7

Jeff, barefooted, barechested, and spattered with paint, stood on the ground squinting up at the wall. His hands were sticky, and there was a crick in his shoulder. The fresh paint was dazzling, iridescent, like a falling sheet of white peacock’s feathers. Above him Mary appeared in a pure white gown, shimmering on the wall, out of reach but smiling down at him like the painted Virgin in the Cathedral. He reached his hand out to her. Mary, untouched, filled with perfect knowledge.

Oh, really?

The purity of his dream had been sullied, stained. He stood staring at the wall, his nose jammed against the clapboards. You’re a fool. Paint, fool. And he slapped the paint on in great gobs and then worked like a fury spreading it before it all dripped on the ground.

He was quitting, just coming down the ladder, when Danny appeared, driving his VW van. ‘I need you, Jeff.’ He was wearing his Green Sentry baseball uniform. ‘I’m pitching tonight. We’re playing the top team in the league, McCulloch’s Tavern, and you’re going to cheer our side.’

Jeff hopped off the ladder. ‘Wait till I clean up.’ Ten minutes later, his head wet and wearing a clean shirt, he came running out, packing his camera and some extra film in a shoulder bag. Some important footage was going to be shot tonight. He’d been thinking about doing a baseball film. Something quintessential, that went straight to the heart of the game.

‘We’re picking up Tracy first,’ Danny said.

‘More support.’

‘Right. I thought we’d do something afterward.’

‘I’m invited to that, too?’

‘I just said you were. It’s more fun when there’s a crowd.’

‘I’m a crowd.’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘If you invited Mary Silver, there’d be four of us.’

‘Why her?’

Jeff eyed a row of passing houses through the camera. ‘I don’t know, she might like to do something.’

‘She doesn’t like to do anything.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I live in the same house with her, don’t I? She doesn’t do anything. Just sits up in her room with her baby and reads.’

Jeff put his feet up on the dashboard.

Danny reached over and knocked his feet down. ‘What are you, still interested in her? If you want my advice –’

‘I don’t.’ He didn’t want to hear a lot of pious drivel about Mary. ‘Belco, why don’t you look where you’re driving?’ And he put his feet back up on the dashboard.

Truman Park was a big scruffy dry field at the edge of South Bay Road. A couple of baseball diamonds, a scattering of cars behind home plate, and people sitting in folding lawn chairs, with their kids running around. Somebody had a stereo set up and going full blast.

Jeff and Tracy sprawled out on the grass by first base. That is, he sprawled while Tracy, in a pair of tight shorts, posed with one leg outstreched, knee raised. As the Green Sentries took the field, she cupped her hands. ‘Go get ’em, Danny!’

Jeff focused the camera and took a shot of her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the inside of her creamy smooth thighs. Tracy prodded him. ‘How about giving Danny a cheer?’

‘Go, Danny!’ He swung the camera and caught Danny on the mound wiping his forehead. The knees were torn out of his green playing pants. He pulled his cap down, squinted at the batter. There was a man on first and no outs. The Green Sentries were already behind 3–0. ‘Keep it low!’ the third baseman yelled.

Flat on his belly, Jeff panned the camera low across the field. There was something about this field, something about people coming together to play and to watch … It was happening everywhere. If he could get up high enough, he’d see people playing baseball all over America in scruffy fields like this one, full of dust and faded grass. In back of high schools and in empty city lots and playgrounds and in the streets. And in Truman Parks and Kennedy Parks and Eisenhower Parks, in towns like Phoenix and Waterville and Central Square.

He swung the camera around on Tracy again. ‘How’d you like to be in a major motion picture?’

‘Little me?’ She sat back and pushed out her chest. Across her yellow T-shirt in black letters it said, HANDS OFF.

‘You’ll be the star. It’s a baseball movie.’

‘Then I want to play centre field.’

‘No, you can’t. You’re going to be the hero’s girlfriend.’

She tossed her chin up and fluffed her hair. ‘Why can’t I be his girlfriend and play centre field?’

‘Because they don’t make movies that way.’

‘Why not? If I’m the star, I want to be the centre fielder.’

‘The director says no. In this movie you like two guys. The hero and his best friend.’

Tracy dusted off her shirt. ‘That’s interesting. That I like.’

‘I thought you would.’

Tracy studied her legs. ‘What part are you going to take? The best friend or the boyfriend?’

‘Told you, I’m the director.’

‘Too bad. You’d be a cute boyfriend.’

‘So, do we sign a contract? I’d like to get your commitment for this project in writing.’

‘What’s my cut?’

‘Cut! I thought you were doing it for love and friendship.’ He found a stick and scratched a mark in the dust. ‘Sign here,’ he said. ‘I’m flying to the coast tonight. Shooting starts in ten days.’

‘Sorry, but I have a full schedule. I’m working and taking a class.’

‘Oh, Tracy, what did you flunk?’

‘Nothing,’ she said indignantly, and tossed her head. Tracy was an expert on those girl-girl things. ‘I’m taking a modelling seminar this summer, that’s my class.’

‘Really, what are you going to learn?’ He ran a blade of grass over her leg. ‘How to paint your toenails?’

Tracy glanced over as the other team took the field. ‘I’m learning how to stand and walk and how to wear clothes properly.’

‘You still don’t know that?’

She kicked him. ‘Fun-ny. I’m learning how to model so I can enter the county beauty pageant.’

‘You think you’re going to win?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I think you can do anything you want to do.’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘Sure, I mean it. I’d vote for you.’

‘I can never tell if you’re serious or not.’

‘I’m being one hundred percent serious. You could be Miss America if you wanted to enough.’ He sat up. ‘You believe that?’

She pushed him back. ‘I’m not crazy.’

He let himself fall over backward and she sat on him, her knees on his shoulders. Whoom. The blood went crashing through him.

‘What’s that look in your eye?’

‘What look? It’s the setting sun.’

She put her hand over his eyes. ‘I’m going to shut those hot eyes of yours.’

He grabbed her wrist.

She broke free. ‘Danny’s watching us … Play ball,’ she yelled, then she clapped her hands. ‘Go get them, Danny, pitch them out of there.’

Danny adjusted his cap and spit in the dirt. Then he threw three straight pitches right over the batter’s head.

Jeff and Tracy behaved themselves after that, but the damage was done. After the game Danny wouldn’t talk to either of them.

‘Great game,’ Jeff said. Danny was pulling off his cleats while Tracy massaged his back. ‘You really pitched a good one.’

‘How do you know? You weren’t watching.’

Then the van wouldn’t start, and he kicked it in the tyre. The battery was dead, and they had to push. That is, Jeff and Tracy pushed while Danny sat in the driver’s seat and gave the orders. ‘Push! Push, you slobs. Harder!’ Tracy kicked off her high-heeled sandals. They pushed the van all the way up to the road. And then off Danny went.

‘There he goes,’ Jeff said. The sweat was running down his cheeks. He sank down next to Tracy.

‘Look at my nails,’ she said. ‘That Danny, he’s so damn jealous. No sense of humour.’

But when Danny came back for them, he was smiling. ‘You two sure are in lousy shape,’ he said.