AGNES
CLIMBING OUT OF THE POOL, I HEARD THE COACH CALLING MY name: “Agnes Juniper. Meet me by the bleachers after you change out of your suit. I need to talk to you.” I knew things were serious when she used both my names.
“I’m sorry, Coach, but my brother’s waiting, and he’s gotta leave by—” I yanked off my bathing cap and shook out my hair as I turned to face the clock, confirming my suspicion that practice had run extra long that day: 3:31. “He’s due at the factory by four and if he’s late for his shift one more time—”
“Hmm. Sounds like late runs in the family.” She fingered her whistle, as if she might blow it at any time. Attention! “Don’t worry. I already told Jimmy I’d drive you home if he has to leave.”
When I came out of the locker room, I was surprised to see him sitting on the bench with Coach Lois. Right away my heart clenched. Ma and Dad were so excited when he got on second shift at Larkin Leather. Had he already—?
As always, his grin was an arrow shot through my anxiety. “Coach here’s been telling me about your pos-si-bi-li-ty.” He opened his arms as if the word was a huge hug. “Not like I didn’t already know.”
He smiled at Coach Lois in a way that would have made me go all red if I was like Zaidie. When he was younger, Jimmy fell in love once a day and three times on Sundays, but since he’d come home from Vietnam, he was different. Normally, I loved seeing signs of his old self, but when the lady he was gawking at was my coach, it was downright embarrassing.
“Great talking to you, Jim,” Coach Lois said, smooth as could be. “Agnes and I will just be a few minutes.”
“Oh. Um, yeah, sure.” Even Coach couldn’t help smiling back at him as he slouched off, patting the pocket where he kept his smokes. “I’ll be right outside, okay, Sky Bar?”
Then he winked at Coach. And me. And at the whole world—the way he used to. Yeah, embarrassing.
“When it comes to brothers, I’d say you got pretty lucky,” Coach Lois said. “Jimmy’s a sweetie.”
The sweetest of the sweet, I thought, imagining the mountain of candy I’d eaten since the day Jimmy renamed me. A year earlier, I’d gotten so sick of Sky Bars I thought I’d gag if I ate one more, but there was no way I could tell him. Especially then.
“Thanks.” I slid onto the bench.
She gave me the kind of appraising stare I was used to getting from Ma. “Just one question, Agnes, and then I’ll let you go. Why are you here?”
“You asked me to meet—”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Um. My mother read somewhere that swimming might be good for my asthma, and—”
“That was four years ago when you started swimming at the Y. Now you’ve outgrown your asthma and you’re on swim team.”
“I know I’m late for practice sometimes, but Jimmy—” I began, anticipating what she was about to say.
“This is your sport, Agnes. Your team. That means you owe us. You. Not Jimmy.”
I looked down at the blue and white tiles. “I know you were disappointed when I lost my last two races, but honestly, Coach, I—”
“No, Agnes. I wasn’t disappointed that you lost. I was disappointed because you could have won. Easily. And you’re right, I don’t like it when you show up late day after day. I’ve been very patient because—”
I took a ragged inhale, certain she was about to kick me off the team. How could I make her understand how much I loved all of it—from joking in the locker room with my teammates to the smell of chlorine in my nostrils—everything connected to that moment when I dove into the pool and felt my body moving through the water. No matter what was on my mind, it disappeared as I gave myself up to its rhythm. It was like the time I made snow angels with Zaidie when I was six, or the first time I stood on my chair and told Jimmy I loved him. But how could I explain that to my coach?
“So okay, you signed up for swimming because of your mother. Or your asthma. Or because you like seeing your brother sit in the bleachers, cheering for you every day—even if it means he’s late for work and risks his job.”
I closed my eyes. “I—I just love to swim. Far back as I can remember, I loved it,” I blurted out. “Isn’t that a good enough reason?”
“Not for you it isn’t, no. And not for this team. You’re the most gifted athlete I’ve ever coached, Agnes. The natural people like me dream about. If you gave it the effort, I wouldn’t be surprised if you made it all the way to the—well, the sky’s the limit.”
“But those girls at the meets have been taking lessons since they were three, and they swim like their lives depend on it. Like it’s the reason they were born.”
“And you?”
“I don’t know; I just swim.” This time I knew better than to ask if that was good enough.
She sat there, whistle in hand, waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t, she nodded. Then she started to gather her things, dismissing me.
“I watch you,” she said before I left. “Socializing and laughing right up till the race starts while the other girls are totally focused. That’s the difference, Agnes. In any case, if you ever decide you want to start swimming like your life depended on it, there’s no end to your—”
We both set down our swim bags and opened our arms as we spoke the word together, letting it fill the room like Jimmy had: pos-si-bi-li-ty.
I had reached the door when I turned around. “Thanks, Coach.” More than all the stuff about my gift, I was grateful for what she said about Jimmy and me. As if she saw we were alike. That just because we didn’t look the same or have the same last name, we weren’t a second-rate brother and sister. We were as real as anything.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she yelled back. “Two thirty sharp. Better yet—get here by two twenty. And remember, if you change your mind, I’d love to start working with you individually.”
I smiled. That was Coach for you. Even when she claimed to give up on me, she was still trying to find a sneaky way to make me better. Just like Ma.
Jimmy was on the sidewalk when I came out, staring off the way he did—like he forgot where he was, same as he forgot time. One reason we had always been so close was we both knew how to let things be. I didn’t ask why he wasn’t at work.
“Ran out of gas over on Warren Ave,” he said when he saw me scanning the street for a sign of his beat-up Falcon. “No need to mention it to Dad, okay? Brucie’s takin’ me to the gas station when he gets out of work.”
Brucie? I didn’t like him, but I let that be, too—unlike the rest of the family. Even Ma, who never complained about much of anything when it came to Jimmy, especially after he came home from the war. Not the lost jobs or the rage he went into when he found out we had to put Princie down while he was away, or the even scarier way he sat out on the picnic table smoking half the night for days afterward.
“You killed my fucking dog and you didn’t tell me?” he yelled when Dad tried to coax him inside one night around three in the morning. “Then you got rid of everything. Her bowl and her collar, her stupid bones, everything. It’s like she never fucking existed. That’s how it is around here, isn’t it?”
It was the first time anyone had ever used that word in the house—never mind twice in one spiel—but no one said a thing. The fault line was already there, visible, and everyone was afraid that the wrong move—even the wrong look—might crack him in two.
“No, Jimmy—honey, that’s not how it is,” Ma said, stepping into the yard, her voice low. The lights in the neighbors’ houses were already flickering on. “Listen to your dad and come inside, will you?”
For that night, at least, he had. He was right about how it was, though, and we all knew it. We’d hung on to Jon’s trains and cars, his favorite cowboy bedspread for a while. Then one day I came home from school and they were gone. Gone like the treasures Princie had been collecting from the neighborhood all her life. No one asked where. Pretty soon no one spoke my brother’s name, either, except when Zaidie got her annual Christmas card from Colorado. And even then, we didn’t say it out loud. We just touched the place where he signed beneath his dad.
THE DAY MA spotted Bruce’s gold Mustang outside the picture window, though, her old self returned with a vengeance.
“Is that who I think it is, Jimmy?” Instantly, her arms locked across her chest.
“If I’m old enough to fight in a war, I think I can pick my own friends, Ma.”
“Not if it’s that one, you can’t. Bruce Savery might have a better address than Jools or Duane, but if I had to trust someone with my life, he’d be the last of the three.”
“In case you didn’t know, Duane’s in jail, and Jools sits up at his house drinkin’ all day. So if my life’s in danger, they ain’t available.” Jimmy slammed the door behind him.
“I’d still call them first,” Ma yelled back. By then, though, the only people left to hear were Zaidie and me.
“She’s right,” Zaidie said to the empty picture window, not even caring if she sounded loony as Ma. “Anyone but Bruce Savery.” Then she turned to me. “If Jimmy ever tries to bring him around, make sure you stay away. I mean it.”
THOUGH I WAS tired from school and practice and Jimmy was worn out from all the stuff that went on in his head, we took the long way past the Grainer School that day.
We never talked about the afternoon he led me home back when I was the most lost kid in the whole town. No, we preferred to make believe we always belonged to each other—blood—like Ma and Dad used to pretend before Jon got taken away. But we didn’t have to say it. I knew what was on his mind when we walked that way, and he knew the same about me.
“So you ready to start winning like your coach wants?”
“You think it’s easy? Coach Lois doesn’t understand how good the other girls are.” I’d taken a few more steps when another thought occurred to me. “What were you saying to her in there anyway?”
He stopped to pick up a stick, as if Princie was with us, and held it awkwardly. “I told her how Nonna always gave us a couple bucks for Christmas when we were kids. You spent yours the first day—usually on someone else. Didn’t matter what you bought; you just couldn’t wait to toss it to the wind.”
“I did not . . . and even if I did, what’s that got to do with winning a swim meet?”
When he didn’t answer right away, I turned around and walked a few feet backward so I could see his face. “Jeez, Jimmy, did you really tell her that?”
“Yup. Told her you never gave a damn about winnin’ nothin’—not even Monopoly or backyard kickball. You just wanted to play.” He threw the stick as far as he could and paused, almost like he was waiting for Princie to fetch it. “Truth is, though, winning feels pretty damn good, Sky Bar. Remember the time I hit that walk-off homer in the tenth inning back in ninth grade? Best moment of my life.”
“A stupid ball flying through the air was your best minute? Nuh-uh.”
“Okay, maybe I had a couple better minutes with girls, but top three. Definitely top three. You know why?”
“Can’t imagine.”
“Cause sometimes it’s more than a ball flying through the air. It’s the minute—no, the second—when you hit back against everything that ever kept you down. The one second in your whole damn life when anything is possible.” He shook his head. “Imagine if Z could swim like you? She’d have six gold medals by now.”
As we passed the Grainer School, Jimmy stopped to light another cigarette like he always did at that spot. Reminded me of Nonna, who crossed herself whenever she passed a Catholic church.
“Zaidie’s gonna be the first girl president,” I told him. “She doesn’t have time for stuff like swimming.”
“Where have you been? President was last month. This week she’s plannin’ to be the next Louisa May Alcott.”
I squinched up my nose the way I always did when anyone mentoned Zaidie’s writing. That blasted notebook.
“So how come you’re not goin’ to work?” I said. If he could break our unspoken rule, so could I. “Did you lose—”
“Nah. Just called out sick.”
“But you’re not, and if you keep—”
“You know who you sound like now? Ma. Or better yet, Coach Lois.” Just thinking of her made him beam. “Lady’s got the bluest eyes I ever seen. Man.”
“Don’t be disgusting. She’s old, for crying out loud—almost thirty-seven.”
“I don’t care. Cause when you see a scrap of pretty in this world, you gotta stop and give it a little respect.” He straightened up and demonstrated his best military salute, cigarette still in hand. “You know why?”
“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“Cause there’s a whole lot of ugly out there, Sky Bar. A whole lot of ugly. I guess you seen that already, though. Even before me, you seen it.”
And then he gave another salute—this time for me.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a goofball?” I said, pushing him off balance.
IT WAS COLD twilight by the time we got home, and despite the extra-thick bathing cap Nonna found for me at Hanley’s, my hair always got wet. Still, I didn’t argue when Jimmy told me to wait outside.
By the time he pushed through the bulkhead doors, the sun had set, but a particularly bright moon and stars illuminated the yard. He held his bat up triumphantly.
“What the heck, Jimmy? I haven’t seen that thing since—jeez, I don’t know how long.”
“Ninth grade, when I made the all-star team. All that talk about winnin’ musta brought back my glory days.” He tossed me the ball in his left hand. “Come on, Agnes. Pitch me a few.”
“Are you crazy? My hair’s turning to icicles here and I’m starved. Ma’s gonna wonder . . . Besides, I was never any good at pitching. That was Zaidie, remember?”
But I was already heading for the well-worn pitcher’s mound. “That was the first year I came, remember? You used to say you’d take that bat to anyone who tried to hurt me.” Even after all these years, my breath caught when I thought about Mr. Dean.
“Still would, little sister.” He took his best batter’s stance. “Come on. Three pitches before it gets so dark I can’t see the ball. If I strike out, we go inside.”
I hurled it in his direction as hard as I could. “Stri-ike one,” I yelled in the announcer’s voice I once used when I called the games in the backyard.
The sound of the past must have drawn Zaidie onto the back steps. She wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. “What in the world are you two doing out here? It’s almost suppertime, and it’s getting—”
“Hey, there’s no whining in baseball. Didn’t I teach you that? You play the game in whatever conditions you find yourself.” He turned back to me, dead serious, even in the shadows. “Come on, Agnes.”
My next pitch landed in the dirt, but he swung at it anyway. “That’s two. You got one more.”
Zaidie jumped down from the steps. “Let me try.”
“Not this time, Z,” Jimmy said. “This is between Sky Bar and me.”
By then Ma had come outside, Flufferbell at her heels. She was wearing the blue jeans Zaidie and I, embarrassed by her old-fashioned housedresses, had saved up to buy. But that night, looking at her in her jeans, dressed like everyone else’s mom, I missed the old gray dress.
“Baseball? At this time of night? For pity sake,” she said, but there was a lightness in her voice, like she was seeing the old Jimmy, too. Before the war. Even before he walked through the door at high school and found out he was a rat.
“Pitch him something decent, Agnes. Your father will be home soon and I still haven’t got the pot pies in.”
“It’s Juniper on the mound tonight, folks, with batting champ Jimmy Kovacs at the plate,” I broadcasted. “But does she lose her cool? Not a chance. She looks, she sets . . .” I wound up like the pitchers on TV, extra dramatic for their entertainment.
Jimmy wasn’t laughing, though. His eyes were on the ball that sailed through the dark, straight over the plate. He went for it with everything in him.
“Holy cow! That ball is . . . gonnne!” I yelled.
Zaidie and Ma were hollering, too, cheering like Jimmy had just won the World Series. Or we all had.
But Jimmy had hit that ball so hard the crack drowned out the sound of our voices. In fact, for that single second, as it soared over the Guarinos’ fence and beyond, I swore it drowned out the whole world.
“Yes!” he yelled, throwing down the bat as the sound came back. “Yesss!” And then to me, “See what I mean, Sky Bar? See?”