Barbara L. Clanton - Out of Left Field Read online

  Marlee could sense more than see Coach Spears on the sidelines getting agitated. Coach’s hair must be getting grayer by the minute. At least, Marlee thought, she wasn’t sending in Kerry, their relief pitcher. Yet. Marlee decided to stick to pitching the pitches that Lisa called. Lisa called for the change-up again. And Marlee threw it. And Susie slammed it into center field over Jeri’s head. In fact, Susie whacked the ball so far that it went over the dilapidated snow fence and smacked right into the school building. Susie Torres, #7, who was supposed to strike out in every at-bat, had just hit a grand slam homerun off Marlee McAllister, #3, future First-Team All-County pitcher.

  Marlee usually kicked the dirt or pounded her fist into her glove whenever somebody hit a homerun off her. Not this time. She just watched Susie trot around the bases, and was pleased, secretly. Susie had hit a homerun, no a grand slam, off her.

  The next three Panther batters in turn grounded out, struck out, and flied out. The score was 0-4 when the Cougars came up to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Although Marlee was happy for Susie, she was also annoyed at herself for her part in causing her team to fall so far behind this early in the game.

  Jeri, the Cougar’s lead-off batter, surprised everybody, including herself, by hitting a single in the three-four hole off powerhouse Christy Loveland. The next Cougar batter put down a sacrifice bunt and moved Jeri to second base. With one out, Marlee stepped up to bat. She looked to her coach for the signs. Jeri was going to steal third base on the next pitch. Marlee was supposed to swing late and miss the first pitch on purpose in order to be in the catcher’s way. It was kind of a dirty trick but all the teams did it. She thought about ignoring her coach’s sign and swinging away, but she remembered what had happened when she ignored Lisa’s call for a pitch, a beanball right to Susie’s head. Marlee pulled her helmet low over her eyes, dug her heels in, took one last practice swing and waited for the Christy Loveland fastball she knew was coming. The fastball sailed right down the middle of the plate just like she expected. It took all of Marlee’s might to swing a split-second late and miss.

  “Strike one!” the umpire yelled. Meanwhile, Jeri sprinted to third. The Panther catcher threw the ball around Marlee. Jeri slid. Safe! Jeri was safe at third base.

  Marlee looked at her coach again for the signs. Hit away. Christy threw the next pitch, but Marlee didn’t swing because the ball was a little low. “Strike two,” the umpire said with much more enthusiasm than Marlee thought was necessary. Marlee fouled off the third pitch and wondered what Christy would throw next. Marlee knew that pitchers tried to throw each pitch with the exact same motion so the batter couldn’t guess the pitch. Marlee, however, saw the slight change when Christy gripped the ball. A change-up was coming. Marlee waited until the slower-moving ball reached the plate and then swung with all her might. She hit the ball deep into the left-center field gap. Marlee ran so fast she wasn’t sure her feet touched the ground. She couldn’t see, but knew Jeri was scoring the Cougars’ first run. Kerry, the first base coach, waved her around to go to second. As Marlee headed toward second base she saw Susie pick up the ball at the snow fence. It’s gonna be close. She pumped her arms and dug in hard on the infield dirt. She heard her teammates yell excitedly from the sidelines.

  From the ondeck circle, Lisa shouted, “Slide, Marlee, slide!” Marlee slid. The second baseman caught the throw and put the tag on Marlee’s shoulder.

  “Safe!” the field umpire yelled throwing both arms out to her side. The Panther second baseman started to protest the call, but stopped, clearly thinking better of it. Marlee asked for time. “Time,” the umpire announced and put her hand in the air. The second baseman put out her hand to help Marlee up. This girl was one of the enemy, but Marlee made a quick decision and stuck out her hand in response. The girl helped her up.

  “Thanks, man,” Marlee said.

  “No problem. Nice hit, by the way.” The girl tossed the ball back to Christy and said low to Marlee, “And you were safe.” She winked and scurried back to her position.

  Marlee dusted herself off and thought about asking the friendly second baseman about their left fielder. But she couldn’t figure out what to ask and she didn’t know what she’d say if the girl asked her why she wanted to know.

  Lisa hit in the Cougars’ cleanup spot and Marlee knew that if Lisa could get hold of one of Christy’s fastballs it would be over the fence. Lisa did get hold of the first pitch, but instead of going over the fence, the ball sailed deep into the same left-center field gap that Marlee used to get on base. Marlee sprinted to third and didn’t slow down when she saw her coach wave her around third to score. She set her sights on home plate. Her teammates yelled for her to stay up, but Marlee slid anyway and then rolled over to see how far Lisa had gotten. Second base. The Panther second baseman stuck out her hand to help Lisa get up. Marlee smiled. The Cougars had just hit two doubles and scored two runs, and the Panther second baseman didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Marlee smiled in amazement and ran to her waiting teammates. She got the biggest hug from Jeri.

  “Way to go, pitcher,” Jeri said. “Show Christy how it’s done.”

  Marlee didn’t care about Christy, though. She snuck a peak toward left field. Susie shook her head and pounded her glove on her leg.

  I guess I made an impression, all right.

  “Way to go, kid.” Coach Spears gave Marlee a pat on the back.

  Although both teams managed to get a few base runners during the next several innings, Marlee’s team was still losing by a score of 2-4 at the end of the sixth. At the top of the seventh, Marlee ran out to the pitcher’s circle and counted her lucky stars that she was still in the game. She hadn’t had the best pitching start of her career and getting yanked from the game would have been humiliating in front of Susie. And since the temperature had dropped steadily throughout the game, riding the pine in the cold weather would have added insult to injury.

  The first Panther batter of the seventh inning, their friendly second baseman, hit a high fly ball toward Jeri in center field. “Can of corn, Jeri. Can of corn,” Marlee yelled as Jeri kept her promise and caught the pop up easily.

  Susie was the next Panther batter up. Marlee watched Susie make her way to the batter’s box. Lisa jumped up and called time-out. She met Marlee half way to the pitcher’s circle. She had a serious look on her face. “Let’s pitch around her again. No more homeruns today, okay?” Marlee agreed.

  Marlee did indeed pitch around Susie and walked her for the third time that day. Fortunately for the Cougars, the next Panther batter grounded into a double play and the Cougars were due up for their last turn at bat.

  Marlee and Lisa made their way to the Cougar bench. Lisa said, “I hated walking their left fielder like that.”

  “Yeah! How do you think I feel? It’s a stain on my pitching record.” Marlee swooned.

  “Geez, you’re so weird, Marlee.” Lisa took off her catcher’s gear. “I’d almost like to keep this gear on, it’s so cold.”

  “Yeah, well, unless a miracle happens I think this game is gonna be over in three batters. The bottom of our order is up.” Marlee plopped on the team bench.

  Lisa did jumping jacks to keep warm. She said, “That Christy just throws harder and harder as the game goes on, eh?”

  “Yeah, I know,” Marlee agreed. “I can’t believe she struck me out twice. She’s so annoying.”

  Jeri joined them. “Yeah, well what do you expect? Our team only got four hits today. Coach is gonna have a fit about that. We’ve just gotta figure out what to do for next time, right?”

  True to Marlee’s prediction, each and every one of the Cougar batters struck out in turn.

  Jeri said, “C’mon, let’s get this over with.” She patted Marlee on the shoulder.

  Marlee had gotten so caught up in the excitement of the game that she completely forgot about the post-game high-five line. She trembled. She wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or from her nerves. Probably both. The butter
flies that had disappeared during the game returned with every single one of their cousins.

  Her mind raced. This would be the first time she would speak to Susie. She had to say something clever. Something more clever than the usual “good game.” She wanted to say something personal so Susie would remember her. She still hadn’t thought of anything when she reached Christy Loveland in the line.

  “Nice pitching” Christy said and moved on.

  Marlee thought it weird that Christy had complimented her. They were mortal enemies. Didn’t she know that? In the one and a half seconds it took to ponder that thought, Marlee found herself face-to-face with Susie.

  Susie smiled and said, “Nice game.” She kept her hand up for the required high-five.

  Marlee looked into Susie’s dark brown eyes and almost drowned in their softness. She couldn’t believe she was about to touch Susie Torres right there in front of everybody. Marlee wiped her sweaty hand on her dusty softball pants. She put up her hand and blurted, “Nice grand slam.”

  Susie looked at Marlee as if seeing her for the first time. Marlee melted. “Well, thanks for the nice pitch.” And then Susie did something that almost made Marlee pass out. Susie leaned in close and whispered in Marlee’s ear, “And thanks for not hitting me with that pitch in the first inning.”

  Jeri shoved Marlee along. But oh, how Marlee wanted to stay and talk to Susie. She wanted to tell her how beautiful she was or that she loved her smile or how she made Marlee’s knees weak and her stomach flippy. Of course, she’d never muster up the courage to tell her any of that, but she might have gotten bold enough to flick that distracting lock of hair off Susie’s forehead. Marlee smiled, and then frowned. What is happening to me? These new feelings alternately confused and scared her, but they thrilled her, too.

  Marlee gathered her wits along with her equipment. She looked around for Jeri and in disbelief found her talking to Susie and Christy. Jeri’s small frame made her look positively tiny compared to the behemoth pitcher. Marlee stopped putting her equipment in her bag and stared wide-eyed at the three of them. Jeri, conversation obviously over, turned around and made her way back to the Cougars’ bench.

  “You know her?” Marlee asked in an accusing whisper.

  “Christy?”

  Not Christy, for goodness sakes. Susie! But she let Jeri think she had meant Christy. “Uh, yeah.”

  “No, not really, but I kinda know Susie. My dad knows Susie’s dad, Mr. Torres.” Jeri threw her cleats in her bag. “Now, I don’t know how you’re gonna feel about this, but we’ve been invited to East Valley on Friday.” Jeri gestured toward the visitors’ bench. “What d’ya think? You game?”

  “Game?” Marlee’s voice cracked. She cleared her throat and replied with as much cool as she could muster. “Uh, yeah. That’d be cool, I guess.”

  Marlee turned to get her gear so she could make her way to the locker room when she noticed Bobby in the parking lot leaning against his Camaro. She groaned. She had forgotten he was going to pick her up after the game. She just wanted to go home. Go home and think about Susie.

  Chapter Three

  Friday Night

  MARLEE HAD ABOUT an hour before Jeri came to pick her up for their Friday night trek to East Valley. Marlee stood in front of her open closet door and stared at the assortment of clothes. An ever growing pile of rejected jeans, t-shirts, turtlenecks, and sweaters littered the bed and the braided rug on the hardwood floor. The overhead light, the lamp on her crowded desk, and the lamp on her bedside stand did nothing to illuminate her dilemma over what to wear.

  She sighed and plopped her weary body into her father’s olive green recliner. Even though the arms of the bulky chair kept getting caught on the walls of the narrow stairwell, she and her mother wrestled the beast into her bedroom several years earlier. They had done this on the one year anniversary of her father’s death. Marlee had been eleven years old the winter her father died. A drunk driver hit her father’s car and sent both cars sliding out of control on the icy hill near Levey’s Corner. Her father had died at the scene. “Instantly,” they had said. The other driver survived.

  Thinking about her father made her feel instant remorse. She had lied to Bobby about her plans for that evening and her father wouldn’t have liked it. She looked at Bobby’s picture across the room on her desk. His big-toothed grin and disheveled hair made him look boyish, but his football uniform and gear definitely gave him a certain manliness that Marlee admired. She liked the way his thin strawberry blond mustache and pink cheeks, colored from playing football, took the edge off his testosterone laden look.

  Bobby had driven up from Southfork just about every weekend for the past three months, ever since they had met, and they would usually go bowling or ice skating or to a movie, but lately he just wanted to go to Lake Birch. This week, when Marlee called to cancel another Friday night with him, he came up on Thursday. And once again, he took her to Lake Birch.

  Bobby turned the Camaro into the pine lined entrance. He said, “Usually by now you’ve told me all about the trouble you and Jeri have gotten into or how you guys beat East Valley. Why so quiet?” His bulky Southfork letterman’s jacket made him look immense in the tight confines of the sports car. The jacket screamed jock, but Marlee didn’t mind since she was a bit of a jock herself. His large hand stroked her left thigh just above the knee. When she had first gotten in the car he held her hand, but somewhere along the way his hand had moved.

  “First of all,” she corrected him, “you saw the last inning of the game on Tuesday and you know we lost to East Valley. And that’s probably why I don’t want to talk about that.” She scrunched up her nose as if to say, “Subject closed.” “And secondly, I’ll have you know, Jeri’s been a good girl this week.” She decided not to tell him about getting caught daydreaming in Mrs. Stratton’s class. She didn’t want to compound her already growing list of lies.

  “Oh,” he said with a grin, “I noticed you didn’t say that you had been a good girl this week.” He pulled the car into their usual spot in a far corner of the unlit parking lot. Before the night was through, a few more cars would also claim territory.

  Marlee felt the chill of the evening creep in through the closed windows. Bobby put the car in park and turned off the engine. He grinned, eyebrows suggestive. “So tell me why you’ve been a bad girl.” The pressure on her thigh increased.

  Marlee grabbed his hand and held it. “Oh, please,” she admonished. “Look, it’s just been a busy week what with games starting and all. I guess I’m just tired.” She smiled up at him hoping he wouldn’t sense her distraction.

  He leaned over from the driver’s seat and pulled her into a hug. “Oh, I know, babe. You’ve got such a busy schedule. Softball, school, softball.” He stroked her hair as if to soothe her pain.

  His tight grip made Marlee feel a bit claustrophobic so she pulled out of his embrace. At first he seemed reluctant to release her, but then he eased up and grabbed her hand again.

  “Yeah, and tomorrow night, Jeri and I have that math project to do.” Another lie, but she didn’t want him to find out about the trip to East Valley.

  “You told me.” He pulled her hand over to rest on his thigh.

  “What kind of project?”

  “We have to do this oral report about calculus.”

  “Oral?”

  “Cut it out.” Marlee poked him in the arm. She frantically scanned her brain for calculus topics. “Um,” she stammered, “we have to find out what Newton did for calculus.” Yeah, that’s it.

  “Okay. Well, yeah. Sounds like a real exciting Friday night.” He pulled her into another embrace. “How about Saturday? Can your boyfriend, who drives over fifteen miles each way to see you, get some quality time on Saturday?” He stroked her cheek.

  She felt guilty lying to him. “Yeah, yeah, of course. All day if you want.”

  “All day, babe?” The lilt in his voice gave away his thoughts. “I’ll have to come up with something. Something w
e can do all day, mmm, all day,” he murmured almost to himself as he cupped Marlee’s chin and kissed her fully. He slid his arm around her and pulled her close. She had to put her arms around his broad shoulders in order to keep her balance in the Camaro’s bucket seat.

  Bobby was the first boyfriend she’d ever had, besides a quick crush on a boy in sixth grade that ended before it even started. So that probably didn’t count. She had never even kissed a boy before Bobby.

  He moved on to kiss Marlee’s neck and then an earlobe. She always got shivers when he did that and Thursday night was no exception. He must have felt her shiver and returned to kiss her softly on the lips. She kissed him back, but her mind wandered to Susie. Susie fixing her hair, Susie running around the bases, and, oh, Susie whispering in her ear. Heat surged through her veins. She imagined Susie in the driver’s seat, she couldn’t help herself. She pretended it was Susie, not Bobby, who held her head firmly and kissed her. Delicious sensations, sensations she had never felt before, started low in her belly and spread like fire through her body. Marlee moaned and pulled Bobby closer. He increased the pressure on the back of her head. His moustache tickled her upper lip.

  Moustache. Bobby! Oh, shit. She struggled out of his embrace. “I, I can’t,” she stammered. “I have to go home.” Her body had responded. But not to him. She didn’t want him to receive the loud and clear message her body had sent. Wrong number.

  “What?” Bobby exclaimed, anger in his voice. He sighed loudly and said in a softer voice. “Babe, I just want to be close to you. That’s all.”

  “I know. I know. But I told you before. I’m not ready. I don’t want you to think I’m leading you on. I’m...” She took a deep breath, “I’m not ready. I gotta go home. I have homework.”