The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [73]
That evening, on the long ride back to Westish, he dozed against the shimmying side of the bus, a sweatshirt tucked beneath his cheek against the cold. His teammates bounced from seat to seat, gleefully scheming, poised between a successful day and what promised to be, since tomorrow was a rare day off, a successful night.
“Melanie Quong,” somebody said.
“Kim Enderby.”
“Hannah Szailes.”
The names were plans and prayers and poems all at once. Henry’s right arm reeked of Icy Hot. An image surged into his mind and repeated itself at a rate both dizzying and monotonous—an image of a white ball veering off course and drilling Owen in the cheekbone, and of Owen’s white startled eyes as he stared out at Henry before slumping to the dugout floor. He did some math. In the space of fifteen innings he’d made the five worst throws of his college career—the one that hit Owen, the two errors in the first game today, and the two ungainly throws in the second game. All five came on routine and in fact almost identical plays: hard-hit balls more or less right at him, so that he had plenty of time to plant his feet and find Rick’s glove before making the throw. Simple plays, of a kind he hadn’t botched since puberty. Clearly there was something wrong with his mechanics. Tomorrow he’d sleep in, catch up on the homework he’d neglected since Owen’s injury. Monday at practice he’d work out the kinks in his delivery. The problem, like most problems in life, probably had to do with his footwork.
24
Pella leaned closer to the bureau mirror, planting her elbows as she forced a silver earring—bought by her dad this afternoon—through the thin slit where her piercing used to be. She hadn’t bothered to wear earrings in many months or to bring any with her from San Francisco. A minim of bright blood cradled the edge of the slit and then subsided. She felt almost lovely, in her new lilac-colored dress, which was scoop-necked and sleeveless, and hung very simply and straight. She’d been admiring it this afternoon, at a little shop in Door County; her dad offered to pay for it, a sweet gesture marred only by the shame Pella felt at her own utter lack of resources. She needed to figure out how to fend for herself. Still, she felt pretty good. The eggplant bags beneath her eyes were shrinking. Her hair shone in the lamplight and, freshly washed, felt soft against her neck.
Her father’s face appeared beside hers in the mirror, as if they were posing for a family portrait, except that the elder Affenlight looked distinctly agitated. “Is this tie okay?” he asked, fiddling with the flat taper of his half Windsor. The familiar burnt apple butter scent of his cologne filled the room.
“Sure,” Pella said. “All of your ties are nice.”
Affenlight frowned and continued improving the already perfect knot. “But maybe I have a nicer one. Look”—he lifted the tie with a spindled finger so its silver-and-burgundy stripes hung beside his face—“see how the color brings out these capillaries in my cheeks? I look like a washed-up alcoholic.”
“Oh, you do not.” Pella forced the second post through and turned to eye her dad directly. “You have the skin of a ten-year-old. Not to mention the brain. Since when are you quite this vain?”
Affenlight pretended to pout. “I’m an emissary of the college. It’s my duty to make a good impression on the tuition-paying parents.”
“Mm-hm. Single female parents in particular.”
Before he could respond, his phone trilled. He pulled it from his pocket and two-stepped into the hallway. “Genevieve, hello!”
Pella went back to the mirror. David would return from Seattle tonight. How long would it take him to figure out where she was? Not long—she had no friends, no other relatives, just these two looming figures, her dad and David, to bounce between. David’s first impulse would be to think that she had run off with someone her own age, just as he’d always believed she would do, and he’d ransack the loft for clues. But there were no clues. When he picked up the phone to find