Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise (7 page)

Rose turned her palms upward and said, "Thank you."

I pulled Lucky away from the door and opened it. Four women stood outside in the ankle-deep glow of my path lights.

"Oh, my goodness gracious," I said. "Welcome to my home. Come on in. I have pie and cheese and soda."

The women moved slowly, but soon they stood in my living room and my heart beat like a trip hammer. I was so excited, I had to take a breath.

"Help yourself to cheese and crackers and pie; of course, I always have pie. Rose brought plenty of ice for the soda and there's coffee in the pot."

One woman, a short, stubby lady wearing gold clam diggers and a sweatshirt with the word
Rascal
on it, stepped forward."I need to tell you that our husbands ain't going to like this, but we came anyway so I think you better make your speech short and sweet and to the point. No time to dillydally."

"That's right," said a second woman. "I need to get back home to baby Ruth." I giggled, but when no one else joined in I figured the joke was lost.

"She's been crying for days with the colic. But I told Charlie if I didn't get out of the trailer and take a walk I couldn't be held responsible for what I might do. Charlie doesn't like it when I talk like that, even though he doesn't know if I'm serious or not. Course, I ain't."

"You must be Charlie Lundy's wife," I said. "He helped Asa carry in my furniture."

"That's right, I'm Greta. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Asa offered crackers first, while Rose gave them each a Dixie cup. Then she plopped an ice cube into each cup as Asa poured Coke. Teamwork. It made me smile.

"I played softball in high school," said the third woman. They still stood in a row like bowling pins. "I pitched for the Macungie Sentinels. Pitched us all the way to a state championship, even though nobody cared if girls could play ball or not."

"You're a pitcher," I said. I glanced at Asa. "Just like I said. We need a star pitcher and it looks like we got one."

She smacked a fist into her palm. "My name's Francine, but everyone calls me Frankie."

I heard a knock on the door. "That might be my Rube," Frankie said. "Wouldn't put it past the big lug to come looking for me. But you tell him I'll be home when I get there, if it is him."

Rose opened the door and in walked Clara Kaninsky. I smiled about as wide as home plate. "Second base?"

"Sure," she said. "I heard the other girls were coming so I decided to come too. Had a time getting out of the house tonight. Grady, that's my youngest, had to help him muddle through some silly science experiment—made a radio with only a potato and some wires and a five-penny nail. Imagine that."

"Imagine," I said. "Must be a bright boy."

Clara smiled. "This here is Ginger Rodgers."

I looked but I didn't see anyone until the tiniest person I ever saw up close came out from behind Clara. I did a lousy job of hiding my surprise, but I figured everyone understood, including Ginger. She laughed until I thought she'd split a gut.

"Don't fret," Ginger said as she caught her breath. She reached her hand up for me to shake. She had the nicest touch, even if it did feel like I shook the hand of a three-year-old.

"Pleased to meet you." I showed her in. She hopped up on the sofa and Lucky eyed her like she was a new chew toy. He even put his paw on her knee and watched her like he wanted me to toss her outside so he could fetch and bring her back. She pushed him away. "I am not a large bone for you to bury in the backyard."

"Lucky," I said, "go lie down."

"Nice doggie," she said.

"So glad you came." I offered her cheese and crackers.

That was when Rose sidled next to me. "Ginger wants to play."

Frankie spit soda across the room. "You, Ginger? Come on," she said. "I mean you're a sweet gal and all but softball? How?"

"I can play," Ginger said. "I'm pretty quick. Doesn't take much to propel this body around the bases, and you got to admit I have a wicked strike zone." She jumped off the sofa and held one hand at her shoulder and the other at her knees. Maybe nine inches.

She would be hard to pitch to.

"Okay," I said. "But what position?"

Ginger laughed. "Shortstop, of course."

I don't think I ever heard so much laughter in my life. There I stood with a room full of women and a one-armed man laughing and giggling. It felt fine. It felt just fine.

"Shortstop? You're serious?"

She nodded.

"Why not?" I said.

Ginger smiled. "Praise Jesus, I'm going to play softball."

I counted the women. "We need two more. Just two more to make a team."

Greta volunteered to play first base.

"No, I'm sorry," I said. "You're a little short for first base. I'm afraid we'd have balls flying over your head. But you look like a center fielder. How about center field?"

"Sure," she said. "Where's that?"

Frankie slapped Greta's shoulder. "In the center, Greta. That's why they call it center field."

"Can you throw a ball, Greta?" asked Asa.

"Throw?" said Greta. "I can throw a full beer can from the kitchen door clear out back to Charlie."

"Good enough," I said.

I offered pie to all of the women and gave out assignments at the same time. I chose Gwendolyn, the tallest of the original three, to play first base. She seemed to like the notion well enough.

"Does that mean I get to bat first?" she asked.

"Not necessarily. We'll get to the line-up later."

Marlabeth Pilkey volunteered to play third base. "I got a wicked arm," she said. "I played ball with my brothers."

"Great." I gave her apple pie. "And I suppose you should be the team trainer also."

"Trainer?" She swallowed an apple slice whole, I thought.

"What kind of trainer?" she asked. "You mean like a dog trainer?"

"Oh, no, no. That's what we call the person who watches out for the health of the team, you know, taking care of sprains and cuts and bruises."

"Sure, I can do that. I got a remedy for whatever ails you."

Gwendolyn started to cry.

"There she goes again," Greta said. "She can turn on them waterworks whenever she wants."

"I think it's a hormone imbalance," Marlabeth said. "What she needs is some black cohosh—"

"Black cohosh," Francine said. "That's what you gave my mama for her hot flashes."

"That's right," Marlabeth said. "And valerian root, maybe some chamomile tea. And you can use some snark weed, Greta."

"Snark weed? What in blazes is snark weed?" asked Francine.

"Keeps people from being so snarky," Marlabeth said.

"No such thing," Greta said.

"Well, there should be a tea for mean people," Marlabeth said.

"I am not snarky or mean. Gwendolyn is a crybaby and everybody knows it. I'm just the only one who says it."

"Best to leave some opinions to yourself," Rose said.

Gwendolyn blubbered and waved the air in front of her face. "It ain't hormones. It's just that I never felt so happy. I always got chosen last, you know. Most humiliating thing ever to stand there while everyone else got picked. I can still hear Donna DelTorro saying, 'Okay, I'll take Gwen-do-nothinglynn,' like I was carrying typhoid."

Marlabeth handed Gwendolyn a box of Scotties Tissues."Who is Donna DelTorro?"

"It ain't important," Greta said.

It didn't take long before all the women in my trailer that evening had positions on the newly formed Paradise Women's Softball Team.

"I'm sorry, Charlotte," Greta said around nine o'clock, "but I need to get home. Ruth needs a good feeding and clean diaper—ha! So does Charlie."

The others echoed her.

"Okay, I will post another notice for the next team meeting and maybe our first practice. In the meantime, look around, we still need a left fielder and a right fielder and a couple or three alternates. And we need a name. Start thinking of some and we'll take a vote at the next meeting."

Asa and Rose hung around after the women left. Asa sat in the rocking chair with a kind of wide-eyed amazement on his face. "I wouldn't have believed it, Charlotte, if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes."

Rose glanced skyward again. "It's a blessed day in Paradise. I do believe something powerful is happening. Charlotte, I knew the second I set eyes on you that a new day had dawned in Paradise."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "It's just a softball team, Rose. And it was your idea."

Asa helped himself to another slice of pie. "Now you just have to get the team organized." He laughed. "No easy task, I'm sure."

I watched him shovel a large forkful of apple crumb into his mouth and chew. "Team?" I said. "I don't have a team yet. Still need two players."

"They'll come," Rose said. "Just schedule a practice date. Steps of faith, Charlotte. Can't run all the bases in one night."

I gathered plates and napkins and started to tidy things up. At nine-thirty I was ready for Asa and Rose to go home. I was happy about the softball team, but I was also scared to death that I might have gotten myself wedged into a tight spot. It was all on me now to rally these women into a team. Women who, it was plain to see, needed and wanted to be rallied into something more than what life had pitched.

It was the more part that scared me.

T
hat night I lay in bed thinking about the day and imagining what it would be like to be with this group of women on the softball field, running the bases, keeping Greta from pounding Gwendolyn into a fine powder, catching pop fly balls, hitting a home run—winning. But I also wrestled with a most intrusive thought—me sitting in Rose's giant hand of God—just sitting there like a lame duck waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen.

But I supposed Rose would have said, "Don't worry, Charlotte. You're sitting in the safest seat in the universe." And she might have been right, but I couldn't help feeling a little shaken and worried about what I had done. Me, coaching a softball team, attempting to bring community where none existed and kind of half-expecting God to work out the details. I knew it was all I had to lean on—except Rose and Asa. Herman wasn't around to tell me what to do next.

Bright and early the next morning after I let Lucky out to do his business and I made my pot of coffee and brushed my teeth, I went in search of something I thought might help inspire me. I pulled a small, red suitcase out from under my bed. I had not opened it in many years.

Packed away inside, I found my old baseball glove, a cap, a softball, and a picture of the 1942 Clifton Canaries wearing our bright yellow uniforms with green lettering and numbers. I named every player on the team. I looked a bit brighter in the picture than I did now, skinnier of course and maybe even a touch taller. I stood next to Penny Wilcox, our catcher, and Verna Gottlieb, our second baseman. These people had been the most important people in my life for a while. Together we won over fifty-two games and three championships.

I sat on the floor and lightly touched each face with the tip of my index finger.

"Penny," I said. "Where are you now? Sally Miller, the pitcher with the crazy curve ball. Would you remember me?"

The memories of these people rose and fell like a symphony. And that was when I saw the big picture. I wanted the women of Paradise to know what I knew. In the company of women, good women, there is home. There is love, understanding, and even salvation. All of these things had somehow gotten away from me. And maybe, if I was being honest with myself, I was looking for those things also.

I placed the picture in its wobbly brown frame near the trophy. I had three trophies, but only two had survived the years. Too bad Herman never sold me any brass polish. It would certainly have come in handy. Instead, I breathed on the trophy in places and used a towel to shine it up.

Rose came by right after I put the towel and my memories away.

"I came by for pie," she said. "And I thought you could use some help."

"Help?"

"The team, Charlotte. You have a lot to decide." She noticed the picture on the table and picked it up. "Is this your old team? Which one are you? No, wait. Let me pick you out."

"Here." She pointed to Sadie Lipshutz—left field.

"Nope."

I showed her where I stood.

"You look like an entirely different person. You sure that's you?"

I nodded and set the picture down.

Rose sat with me at the kitchen table. I didn't feel much like talking. Rose was as enthusiastic as ever. But it didn't take long for her to catch on to my mood.

"What's wrong?" She asked. "You look lower than a grasshopper's knee."

"I guess I am a little sad today. Looking through old stuff, thinking about Herman."

Rose smiled into my eyes. "I understand. Grief has a way of hanging on and rearing its ugly head at the most inopportune times, Sweetie." She patted my hand.

"It does." I swiped a couple of tears away. We sipped coffee and ate pie silently until I finally said, "Rose. You said once that redemption comes in many ways. What did you mean?"

Rose took a breath and blew it out slowly. She peered out the window a moment.

"I was twenty-two years old, Charlotte, and . . . well, I killed a man."

I swallowed. "Don't be silly. I'm serious."

"So am I," she said. "I have the newspaper clippings in my trailer."

"What, like a scrapbook?"

"Kind of. There was a lot of news coverage. It was quite the talk of the town back then."

"You're joking."

"I was twenty-two, troubled and lonely. I met a man at the bus terminal. He smiled at me, bought me jelly donuts—the sugar kind, not the white powder. He bought me a Pepsi and invited me home. He kept me there for three weeks. Little food, little water." Rose looked away, out the window. "He raped me over and over again until I was bleeding and raw, sick and vomiting. He tied me to a chair while he slept and ate cheeseburgers from White Castle with ketchup dripping down his chin."

My stomach churned. "I'm sorry, Rose. You don't have to say any more." Truth was I didn't know if I wanted to hear more. I had gone from fond memories of days gone past to hearing of a friend, someone I now considered a dear friend, experience the worst that life had to offer.

"One night he got sloppy," Rose continued. "Left a cigarette lighter where I could get it while he slept off a filthy drunk. I burned through the ropes, sprinkled the mattress with the last of his whiskey and set it on fire. The flames shot up quickly in a great rushing neon wind of heat and flames, orange and red and purple, even green and yellow. I screamed and panicked, knocking flames off my arms, rolling on the floor until I finally tumbled down the steps and outside. By then my arms had been burned so badly I . . . "

"The tattoos," I said.

"Yes." Rose reached across the table and took my hand in hers. "The tattoos. They came years later, but yes, the tattoos."

I smiled into her deep, dark eyes and held her there for a second. I could not even begin to imagine the horror she must have faced. It brought tears to my eyes and I swiped them away, yet Rose didn't turn her eyes from mine. And in those few seconds she communicated more about what she had gone through than words could ever do justice. The experience had transformed her, deepened her, left her with physical scars, yet more whole than I ever dared imagine for myself.

"I have an idea," she said. "Let's go sit in the giant hand."

Now, you might think that sitting in a giant hand would feel silly. It did. At least for a few minutes, until I got my bearings. I couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of what I was doing, having never ever sat in a giant hand before. Rose was kind and let me get it out of my system. Then she turned her own palms up, lifted them toward the now overcast sky and prayed. I listened as she trailed on about being thankful first, guilty second, and then asking for success for me and the newly formed softball team.

"Thank you, Rose," I said. "But do you think God really cares about a softball team?" I thought back to the many serious prayers I said so long ago, asking, begging God to help me get pregnant after losing my first and only baby. Seemed to me that giving life was slightly more in the world's interest than a softball team. But what did I know?

"Bible says that God has his eye on every sparrow. Not one falls without his knowledge. That every hair on your head is counted, that he calls each star by name. Seems to me a God that detail-minded would also care about the Paradise softball team."

"He named the stars? All of them?" Of course I looked up and saw none, what with it being cloudy and daytime and all. Yet I looked heavenward—truly heavenward—for the first time in many, many years.

We sat a while longer and Rose pointed out some of the names, including Suzy Wrinkel, who occupied one of the folds on the index finger.

"A Wrinkel in a wrinkle." I smiled. Payback for the previous pun fest.

Rose nodded and I assumed I wasn't the first to think of it.

Ginger Rodgers was on the thumb right next to Marlabeth Pilkey.

"Tell me about Ginger," I said.

"What's to tell? She was born that way. God made her little is all."

"I know but why is she here in Paradise?"

"Where else? What better place for her? Here she's accepted just as she is. She sews quilts and does amazing needle art stuff she sells at flea markets. Loads her car up twice every spring and makes enough to live on for the year."

"Good deal," I said.

"She's happy, Charlotte."

That was when Asa strolled by. "I've been looking for you, Charlotte."

"Me? How come?"

"You coming down or should I come up?"

Rose and I exchanged looks. "You have pie at your place?" she asked.

"Cherry."

"We'll come down," Rose called. "Charlotte has pie at her place."

We sauntered over to my house like three best friends. I couldn't remember the last time I had found myself in such good company. The thought occurred to me to say something about the odd bit of joy that crept into my heart, but I winced it away on account of it might have come out sounding silly.

Lucky squeezed by me and into the trailer. For some reason that silly pooch always wanted to be the first one inside.

Asa helped himself to a ginger ale, while Rose started coffee.

"I think I found you a couple more players," Asa said.

"Really. Who?"

"The Frost sisters."

Rose put her hand on Asa's shoulders. "Really? The Frost sisters? Did you speak with them?"

"Sure did," Asa said. "They say they never got a flyer but would be happy to come out and play." Then he smiled and said, "Well, okay. I had to do some arm-twisting and they agreed to give it a try, but if they don't like it they're going to quit."

I sat next to Rose at the kitchen table. I sank into the thick polka dot cushions I had tied on to the chair. "Frost sisters? You mean the women who own the trailer I thought I was buying?"

"That's right," Asa said. "Edwina and Thomasina. They live on the other side of the woods. Lived there their whole lives. Never married. I'd say they're in their late thirties, healthy as oxen and just as strong. They own about forty acres out there. Fergus had been trying to get his grubby paws on that land—"

"But they won't sell," Rose said.

"Sisters, huh. Wonder if they'd be good at left and right field. Bookends."

Rose laughed. "I can't wait to see the whole team assembled in one place."

"Speaking of which," Asa said. "Where exactly do you think you'll practice? Fergus will never go for it anywhere in the park. And there really isn't much room."

"That is a pickle," Rose said. "Here we were so excited about the team we didn't even think about having a place to practice and play games." She paused and sipped coffee. "God will provide."

Asa snapped his fingers. "I wonder. I just wonder."

"What?" I said. "You have an idea?"

"Not sure. I'll let you know." He swigged the last of his ginger ale and scooted out the door. "I'll let you know," he called as the door slammed behind him and Lucky startled from a deep nap.

"Now where do you suppose he's off to?" I asked.

Rose shook her head. "Don't know, but he's a scrounger from way back. He might just have something up his sleeve."

My telephone rang.

"Hello?"

Nothing. Just a small breath on the other end.

"Don't tell me—people still making obscene phone calls?" I was just about to hang up when I heard a quiet female voice say, "Can you meet me at six behind my trailer?"

"Suzy? Is this Suzy?"

But she hung up without letting me know for certain.

"Really?" Rose said. Her voice rose an octave. "Was that Suzy?"

"I'm not sure. I think it was her. She said to meet her out back of her trailer at six o'clock this evening."

I watched Rose's eyes grow large. "Are you going to meet her?"

"I should. Don't you think, Rose? Don't you think I should meet her?"

She nodded, smiled, and flicked a crumb off the table. "Yes, Charlotte. I think you should. But—"

"But what?"

"Bring Lucky just in case."

"In case of what?"

"Just in case."

For the rest of the day I acted like a perfect nervous Nelly, alternately pacing around my trailer and baking pie. I decided to bring her an apple crumb and then changed it to a cherry and then decided to bring both, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to carry two pies to her trailer. After all, I wasn't even certain it was Suzy who called, and while arriving with one pie for the wrong person was embarrassing, arriving with two pies was downright silly.