Stealing Parker

Chapter 3


defcon 1
49 days until i turn 18

My Monday thus far:
1. Ride bike to school. Store bike at racks. Notice Brian’s red truck. Casually peek in windows for clues as to who he is. A fruit punch Gatorade sits in the center console along with a heap of coins. He has two bumper stickers: one is for the Braves, the other reads coexist and is covered by all these symbols that I recognize from Brother John’s PowerPoint presentation on devil worshipping signs. Based on this evidence, I have determined Brian and I are meant to be together. I love Gatorade! I use money! The Braves were my team once. I believe in coexisting. Totally meant to be together! (Kidding, kidding.)
2. Inside Hundred Oaks before first period, I make a point of walking by Coach Burns’s office near the gym. No sign of Brian. Unfortunately I hear Coach Burns talking on his phone. His sweet nothings are gag-worthy. “Yes, baby. I love you, sweet plum.” Sweet plum? Really?
3. Daydream during advanced US history. Does Brian have an apartment? I picture myself tangled up in his crumpled sheets, our legs knotted. The idea scares me a little because I’ve never gotten naked with anybody. I close my eyes, thinking of him in the buff, and accidently let out a moan. The entire class looks at me.
Silence.
Crickets.
Embarrassment.
“Slut,” Laura hisses under her breath.
Prude, I think, remembering what Tate said at church.
“Hey, hey! I’m trying to learn here,” Sam says, slipping a pencil behind his ear. “Some of us think about more than the opposite sex.”
“No one believes that, Sam,” Mr. Davis says, rubbing his eyes.
4. I walk by Coach Burns’s office between classes. Where is Brian? He must be the only coach/teacher who doesn’t actually come to school. Gar. This time Coach Burns has two guys in his office and is yelling at them for horsing around in the locker room. Apparently one guy stole the other’s clothes and tried to flush them down the toilet, which explains why the other is wearing only boxers with pine trees on them. I remember those boring underpants from the Pajama Party Prom.
???

At lunchtime, I’m sitting in the cafeteria, checking over Drew’s algebra, when Corndog plops down next to me.
“Can I see your calc homework?” he asks. “I want to make sure I got the third word problem right.”
A month ago, I would’ve said “hells to the no,” but valedictorian is in the bag and Corndog got stuck in second place because he bombed that horrific chemistry pop quiz back in October. Ha! Our school announced the valedictorian and salutatorian in January, so I’m not studying for three hours a night anymore.
“Which problem was that again?” I ask.
Corndog reads from his book. “A cup is in the shape of a truncated cone with a radius of 4 centimeters at the top and 2 centimeters at the bottom and a height of 6 centimeters. Water is being poured into the cup such that the height of the water in the cup is changing. Write an equation for volume of the water in the cup as a function of its height.”
“That one was hard. My answer’s in my blue folder.” I nod at my backpack. He digs around inside, pulls out the folder, and brushes his brown hair away from his face.
I erase Drew’s answer to number four and fill in the correct one. He hovers over my shoulder, watching.
“Ohhh,” he says.
“Are y’all cheating?” Corndog asks, peering at Drew’s homework.
“No.” I feel myself blushing. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, pointing at my paper.
“The only reason I couldn’t do this problem is ’cause I didn’t have a cup.” Corndog purses his lips, laughing.
I set my pencil down. “Enlighten me.”
“Don’t you have my cup? As manager of the baseball team, aren’t you in charge of our equipment?”
Drew bursts out laughing.
“I am not in charge of your cups or your dirty jockstraps.”
“Tsk tsk. I’m going to report you to Coach Hoffman for not being in complete control of our equipment.”
Drew is wiping tears away from his eyes.
I stare Corndog down. “I’m going to report you for being a complete tool.”
“How am I supposed to write an answer to this problem if you can’t tell me where my cup is?”
“There’s no way in hell I’d touch a cup.”
“Not even say, Bates’s?” He smirks and stares past me at Drew, who quickly looks away. His face goes red, and he plucks his algebra homework from my hand, gathers his backpack and laptop case and storms out of the cafeteria.
“What was that about?” Corndog asks, his forehead crinkling.
I rap my pencil on the table. “Piss off, Corndog.”
“Whoa.” His face turns serious. “What’s wrong?”
“On Saturday…you said something about Drew? Did you really think I’d use my best friend? Do you really think I’m that kind of person?” I play with a string hanging from my hoodie, waiting for him to respond.
He steals a chip off my tray. “On Friday night at Miller’s Hollow, he told me he was dumping Amy. He said he doesn’t like her as much as he likes someone else.”
“And you think he meant me?”
He shrugs and eats another of my chips. “I dunno. I figured so.”
I shove a bunch of chips in my mouth and crunch on them. I swallow, hating that I’m giving in to hunger. I want people to see me as pretty, as ladylike.
“I don’t like him like that,” I say quietly.
“Shit,” he replies, dragging a hand through his hair. “Poor Bates.” For as much as he gets on my nerves, Corndog’s a pretty good friend to lots of people. But he obviously doesn’t share my suspicions about Drew.
At the table behind us, Laura is going on and on about the Prom Decisional. “Y’all, you have to vote for a Disney theme. You just have to. I’m gonna dress as Princess Jasmine and I’ll get Aaron Pritchard to go as Aladdin!”
Aaron from church? The Aaron I made out with? Same ole Laura. What’s mine is hers, and what’s hers will always be hers.
“I’d rather do the Roaring Twenties,” Allie tells Laura. “Wouldn’t flapper dresses be so cute?”
“We’re doing Disney!” Laura squeals.
Corndog groans so low I can barely hear him. “Disney sounds terrible.”
“I like Ancient Rome more,” I reply. “I have this gorgeous white silk dress I could wear.” It belonged to Mom, but she never wore it and left it behind for me.
“Sounds pretty. Who are you going with?”
“No one in particular. I love my dress though,” I say, smiling to myself.
“I’m thinking of suggesting a Ho Down Prom. We’ll tell all the girls it’s a farm theme, you see, but really all the guys will dress in drag. Like hookers. Get it? A Ho Down?”
I laugh. “I’d pay money to see that.”
“Right?” Corndog chuckles and grabs another chip. “So are you gonna tell me what you did with my cup?”
I grab a handful of chips and throw them in Corndog’s face.
I hear a laugh. A shadow falls across my tray and papers, and someone taps my shoulder. “Parker, I’m glad to see you’re keeping my captain in check.”
I twirl around and look up to find Brian Hoffman standing there in a button-down Oxford shirt and black tie. He looks like a Geek Squad sexpot. Black hair falls in waves around his ears.
He nods once at me. “I need your help with something after practice this evening. Can you stay for fifteen minutes or so past six o’clock?”
“Fifteen minutes?” I squeak.
“Give or take a few.” Brian smiles.
I examine my nail polish. I’m glad I stuck with Passion Peach. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Okay, see you then.”
A bunch of girls, including Laura, stare at him as he struts out of the cafeteria.
Corndog gives me a smile and looks from me to the cafeteria doors, shaking his head. “You are highly entertaining, Parker Shelton.”
???

You’re not going to believe this, but after lunch, I don’t stalk Coach Burns’s office to look for Brian. Instead, I stalk Drew’s locker to make sure he’s all right. A sign advertising the annual Baseball-Softball Prom Decisional on April third hangs on the wall. Tickets for the game are already on sale.
I glance at my watch a few times and slide on fresh lip gloss while waiting for him. Approaching at my ten o’clock is Ty Green, aka the hottest guy at school, swaggering sexily. We talked briefly at this New Year’s party, but he disappeared before the ball dropped. When the ball fell, I was all alone, and this incredible loneliness washed over me, like being pulled under by a strong tide.
Ty gives me this knowing grin, then heads toward the art room. That’s when Drew shows up with Matt Higgins, who does this vanishing act into the library. As if he’s ever been in there.
Drew opens his locker to check his reflection in the little mirror he has hanging inside.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “Can we talk?”
“I’m busy.”
“You look fine.”
“Yeah?” He grins at himself in the mirror.
“You’re like the Narcissus of Hundred Oaks.”
He looks over his shoulder at me. “Who? You callin’ me a girl?”
I shut my eyes and shake my head. My brother has been complaining for years that he and I must be the only cultured people in Franklin. “No, he was this Greek guy. In the time of the gods.”
“You think I’m a Greek god? I knew you loved me.”
“Come on, you.” I shut his locker door and pull him into the library, leading him to the magazine room. We fall down onto cushy chairs. Drew sets his laptop case on the floor. He always keeps his computer nearby in case he has a free moment to write.
I open my purse and pull out my compact so I can re-powder my face. I dab it across my nose and chin. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” He props his ankle on his knee and shakes his foot.
“You ran out of the cafeteria. I was worried.” I shut my compact and slip it back into my bag.
Drew drums his fingers on the chair’s arm, then takes my hand and studies my peach nails. “I like this color. It’s simple.” He slowly meets my eyes.
My cell beeps, and I quickly check the screen. Mom. She sent me a text saying she hopes I’m having a nice day. “Ugghhh,” I groan. “She’s so annoying. She won’t let go.”
“Who was that?”
“Mom.”
“Have you talked to her lately?” Drew asks softly.
“No.”
“Sometimes she calls my mom to check in, because you never answer her calls. Why haven’t you?”
“Because,” I snap. The librarian gives me a warning glare. “She ruined my family and everything with my church when she…you know…came out. I just don’t get why she had to leave us.”
I rarely talk about any of this, not even with my family, so I’m surprised it’s tumbling out of my mouth. It’s like, if none of this had happened, everything would’ve been okay with me—with church, with softball, maybe I would’ve had real dates. The real goddamn kicker is that her girlfriend, Theresa, was the church office assistant.
“But it’s not your mom’s fault,” Drew starts.
“But it is.” I shove the phone deep in my bag.
“She can’t help it—”
“It doesn’t bother me that she’s gay. I just wish my family was still together.” My eyes water.
He hesitates, and looks around the magazine room. His mouth opens, but the warning bell rings for next class and Drew jumps to his feet. He throws an arm around me as we enter the crowded hallway.
???

Laura had a big black dog named June. I loved going to her house. I’d throw stick after stick, and June would go retrieve them and lope back to me, and I swear, if dogs could smile, June would have the biggest grin on her face. I loved playing with that dog. Hugging her. Kissing her. Laura hated that I got along so well with the dog, because June belonged to her and she didn’t like sharing.
Then, one Sunday morning, Laura told me June had died. I cried during Sunday School. I wiped tears off my face during Big Church, using the hem of my dress. Mom and Dad asked what was wrong, so I told them the dog had died. When my parents expressed their condolences to Brother John, he told them June was alive and well. And then Brother John gave me a lecture on how lying is a straight path to Hell. I never told anyone that Laura lied. I didn’t want anyone to tell her she was on a path to Hell.
Written February 15. Wadded up and burned. The flame caught my thumb and I stuck it in my mouth, to soothe it.
???

Today’s practice starts out with a team meeting. I squeeze between Drew and Sam on the bleachers.
Brian is standing in front of us, twirling a bat in his hands like a pinwheel. I’m glad to see he ditched the Best Buy employee costume for a sweatshirt and baseball pants that’ve seen a few workouts.
He glances at me and then focuses on Coach Burns, who clears his throat and reads from his clipboard, telling us about the first game set to take place Saturday against Tullahoma. He explains that we should meet at school at 6:30 a.m. to get on the bus so we can go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then make it to Tullahoma in time to warm up.
Drew growls, “I hate Cracker Barrel. I’m sick of it.” His mom is always bringing food home because she gets a 50 percent discount.
“I love their pancakes,” I say, knocking my knee against his. “I wish you’d hook me up more often.”
Drew knocks his knee against mine. “As if you’d eat a pancake.”
“I would eat one.”
“Pancakes or waffles?”
“Waffles. Syrup or butter?”
“Miss Shelton, is there a problem?” Brian asks. He stops twirling his bat.
“Um, no?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“No private conversations while Coach Burns is talking, please.” He turns his gaze from me to Coach Burns, and heat rushes through my body. Why’d he have to embarrass me like that?
Since the softball team is still using the field, Coach Burns starts talking strategy for Tullahoma, the first of forty-five games. The football team gets all the money they want, but our baseball and softball teams share equipment and a field. Coach Burns seems like the kind of guy who makes do with whatever he gets. What kind of coach will Brian be next year?
Coach Burns says blah, blah and I focus on the softball team, watching them scrimmage. The girl they’ve got playing third base has poor range. She’s not quick on her feet. I could always cover the entire gap between third and shortstop, diving when I needed to, taking a ball straight to the gut when required. This girl barely moves three feet, then lets the left fielder clean up her mistakes.
Laura steps up to bat next. I feel a pang of hatred for her as I watch her dig a trench with her cleat. She taps her bat on home plate then rests it on her shoulder. Terrible stance. How is Coach Lynn standing for this?
I scan the field for her, but she’s nowhere. Then I notice Mr. Majors, the music teacher, is standing by the dugout reading People. What? Where’s Coach Lynn? They’ve got the resident accordion player supervising practice? Huh. I hope she’s okay.
Laura swings at the first two pitches, missing both.
I pull my knees to my chest and stare at the field, sort of wishing I was out there. Ever since I came here on Saturday, my hands have been aching to hold a bat. I want to slip cleats on and jog the bases and slide into home. I shake these ideas out of my head the moment I see Allie and Melanie pointing at me from first and second bases, respectively.
Boy, have I fallen. I might as well be third-string.
Laura takes a few more practice swings. Hardly any pitchers are great batters, because they spend all their time practicing pitching, but Laura’s worse at bat than most. She makes up for it on the mound—she’s one of the best in the conference. I’m feeling evil, so I pray she’ll strike out. Strike out, strike out. She steps up and swings away at a high ball.
Strike three!
I clap my hands together and laugh.
“Is there something you’d like to share with us, Parker?” Brian asks.
“No, sir.”
He gives me a look. He mouths, sir?
I salute, which makes him chuckle. His eyes look like melted Hershey’s Kisses.
I can’t wait to find out what he needs help with after practice.
???

An eon later, practice ends.
Brian beckons me to follow him toward center field, toward the batting cages. He twirls his bat and glances back at me.
I trot up to his side. “So you need my help with something?”
“I do.” His stride is long and full of importance.
I pull my hair over one shoulder and play with a clump of it, trying to de-stress. He smells delicious, like bubblegum, and his frayed sweatshirt looks soft. It’s the kind of shirt I’d love to curl up in to watch TV.
“Have you ever had a haircut?” he jokes.
“Not in a while.”
“Hmmm.” He checks my tangles out.
“I like my hair! Most guys like it too!”
He laughs and chews his gum, making a smacking noise. “I didn’t say I don’t like it.”
“Right. You didn’t say anything.”
“Nothing to say.” He goes silent. Cars roar by on the highway beyond the train tracks.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t totally honest with you about the stats on Saturday…It’s just, I was enjoying talking to you and didn’t want to stop.”
He nods and gives me a smile. “Apology accepted.”
He pulls open the center field gate, and we walk over to the batting cages. The sun has completely set, and only a few floodlights illuminate the field. I shiver, and warm my hands in my armpits.
“You cold?” he asks.
I nod. Normally, this is when the guy would warm me up in some way, by hugging me or giving me his jacket or starting an intense make-out session that would leave me hotter than a volcano. But all Brian does is turn on the pitching machine and swing his bat.
“You want me to load balls for you?” I ask, not totally disappointed. It’s nice he wants my company.
He finds my eyes. “No. I want you to hit for me.”
My mouth falls open. My fingers itch to hold a bat. My fingers itch to hold him too, but that’s beside the point.
I step closer and look up at his face. “Why?”
“Uh…I’m interested to see what you’ve got. You played varsity as a freshman? That’s gotta mean something.”
I shrug.
“Will you hit a few balls? For me?” His voice is soft and pleading.
“What’s it to you?”
He moves a step closer and stares down at me. “I’d hate to see someone with potential throw it all away.”
“If I bat for you, what’s in it for me?”
He smirks slightly. “What do you want?”
You. I don’t say that though. He watches as I play with my hair.
“In return, I want you to tell me about what baseball means to you,” I say. “Did you play? And you can’t just say ‘something like that.’”
He exhales, and stares up at the stars. “Yes, I played. Now you have to hit a ball.”
I grab his elbow. “That’s not good enough. Where did you play? For how long? What position? What’s your best batting average? Or are you a pitcher? What’s your ERA?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, raising a hand, looking amused. “Bat first, talk second.”
I take the aluminum bat from his hand, run my fingers over the cool metal, and take a few practice swings. My arms feel stiff and weak, but I haven’t lost my mechanics. Batting is like breathing.
He steps over to the pitching machine and turns it off. The whirring sound ceases. He picks up a softball and tosses it to himself. “I’ll throw a few at you first, if you’d rather.”
“Would you turn the damned machine back on?”
He raises his eyebrows, smiles, and laughs. “You’re a feisty one. No wonder all the guys like you so much.”
I shoot him a look, but deep down I’m pleased he called me feisty and knows that guys like me. One point for Parker.
He turns the machine back on and stands behind the protective fence. I put on a batting helmet.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yup.” I take another practice swing.
“You’ve got good form.”
“I know.”
He grins. “Boy, are you humble. Here we go.” He feeds a ball into the machine and it whizzes toward me. I let it pass. I dig my boot into the dirt, wishing I had cleats. I take another practice swing.
“Again,” Brian says, dropping a ball into the hole.
This time I swing and make contact. The ball slams into the fence right in Brian’s face.
“Sure. Take whatever’s wrong out on me,” he says with a smile.
“That’s the plan.” Back into my stance. Practice swing before the real thing. This time I connect. Feel a rush of electricity tingle down my biceps and forearms. I knocked it out of the park. Well, I hit the rear nets. But I bet it would’ve been out of the park. And it feels good. I grin.
“Ready?” Brian asks, holding up another ball.
“Wait.” I drop the bat. “You got any more of that gum?”
???

At 7:00 p.m.—way past the 15 minutes I’d agreed to—Brian turns off the pitching machine. I only missed, I dunno, six or seven balls out of a hundred? My muscles are screaming at me and I’m stiff as stale licorice, but my mind feels clearer than it has in a long time.
“Damn, you’ve got a bat on you,” he exclaims, walking over as I pull off my helmet. “Fun?”
“It was,” I admit. “Now what about my questions? Are you going to answer them now?”
My stomach grumbles.
“Hungry?” He takes his cap off, smoothes his hair, and puts it back on.
“Starved.” I poke him in the chest. “But you owe me a bunch of answers.”
“True, true.” He hesitates. “Would you…”
“Would I?” I’m bouncing on my tiptoes now.
He secures his bat beneath his arm. “Want to get some food?”
Holy scandal!
“What kind of food?” I ask, calm and cool.
“I dunno, does it matter?”
“I don’t eat olives.”
He chuckles. “I once read that there’s an olive in the world for everybody, you just have to find it.”
“I haven’t found any olives that I like.”
“So we won’t get olives.”
I blow warm air onto my hands and rub them together. “Is this okay? I mean, are we allowed to talk off school property?”
He thinks for a few secs. “I haven’t read the school handbook. I have no idea. But we’re not going clubbing or anything. We’re just getting food, right?”
“Right.” Totally cool. I’m totally cool. Breathe. “Why do you want to get dinner with me?”
He lifts a shoulder, chewing his gum. “We both gotta eat.”
“Don’t you have plans? A family? A girlfriend? A wife?”
He laughs and jingles his keys. “Let’s go.”
???

“This place is a total swamp.”
Brian tosses his beige cap onto the dashboard. “I came here all the time in high school.”
“When? Like fifty years ago?”
“Oh, hush,” he says with a smile. He musses his wavy black curls before we climb out of his truck. The neon Foothills Diner sign flickers in the window. Empty plastic bottles and cigarette butts litter the parking lot. No one from school ever comes here—because it’s a total swamp, making it an ideal place where no one will see us.
He opens the door for me; the little bell jingles. Burger stench hits me in the face.
“This is one of my favorite places.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Killer cheese fries.” He points at me. “With bacon bits.”
My mouth waters. “I looooooovvve bacon bits.”
If Brian wants me to eat cheese fries, I’m eating cheese fries. I once read that the bloomin’ onion at Outback Steakhouse has 1,800 calories, so I can only imagine how much fat these cheese fries have. How big are the portions? I take a quick glance around the tiny diner and find that the plates are the size of trashcan lids. Lovely.
Brian asks the hostess if we can take the booth in the corner, and a wave of embarrassment floods my body. He doesn’t want to be seen with me. But if he didn’t want to be seen with me, would he risk going anywhere public? Believe it or not, swampy Foothills Diner is a public place.
“Parker?”
I look up to find Brian already sitting in the booth with his arm stretched across the back of the seat, and I’m still standing by the door. I’m such a nerd. I shuffle over and plop down in the seat across from him right as the waitress saunters up to ask for our drink order. She checks Brian out the way I stare at pictures of cupcakes.
Brian reads the drink menu. “I’ll take a PBR on tap.”
He ordered a beer?! He’s a coach at my school and he orders a beer? What does that mean? Does he feel comfortable with me like I feel comfortable with him?
“And for you?” the waitress asks, giving me stink eye. It’s like she’s daring me to order a beer.
I take the menu from Brian’s hand and scan it. My fingers stick to the sticky plastic. “Iced tea? Unsweetened.”
“Coming up,” the waitress says, smiling brightly at Brian, and then goes behind the counter.
“I forgot you can’t drink yet,” he says.
“I can’t even vote yet.”
He examines the mini jukebox on the table. “When can you?”
“April fifth.”
He rubs the scruff on his jaw. “So you’ve got a great bat. I can’t wait to see you in the field.”
“Who says you’re going to see me in the field?” I start looking over the dinner menu, to see if anything might be less than 80,000 calories.
“I figured…You know, since you enjoyed batting tonight, you might want to go out for the team again.”
The waitress sets our drinks on the table.
“I don’t know that I want to rejoin the team, but I do love softball,” I admit.
He rushes to sip his beer. “What happened?”
I fish a Splenda out of the sugar caddy, rip the package open, and stir the powder into my tea. “I’m not answering any of your questions until you answer mine, Brian Hoffman. You must be the king of deflection.”
“That’s me.” He shrugs a little, smiling. It’s cute, and I find myself leaning across the table toward him, cradling my tea glass with both hands.
“Tell me about you and baseball.”
He nurses his beer. “Not much to tell.”
“Not much?”
He swallows another sip. “I got a scholarship to play at Georgia Tech, but I never got much playing time.”
“What’s your position?”
“Right field.”
“You must be a great hitter, then.”
“I was,” he says softly. I get what he means: Playing outfield doesn’t take the kind of skill you need to play say, pitcher, catcher, or shortstop. All the really great batters play outfield.
“And then what happened?”
Half his beer is gone already. Will I have to drive him home?
“Lost my timing…wasn’t as good as I thought I was…coaches thought I’d peak, but I never did.” His brown eyes bore into mine. Embarrassed, but open. My mind flashes back to how he showed me his bitten fingernails.
“Then what happened?” I whisper.
He raps his fork on the table. “In four years of college, I never started. I became a utility player they used only when another guy needed a break.”
“Do you regret playing in college?”
“No…it’s just, I learned from it. That and…well, I learned that I can’t plan anything anymore.” He rubs his eyes and looks out the window, hesitating. A semi pulls into the parking lot. “I need to take it all as it comes.”
“Aren’t some plans important, though?” I ask, thinking of Vanderbilt, where I can start all over.
He shakes his head. “I live for now. Which is why I want to see you play again. I can tell how much you like it. What if you regret it later?”
I lick my lips. He’s right. But I’m not sure I want to reach out again.
That’s when Waitress Seductress Extraordinaire comes back and gets our order. Brian surprises me by ordering for us. “We’re sharing an order of Fries à la Appalachia,” he says, handing over the menus and turning his focus back to me. Le waitress stomps off.
I ask, “Why are they called that?”
“Because when they’ve got the fries stacked up they’re higher than a mountain range.”
I groan and touch my stomach.
“You’re funny,” he says, his eyes twinkling. He scrunches his bangs in his fist.
I pull my legs up under my butt and ask, “So do you know which gym class you’re teaching yet?”
“Right now I’m shadowing Coach Burns…but I’m going to take over Coach Lynn’s classes when she goes on maternity leave the last week of April.”
“You’re gonna be my gym teacher? You’d better not make us do step aerobics or play with the giant parachute or anything.”
“We’re definitely gonna play with the giant parachute…” He runs a hand over his head, looking around the diner. He smiles and focuses on me again. “Technically, I’ll only be your gym teacher for like two weeks. And then you graduate. And then I’m teaching driver’s ed this summer.”
“Whoa, that’s so cool,” I tease.
He laughs, but then grows serious again. “I never planned on becoming a teacher.”
“What did you plan on?”
“Going to the majors…And if not that, then maybe working for an MLB club. As a coach or trainer or something. That’s why I got a master’s, so I could at least work in the game…I might try to get a job doing field crew somewhere. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
I sip my tea and swallow. He doesn’t offer any further details about his career choices, so I change the subject. “So, what brought you back here?”
He hesitates and chooses a song to play on the jukebox. “Everywhere” by Tim McGraw. A great, depressing choice. Finally he whispers, “I wanted to be back with my parents for a while?” He says it like a question. Like he’s unsure of why he’s living with his parents? Like he’s unsure of why he’s admitting this to me?
Maybe I do need to Google him. Brian Hoffman is like an onion. I peel back one layer only to find a hundred denser layers full of secrets.
“Did you miss your parents?” I ask, missing my own mom like crazy.
He nods, finding my eyes. He looks younger than twenty-three right now. Did he wander after not making it to the major leagues? Is he lost?
“Do you like coaching at all?”
He looks at me over the top of his glass as he sips his beer. “I don’t have much interest in writing daily status reports for Dr. Salter on how the baseball team is doing. Shouldn’t our win-loss record be report enough? And you wouldn’t believe what the women talk about in the teachers’ lounge. I’ve learned all about breast pumps.” He shudders.
I laugh. “So it’s not what you expected?”
“No.” He laughs with me. “I guess I thought…I guess I thought that if I came back to Franklin, I would feel good again. Like in high school.”
“College was really that bad?”
“It wasn’t what I expected. Like I said, I thought I’d be playing ball and going on to bigger things. I thought if I came back here I could at least have fun with my old friends…but they’re all busy planning weddings and buying houses and having kids, and I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
This conversation feels very adult-ish and mature. I’m glad he’s speaking to me about it, but I can tell he doesn’t want to. “Okay, on to a more important question,” I ask, propping my chin on my fist.
He glances up, wary.
“What’s your most embarrassing moment?”
“What?” He looks amused. “That’s your important question?”
“It’s very important!” I nod seriously, trying not to crack up.
“Okay, well, if I tell you this, you can’t tell anyone at school. Understand?”
“Pinky swear.” I link my finger with his.
“So…in high school, this buddy of mine and I discovered that if you climbed up on top of the lockers in the boys’ locker room, you could push the ceiling tiles up and crawl into the ceiling next to the girls’ locker room.”
“So you like, fell through the ceiling?”
“I didn’t fall through the ceiling! At least…not then anyway.”
I laugh. “I gotta hear more.”
“Up in the ceiling, the wall between the two locker rooms was made of concrete.”
“Concrete.”
“My friend Evan got this idea that we could chisel through the concrete. Like make a tunnel.”
I laugh.
“We spent two months chiseling through the concrete.”
“Weren’t you worried about structural damage? Why didn’t you just run into the locker room or something if you wanted to see the girls so bad?”
“I was sixteen. I wasn’t thinking about structural damage. I was thinking about how if Evan and I ran in the locker room all the girls would scream and yell.”
“I’m sure you were hot in high school. Why’d you need to spy on girls to see them naked?”
I cannot. Believe. I said that.
Brian’s face goes redder than the ketchup. “That’s beside the point.”
“Oh really?”
“It was about the adventure!”
“The adventure of chiseling through concrete to spy on girls?” I snorggle.
He gives me a look. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”
“Yes.”
“Then behave.”
I salute. “Yes, sir.”
“Would you stop calling me that?”
“Tell the story already.”
Our drinks sit untouched as Brian and I move closer and closer, leaning across the table toward each other. We’re laughing as Brian goes on to explain that after they chiseled through the concrete, he edged onto the ceiling tiles on the other side, they couldn’t support his weight, and he fell straight down into the locker room. Girls wearing nothing but bras and panties ran screaming while he sprained his wrist and got suspended for a week.
“Now I get to ask you an important question,” he says, once I’m done wiping tears of laughter off my face. “What’s your earliest memory?” he asks.
The Waitrix brings the cheese fries, and we dive in. He invited me out, so screw the calories. I nod, I listen, I ask him questions, I laugh.
To be here with me—a seventeen-year-old, and having a great time, he must truly be living in the now. And so am I.
???

It’s not my earliest memory, but it’s my favorite.
When I was eleven, I packed up my suitcase and went to sleep-away camp for the first time. Cumberland Creek church camp. Laura and Allie went too. We spent the week canoeing and cooking burgers over a crackling campfire and doing three-legged races in Field Olympics. I spent a lot of time in this outdoor chapel, praying and writing in my journal about how much fun I was having and how I loved being a Christian because it made me feel good about myself. I liked being a good person.
During night devotion, the counselors allowed us to write prayers on slips of paper and burn them, so whatever we prayed for would be just between us and Him. I hoped for things like relief for Gramma’s arthritis and for Dad and Ryan to stop being allergic to animals so my parents would let me adopt a yellow lab puppy already.
Campers received mail, but if you received more than three pieces of mail, you had to sing a song in front of the entire camp. On Wednesday, I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle” in front of three hundred kids. But I didn’t care. My parents loved me enough to send fifteen postcards.
That’s my favorite memory.
On the last night of camp, a dance took place and everyone could bring dates. Nobody asked Laura and Allie, and they felt disappointed because that was the activity we’d been looking forward to most. This boy J. C. and I went together and held hands. I’d never done that before. At the end of the night, he kissed my cheek.
I never saw the boy again because he was from Nashville, but Laura and Allie saw the kiss, and I saw the envy in their eyes. Laura told me that I was moving too fast and should be careful or I would end up pregnant, or worse, I would sin. After that, I worried what other girls thought of me. I knew how pretty I was, I knew that boys liked me. But I didn’t so much as hold hands with another guy until after Mom left. Up until then, I’d never done anything wrong, never even kissed a boy on the lips. But my church turned on me anyway.
???

Brian pulls his truck up to my house.
He peers at my yard. I hope he’s not disgusted by the stench of fried chicken and laundromat. “This is it?”
“This is it.”
We sit in silence for a minute, listening to the Fray. This silence isn’t awkward. It’s nice, and I probably should get out of the truck, but I don’t want to. Not yet.
“So will you think about playing ball this year?” he asks quietly, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Ever since Corndog asked me to stay away from Drew, I’ve been thinking about my reputation. How even though I’ve never made a move on Drew, Corndog thought I might, which goes to show that even if my intentions are good, someone could misinterpret them.
If someone saw Brian and me at Foothills Diner tonight, they might’ve thought:
1. He’s my big brother. (Ew.)
2. He’s my husband. (Kinda weird.)
3. Isn’t that the new coach of the Hundred Oaks baseball team and the new manager? (Truth sucks sometimes.)
4. Isn’t that the new coach of the Hundred Oaks baseball team with some gorgeous model? (Ideal.)
5. Isn’t that sweet Parker Shelton with some gorgeous male model? (Doubly ideal.)
So who knows how people interpreted my quitting the softball team? Sure, I was trying to prove I’m not like my mom, but did everyone realize that? Or did they think Parker Shelton is a big ole quitter?
And how is it fair to people like Brian, who tried so hard, for me not to even attempt playing again?
“I’ll talk to Coach Lynn tomorrow,” I whisper.
Brian chomps his gum as he stares out the window into the night. The moon and stars shine brightly on his smiling face. Then his smile fades. “I guess this means you won’t be managing anymore.”
“I guess not.”
“I liked hanging out with you. It was fun. You’re easy to talk to.”
I bite back my grin. “I feel the same way.”
“So I’ll see you around?” he asks quietly. He turns to face me and drops a hand on my shoulder. His touch zaps my senses, and a jolt runs up my arm and down through my body to my toes and between my legs. Sin lightning. Or something.
I steal a breath. “I hope so.”
“Me too.” He folds his hands and glances up at my face.
“Thanks again. For everything,” I say, and he nods before I climb out of his truck. I walk to the door and turn to wave bye. He waves back. The Ford’s headlights flicker on as he reverses out of my driveway. I smell my arm, to see if I picked up his scent. Nothing.
The door pops open behind me, letting out lamplight and warm air.
“There you are,” Ryan says. He peers over my shoulder at the driveway. I slip past my brother to go make dinner for him and Dad, who’s stretched out on the couch watching a Law and Order rerun.
“Who was that?” Ryan asks, following me into the kitchen.
“It’s nobody.”
Nobody who I hope will become somebody very, very soon.