The Leftovers (11 page)

Part
Two

MAPLETON MEANS FUN

THE CARPE DIEM

JILL AND AIMEE HEADED OUT
right after dinner, cheerfully informing Kevin that they didn’t know where they were going, what they were doing, who they would be with, or when they might be home.

“Late,” was all Jill could tell him.

“Yeah,” agreed Aimee. “Don’t wait up.”

“It’s a school night,” Kevin reminded them, not bothering to add, as he sometimes did, that it was odd how going nowhere and doing nothing could take up so much time. The joke just didn’t seem that funny anymore. “Why don’t you try to stay sober for once? See what it’s like to wake up in the morning with a clear head.”

The girls nodded earnestly, assuring him that they had every intention of heeding this excellent advice.

“And be careful,” he continued. “There are a lot of freaks out there.”

Aimee grunted knowingly, as if to say that no one needed to tell her about freaks. She was wearing kneesocks and a short cheerleader skirt—light blue, not the maroon and gold of Mapleton High—and had deployed her usual unsubtle arsenal of cosmetics.

“We’ll be careful,” she promised.

Jill rolled her eyes, unimpressed by her friend’s good-girl act.

“You’re the biggest freak of all,” she told Aimee. Then, to Kevin, she added, “She’s the one people need to watch out for.”

Aimee protested, but it was hard to take her seriously, given that she looked less like an innocent schoolgirl than a stripper halfheartedly pretending to be one. Jill gave the opposite impression—a scrawny child playing dress-up—in her cuffed jeans and the oversized suede coat she’d borrowed from her mother’s closet. Kevin experienced the usual mixed feelings seeing them together: a vague sadness for his daughter, who was so clearly the sidekick in this duo, but also a kind of relief rooted in the thought—or at least the hope—that her unprepossessing appearance might function as a form of protective camouflage out in the world.

“Just watch out for yourselves,” Kevin told them.

He hugged the girls good night, then stood in the doorway as they headed down the stairs and across the lawn. He’d tried for a while to restrict his hugs to his own child, but Aimee didn’t like being left out. It was awkward at first—he was far too conscious of the contours of her body and the length of their embraces—but it had gradually become part of the routine. Kevin didn’t exactly approve of Aimee, nor was he thrilled to have her living under his roof—she’d been staying there for three months and showed no signs of leaving anytime soon—but he couldn’t deny the benefits of having a third person in the mix. Jill seemed happier with a friend around, and there was a lot more laughter at the dinner table, fewer of those deadly moments when it was just the two of them, father and daughter, and neither had a word to say.

*   *   *

KEVIN LEFT
the house a little before nine. As usual, Lovell Terrace was lit up like a stadium, the big houses preening like monuments in the glow of their security floodlights. There were ten dwellings in all, “Luxury Homes” built in the last days of SUVs and easy credit, nine of them still occupied. Only the Westerfelds’ house was empty—Pam had died last month, and the estate remained unsettled—but the Homeowners’ Association made sure the lawn was cared for and the lights stayed on. Everyone knew what happened when deserted houses fell into disrepair, drawing the attention of bored teenagers, vandals, and the Guilty Remnant.

He headed out to Main Street and turned right, setting off on his nightly pilgrimage. It was like an itch—a physical compulsion—this need to be among friends, away from the gloomy, frightened voice that often held court in his head but always seemed so much louder and surer of itself in a quiet house after dark. One of the most frequently noted side effects of the Sudden Departure had been an outbreak of manic socializing—impromptu block parties that lasted for entire weekends, potluck dinners that stretched into sleepovers, quick hellos that turned into marathon gabfests. Bars were packed for months after October 14th; phone bills were exorbitant. Most of the survivors had settled down since then, but Kevin’s urge for nocturnal human contact remained as powerful as ever, as if a magnetic force were propelling him toward the center of town, in search of like-minded souls.

*   *   *

THE CARPE
Diem was an unassuming place, one of the few blue-collar taverns that had weathered Mapleton’s late-twentieth-century transformation from factory town to bedroom community. Kevin had been going there since he was a young man, back when it was called the Midway Lounge, and the only drafts you could get were Bud and Mich.

He entered through the restaurant door—the bar was in an adjoining room—nodding at the familiar faces as he made his way to the booth in the back, where Pete Thorne and Steve Wiscziewski were already deep in conversation over a pitcher of beer, passing a legal pad back and forth across the table. Unlike Kevin, both men had wives at home, but they usually arrived at the Carpe Diem long before he did.

“Gentlemen,” he said, sliding in beside Steve, a bulky, excitable guy who Laurie always said was a heart attack waiting to happen.

“Don’t worry,” Steve said, filling a clean glass with the dregs from the pitcher and handing it to Kevin. “There’s another on the way.”

“We’re going over the roster.” Pete held up the legal pad. The top page featured a rough sketch of a baseball diamond with names scrawled in the filled positions and question marks by the empty ones. “All we really need is a center fielder and a first baseman. And a couple of subs for insurance.”

“Four or five new players,” said Steve. “That should be doable, right?”

Kevin studied the sketch. “What happened with that Dominican guy you were telling me about? Your housecleaner’s husband?”

Steve shook his head. “Hector’s a cook. He works nights.”

“He might be able to play on the weekends,” Pete added. “That’s at least something.”

Kevin was gratified by the amount of thought and effort the guys were giving to a softball season that was still five or six months away. It was exactly what he’d been hoping for when he convinced the town council to restore funding for the adult recreation programs that had been suspended after the Sudden Departure. People needed a reason to get out of their houses and have a little fun, to look up and realize that the sky hadn’t fallen.

“I’ll tell you what would help,” said Steve. “If we could find a couple left-handed hitters. Right now every guy on the squad is a righty.”

“So what?” Kevin polished off his flat beer in a single gulp. “It’s slow-pitch. None of that strategy stuff really matters.”

“No, you gotta mix it up,” Pete insisted. “Keep the other guys off balance. That’s why Mike was so great. He really gave us that extra dimension.”

The Carpe Diem team had lost only one player on October 14th—Carl Stenhauer, a mediocre pitcher and second-string outfielder—but Mike Whalen, their cleanup hitter and star first baseman, was an indirect casualty as well. Mike’s wife was among the missing, and he still hadn’t recovered from his loss. He and his sons had painted a crude, almost unrecognizable portrait of Nancy on the back wall of their house, and Mike spent most of his nights alone with the mural, communing with her memory.

“I talked to him a few weeks ago,” Kevin said. “But I don’t think he’s gonna play this year. He says his heart’s just not in the game.”

“Keep working on him,” Steve said. “The middle of our lineup’s pretty weak.”

The waitress came by with a new pitcher and refilled everyone’s glasses. They toasted to fresh blood and a winning season.

“It’ll be good to get back on the field,” Kevin said.

“No kidding,” agreed Steve. “Spring’s not spring without softball.”

Pete put down his glass and looked at Kevin.

“So there’s one other thing we wanted to run by you. You remember Judy Dolan? I think she was in your son’s class.”

“Sure. She was a catcher, right? All-county or something?”

“All-state,” Pete corrected him. “She played varsity in college. She’s graduating in June, moving back home for the summer.”

“She’d be quite an asset,” Steve pointed out. “She could take over for me behind the plate, and I could move to first. It would solve a lot of our problems.”

“Wait a second,” Kevin said. “You want the league to go coed?”

“No,” Pete said, exchanging a wary glance with Steve. “That’s exactly what we don’t want.”

“But it’s the Men’s Softball League. If you have women playing, then it’s coed.”

“We don’t want
women,
” Steve explained. “We just want Judy.”

“You can’t discriminate,” Kevin reminded them. “If you admit one woman, you gotta admit them all.”

“It’s not discrimination,” Pete insisted. “It’s an exception. Besides, Judy’s bigger than I am. If you didn’t look too close, you wouldn’t even know she was a girl.”

“You ever play coed softball?” Steve asked. “It’s about as much fun as all-male Twister.”

“They do it with soccer,” Kevin said. “Everybody seems fine with that.”

“That’s soccer,” Steve said. “They’re all pussies to begin with.”

“Sorry,” Kevin told them. “You can have Judy Dolan or you can have a men’s league. But you can’t have both.”

*   *   *

THE MEN’S
room was a tight squeeze—a dank, windowless space outfitted with a sink, a hand dryer, a trash can, two side-by-side urinals, and a toilet stall—in which it was theoretically possible to have five individuals rubbing shoulders at the same time. Usually this only happened late at night, when guys had drunk so much beer that waiting politely was no longer an option, and by then, everybody was cheerful enough that the obstacle-course aspect of it just seemed like part of the fun.

Right now, though, Kevin had the whole place to himself, or at least he would have if he hadn’t been so aware of Ernie Costello’s friendly face gazing down at him from a framed photograph hanging above and between the two urinals. Ernie was the Midway’s former bartender, a big-bellied guy with a walrus mustache. The wall around his portrait was full of heartfelt graffiti scrawled by his friends and former customers.

We miss you buddy.

You were the best!!!

It’s not the same without you

You’re in our hearts.…

Better make it a double!

Kevin kept his head down, doing his best to ignore the bartender’s beseeching gaze. He’d never been a fan of the memorials that had sprung up all over town in the wake of the Sudden Departure. It didn’t matter if they were discreet—a roadside flower arrangement, a name soaped on the rear window of a car—or big and flashy, like the mountain of teddy bears in a little girl’s front yard, or the question
WHERE’S DONNIE?
burned into the grass along the entire length of the high school football field. He just didn’t think it was healthy, being reminded all the time of the terrible and incomprehensible thing that had happened. That was why he’d pushed so hard for the Heroes’ Day Parade—it was better to channel the grief into an annual observance, relieve some of the day-to-day pressure on the survivors.

He washed his hands and rubbed them under the useless dryer, wondering if Pete and Steve had inadvertently stumbled onto something with their idea of inviting Judy Dolan onto the team. Like those guys, Kevin preferred to play in a competitive all-male league, where you didn’t have to watch your language or think twice about barreling into the catcher to break up a close play at the plate. But it was starting to look like finding enough players for a serious league was going to be a heavy lift, and he thought a fun coed league might be an alternative worth considering, the greatest good for the greatest many.

*   *   *

KEVIN LITERALLY
bumped into Melissa Hulbert on his way out of the restroom. She was leaning against the wall in the dim alcove, waiting her turn for the ladies’ room, which could accommodate only one person at a time. Later on, he realized that their meeting probably wasn’t a coincidence, but it felt like one. Melissa acted surprised and seemed happier to see him than he might have expected.

“Kevin.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Wow. Where’ve you been hiding?”

“Melissa.” He made an effort to match the warmth of her greeting. “It’s been a while, huh?”

“Three months,” she informed him. “At least.”

“That long?” He pretended to do the math in his head, then expelled a grunt of fake wonderment. “So how’ve you been?”

“Good.” She shrugged to let him know that
good
was a bit of an overstatement, then studied him for an anxious moment or two. “Is this okay?”

“What?”

“Me being here.”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Her smile didn’t quite cancel out the edge in her voice. “I just assumed—”

“No, no,” he assured her. “It’s not like that.”

An older woman Kevin didn’t know emerged from the ladies’ room, mumbling an apology as she slipped by, trailing a vapor cloud of sweet perfume.

“I’m at the bar,” Melissa said, touching him lightly on the arm. “If you feel like buying me a drink.”

Kevin groaned an apology. “I’m here with some friends.”

“Just one drink,” she told him. “I think you owe me that much.”

He owed her a lot more than that, and they both knew it.

“Okay,” he said. “Fair enough.”

*   *   *

MELISSA WAS
one of three women Kevin had attempted to sleep with since his wife had left, and the only one close to his own age. They’d known each other since they were kids—Kevin was a year ahead of her in school—and they’d even had a little teenage fling the summer before his senior year, a heavy makeout session at the end of a keg party. It was one of those free-pass things—he had a girlfriend, she had a boyfriend, but the girlfriend and the boyfriend both happened to be on vacation—that hadn’t gone nearly as far as he would’ve liked. She was a hottie back then, a wholesome, freckle-faced redhead, with what were widely considered to be the nicest tits in all of Mapleton High. Kevin managed to put his hand on the left one, but only for a tantalizing second or two before she removed it.