“Yep, I have a CDL. I got the license a couple of years ago when the pee-wee team was gifted with this bus to go to away games. There wasn’t a driver amid the group with the appropriate class needed to push one of these puppies, so I bit the bullet and got it. The parents carpool together in most cases, so everybody can save on gas.”

                “Wow. What if you can’t drive?”

                “If that happens, the parents would just follow each other there. Not a big deal, that’s the way it was before the bus anyway.”

                Amelia could see how that would work just fine, but the bus would make the trip much easier on the parents involved. “Oh, okay.”

                “I have something for you.” Ben smirked, and then winked at her.

                “Okay… what is that, pray tell?”

                “Open your hand and close your eyes.”

                He looked back at her expectantly and she complied. It was cold, wet and had a plastic straw attached? When she cracked her eyelids open, she saw one of the fruit punch pouches in her hand.

                “It’s the best of both worlds.” He smiled brightly.

                “So how is this supposed to work exactly?” It wasn’t as if she had much experience with children.

                “Watch.” He took a pouch from his pocket and pulled the straw off the front, then jabbed the unwrapped stem in a small hole apparently built for the plastic.

                Amelia tried to do the same, but her straw ended up bent as she stabbed in the direction of the tiny circular window in the foil.

                “Not quite. It takes some finesse,” he laughed, “and a spot of patience. Here, take mine.” Amelia handed her juice to Ben and took the ready to serve packet in lieu.

                “Thanks.” He quickly popped the straw in and immediately began to suck the contents dry. She was so rapt watching him that she didn’t even drink hers.

                “You’re not going to drink?”

                “Uh, yeah.” She held the pouch to her lips and drank. The first sip was delightful, way more refreshing than she anticipated. Now, she saw why he slurped the thing down the way he had. The juice was somehow yummier than any she’d ever had before. Maybe because of the pouch’s small size. It wasn’t fair that as soon as she was able to taste the juice it was gone and she only held a crumpled wad of foil at the end.

                “Like that huh?” With those words, he put on a pair of Oakley sunglasses and the bus pulled off. The ride across the county line was fairly quick at this time of the evening, but once they crossed into Mecklenburg, the traffic changed and became as much a snarl of cars and lights, so unlike the eerily smooth traffic of the previous country roads.

                When the bus pulled into the parking lot, everyone made an orderly single file exit and ran to the bathrooms just outside the gate. Amelia walked around a bit lost, as she looked at the various sights and sounds of the concession stand. She knew Ben would be busy with preparations and morale building for the game, and wouldn’t have the time to show her around. She expected to be on her own, and she decided to buy some of the overpriced candy with a bag of popcorn.

                “Excuse me… Ma’am.” Amelia turned around, even as she didn’t think the person was speaking to her, but she had to be sure.

                When she completed her about face, there was a young woman who might be in her early thirties with a small blue cooler in her hand, just a few feet away.

                “Yes?” The newcomer was lovely, in a delicate sort of way. The woman had gamine features, really delicate, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. But instead of brown hair, the woman’s was a mix of reds and gold in a short cut. The bag she carried appeared too large for her, but somehow the woman deftly maneuvered the cumbersome cooler anyway.

                “Hi! I’m Jenny. Don’t buy anything from there, the prices are ridiculous. I brought some things if you want to share with me. I have a tendency to bring too much food anyway.”

                “Hi Jenny, I’m Amelia. I don’t want to impose…” Amelia offered hesitantly.

                “It’s no imposition. The only repayment I need is a seat mate.” The other woman was nice, and Amelia knew she was out of her depth here.

                “Can I at least buy something to supplement your snacks? Maybe a hotdog, or something else?”

                “How about a compromise? Next time, you bring the snacks.”

                “I thought this was the last game of the regular season?”

                “It is, but we’re going to the state game, mark my words.”

                The woman was right. The snacks were expensive. On what planet was a bucket of popcorn ten dollars and that was okay? Amelia knew little about baseball and in all honesty, she didn’t really know much about any sport, but Jenny was more than happy to fill her in. Although, she was torn between covert glances at Ben, the game itself, and Jenny as all competed for her attention. 

As the game went by, it was clear that Ben’s team was a well working one. He was a good and patient coach, and the kids under his tutelage seemed to be antsy to do their best. She watched child after child run around the bases, until the score was nearly a shut-out fifteen to three. The other team was good, but the children on the Bulldogs squad were slightly outclassed by the Underdogs.

Before the game was over, Amelia’s new companion, Jenny, leaned over and prodded Amelia’s arm. “You’re a lucky lady. Ben is a great man. After all that he’s been through, I’m happy that he has met a nice woman to date again.”

The comment made her supremely curious. What was the story there? What had he been through, and what did Jenny mean by again?

                But there was no way to inquire discretely as of yet, so Amelia didn’t even attempt to stifle herself. “Ben and I are just friends.”

                “He doesn’t take his
friends
to the ball park.” Jenny tossed back, a gamine smile on her lips.

                What was she supposed to say to that? Check and mate courtesy of the tiny woman next to her. “Well, I don’t…”

                “Alright, here’s the skinny. I can’t hold water, and this is common knowledge anyway. When Ben hurt his knee, he had to be bought out of his contract. There was no way he could play, not with that knee in the condition it’s in. Then his ex-fiancée Kylie, “Jenny spat the name out as if the mere saying of the word was a curse, “walked away for a player still under contract with another team. He came back here, but he hasn’t been the same Ben I knew in school. He hasn’t been that man for a long time. He’s always polite and respectful, that’s just part and parcel of who he is. But he wasn’t happy. His eyes were always so shadowed, so dim, that it hurt to even look at him. And he’s been along in that big house of his for so long. Though, I hear yours is just as nice.”

Jenny smiled and looked back at the field. “Get it, Conan!” She cried out and Amelia watched the tiny child round the diamond in an attempt to steal third base.

“So, it seems like you know more than I do.” Amelia said matter-of-factly.

“You would know if you asked him.”

“I-I…”

“Amelia,” She looked over at her, the large Coach glasses covered up most of the delicate face.

“Yes Jenny?”

“He likes you. Just go with it.”

She felt like a fox run to ground. “I’m just trying to see where this goes.”

“If he brought you here, you practically have wedding bells in your future. Ben does this out of kindness. There was no team until Ben came back, not one that was feasible for most parents to travel to, unless one felt like driving into Monroe and that’s almost a half hour one-way. Ben built the municipal field, he bought the bus. He doesn’t tell people that, but I’m not stupid. How does a tiny town in the back woods of North Carolina get its own public park and field? There wasn’t one until six months after he showed back up in town.”

“That’s amazing.”

“He’s an amazing man, Amelia. After he bought the store from B.C. Purcell a few years back, I went to get something, maybe milk or sugar, but nothing much. Ben was at the cash register and he talked to Conan, just a little conversation here and there and not about anything of importance. But when Conan said he wanted to play baseball, Ben asked him why he didn’t, at that point Conan blathered on about how there was no place to play. Within a month, the ground broke and the field and park were in process. That seems far from a coincidence.”

“Yeah Jenny, that’s a pretty blatant clue.”

The conversation was welcome. It had been too many years that she had shunned other people, for fear of being ostracized. But talking to Jenny was nice. The woman never even looked askance at her, like Amelia was completely normal and uninjured. It made her feel… hope. As if she could be in society around others and not feel like something that crawled out of a lagoon.

Jenny packed up the trash from the snacks that they had partaken of. When she looked away from their cleaning attempts, she saw Ben look up and put a hand in front of his face visor-like and then smile in her direction. She hoped the lift of lips was for her. She smiled back and watched the final seconds as the Union Underdogs won the regional game and turned state bound.

Jenny hooped and hollered with the victory and the excitement was contagious. Amelia climbed back onto the jubilant bus, where the kids excited with their win yelled and jumped. The result was the bus rocked from side to side and the swaying motions made the children even more excited.

“Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” She heard chanted repeatedly.

“Hold your horses!” Ben piped a whistle sharply once.

The chanting children immediately stopped as one.

“It’s time for pizza boys! Ready?” Ben called out.

“Ready coach B!”

“Alright then, settle down. I’m not moving this bus until it gets less bumpy in here.”

The children all calmed down in varying degrees, but for a group this size, Amelia was surprised at the quickness of it all. She would have assumed it would take longer. Ben pumped the brakes again, and before she knew it, the Underdogs and company were back on the road.