Blind Your Ponies (36 page)

“Oh, yes, an elegant Edelweiss disc player. It has a hand-rubbed mahogany case with inlaid rosewood, came with shiny metal perforated discs and played a Bach Chorale, “O Christmas Tree,” and “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” I’ll let you play it the next time you’re at the house.”

“I hope there’s a double meaning in there somewhere.”

“I’ll let you figure that out.”

At her door he kissed her, several times, but she didn’t invite him in. Though he ached for her, he felt wonderful. She liked him and she asked him to be patient with her. Oh God, could he be patient. His life had taken such dramatic turns he could hardly catch his breath. He headed for town in his faithful Ford, content to go home and sleep alone for at least one more night because Diana had at least given him hope.

But later, as he lay in bed, he felt scared, knowing that he was starting down that perilous path where one walks barefoot in the dark over broken glass. As he fell asleep, he listened for a backing Hamm’s Beer truck. What he faintly heard was a Willow Creek ghost swishing by his partially open window.

Diana felt guilty for not helping Sam with the grueling three-hundred-mile round trip to Lima on Saturday. She knew it was time for her to get over her obsessive fear, but when she considered volunteering, she found her hands trembling and her breath quickening.

Friday they had been punched in the stomach again. When the two-week grades came out, Dean was failing in two subjects, English and Social Science, and he was temporarily ineligible. Sam helped the boy as much as possible, but he couldn’t take Dean’s tests for him. Sam had toyed with the idea of slipping Dean by for a two-week period—their basketball days would probably be over by then—but he knew the boy would know and Sam didn’t want to damage Dean with the lie. They had tried to keep Dean eligible with the help of the girls tutoring on trips and even during lunch hour. The freshman had narrowly survived the last two-week grading period. Worse yet, Tom barely slipped by in Truly Osborn’s U.S. history. Sam had considered forfeiting the weekend’s games, saving the team and a handful of fans the long snow-packed road trip. Once more it would be five against ten or twelve.

Friday night they had played hard against Harrison at home, but the exhaustion and fouls had taken their toll. In the end, only Peter Strong hadn’t fouled out, and with less than a minute to go, he was the only Bronc still on the court, only down by five points. Diana had never seen anything like it. The referee threw the ball in to Pete and he zig-zagged through several Harrison players and managed to get into the front court. Then, when it looked as though they had him bottled up, he split two defenders, went up with a shot, and buried a 3-pointer from about twenty feet out. Unbelievably, Willow Creek’s one-man team had closed to within two points
.
Even the Harrison fans were applauding Peter. Of course the five Harrison players played keep away for the remaining time and won 59 to 57.

Diana smiled just watching Grandma’s sweetheart—graceful, brash,
daring, exploding to a run-off his first step and embarrassing opponents with his cross dribble. He was as cool as a riverboat gambler on defense and had a natural, unpredictable flair for the game that she and Sam knew better than to tamper with. Pete had inspired all of them. But once again, they turned for home beaten and had to find some comfort and cheer in things like their grit and doggedness and beautiful arcing shots.

R
IDING IN THE
seat behind Sam, Diana went over the score book on the bus trip to Lima. The cheerleaders were grilling Dean on English grammar and spelling.

“February,” Louella said.

“Ah… f-e-b-u-a-r-y,” Dean said.

“Wrong!” Carter said.

“Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey,” Curtis said out of the blue, seemingly to no one in particular.

“I’ve noticed,” Diana said loudly to Sam over the bus noise, “Olaf hasn’t been called for three seconds in the paint for a while, and he’s had only a couple traveling calls lately.”

“Now if we can cut down his fouls,” Sam said.

“Yeah… keep him in the game.”

Diana spotted something along the road ahead.

“Sam, slow down, slow down. Stop the bus!”

He pulled over on the wide shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Tom hollered.

“Out of gas?” Rob said.

Diana stood and stepped into the door well. “No, everything’s fine. It’s a deer.” She hopped out of the bus and walked back to the deer. It was a young doe, maybe three years old.

The bus unloaded and the kids followed her.

“Whatcha doin’, Miss Murphy?” Dean said.

“Help me,” Diana said.

“Road kill,” Scott said.

“The poor thing,” Carter said.

Diana took a hold of the doe’s front legs.

“The meat might not be good anymore, Miss Murphy,” Rob said.

“Help me,” Diana said.

Peter and Rob picked up the two hind legs and the three of them carried the frozen deer over to a fence line where clumps of long brown grass stuck out of the snow.

“What are you doing?” Louella said.

“It’s against the law to take it, Miss Murphy,” Tom said.

“We’re not taking it,” Diana said. “We’re showing respect for a fellow creature.”

She guided the boys to gently lay the doe in the grass.

“It’s just a dead deer,” Dean said.

“Would you want to be left out on the road if you were dead, Dean?” Diana said.

Dean shrugged. She knelt and noticed the gang exchanging puzzled expressions.

“There, there, little lady,” Diana said to the deer. “Go on your journey now.”

There was a moment of confused silence. The wind chill cut.

“Okay, back on the bus!” Sam shouted and clapped his hands.

They raced for the bus, sliding and slipping on the snowpack. Only Curtis and Diana stood a moment.

“Thanks, Miss Murphy. That was nice,” he said.

“It’s the least we can do,” she said, and they stepped up into Rozinante for the challenge ahead.

T
HE
L
IMA TEAM
, still smarting from their earlier loss to Willow Creek—the leper in their conference—poured it on all night. They ran in fresh troops in a constant rotation, and for more than three quarters Willow Creek held them off. But Rob fouled out, and then Olaf, and the scavengers swooped in and picked their bones clean.

Lima 73. Willow Creek 59.

Explaining to Dean that there was no McDonald’s on the lonely stretch of highway between Lima and Willow Creek, they stopped at the one-room schoolhouse in Dell. Once a lively small town along the railroad tracks, Dell had been pared down to a quaint little spot on the road where a handful
lived and either tried to lure tourists off the freeway or hoped they’d truck on by. The sturdy brick schoolhouse with a bell tower had been converted into Yesterday’s Calf-A, where patrons sat at long tables family style and shared the food with friends and strangers alike.

The Willow Creek gang filled one large table. Through the hard days of training and practice and through the long nights of travel and loss, they had become a family. Diana realized how much she’d come to care for them, all of them. Despite the loss, they held their heads up and enjoyed the food. They laughed and kidded each other, but she could tell that Sam was struggling inside. He smiled and joked, but he was drowning with pain.

She remembered her question to him in the Chinese restaurant.
Have you given up on them?
Had he? Had he given up on winning, on joy, on living? It scared her. He was becoming a Willow Creek ghost. She sat next to him and leaned close to his ear.

“Would you like to try the music box tonight?”

He looked at her and she caught his sadness.

“Yes.”

S
AM WOKE WITH
dawn slanting in the bedroom window, buried in Diana’s down-covered bed with her snuggled against him. They were naked and the warmth of her aroused him. He remembered that she’d been restless all night, burrowing around under the down quilt as if searching for sleep. She stirred in his arms.

“Are you awake?” he said.

“Mmmmmm.”

He pulled her more tightly against him and ran one hand over her hip and thigh.

“How are you?” he said. “You didn’t seem to get much sleep.”

“Mmmmmm,”
she said.

“You’re not used to having a big lug like me in your bed.”

“No… it wasn’t you …. I’m like that every night, I don’t sleep well.”

She opened her eyes and smiled. He kissed her warm lips and caught the scent of lavender.

“I feel so safe and good in your arms,” she said.

He looked at the plaster ceiling and shuddered slightly. He knew he could protect her from nothing
,
save her from nothing
,
not from the sudden stroke of violence.

“You are good,” he said, hoping she hadn’t noticed him copping out on the
safe
part.

“No… no I’m not
good.
”

“What’s eating you?” he said.

“Do you think one can ever right an unrightable wrong?”

“Well, I’m not sure…”

“I killed Jessica,” she whispered as if the world were crouched and listening at the door.

“What do you mean?”

“She’d spent the day with a friend of mine who had a daughter Jessica’s age. I picked her up when I was done teaching and we took a shortcut home. I wasn’t driving fast, I wasn’t in a hurry or anything, honest. Then, out on the highway, a raccoon ran in front of us. I swerved to miss it, overcorrected to bring the car back, and rolled several times into the ditch. I remember the car was on its side. I reached over to see how Jessica was. She wasn’t moving. I managed to lift her out my window and lay her in the grass. I gave her CPR until someone came along and called for help. It didn’t matter. Jessica was dead.”

Sam lay horrified. He held her tightly. “I’m so sorry, Diana, so awfully sorry.”

He understood so much now. Why she wouldn’t drive the bus, why she didn’t want to drive her car with any passengers, why she drove a Volvo. He understood the bloody smear that followed her down the highway in the rearview mirror.

She stared out the window.

“Greg couldn’t handle it. He shouted his rage at me for a while.
For a raccoon! You killed our precious angel for a goddamn raccoon!
Then he went silent, didn’t speak to me for weeks. We went our separate ways because down deep he couldn’t forgive me for killing Jessica.”

“I’m so terribly sorry, Diana.”

“I’ve gone over it a thousand times until I thought I’d go crazy. I can scientifically explain what happened with my mind and body. I’ve made a
study of it to see where I went wrong when the raccoon showed up suddenly on the road. My mind automatically sounded the alarm to my body out of fear and I immediately panicked. Those brain signals quickly translate into physiological reaction. My pituitary gland released adrenaline and other stress hormones to help sharpen my perceptions, and my pupils dilated to allow more light in. My breathing—”

“Don’t, you don’t have to—

” “No, let me finish, please,” she said with desperation in her voice. “My breathing and heart rate and blood pressure increased to maximize blood flow to my limbs, and my digestion ground to a halt as my liver released sugars, cholesterol, and fatty acids into my bloodstream for energy. I was ready to react to the situation. While mobilizing all its resources, my body was able to react under pressure. And with all that working for me, I made the wrong decision. With all of that, I rolled the car and killed Jessica.”

Sam wiped the tears from her cheeks with an edge of the sheet and she urgently pulled him toward her, searching desperately into his eyes for any sign of forgiveness. Without speaking he slid above her, strangely yet strongly aroused, and she opened herself to him. He entered her deeply and held very still. In that moment he hoped she understood he was offering to share her torment and agony and unbearable sorrow.

With him holding her securely, she sobbed for a time and then fell into a deep sleep.

Friday was the day Manhattan Christian’s basketball team came into town, the day everyone would find out which of the Painter brothers would end up with the John Deere “D.” Diana and Sam, with colds and little energy, tried to prepare the boys for the game of attrition in which the five of them, minus the ineligible Dean, would have to slug it out with twelve well-conditioned boys from Manhattan Christian. All week they couldn’t help but notice Olaf’s infectious intensity, driving the practice sessions like a rampaging bull. The nervous strain on each of the players, and on Sam as well, was rising steadily throughout the day.

After school all six of them gathered in the shadowed gym, wondering if there might be something more they could do to prepare themselves, something they had overlooked. Sam came into the gym in his suit and tie.

“Okay, you guys, it’s no fair if you start before the other team. Why don’t you get home now and eat. Be back here by six-thirty. We’ll celebrate at the Blue Willow after the game,” Sam said, noting the perspiration on Dean’s forehead. “And don’t worry, Dean, if you study hard you’ll be back with us next week.”

Their faces lit up. They never had to ask the question that dogged each of their thoughts. He had insinuated a confidence into their bloodstream, into the fibers of their muscle, into the tissue of their hearts. Now all he needed was someone to insinuate confidence in him.

After the blizzard incident, Sam took no chance of losing his lionhearted forward. He would eat with Tom at the inn, removing the necessity for Tom to go home. While they ate, Sam accepted the good wishes of everyone in the place, from Vera and Axel to all the early Friday night diners. Some of the skeptics, unbelievers, and fainthearted had timidly clambered back on the bandwagon until there was hardly room for the few diehards who had never gotten off.

“How are you feeling?” Sam asked Tom after he’d demolished a chicken-fried steak dinner.

“Good… a little uptight.”

“Me too.”