Blind Your Ponies Page 28

  CHAPTER 46

  The following day the little yellow bus slipped and skidded on ice-slick highways while carrying the team fifty-five miles south to Sheridan. Though the cheerleaders tried to pull enthusiasm out of the winter sky, the team traveled without much promise. They left Curtis behind, a victim of the flu, and by the time they arrived Rob wasn’t feeling too well either, though he insisted he could play.

  In the shoe box of a gym that had Panther Country emblazoned across its back wall, the Broncs gave all they had. Rob had to empty his stomach halfway through the second quarter and from then on Willow Creek played four against five and the Panthers ran them into exhausted defeat. Several carloads had followed the team despite the road conditions and weather, having seen victory against Shields Valley and daring to believe it could happen again.

  The highlight of the game was provided by Dean in the fourth quarter, though the game was well out of reach by then. With the manner of an unattended fire hose, Dean leaped for an errant pass and landed pell-mell on top of the scorer’s table, touching off the buzzer as though trying to end the game three minutes prematurely and stop the carnage.

  During the treacherously slow drive home the mood in Rozinante was subdued, sometimes deathly silent, as each of them brooded over his or her inner thoughts. Sam knew the boys were hurting. They had played with their hearts and been thrown off the porch again. With an inner agony that devastated him, he finally gave up on his dream. They just didn’t have enough players to keep up with teams of ten and twelve. He chastised himself for even considering such expectations. This was Willow Creek. There was a difference between appearance and reality. They were 2 and 8. Incredulously, somehow, they had won two games!

  They arrived home past midnight and when Sam saw to it that things were put away and the building locked, he left the school and saw the Volvo was gone.

  THROUGH THE WEEK, Diana became a wild creature that one senses is there but can never catch sight of. Though warm and friendly when they talked briefly between classes and at practice, she disappeared into the landscape the moment Sam turned around. He knew it wasn’t coincidence. She didn’t answer her phone; she wasn’t at home the few times he drove out. When he asked her to dinner at the Blue Willow, she was going out to Ellie and Randolph Butterworth’s.

  At the end of Thursday’s practice, she agreed to go for dinner and he picked her up after he’d showered at home. On the drive to Bozeman they talked basketball, seemingly a relief to both.

  “You looked really down after the game Saturday,” she said, “and I’ve noticed less enthusiasm in you during practice.”

  “I think I’m just tired, maybe a touch of the flu.”

  “Are you giving up on the boys?” she said.

  He didn’t look over at her. “I’ve learned to keep expectations down. It hurts less.”

  “The boys can tell when we’re faking it.”

  “Are you faking it?” he asked.

  “No, I believe they can win… if we could just keep all five of them in a game.”

  “Would you like to try Chinese?” he said, glancing at her.

  “That’d be fine, but don’t change the subject. How about Harrison and Lima?”

  “My head says we should beat them, but my heart…”

  “Don’t give up on them, Sam. They’re so dedicated and brave. They’d follow you through a mine field.”

  Her words hit him with sorrow. “Maybe that’s the only place I could lead them.” They were silent on the final fifteen miles into Bozeman.

  Sam parked the Ford beside the Great China Wall Restaurant, and once at their table Diana ordered Chicken Lo Mein and a glass of Fuji plum wine. Softened by traditional Chinese music, the dining room had a faint aroma of fresh vegetables and peanut oil. There were only a handful of patrons scattered among the tables. After appetizers of egg rolls and fried wontons, Sam went for the pizazz, ordering the Szechuen Beef Hot Plate War Bar delivered to him on a sizzling platter.

  “That not only looks delicious, it sounds delicious,” she said.

  Sam smiled. “Sounds like someone I know.”

  “How about taste?” she said.

  “When I thought of you as ‘Delicious Diana’ I had no idea how you’d taste.”

  “Stir-fried. Anyway, these victory dinners are a good excuse to enjoy the local cuisine. And it’s my turn to treat. I’m a coach, too, remember.”

  Sam couldn’t get used to the lady picking up the check, but that wasn’t the cause of the stressful stomach he experienced throughout the meal. After interminable small talk, he took a deep breath and stifled his terror.

  “Have I done anything wrong?”

  “No… why?”

  “I don’t know. I get the feeling you want to… avoid me?”

  She regarded him and set her chin.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s too good.”

  “Too good?” Sam said.

  “What if, when you were seven, you were a rather plain little girl who no one noticed? And what if one day an uncle who lived in, um, Switzerland sent you an elegant music box that played beautiful songs when you wound it up? And suddenly other kids started noticing you, hanging around, paying you a lot of attention, even though you knew it was your gorgeous music box that they wanted to play with, to wind it up, turn it on, stroke its satin-smooth surface.”

  “Everyone wants to be your friend,” Sam said.

  “Exactly. Well, that didn’t last long but I remembered how it felt. And then it happened again when I became sixteen. My body bloomed and that made gawkers out of boys who had never given me a second look, made tongue-tied boys who had never spoken to me. Just like with the music box, they wanted to wind it up.”

  “I know exactly how they felt,” Sam said.

  “I didn’t know what to do. Resent them because I knew it was only my body they were interested in, or savor their attention, let them play, and enjoy the music with them.”

  She avoided his gaze.

  “And?” Sam asked, dreading her reply.

  “I let them play, at first. I basked in the attention, but eventually I knew it went against something inside me. I stopped. I only dated guys I liked, guys I thought I could get serious with. And then along came Greg. We married, we were happy. Along came Jessica and for four years it was perfect. Then Jessica died and it all unraveled. We couldn’t handle it. I had failed him and he couldn’t live with it.”

  “What do you mean you failed him?”

  “I wasn’t the woman he thought I was.”

  “How did Jessica die?”

  “She… she just did.”

  Diana took a drink of water and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “I left San Diego. I was scared. My self-worth was shattered. I thought I’d never be loved again, though I had lots of boyfriends—no, I didn’t have boyfriends, I slept around. I wanted reassurance that I was desirable, lovable, that someone would want me. Well, After a while that old feeling came back, that it wasn’t methey wanted, only my body.”

  Sam frowned, trying to blur the scenes she was describing.

  The waitress, a lovely Chinese woman named Jean, interrupted. “Would you like anything more?”

  Sam nodded at Diana.

  “No,” Diana said, “thank you.”

  The waitress smiled, left the check, and was gone.

  Diana leaned toward Sam and spoke as if she were being timed.

  “Well, I began to feel ugly and unclean, I stopped altogether, several years ago, fretting over the possibility of having picked up some form of VD or even AIDS, loathing myself, distrusting all men.”

  “Did it work?”

  “After a while. Most of those feelings went away. When I came to Willow Creek I was somewhat content with my life. I thought you were cute, absurd, straight-laced. Too serious. Dying.”

  “Dying?”

  “But there was something about you that was different, something good and fresh and untouched. Now that I�
�ve gotten to know you, seen you with the boys, now that we’ve made love, it’s too good. Those old feelings are flooding back and I’m scared. That’s why I’m pulling the Cinderella-at-midnight act. I’m afraid.”

  “You’re afraid!” Sam exclaimed. “I’m afraid. I’ve always been afraid. I grew up being afraid. I won the grade school championship for utter fear. I was all-conference in high school. I was on the all-fear team in college. I won medals, scholarships, trophies. I have a masters in fear, a Ph.D., I won the Nobel Peace Prize for being afraid.”

  By then Diana’s smile had cascaded into a belly laugh. “And you say I’m crazy?” she said.

  “You’re the only woman I ever heard of who continues making love while her partner is ramming her Volvo down the center aisle of the local Methodist church.”

  She caught her breath and leaned toward him across the table.

  “I’ll tell you when I was scared, really scared. When I came to my senses I went to one of those places where you can have your blood tested anonymously. It took three days, I nearly died, imagining all kinds of symptoms, reading pamphlets, figuring the odds were stacked against me.”

  “What did it show?” Sam said with growing anxiety.

  “It was clean, I was clean. God, I was relieved. I thanked my lucky stars and began a do-it-yourself sex life.”

  “I had to have a similar test last summer when I changed my health insurance. It came back with the rating of a celibate monk in some Tibetan monastery where it’s so cold every body part is shriveled twelve months of the year and the only thing that gets hard is the ice.”

  They laughed.

  Then, turning somber, she reached across the table to take his hand.

  “I care for you a great deal. I’m afraid that if I fall in love with you, one day you’ll tell me you don’t love me, that I’ve failed you in some way, that I wasn’t the good person you thought. I know this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my history, but I need to work this out, so please have patience with me.”

  “Patience! I’m the definition of patience. I won the grade school championship for utter patience. I was on the all-patient team in college. I won medals for patience, scholarships, trophies. I have a masters in patience, a Ph.D…”

  She bridled her laughter to speak. “You’re not like any man I ever knew.”

  “Did you really get a music box from Switzerland?”

  “Oh, yes, an elegant Edelweiss disc player. It has a hand-rubbed mahogany case with inlaid rosewood, came with shiny metal perforated discs and played a Bach Chorale, “O Christmas Tree,” and “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” I’ll let you play it the next time you’re at the house.”

  “I hope there’s a double meaning in there somewhere.”

  “I’ll let you figure that out.”

  At her door he kissed her, several times, but she didn’t invite him in. Though he ached for her, he felt wonderful. She liked him and she asked him to be patient with her. Oh God, could he be patient. His life had taken such dramatic turns he could hardly catch his breath. He headed for town in his faithful Ford, content to go home and sleep alone for at least one more night because Diana had at least given him hope.

  But later, as he lay in bed, he felt scared, knowing that he was starting down that perilous path where one walks barefoot in the dark over broken glass. As he fell asleep, he listened for a backing Hamm’s Beer truck. What he faintly heard was a Willow Creek ghost swishing by his partially open window.

  CHAPTER 47

  Diana felt guilty for not helping Sam with the grueling three-hundred-mile round trip to Lima on Saturday. She knew it was time for her to get over her obsessive fear, but when she considered volunteering, she found her hands trembling and her breath quickening.

  Friday they had been punched in the stomach again. When the two-week grades came out, Dean was failing in two subjects, English and Social Science, and he was temporarily ineligible. Sam helped the boy as much as possible, but he couldn’t take Dean’s tests for him. Sam had toyed with the idea of slipping Dean by for a two-week period—their basketball days would probably be over by then—but he knew the boy would know and Sam didn’t want to damage Dean with the lie. They had tried to keep Dean eligible with the help of the girls tutoring on trips and even during lunch hour. The freshman had narrowly survived the last two-week grading period. Worse yet, Tom barely slipped by in Truly Osborn’s U.S. history. Sam had considered forfeiting the weekend’s games, saving the team and a handful of fans the long snow-packed road trip. Once more it would be five against ten or twelve.

  Friday night they had played hard against Harrison at home, but the exhaustion and fouls had taken their toll. In the end, only Peter Strong hadn’t fouled out, and with less than a minute to go, he was the only Bronc still on the court, only down by five points. Diana had never seen anything like it. The referee threw the ball in to Pete and he zig-zagged through several Harrison players and managed to get into the front court. Then, when it looked as though they had him bottled up, he split two defenders, went up with a shot, and buried a 3-pointer from about twenty feet out. Unbelievably, Willow Creek’s one-man team had closed to within two points. Even the Harrison fans were applauding Peter. Of course the five Harrison players played keep away for the remaining time and won 59 to 57.

  Diana smiled just watching Grandma’s sweetheart—graceful, brash, daring, exploding to a run-off his first step and embarrassing opponents with his cross dribble. He was as cool as a riverboat gambler on defense and had a natural, unpredictable flair for the game that she and Sam knew better than to tamper with. Pete had inspired all of them. But once again, they turned for home beaten and had to find some comfort and cheer in things like their grit and doggedness and beautiful arcing shots.

  RIDING IN THE seat behind Sam, Diana went over the score book on the bus trip to Lima. The cheerleaders were grilling Dean on English grammar and spelling.

  “February,” Louella said.

  “Ah… f-e-b-u-a-r-y,” Dean said.

  “Wrong!” Carter said.

  “Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey,” Curtis said out of the blue, seemingly to no one in particular.

  “I’ve noticed,” Diana said loudly to Sam over the bus noise, “Olaf hasn’t been called for three seconds in the paint for a while, and he’s had only a couple traveling calls lately.”

  “Now if we can cut down his fouls,” Sam said.

  “Yeah… keep him in the game.”

  Diana spotted something along the road ahead.

  “Sam, slow down, slow down. Stop the bus!”

  He pulled over on the wide shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?” Tom hollered.

  “Out of gas?” Rob said.

  Diana stood and stepped into the door well. “No, everything’s fine. It’s a deer.” She hopped out of the bus and walked back to the deer. It was a young doe, maybe three years old.

  The bus unloaded and the kids followed her.

  “Whatcha doin’, Miss Murphy?” Dean said.

  “Help me,” Diana said.

  “Road kill,” Scott said.

  “The poor thing,” Carter said.

  Diana took a hold of the doe’s front legs.

  “The meat might not be good anymore, Miss Murphy,” Rob said.

  “Help me,” Diana said.

  Peter and Rob picked up the two hind legs and the three of them carried the frozen deer over to a fence line where clumps of long brown grass stuck out of the snow.

  “What are you doing?” Louella said.

  “It’s against the law to take it, Miss Murphy,” Tom said.

  “We’re not taking it,” Diana said. “We’re showing respect for a fellow creature.”

  She guided the boys to gently lay the doe in the grass.

  “It’s just a dead deer,” Dean said.

  “Would you want to be left out on the road if you were dead, Dean?” Diana said.

  Dean shrugged. She knelt
and noticed the gang exchanging puzzled expressions.

  “There, there, little lady,” Diana said to the deer. “Go on your journey now.”

  There was a moment of confused silence. The wind chill cut.

  “Okay, back on the bus!” Sam shouted and clapped his hands.

  They raced for the bus, sliding and slipping on the snowpack. Only Curtis and Diana stood a moment.

  “Thanks, Miss Murphy. That was nice,” he said.

  “It’s the least we can do,” she said, and they stepped up into Rozinante for the challenge ahead.

  THE LIMA TEAM, still smarting from their earlier loss to Willow Creek—the leper in their conference—poured it on all night. They ran in fresh troops in a constant rotation, and for more than three quarters Willow Creek held them off. But Rob fouled out, and then Olaf, and the scavengers swooped in and picked their bones clean.

  Lima 73. Willow Creek 59.

  Explaining to Dean that there was no McDonald’s on the lonely stretch of highway between Lima and Willow Creek, they stopped at the one-room schoolhouse in Dell. Once a lively small town along the railroad tracks, Dell had been pared down to a quaint little spot on the road where a handful lived and either tried to lure tourists off the freeway or hoped they’d truck on by. The sturdy brick schoolhouse with a bell tower had been converted into Yesterday’s Calf-A, where patrons sat at long tables family style and shared the food with friends and strangers alike.

  The Willow Creek gang filled one large table. Through the hard days of training and practice and through the long nights of travel and loss, they had become a family. Diana realized how much she’d come to care for them, all of them. Despite the loss, they held their heads up and enjoyed the food. They laughed and kidded each other, but she could tell that Sam was struggling inside. He smiled and joked, but he was drowning with pain.

  She remembered her question to him in the Chinese restaurant. Have you given up on them? Had he? Had he given up on winning, on joy, on living? It scared her. He was becoming a Willow Creek ghost. She sat next to him and leaned close to his ear.