Blue Diary (14 page)

Collie's chest has been hurting ever since his father confessed to him: the heaviness that has settled inside burns and makes him want to run away to someplace frozen and blue, but it also makes him want to chop something down to its roots. Even if he tried to be the person he was before he went to see his father, it would be impossible. That person is gone. As Collie rides his bike through town, he isn't thinking about fishing at the lake or playing baseball with his team, the way he might have been only a few weeks earlier. He is thinking of his mother. locked in her bedroom, convinced he can't hear her crying. He thinks of the reporter who chased him this morning after he retrieved his bike from Kats house and took off for the library

I just want to talk to you,
the reporter had shouted as he tried to keep up with Collie.
Hey, you little shit,
Collie had heard called out behind him as he'd ridden farther and farther away.
Slow down.

He has been in flight ever since, and now as he avoids Kat Williams and swoops down Mayflower Street, taking the curb at top speed, Collie feels, for one brief moment, as though he is soaring through the sweet blue air. He hits the asphalt with a thud, then turns onto the dirt path that leads behind the high school in the direction of King George's Road. If he hadn't stopped to look out at the field, Kat never would have been able to catch up with him. The bike she's riding used to belong to Rosarie, until Rosarie announced it was too inferior for her to bother with. Kat. on the other hand, enjoys the bike, perhaps because she'd been with her father when he bought it. It had taken almost two hours before he'd finally settled on something he hoped Rosarie would like, but Rosarie hadn't been particularly pleased with his choice.
Three speeds?
was her only comment.

Kat, on the other hand, likes the way this bike chugs along. A person got to really see things if she wasn't racing through life. As she rounds the corner onto Mayflower, for instance, Kat notices there are cosmos in several of the yards, tall stalks of purple flowers abuzz with honeybees. As she approaches the high school, she sees a boy watching a baseball game. On closer inspection, that boy turns out to be Collie, and the sight of him makes Kat aware of her own pulse drumming in her ears. She pulls up next to Collie and leans forward, hooking her fingers though the meshing of the fence. She knows he's been avoiding her, so she doesn't look at him. She is trying her best not to scare him away. “Isn't that your team?” she asks mildly.

It is indeed the Bluebirds out in the field, down by a landslide in the fifth inning. Kat herself is not a team player. The only sport she could ever manage is ice skating, and this winter she couldn't even bring herself to do that. Every time she went down to the lake, she thought she saw her father, over by the bench where there were always oatmeal cookies and hot chocolate, where fathers knelt beside their children to help lace up skates.

On this hot and gorgeous July day, the Bluebirds are being slaughtered by the Braves from Hamilton; they haven't scored a single run. Perhaps the loss is unavoidable; though not showy. Collie has always been the most consistent player on the team. His father has spent thousands of hours with him on this very field, throwing ground balls and curve balls, but those hours are evaporating into shining and unrecognizable bits of time. Collie has already decided: he's never playing baseball again.

Kat appraises the Bluebirds. “They sure could use you. They're terrible.”

“I don't care if they win or not.”

“Did you see my sister's picture in the newspaper?” Kat asks. “I don't understand why anyone would be interested in her opinion, but she looked great.”

“I care even less about that than I do about baseball.”

Collie can feel the sun on his head, his neck, his arms. He can smell grass and the rich, damp scent of the field. If his father was coaching today, he and Collie would be coming up with a strategy to turn the game around.
Swing to the right,
his father would say, or
Hit short and surprise them.
Collie thinks about King Arthur and how he tried so hard to be a good man, and how he'd been betrayed: how in the end, he had failed at everything he had tried to accomplish. Somewhere inside himself. Collie knows that he's taken the book from the library shelf to make sure no one else will be able to read this story; no one should be fooled into believing in a kind of honor that doesn't exist, not then and certainly not now.

Kat turns to tell Collie that the Bluebirds don't seem to know the first thing about winning, and when she does she sees that he's crying.

“Baseball is stupid, anyway.” Kat's heart is pounding, and she has a metallic taste in her mouth. “Everything is stupid when you really think about it. People get up every day and they act like whatever they do is so important, but they're all just going to die in the end, so none of it matters.”

“Shut up. Kat.” Collie blinks and looks out over the field. He has broad shoulders and is a truly fast runner; he's a natural athlete, but now he seems folded up on himself

As Kat Williams studies her friend, her pure, cold heart is breaking for him. People who are good are at risk, that's what she's figured out. She knows that Collie's father told him something that is too terrible to talk about. She has the feeling that people who've done what Ethan Ford did are sent away for a very long time. They don't come back until they can walk past a mirror and their reflection can be seen once again.

“Let's go swimming.” Kat wants Collie to say yes so much her throat hurts. She wants to go backward in time, to the hour before she made that phone call. She wishes they were still eleven, or perhaps even ten. Rosarie has informed her that by the time seventh grade is over, Collie will no longer be her best friend.
You're crazy,
Kat told her sister, but Rosarie only smiled, sure of herself as could be.
Wait and see. He'll be wanting somethíng more from you then.

Maybe it's thinking about what Rosarie said that gives Kat an idea of how she might bring Collie back to her. She swallows hard. Once she says it, she knows there'll be no returning to who they used to be.

“We can go to the pool if you want. Or we could go to the lake.” She lowers her voice, not that there's anyone who could possibly overhear. “I'll go in with no clothes if you do.”

Collie glances at her, but his eyes seem flat. Any other boy would race Kat to the lake right then and there, he'd bind her to her promise and watch bug-eyed as she ran naked into the cold water. But Collie's not any boy, and Kat can see she hasn't managed to shock him or even to interest him. She hasn't managed anything at all.

“I don't think so.” Collie's face looks different, older, somehow. and more pinched, as though her offer has disappointed him, as though disappointment is the only path he knows. “I'm going for a ride.”

Kat understands he means alone. She knows where he goes when he leaves the library; she's followed him out to the end of King George's Road, past the hospital, to the abandoned house she herself showed him a few summers back. People don't come out here much, in part because the land abuts the psychiatric hospital. But anyone interested in local history knows this dilapidated house had once been the grandest in the county, with the land for miles around belonging to the Monroes, acres of Christmas apples and sugary Nonesuches and crinkly Blue Permains, pippins that are said to have skin the color of plums. But that was long ago, and none of the Monroe family remains, no matter how much acreage they owned; raccoons have taken up residence in the ruins, along with wood rats and voles. None of these creatures have frightened Collie away, however. He spends hours there, Kat knows, time he no longer wishes to spend with her. She can't bring herself to look at him when he turns his bike toward the road. Instead, she stares straight ahead, at the dust rising when Jesse Meyers rounds third base, the first among his peers to do so. A hot breeze comes up to ruffle the leaves of the linden trees, and Kat shudders, then huddles against the fence. Some people say the dead can speak to you whenever the wind blows.
Listen carefully,
that's what people say.
Listen and you'll hear everything you need to know.

Collie has hurried away without noticing that the book he filched from the library has fallen out of his shirt, tumbling onto the grass. Kat bends to retrieve it. She glances at the illustrations, then turns to the back of the book. It hasn't been checked out for over three months. Stealing is not like Collie; it's more the sort of thing Kat would do, so she tosses the book into the basket attached to her bike, an accessory Rosarie has always ridiculed as childish. The least she can do is take the blame for this one small act of thievery, even though she knows she'll never be able to make up for the hurt she's caused him.

Out in the field, Barney Stark has spied the children through the haze of floating milkweed. The sight of Collie biking away makes him feel like running to catch up so he can promise everything will turn out all right in the end. But this isn't a promise Barney is able to make, so he stays where he is, coaching third base, exactly as he has every Saturday for the last six years. This afternoon is different, of course, for Barney is coaching alone. He knew something irrevocable had happened in that moment when Dave Meyers opened the door to his office and there Jorie was. sobbing, her hands covering her face, the sound of her wailing drawing them in, like a riptide. It was dark in the office, the shades drawn, the air murky. Ethan Ford had glanced over; his face was ashen and Barney had known what they were up against right then. Here before them stood a guilty man.

“Give me two minutes,” Barney had begged Dave, and once Dave left them alone, he'd turned to Ethan. “Don't say anything. Do you hear me?”

Ethan shook his head. He had the clear, unworried countenance of a man who didn't understand the measure of his own actions. “I just told Jorie. Now I want to tell you.”

“Yeah, well, don't. Don't say another word until you have proper counsel, because whatever you say can't be taken back, and I don't want to be in the position to have to testify against you.” Barney had glanced over at Jorie, whose hands still covered her eyes. “Do yourself a favor,” Barney said to his neighbor, a man he was beginning to wish he'd never met. “Keep your mouth shut.”

Ethan has always done most of the coaching, and maybe that was why the Bluebirds have headed toward a losing streak ever since his incarceration. He was a man who had infinite patience, even with players who seemed constitutionally unfit to catch a ball. He'd go over basics, again and again, without ever losing his temper like some of the coaches you saw, browbeating eleven-year-olds every time a ball was fumbled. Now they are on their own, and under Barney's guidance, the Bluebirds are failing. A mantle of gloom hangs over the field, and some of the players haven't attempted to catch the ball, even when a hit is headed straight toward them.

Barney's youngest daughter, Sophie, comes running over as the sixth inning approaches. Sophie is an upbeat kid and Barney's greatest joy, but today she seems wary and out of sorts. All the kids are in a bad humor, as a matter of fact, so at the end of the game. when they have lost and shaken the hands of their opponents, as Barney insists they do no matter how bitter their defeat, he gathers the players together in the bleachers.

“Most of you already noticed that Mr. Ford isn't here today.” Barney says. It's getting near supper time, but the sky is still China blue and the temperature is as hot as it was at noon. Usually when Barney calls the team together he has to hush them a couple of times, maybe even threaten to call off next week's game until he has peace and quiet, but now they face him expectantly They look so young and confused, Barney can hardly bring himself to go on. Most have already heard bits and pieces of rumors they can make little sense of, and Barney, more than anyone, knows the gossip will only get worse. “At the moment, Mr. Ford is having some legal difficulties that make it impossible for him to coach.”

Joey Shaw raises his hand, and the sight of his earnest expression makes Barney want to turn around and jog down to the Safehouse, where, for once in his life, he might manage to get good and drunk. Instead, he nods to the boy. “Yes, Joe?”

“Will he still be our coach when he gets out of jail?”

Barney is walking the thin line between preparing these kids for the truth and protecting them, if even for one more day. Ethan Ford no longer has any chance to have bail set, let alone return to coaching Little League.

“We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we'll just play our best.”

This answer satisfies no one, especially as the Bluebirds' best is nothing short of disastrous, but Barney dismisses his kids, telling them they played hard and honest, which is the most anyone can ask for.

“Everyone knows he's in jail for murder, Dad,” Sophie says as they load the equipment into the trunk of the car. “Most people think he's innocent, but some people are waiting to hear all the facts before they make up their minds. They want to see how he pleads and what his alibi is.”

“How does everybody know this?” Barney studies his daughter. Before long, she'll be going out on dates, and he'll have to worry about whom she's with on Saturday nights, the way he does with Kelly and Josie. His older girls have grown distant, more interested in their friends than in him, and he dreads the same thing happening with Sophie once she hits adolescence with full force.

“Everyone knows everything, Dad.” Sophie sighs. She looks like her mother, especially when she's exasperated, but she has an empathy and a warmth her mother lacks, at least in relation to Barney. Sophie is one of those girls who has always seemed older than her age. Her brown hair is plaited into a single braid that falls past her waist and she has a lovely, serious face. “It's like when Kat Williams's father killed himself. You and Mom thought it was a big secret, but everyone knew. Even the little kids who were supposedly being shielded from the horrible news. They all knew.”