Fourteen

“Over here, Pete.” Joanie Casson waved to me from the lunch line where she was standing with Drew. It had been raining steadily for hours and, for once, the cafeteria had business.

“Drew and I saw you this morning near the trophy case,” Joanie said as I joined them. “You walked right by us, head in the clouds. Cosmic thoughts?” Joanie was probably the most artistic person in Winston High, loads of talent, her paintings were always winning prizes. She was probably also the thinnest person in the entire school. Really, it was strange looking at her with Drew: the twig and the tree.

“Ah, well, there’s this girl—” I said.

“A girl?” Joanie said, loading her tray with food. Today was foot-long-hot-dog-with-oven-baked-beans day. Joanie took double helpings. “You have a girl friend, Pete?”

I checked out the tuna fish sandwich for one with mayo dripping over the edges, the way I liked it. Did Joanie have to sound that surprised?

“Who is she?” Drew said. “Is she pretty?”

“Why do you always have to know right away if a girl is pretty?” Joanie said.

“I don’t want my friend stuck with a dog.”

“I really hate that kind of talk about girls! As if all that counts is their looks. It’s dumb, Drew.”

“I’m just teasing him, Joanie. What makes you so sensitive?”

“What makes you so insensitive?” She took her tray and walked away.

Drew shook a fist after Joanie. “I really love that girl, but sometimes I wonder. Who’s your girl, someone I know?”

“She goes to Jefferson. Her name is Cary Longstreet.”

We walked toward Joanie’s table. “Maybe I should meet her,” Drew said, loud enough for Joanie to hear, “especially if she’s great-looking. I’ll check her out for you.”

Joanie leaned toward him and spoke quietly. “I bet Pete really appreciates your thoughtfulness—you turd.”

Drew flushed. “You play rough, Joanie.”

“You don’t?”

We all ate in silence for a few minutes, then Joanie said, “You coming out to watch the game with Salem High after school, Pete? Drew’s starting.”

“Salem’s no challenge for Drew. We’re going to win, aren’t we?” After school I was going nowhere but the Nut Shoppe.

“Even so,” Joanie said. “I love watching Drew pitch. He’s so good and sooo beautiful out there. Irresistible to an artist.” She put her arm through his. “You over your mad? I’m over mine.”

After school, I made the mistake of stopping in Gene’s office to ask for a couple of bucks. The instant I stepped through the door, I became suddenly indispensable. “Oh, Pete, good,” my uncle said. “We’re all out of stamps and we’re trying to get the billing done.” He dipped a pair of frames into the hot salt solution and bent them carefully. “Mrs. Silk will tell you what we need at the post office. When you get back, you can help her stuff the envelopes. You don’t have anything else to do, do you?” he added.

“Actually, I do.”

“Well, this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

Wrong. By the time I left the office, the few minutes had turned into a few hours and when I got to the Nut Shoppe, Cary was just leaving. “Closed for the night?” I said, coming up behind her.

She turned, looking startled, then smiled. “Oh, it’s Pete Green Wood. Quelle coincidence.”

“Just happen to be walking down this street on the way to see a friend,” I said, falling into step with her.

“Again? And once more you’re going the same way I am?”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” We stopped on the corner and she leaned into the street, looking for the bus. “Are you going to be home tonight?” I said. “I was thinking of calling you. Is fifteen minutes really as long as you can stay on this phone?”

“That’s the rule of the house.”

“Your folks are pretty strict.”

“Yes, they are, but that’s okay, I don’t mind. There are other compensations.”

“Which are?”

“They’re wonderful and loving, and that’s really the most important thing in the world. At least I think so. Oh, here comes my bus.”

“Cary,” I said quickly, “how about doing something together Sunday? Maybe we could go for a bike ride—”

“You on my handlebars? No thanks, Green Wood.”

“I have a bike too.” I hadn’t used the old blue charger for a couple of years, but it was waiting patiently for me in the back shed.

She shifted her books. “Anyway, I don’t go out with boys. No boyfriends.”

I started to laugh, then, seeing her expression, which was completely serious, I said, trying to sound truthful, “I don’t want to be your boyfriend.” And I added, “Are you one of those women who hate men?” It was just one of those jokey, offhand remarks. In Joanie’s terms, a dumb thing to say.

“No,” Cary said very softly, “but I might be … I really might be.” And then something happened—her eyes didn’t exactly go out of focus, but they changed, deepened, and her face changed too, and I had the sensation that she had left me, left the street, was absolutely somewhere else. It was exactly as strange and surprising a moment, and as powerful and almost shocking in its effect on me, as that moment in the Nut Shoppe, weeks ago, when the Princess had been transformed into a pleading little girl. And just like that moment, I saw this change happen, then saw it unhappen.

The bus arrived and stood at the corner, dirty and wounded-looking, huffing out exhaust fumes. The crowd surged toward the door and Cary’s eyes came back to the present. She went up the steps, taking out her token.

“Cary,” I called. “Sunday? A friendly bike ride, okay?”

She looked over her shoulder. “I’ll let you know. I have to talk to my mother.”

All the way home I thought about Cary. There was something odd about her—not exactly strange, but—different. Different. That was the word that popped into my mind. Different? Wasn’t that me to a tee? Me with my secrets, lies? My name is Pete Greenwood. My parents are dead. I love baseball, doesn’t every average American boy love baseball? I sniffed the warm spring air, as if I could sniff out who Cary really was, and what that difference was in her, that difference that made me more eager than ever to know her.