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When Emily entered her classroom on Friday morning, Thomas quickly said, “Shut the door!”
Emily did. “Why?”
“Because there’s too much drama out there,” Thomas said.
“Because Thomas is afraid of DeAnna,” Chloe said.
“What? Why?”
“I’m not afraid of her,” Thomas said, ignoring Emily’s questions. “I just don’t want to deal with her.”
“Why?” Emily repeated.
“She had a few choice words for Thomas this morning,” Chloe said. “But only because she overheard him saying some stupid stuff of his own.”
“What did you say?” Emily asked.
“I was just talking to Blake in the hallway, and I said something about Bojack. I was just kidding. But DeAnna overheard me and freaked out.”
“DeAnna defended Bojack?” Emily found that hard to believe.
“Yeah, well he’s like her father or something,” Thomas said with thick distaste.
“No, he’s not. He’s only been dating her mom a few months,” Emily said.
Thomas and Chloe looked at her, surprised, and Thomas said, “Look at you, official island know-it-all. Whatever. My point is, he lives with her, and so she’s mad.”
It was Emily’s turn to be surprised. “He lives with her? I didn’t know that.” She finally sat down. “I am so confused. Will you please start at the beginning and tell me what you said?”
Thomas looked at Chloe.
“He doesn’t want to,” Chloe explained. “It was pretty mean.”
“And it was also supposed to be private. I was just talking to Blake.”
“You were not,” Chloe said. “There were like five other guys standing around and you said it loud enough for them all to hear. You were trying to get a laugh. And you got it, but DeAnna heard it too.”
“Just tell me!” Emily said. Her impatience was overwhelming her.
Thomas took a deep breath. “OK, but don’t hate me? You love me, but you know I can be a jerk sometimes, right?”
“Just tell me!” Emily said again.
“OK, so I was just kidding. I said that Bojack probably doesn’t mind being in jail because it’s nicer than his house.”
Emily stared at him as she processed this. The cruelty of his comment didn’t surprise her at all. What surprised her was the word jail, and the phrase “his house.” “You mean, DeAnna’s house?”
“Well, yeah,” Thomas stammered, “but he lives there. It would have been extra mean to say ‘nicer than DeAnna’s house.’”
“No, I’m not suggesting that you should have been more specific. I’m just trying to point out that DeAnna was probably defending her house, not her mother’s unpleasant boyfriend.”
Thomas shrugged. “Maybe, but then she started freaking out about how it’s my dad’s fault that Bojack’s in jail and that the whole island knows that, and my dad’s a creep, blah, blah, blah.”
Emily frowned. “Your dad put Bojack in jail?”
Thomas looked incredulous. “Haven’t you heard about what happened last night?”
“Obviously not!” Emily said, defensive. “I get all my island news from you two!”
Thomas laughed. “OK,” he began, shifting forward in his chair as if he couldn’t wait to deliver something savory, “last night Bojack got in a fistfight with some windmill guy—”
“Jake?”
“No, not Jake,” Thomas said, looking peeved at the interruption, “someone else, someone who just got here. They were both hammered, and they went outside and beat the snot out of each other. The sheriff finally came and put Bojack in jail.”
“Didn’t he get medical attention first? And what jail? We don’t have a jail? And why just Bojack? What about the other guy?”
Thomas put both his hands up to stop the barrage of questions. “Slow down! I don’t know, or care, about his medical attention, but they took him off on the first ferry this morning to the jail in Rockland, and he got arrested because he had a knife. He actually cut the guy.”
Emily’s eyes grew wide. This had gone from juicy gossip to scary news.
“He’s OK,” Thomas hurried to comfort her, “people broke it up, but still, assault with a weapon and all that. Bojack could go to prison. Again.”
Emily let out a slow breath. “No wonder DeAnna’s upset.”
Thomas made a pfft sound. “Not like he helps with the bills or anything. The guy’s a slug. DeAnna’s mom’s just desperate.”
“Thomas, I fear this situation is bringing out the worst in you.”
Thomas sat up a little straighter and squared his shoulders. “Maybe, but I’m sick of an entire island full of white trash crapping all over my father just for being a businessman. And Bojack doesn’t care about the stupid windmills, even if he does live right beside them. He’s just looking for a reason to fight.”
“Right beside them? Where does DeAnna live?”
Thomas looked positively haughty as he said, “In a broken-down trailer on top of Chicken Hill.”
––––––––
Julie called Emily out of her third period class. Emily asked the librarian to cover for her, and then headed down the hall. As she got closer to the office, she saw a giant pile of cardboard boxes. “Yes?” She stuck her head into the office.
“Would you please get that stuff out of my hallway?” Julie snapped.
Emily looked at the boxes, but it took several seconds for it to click that those were her boxes. Then her heart leapt with excitement.
“Now?” Julie pressed.
Emily looked at her. The woman’s unpleasantness still surprised her after almost an entire school year. “You know I have a class right now, right? Couldn’t this have waited until—”
“You know people have to use that hallway, right?”
Emily turned the other cheek and moved the boxes, one by one, into the girls’ locker room. She was notably tempted to rip into them right then and there, but she did have a class she was supposed to be educating, no matter what the school secretary said.
When the girls saw the bats at practice, they went crazy. Emily had unboxed everything and put the bats into the bat bag, and the girls scrambled to get them out of the bag, as if it were Christmas and there were only five presents for fifteen girls. DeAnna and Juniper stood out of the fray—DeAnna didn’t seem to care, and Juniper had seen bats before. Emily eyed them—together but not together. They stood nowhere near each other yet seemed to share the bond of being outcasts.
“That’s enough,” she said, trying to sound firm. “We’re not allowed to touch bats this week. On Monday, we’ll start batting.”
“Do we even have a batting cage?” Juniper asked, her nose pointed at the ceiling.
Emily didn’t know, so she ignored the question.
“The boys do,” Hailey said. “I bet they’ll let us use it.”
“I wouldn’t bet on anything,” Ava said. “The pitching machine is for baseball, and Larry’s the one who sets it up, and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to do anything to help the softball team.”
“Who’s Larry?” Juniper asked.
“The janitor,” Thomas said with disdain.
“Why won’t he set up the pitching machine for softball? Isn’t that his job?” Juniper asked.
Several of the girls, and Thomas, laughed at this.
“Larry is the janitor, but he thinks he’s the mayor,” Thomas said.
“Larry hates Miss M,” Ava said.
Emily reeled from the pronouncement of enmity, as well as from the offhand way she said it, as if it was common, accepted knowledge. She hadn’t known Larry hated her. She’d thought he just hated everyone.
As the girls went through their stretches, Emily asked Thomas with a low voice, “Any idea why Larry hates me?”
Thomas looked at her and she saw nothing but tenderness in his eyes. “Don’t feel bad, Miss M. First of all, Larry is crazy. Second, he hates you because you aren’t from here.”
“So you think he’ll soften toward me as the years move on?”
Thomas shook his head slowly. “You can teach here forever but you still won’t be born here. But really, don’t worry about it. He’s the janitor, and plenty of other people have your back.”
Practice was a lot more fun this time: they had catcher’s equipment.
Juniper helped MacKenzie get strapped in, which was a process as everything was too big for her.
“You probably should’ve gotten a size small,” Thomas said.
“I did,” Emily said.
When she was finally in, MacKenzie ran around in a circle, giggling. “How am I supposed to move in this stuff?”
“Catch the ball, and you won’t have to move much,” Juniper said.
Everyone took turns throwing to MacKenzie. If the ball came anywhere near her, she stopped it. When the ball didn’t come near her, Thomas chased it down. When Emily worried about MacKenzie’s legs tiring, she started having her throw down to an imaginary second base, and had the other girls take turns catching her throws. That was frightful. At first, MacKenzie’s throws weren’t even close to true, but slowly she homed in. But even when the ball went straight into the waiting glove, most of the girls couldn’t catch it. Juniper could, of course, but Emily didn’t think Juniper would be playing much shortstop. Hailey could. So could Ava. And Jasmine could, but everything Jasmine did seemed to be in slow motion. Emily wondered, not for the first time, how she was going to field a softball team with only five players.
Jake Jasper showed up early again and caught the tail end of the throw-down drill. Emily found herself embarrassed that he was seeing it. She didn’t want him to think she was a bad coach. She called the girls in a few minutes early.
“Great job, guys. This has been quite a week, and given the circumstances, you look really, really good. Next week, we’ll start hitting, and maybe we can even get outside.”
“It’s freezing out,” Sydney whined.
Emily ignored her.
“So cool,” Juniper said. “In Mattawooptock, we wouldn’t be outside for another three weeks.”
Emily tried to hide her surprise at such an almost-positive statement delivered by Juniper’s lips.
“Why?” Sydney asked her.
“There’s still like three feet of snow there,” Juniper said, her tone returning to baseline snark.
“Is Matta-whatever really that far north?” Sydney said.
“No,” Juniper said, her annoyance thick, “but you do realize that there’s less snow on the coast, right? Geesh, do you ever get off this island?”
Sydney looked properly put in her place and muttered something Emily was glad she couldn’t hear.
“So, Monday we’ll plan to practice inside, and I’ll let you know then what we’ll do with the rest of the week. Those of you who don’t have gloves, please try to get them this weekend.”
They huddled up, yelled “Panthers!” and then dispersed.
DeAnna approached. “You said you were going to get me a glove.”
“And I will, DeAnna.”
“But you just told us all to get our own.”
Emily tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Did you want me to single you out? I’ll get you a glove, DeAnna, but I was going to keep that between you and me.”
“Oh.” And with nothing else to say on the matter, DeAnna turned and walked out of the gym.
Everyone else had already left, which made it odd that Jake was still standing by the doorway. As she stood staring at him, he approached. He took long, athletic strides, and there was a bounce in his step. His lips were smiling, as were his dark brown eyes. “Lookin’ good, Coach,” he said, and she didn’t know if he meant the team or her. She thought probably the team.
“Thanks,” she said, several seconds after social norms dictated she should have.
He came to a stop in front of her and scooped a lock of hair off his forehead. “I was wondering, and please feel free to say no if this is inappropriate, but I was wondering if you would like to get a drink with me this weekend.”
Her jaw fell open. Then she snapped it shut. Then it fell open again—a little. She frantically searched her brain for words. Ones that would make sense.
He laughed, breaking the silence. “Like I said, you can say no. No hard feelings.”
“Thank you,” she managed, “but I’m ... I’m ...” embarrassed? socially crippled? wishing I were dead right now? “I’m engaged,” she managed. Then, “sort of.”
He held his hands up. “I apologize, I didn’t know. Though, I should have figured that someone would’ve scooped you up.” He smiled. “Sort of.”
She tittered, simultaneously wishing he would go away and stay and say more nice things.
“OK, I’ll leave you to it then. But, seriously, good job with the team. Juniper really likes you.”
She thought this last part was a lie, but she said, “Thank you.” And then she watched him walk out of the gym.
And then, as she picked up the last few stray balls, as she locked up the athletic locker, as she drove home, as she fed the cats and watered her plants, she argued with herself over whether or not to tell James. He wouldn’t like it. She didn’t want to upset him. She also didn’t want him to think that she was trying to make him jealous. Which she wasn’t. Right? And if not, then why tell him? Because she had to. Or it was lying. Lying by omission or something. So she should tell him. But he wouldn’t like it. And then around the loop again her busy brain would go.
––––––––
“What are you not telling me?” James asked.
They were at The Big Dipper, waiting for their meals. She took a deep breath, then let it all out in one exhale: “Jake Jasper asked me out, but I didn’t want to tell you because I don’t want you to be mad, but I had to tell you, or you would think I was hiding it and be mad anyway.”
For several seconds, his expression was impassive, but then his face softened into a grin, and he reached for her hand. “Thank you for telling me. I’m not angry. Unless of course, you said yes?”
She thought he was kidding. “Of course not.”
“Well, then, I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re a beautiful, amazing woman. He’s a single guy. Why wouldn’t he ask you out?” He leaned back. “But speaking of surprises, I am putting the boat in on Tuesday.”
“Already?”
“Sure. Why not. With the weather we’ve been having? Season will be in full swing before we know it.” He paused. “And I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me on Saturday?”
Her eyes widened. “Sure!”
“Yeah?” He looked a little surprised.
“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I want to get up before sunrise and go out on the freezing cold ocean?”
He gave her a dazzling smile, and she felt herself melt into it. “That’s my girl. You can be my sternman.”
