Payton Hidden Away (24 page)

Ritchie is sitting on the top of
someone’s car, whittling a stick, sharpening its tip. From his vantage point,
he has a good view of Payton High and particularly the baseball field. Today
isn’t a game day, but even if it was, he wouldn’t be pitching anyway. Not now. Not
ever again. Ritchie’s done with Payton High. Actually, Payton High is done with
Ritchie. He was expelled for fighting, and without a scholarship, his grades
aren’t good enough for a community college let alone a university. He’ll never
get accepted anywhere, not even a school with a baseball program. Just like
that, Ritchie Hudson has gone from someone to no one.

Our friendship
is a mess, but knowing him the way I do, he’s either forgotten about our little
argument and moved on, or he’s waiting for the right moment to knock my lights
out. I can’t just pretend I didn’t see him, because if I walk by without stopping,
he’ll draw new conclusions regardless of what they had been only twenty seconds
earlier. Then he’ll come after me.

I at least have
to say goodbye.

I cross the lot
and stop beside the car he’s perched atop. He keeps right on whittling while I
try to come up with something casual to say. Nothing comes to mind, so I hop up
on the car beside him. It’s been four days since the brawl at Pirate Stadium. His
face is still bruised, but his eyes are sharp.

“You okay?” I
ask.

“I shouldna lost
my temper,” he mumbles.

“No, you
shouldn’t have. It was a game, Rich. You lost your cool over a stupid game. You
were one lousy out away from something really special, but you had to go all psycho
and flip out. And for what? For a girl?”

“It wasn’t her.
It was
him
.”

“I’m telling
you, you need to let that go.”

“I wanted to
kill him,” he mutters.

“Yeah, I know
you wanted to kill him. I also know that you’ve been saying things like that an
awful lot lately.”

“Things like
what?”

“Like how you
want to kill him or your dad…or
me
.”

Ritchie just
frowns as he whittles with more urgency. “They kicked me outta school.”

Expelled is more
like it.

“I heard.”

“How was
graduation?” he asks.

I shrug. “Like
you’d expect. You didn’t miss much. It was actually kind of lame.”

He nods, still
whittling, large chunks breaking from the stick and sliding down the windshield
of the car we’re sitting on. “No more baseball,” he mutters. “Didn’t even get
to finish out the season. That means it’s over. No colleges will look at me now.
My life’s ruined. All cuzza him.”

“He didn’t even do
anything.”

He glares at me.

“You know what?”
I say, hopping down off the car. “I stopped to say goodbye, but it’s still just
the same ol’ shit with you, isn’t it? You are
obsessed
with her, and
it’s gotten to the point of disturbing. But you go ahead and make excuses for
why you’re not going to be playing ball somewhere next spring. I got better
things to do with my time. I gotta go. See ya.”

“Where you
goin’?”

“Piss off.”

I hear him jump
off the car and land clumsily before his footsteps loom up behind me. I fully
expect him to sock me in the back, but instead, he only smacks me upside the
head. “What do you mean you stopped to say goodbye?”

“It means I’m
leaving.”

“Where you
goin’?”

“I’m on the
midnight express out of town. We talked about this.”

“That’s
tonight?”

“For the
umpteenth time, yes, that’s tonight.”

“Well, that
ain’t much of a goodbye. Is that how you say goodbye to your best friend?”

“You didn’t give
me much of a choice.”

“So, where you
goin’ now?”

“To say goodbye
to my girlfriend.”

Ritchie stops,
and when I turn to him, he looks like a wet puppy. “You’re really goin’?”

I put my hands
on hips, wondering how to navigate this situation without making things worse.

“Fine,” he says.
“Then go. See if I care.”

“Look, Kristie
and I already have plans for tonight. It’s my last night, and I need to spend
what little time I have left with her. I have to. She’s a chick, and she’s totally
PMSing over this.”

Ritchie just
stands there, and for a big guy, he looks awfully small.

“Tell you what,”
I say. “I’m planning to leave her place at around ten, grab my shit back at the
house and head for the bus station. You want to meet me?”

“You want me to
walk you to the bus station? Like a little girl?”

“I’m doing my
best, Rich. My mom’s car won’t start, and she can’t walk that far, so I’m saying
goodbye to her at the house. And Kristie won’t go with me. She refuses to.”

He kicks at a
stone. “So, you want me to walk you to the bus station…”

“What better
send off than one last midnight walk downtown with my best buddy?”

“You’re just demon…demonstrating
me…”

“It’s
dismissing, stupid, and no I’m not. You’ve been my best friend since we were
eight years old.”

“Best friends
don’t abandon one another.” The fire is gone from his eyes, and that youthful,
curiously innocent young man looks older. He’s stopped walking, and I think
he’s waiting for me to continue on so he can turn his back.

“Well,” I say,
sounding almost apologetic. “You know where I’ll be, and I’d like you to be
there too. But it’s your call.”

Ritchie’s says
nothing. He just stands there.

“Are you game?”
I ask.

Nothing. He
looks right through me like I mean nothing to him.

“I’ll see you
then,” I say, though I doubt I’ll see him at all. I turn away, my heart
thundering in my chest, afraid he’ll sense the lie I just told. Now that I’m
going, and given what’s happened, I’d just as soon slip out of Payton
unnoticed—a Spielberg ending to a small town drama. It’s time to go, and the
sooner the better. Better to go now than wait for the pieces to fall and bury
me beneath the weight of my own guilt.

I make my way through town,
through the fields and over the Beaver toward Lawton. I’m all torn up inside,
skittish—jumping at every little sound. Paranoia has me second guessing how I
handled things with Ritchie. Paranoia has me wondering if he’s following.
Paranoia also has me wondering what he’ll do if he is. That sense of something
‘bad’ feels like a storm settling right over the top of Payton and threatening
to rip us to pieces before scattering us to the wind like leaves. But the sun
is out. There is no storm. And there’s Kristie. She’s greeting me with a big
warm smile and open arms, and instantly I forget all about Ritchie.

“You okay?” she
asks.

“I’m fine.”

“Thinking about
tonight?”

“Are you?”

She bites her
lip, looks away and lets go of me, turning for the stairs leaving up to the
porch. “Come on. We’re all inside.”

“We?”

“Travis and
Joanne.”

I hesitate,
quietly disappointed that it’s not going to be just the two of us like we’d
planned, but I cover well, don a phony smile and follow her up the steps,
through the screen door and into the living room where Joanne and Travis are seated
on the couch. Kristie curls up in the big chair, taking the whole thing by tucking
her feet up under her. I stand there feeling like a lump. There’s another
chair, but it’s on the other side of the end table, and that kind of defeats
the point. It also means she’s doing this on purpose—creating a barrier so as to
make me feel guilty.

“Is there room
for me?” I ask, but she says nothing. No one says anything. They won’t even
look at me. “Or should I just go?”

This time
Kristie does lift her eyes before sighing heavily and swinging her legs out to
make room for two. I sit down and wrap my arm around her. I even kiss the back
of her neck, but she’s rigid—cold. Pretending not to notice, I look around at
what everyone’s up to. By the looks of things, Joanne’s trying to teach Travis
sign-language.

“Cute,” I
murmur.

“What?” she
asks.

I shrug. “I
don’t know. It just seems a little soon for learning Sign is all.”

Kristie frowns.
“Are you jealous?”

“Don’t you take
that tone with me, young lady,” I murmur, nudging her playfully. She smirks,
elbows me right back before getting up and heading into the kitchen.

Joanne looks
great—too good for Travis anyway. No, I’m not jealous, but I am a bit curious
what makes him so damn special. His hand is on her thigh, and while I barely
know him, I know enough to know I’m starting to understand what’s been eating
at Ritchie, and there’s a piece of me that agrees. Travis doesn’t care about
learning sign language. He wants to get laid. He’s acting innocently
stupid—intentionally messing up—so she’ll grant him a pity fuck. Of course, his
ignorance has limits. Just when she shows even the slightest bit of impatience,
he signs the word ‘beautiful’ before pointing at her. She settles down, gets
all gooey and snuggles up to him.

Kristie
reemerges from the kitchen, a glass of ice water in each hand. She hands me
one. “Let’s help,” she says before sitting in that empty chair on the other
side of the end table. She’d didn’t sit with me. She chose the empty chair.

“This’ll be
fun,” she says.

Fun.

I know her well
enough to know she used the glass of water as an excuse to get up, and now
she’s sitting in another chair just to make a point. She’s pissed. She’s a good
liar though, because she’s acting relaxed, and she’s smiling, and she’s
giggling as Joanne signs something she finds particularly funny.

Travis looks at
me with a frown. “Any idea what’s she saying?”

I do, though I know
enough to realize that I shouldn’t say so. I know my place, and my place is to
shrug and play dumb, but I can’t. I’m irritated by Kristie’s attitude, and I’m
disgusted with Travis. Maybe it’s because I don’t trust him, and my lack of
trust seems the easiest way to expose him as a fraud even if it embarrasses the
girls. Besides, I’m on my way out of town anyway, so what difference does it
make?

“She said she
thinks you’re cute,” I grumble.

Joanne’s mouth
drops open in horror.

Kristie shoots
me an angry glare before reaching across the end table between us and smacking
my arm with the back of her hand. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because he
asked.”

“Since when did
you get good at Sign?”

“I know more
than I let on.”

“So, you’re some
kind of sign language prodigy?”

“Not really.” I
lock eyes with Travis and smile. “It means I’m a guy. It means I learned how to
sign the important words so I can use them at times like this.”

Travis stares
back.

“It also means if
we play our cards right,” I continue, “we might get a hand job, but if we’re
good enough liars, we might even get laid.”

He glares at me,
and I can tell he wants to fight. We face off, separated by a coffee table
littered with a number of Country Living magazines, but neither of us move.

“For the
record,” he says, keeping his tone light. “I’m okay with being cute. I’d rather
be handsome, but I’ll take cute.”

The two girls
giggle, and Travis is all grins, because he’s Mr. Perfect. He even smiles at
me, but his eyes give him away. He’s not happy with me. In fact, I think I just
made an enemy. But fuck him and everything he stands for. I’m sure he’s super-duper
and all that, and all I have to do is keep my mouth shut and we’ll be friends,
but I don’t want to be friends. I don’t like him, and I don’t want to like him.
He’s pretending to be interested in a deaf girl when it’s obvious that scoring
is his only goal.

“Focus,” Joanne
says as she casts a stern look my way. “You’re not paying attention.”

“What?” I ask.

Everyone laughs.
Apparently, I made an ironic funny.

“Now, tell me
what color my hair is.”

“Blond,” I
answer.

“In Sign, you
dummy,” she smirks.

I know the
answer. I can actually do this, but it seems like we’re all lying, so I keep it
going by putting on my own show of
innocent
and
cute
. I look to
Travis for help, but he just shrugs. He’s the best actor of the bunch, so I
pick up a yellow pillow and point at it. “Blond.”

Kristie sneers.
“Cheater.”

“But am I
wrong?”

“No, you’re an
idiot,” Kristie says.

“I resemble that
remark,” I grin. “Go ahead. Challenge me.”

“Fine,” Joanne
answers, looking me in the eye, “But this one’s gonna hurt.”

“Ooooh,” I say,
rubbing my hands together. “Naughty.”

Once again, Kristie
reaches across the vast divide between us, nearly topples, and slugs me.

“You really
think you can stump me?” I ask.

“I don’t think
it,” Joanne answers in that weird accent of hers. “I know it.”

“Give it your
best shot, sweetheart,” I say with a growl. “I’m ready.”

Travis smiles.

Joanne squints.

It’s another one
of those good old-fashioned Mexican standoffs—sans pan flute and tumbleweed, of
course, and I can’t help but marvel how much she looks like Kristie when she’s
not speaking. “Tell me what the weather’s like,” she says before wagging a
warning finger. “Without cheating.”

I sit back, trying
for a debonair look as if I know what debonair is supposed to look like.
Finally, I get creative, hold up my arms and make a large circle over my head.

“What is that
supposed to mean?” Kristie asks with a laugh.

“The sun,” I
answer. “It’s sunny outside, right? I was making a sun.”

“That’s not
sign-language. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I look to Travis
for help. “What do you think?”

He busts up
laughing. “I gotta be honest, I thought it was some kind of weird Celtic
dance.”

“Okay, genius,
then you tell them in sign-language what the weather’s like,” I snap, but he’s
already laughing, and so are they. Hook, line and sinker. Once again, I’m the
funny guy. Funnier than
him
anyway, and that’s what matters as far as
I’m concerned. “I’m glad you’re all enjoying yourselves at my expense,” I
mumble, though this time it’s an act.

“You’re so
adorable when you’re frustrated,” Kristie murmurs, getting out of her chair and
coming over to sit with me.

“I’ll take cute
over adorable any day,” Travis says.

“Yeah, well
‘adorable’ got me a girl in my lap. How’s ‘cute’ working out for ya?”

Joanne snuggles
up to her ‘man’ and makes a spectacle out of it.

“Game on,” he
says with a sinister smile.

Everyone else
finds this particularly hilarious, and they’re suddenly howling with laughter.
Kristie is having a good ol’ time, and Joanne is laughing in a way I rarely
see. She looks truly happy for once. As much as that douchebag makes me squirm,
I do my best to pretend everything’s okay. I even smile, but I don’t mean it.
This is supposed to be one of those good moments between young couples feeling
each other out, but I don’t trust him.

Slowly, the
forced smile slips from my lips, and I’m on the verge of saying something I
probably shouldn’t when I feel something press up against my shoulder. I turn
to find Kristie snuggling up to me, her hair brushing my neck and cascading
over my shoulder, and it makes me wonder why I’m pissed at Travis. I shouldn’t
care who she dates. I’ve got Kristie.

“Well,” Travis
says, standing.

And just like
that…

“I’m late as it
is.” He nods my way. “Tony, we’ll need to continue this at Christmas when
you’re back in town, and we’re both learned men.”

“Where are you
going?” Kristie asks.

“He has to
work,” Joanne answers, disappointment in her voice.

Travis shrugs
before opening his arms to her. They embrace and kiss quickly before he nods my
way and smiles at Kristie. Then he’s gone, and it’s just us three.

“I thought he
had tonight off,” Kristie says.

“He did,” Joanne
answers as she goes to the door and watches him off. “Someone called in sick.”

“Who gets sick
in the middle of summer?”

“What’s it
matter? He’s gone.”

The thing is,
she doesn’t look all that upset. Or maybe I’m not reading her right.

“Let’s go
outside,” Kristie suggests. “At least there’s a breeze.”

I look beyond
the screen door at the trees that stand listlessly—motionless.