The Flood Girls (28 page)

“So, little man.” Athena's arms tinkled as she pointed a finger at him. “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

“This,” he said.

“Rachel tells me that you like fashion and the arts. She tells me that you had very firm opinions about the decoration of her house.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, blushing again.

“In the city, we have a name for men like you.”

Jake almost choked, waiting to hear that word, the word that was never to be spoken.

“Fabulous,” said Athena. “Fucking fabulous.”

Jake exhaled.

“Goodness,” said Athena. “You're white as a sheet.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I think I ate too much.”

“Well, my fabulous little friend. I got you a special present. A thank-you for taking such good care of my girl.”

“Oh no.” Rachel put down her egg roll. “Please tell me it is age appropriate.”

“Of course not,” said Athena. “I can tell this kid is wise beyond his years.”

“Thank you!” Jake was ecstatic. “That's what I keep telling my mother.”

“You absolutely cannot tell your mother about this,” said Athena. “But I think it's going to blow your little mind.”

“Are we going
to the mall
?”

“That's disgusting,” said Athena. She reached into her mammoth black purse, and removed three tickets and fanned them out across the only clear space on the table. “If you mention that cursed place, I shall give these tickets to some homeless people.”

Jake clutched the ticket with shaking hands, made out the words in the candlelight.

“
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
,” he said.

“Sweet lord,” said Rachel.

“Sweet transvestites,” corrected Athena. “You will never, ever be the same again. The show starts in an hour.”

“Thank you,” said Jake.

“Honey, growing up where you do, I think you need this experience.”

“I used to have cable,” said Jake. “I read books. I know things.”

“Oh, little man,” said Athena. “You have no idea.”

When Jake returned from Missoula, he was full of hope and ideas and leftover Chinese food gobbled in the truck. They returned on Sunday afternoon, just as the clouds gathered in a portent of storm.

Rachel had to use her headlights, and they shone on Martha's trailer house. There was a stone in his throat, and just like that, the good feelings were gone. Jake had two bags of clothes from the thrift stores in Missoula, and Rachel agreed to store them in her trailer for safekeeping.

Rachel sensed his trepidation, and waited, parked in front of her own house, her truck still running. She grabbed his wrist.

“You can live in Missoula,” she said. “You can wake up every morning in that town and be yourself and do the things that you were born to do.”

“I know,” said Jake.

“Five years,” she said. “You just have to make it five more years, and then you can go wherever you want, and be whoever you want, and nobody can stop you.”

“Okay,” said Jake. They continued to sit there, until Rachel reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a business card.

“This is from Athena.”

“She's a tax lawyer?” He studied the card. “I don't pay taxes.”

“Her address and phone number are on the back. She wants you to stay in touch with her. She likes you.”

“Okay,” he whispered.

“Ready?”

“I think so,” he said.

They unloaded the back of her truck, and Jake made his way across the gravel to his house.

The porch light was on, which was a new thing. It was as if they were welcoming him home, but he had never gone anywhere without them, so he was unsure. He felt like knocking for some reason, but opened the door after taking a few deep breaths.

He found Bert in his usual place, quiet and reading his Bible. He didn't acknowledge Jake's entrance, and Jake hustled to his bedroom. He could hear Krystal giving the baby a bath. He removed the duffel bag beneath his bed and examined his work. He was nearly done, still had to finish two shirts, and he had decided to stitch all the collars and sleeves. He only worked on these shirts at Rachel's house, when she was not home. He slid a chair in front of his bedroom door, just in case.

He lost himself, caressing the familiar fabric, the thick stitching, but Jake felt different. He realized that he had forgotten to take any pictures. He returned everything to the safety of the duffel bag. As he collapsed on his bed, he realized that pictures weren't necessary. Some things would stay inside you until the day you died.

R
achel slept in, and when she woke, she said her prayers and reminded herself that this was just softball. She had no control over the outcome, but she could control her effort, and her outfit. Outside, it was raining lightly. The game was scheduled for noon. She took a bath, and meditated in front of the brick altar. She was in a Zen state when she picked out her clothes.

Rachel pulled up to the field thirty minutes before the game, as instructed. Laverna rolled her eyes at Rachel's choice of clothing: jean shorts that had been dyed black and hung with ripped fringes of hem, over neon green spandex, and a giant black T-shirt with a bloody skull on it. She and Jake had gone shopping for cleats in Ellis, even though they both despised entering a sporting goods store. She bought the first black pair in her size, but then Jake had found neon green laces at the cash register, which at least made them unique. She had practiced with the Chief in her Doc Martens, but even with two pairs of wool socks, she still ended up with blisters.

The T-shirt was actually appropriate. Rachel wished that she wore her pentagram necklace, something she bought for a Judas Priest concert in Missoula that she was kicked out of. This game would be played against the Methodists from Ellis.

All the other girls paired for the warm-up, leaving her to toss a ball back and forth with Ronda. She watched the opposing team, all in matching uniforms: pink T-shirts with tiny gray crosses above the right breast, gray sweatpants, pink socks. In her previous life, Rachel would have beaten them up on sight.

Laverna recited the batting lineup in the dugout, and even though it was raining, she removed a clothespin from her pocket and attached the paper to the chain-link fence. Rachel watched as the ink began to run.

She could see Jake in the bleachers, a coat draped over his head and the scorebook. The very sight of him was reassuring. A raincoat, dark blue with violet lining, surrounding his face like a cowl, the rest of him bedecked in varying shades of denim. Her seven dwarfs dug into a giant cooler, unlike the rest of the crowd, it was not filled with beer. Rachel suspected that the chief's wife had made all the sandwiches, as it was something an Al-Anon wife would do.

Rachel had grown accustomed to right field. It was a lonely place, but she crouched down into ready position every single time, even if the batter wasn't left-handed. Most of the action went to left field, but Rachel wanted to appear prepared.

Bucky called out, and Rachel watched her mother come to the ­pitcher's mound for the coin toss. The coach for the Methodists was wearing pink but had spent too much time in the tanning beds in Boyce Falls.

From the dugout, the Flood Girls stopped gossiping long enough to witness the nut-brown coach stop Bucky with one hand, kneel down to pray before he could flick the coin into the air.

“For fuck's sake,” said Laverna. “That's cheating.”

“You could pray if you wanted,” said Bucky. The coach rose to her feet to applause from her team. The Flood Girls had a reputation in the league, and the Methodists feared evil was contagious.

“I don't need Jesus,” said Laverna. “I've got Diane.”

It was true. Diane had adopted her mother's maiden name, Savage, and for good reason. Her vertical leap was the stuff of legend, and in the first inning, she leaped in the air, almost as high as Tabby's breasts, and snagged a ball destined to land in front of the statue of Ronda. A line drive peeled off the bat and nearly knocked out Ginger's teeth, who dove to the ground just in time, as her dental work was expensive. Diane darted behind her, scooped up the missile before it could land. Like Red Mabel, Diane was a beast, but she had been raised with good manners. She helped Ginger to her feet, brushed the dust from their pitcher's perm.

Diane was the type of woman who swung at everything, on and off the field. Fearless, she reached for an errant pitch, tapped it straight down the foul line, and Bucky had to squint and stammer until he finally called it good. By the time he had made this decision, Diane was on third base. Unfortunately, Della followed their cleanup hitter, and she was also the type of woman who swung at everything but never succeeded.

“WAIT FOR YOUR PITCH!” Laverna screamed as Della attempted to hit a ball that cruised two feet outside the batter's box. This is how it had been every game. Laverna instructed Della not to swing at anything, and to step in front of a ball if necessary. A walk is as good as a hit, Laverna reasoned, and Della might as well sacrifice her body for the team. Della refused to be a patsy, and continued to swing away, hopelessly. Rachel had no fear of throwing herself in front of a pitch. Rachel had been thrown on the hood of a Nissan Maxima, had been beat with a garden hose by a gang of drunk Russian women. A softball was nothing, and Rachel kept this contingency plan in the back of her mind, just in case.

In the third inning, the Methodists were up by twelve. Their husbands were afraid of the bleachers filled with the rough-and-tumble sinners of Quinn, and lined up against the chain-link fence behind the dugout. The husbands were also devout. Rachel ascertained this by studying their outfits. Short-sleeved button-down shirts and ties, a combination that had always made her cringe. Slacks worn without belts, their hair parted so severely, Rachel watched the white flesh redden as the sun emerged. As the air warmed up, so did the Methodists, and they batted through their entire lineup before Diane unleashed another trick from her arsenal. Diane was not a sneaky person, but she had perfected a fake out, pretending to throw the ball to first base, only to tag out the unsuspecting runner who had sprung from second.

“JESUS WEPT!” Laverna screamed from the dugout as Diane ended the slaughter and the Flood Girls returned to bat for the top of the fourth inning. Klemp had joined Laverna on the bench, as if she expected to be subbed in. The girl was as grim as always, and apparently an agnostic. Red Mabel bolted to her truck and drove over the railroad ties that framed the parking lot, parked right behind the dugout. While the Sinclairs and Tabby inched around the bases, Red Mabel formulated a plan. Klemp sat in the driver's seat, instructed to play “Hells Bells” by AC/DC over and over, rewinding gleefully, doing her part. Thankfully, Red Mabel had stolen a decent stereo system, and the bass rattled the beer bottles collecting around Martha Man Hands.

The Methodists protested to Bucky, during the fifth inning, as the song blared for the ninth time. Rachel could hear him shouting over the music, telling the coach to call the police, as he was only in charge of the actual softball field, and Klemp was a minor who had gone rogue.

The husbands gathered together in a prayer circle, and Laverna took the lord's name in vain. She also took the lord's name and combined it with all the permutations of obscure sex acts she could think of. “JESUS CLEVELAND STEAMER! JESUS FELCHING CHRIST!” Rachel was impressed that her mother knew about felching, as it was something she had only heard about from her gay friends in Missoula.

By the sixth inning, the Methodists were up by fourteen, and the praying grew more fervent, the muttering lost to the blast of AC/DC. The rain returned, and the husbands prayed even harder, as Red Mabel's white T-shirt soaked through. Red Mabel believed in Jesus as much as she believed in brassieres.

Shyanne Fitchett left to make the bus for the track meet, and in the last inning, Rachel found herself on deck. Diane transformed a base hit into a double, as the Methodist on first base was captivated by Red Mabel's breasts.

“WAIT FOR YOUR PITCH!” Laverna cupped her hands like a megaphone, but Della swung and missed each time. Laverna threw an empty beer can in frustration, nearly striking Ginger, who was used to her coach's tantrums. Ginger removed her expensive sunglasses and rolled her eyes, wiped away the drop of Bud Light with the tail of her T-shirt. As Rachel left the dugout, Black Mabel's father and brother shouted the chorus, fists pumping in the air.

Calmly, Rachel grabbed the bat from Della and marched to the plate. She reminded herself that this was just softball. She had survived much worse. She liked the bat, the weight of it calibrated perfectly. It felt like a weapon. There was no chatter from her team, no words of encouragement. Even Diane was silent.

Rachel had yet to hit a ball, despite the hours she spent practicing with the Chief. The pitcher perspired heavily, and she wiped the mix of rain and sweat from her face with the front of her shirt.