A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [31]
In early April, at the beginning of the baseball season, Harrison remembered a game against North Fenton High School, a tough team, though a game Kidd was supposed to win. Harrison’s memory intercepted the game in the fourth inning, the play before that a blur, though he recalled that Kidd was down by five. Jerry Leyden, on the mound, was an exercise in pure frustration. Earlier, in the dugout, the pitcher had snapped, “Guys, let’s get it together,” the rest of the team having given him no run support. For once, Harrison hadn’t blamed the defense that day. In his opinion, it was all down to lousy pitching, Jerry leaving the ball up, unable to make his sinker sink. North Fenton knew it, too, and had gotten their five runs with patience: two walks, a triple that brought in two runs, a hit batter, and a homer. When Harrison’s fickle memory interrupted the game, he was playing second and there was a man on first, the guy driving Harrison nuts, he was so far off the bag. If Jerry would just whip around with the ball, the first baseman could make the pickoff easy.
Harrison wondered why Coach D. hadn’t made his way out to the mound yet, why he hadn’t put another pitcher in. Stephen, in the hole between second and third, was thwacking his fist into his mitt. The only one who would hate this loss more than Jerry would be Stephen. The shortstop bent, put his hands on his knees, and swayed from side to side, keeping loose. Harrison was hovering behind the base path, wanting some action. Baseball in Maine was a winter sport, with its muddy fields, freezing temperatures, and fierce winds straight off the Atlantic sending any decent hit over the fence in right field, though Rob Zoar was as good an outfielder as Harrison had ever seen.
A gust rattled over the mound. Jerry stalled, waiting for a lull. The ump told him to play ball. Jerry went into his windup, his leg kick theatrically high, and, Harrison thought, uneconomical. Any decent runner on first could steal second before the ball hit the catcher’s mitt. The ball stayed up, and the batter hit a line drive through the gap between second and third. Harrison watched Stephen arch over at a seemingly impossible angle, glove the ball as it bounced in the dust, and whip it across his body even as he was rising in the air, a play that no high school kid should have been able to make. Harrison, waiting for it, got it out of his glove as he leaped over the runner and snapped it to first, getting the batter there. Two out. Their patented double play, the one Harrison and Stephen had fine-tuned the year before, had talked about all winter, and had practiced incessantly, Stephen being the key, the pivot, his spin making it work. It was the first time they’d had a shot at it all day.
Stephen, lighter on his feet now and pumped, his blond hair blowing straight back from under his cap, his uniform flattened against his chest, gave Harrison the thumbs-up, a gesture undetectable to anyone else. If Jerry could keep the ball down this last at bat, they could retire the side and start again at the top of the order: Harrison, leadoff batter; Rob Zoar batting second for his uncanny ability to make contact; Billy Ricci, catcher, phenomenal hitter with power, batting third; and then Stephen, batting cleanup. There was still a chance to get into the game.
Harrison could see the fat pitch as it left Jerry’s fingers. The batter knew a good thing when he saw it. The ball went high and long and so far over the fence into the dense scrub brush that there was no point even trying to retrieve it.
0-6.
Jerry was yanked, and a new pitcher came to the mound to warm up. Harrison glanced over to the small hillock on which the fans sat—fewer in April than in May, many more at home games than away—and