County Line (22 page)

Pre-Season, October 1988

Ruby Jane was the first to arrive. Mrs. Parmelee sat at her desk, a stack of papers before her. She chewed on the end of a red pencil.

“Does it matter where I sit?”

Mrs. Parmelee pulled the pencil out of her mouth. “Anywhere you like. You’re it today.”

Ruby Jane signed her name on the first line of the detention attendance form, then dropped her backpack next to a desk halfway along the middle row. Not her usual spot. She slid into the seat and looked around. Mrs. Parmelee’s room had one narrow window behind her desk. The chalkboard was bare except for the words NO TALKING in block letters. The Cézanne print,
Bibemus Quarry
, anchored the center of the bulletin board. She liked the colors. Ocher and tan, blue and forest green. She saw something clean and pure in it, nothing like the muddy pictures her mother produced. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs. Parmelee make a mark on one of the papers and set it aside, take the next off the stack.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Homework. Or read quietly. There’s no one to chat with, so no danger of that.” Her eyebrows raised, a pair of sideways question marks. “This is a good chance to finish your persuasive essay.”

“Okay.”

Ruby Jane took out her English binder and her brother’s Walkman. He’d left it behind when he fled. When Mrs. Parmelee saw it, she cocked her head. “No Walkmans in detention.”

“What about Walkmen?”

Mrs. Parmelee set her pencil down.

“What brings you in today, Ruby?”

“You don’t know?”

Mrs. Parmelee gave a little shrug. “It’s not really my concern. It’s my week to cover detention, that’s all.”

“So I don’t have to tell you.”

“No.” She studied Ruby Jane. “I never expected to see you here. Since it’s just the two of us …” She shrugged again, dropped her gaze to the paper on the desk. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s nothing. I don’t respond well to pressure.”

“But I’ve seen you on the basketball court.”

Ruby Jane shook her head. “That’s not pressure.”

“What is, then?”

“I should work on my essay.”

Mrs. Parmelee looked at her, an ephemeral smile playing on her lips. But her eyes showed something else, something Ruby Jane couldn’t recognize. “Of course.”

— + —

A month later, Ruby Jane was back. She stopped at Mrs. Parmelee’s desk to sign in.

“One of these days you’re going to learn to lay off Clarice.”

“I thought you didn’t care why people got detention.”

“You know how to draw attention to yourself.”

“She called me a cunt.”

Mrs. Parmelee’s lips compressed. “Then why isn’t she here?”

“Coach didn’t hear her.”

“But he heard you.”

“It was worth the look on her face when I told her it was this cunt whose outside shot would keep her from dying under the double team all season long.”

Mrs. Parmelee rolled her eyes. “Take your seat, Ruby. And dial back the language, okay?”

Ruby Jane sat near the Cézanne print. She tried to work on Con Law, but had a hard time concentrating.
Name the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution
.
The Fifth Amendment protects against what?
The sounds of pens on paper, pages turning, and Hardy Berman wriggling in his seat formed an irritation of distractions. Every time someone cleared their throat, she turned to look. At one point she caught Mrs. Parmelee’s eye, but she couldn’t read her expression. Hardy shifted his weight to one side and loosed a fart. Everyone laughed.

“Mister Berman, come up here.”

Ruby Jane closed her eyes and lowered her head to the desk. The cool finish felt good against her cheek. The latest dispute started when Clarice jumped Gabi about a flubbed pass during a drill—a rare lapse on Gabi’s part, who’d shown remarkable instinct with the ball. Her passes were sharp and on target. She could no-look a defender out of her shoes. But during the drill, on maybe the twentieth rep, she rushed a pass. The ball bounced off Moira’s knee and skittered out of bounds. Clarice spun, eyes ablaze.

“What’s your problem, Gabi?”

Gabi’s conditioning wasn’t what it could be. She tended to run down before the others. Ruby Jane had offered to train with her, but Gabi could rarely find time outside of school and practice. Even meetings to work on their Con Law project together were tough to arrange. Gabi’s grandparents kept her on a short leash.

“Ease off, Clarice.”

Clarice threw Ruby Jane a glare over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “On cue, Gabi’s cunt appears to save the day.”

Ruby Jane hadn’t noticed Coach approach from behind. A half dozen detentions might have been worth it if she’d been as clever as she claimed to Mrs. Parmelee. Not even one detention was worth, “You’re the cunt, Clarice.”

“Time’s up, Ruby. You can go.”

She opened her eyes. The Bibemus Quarry was before her on the wall. A slick of saliva spread from her mouth across the desktop. She looked up at Mrs. Parmelee.

“Normally I’d have to extend your detention for sleeping, but if you promise to keep your eyes open tomorrow, I’ll let this one go.”

Ruby Jane blushed. The classroom was empty except for Mrs. Parmelee. “Sorry.” She reached for her backpack.

“Wait.”

“I should go.”

“I told Coach you’d be a few minutes late.”

She considered her hands and thought about how it felt to hold a basketball. Secure. Safe. In control. She didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Parmelee.

“What’s going on, Ruby?” Mrs. Parmelee sat at the desk beside her. “You look tired.”

It was hard to sleep in a house where Bella might fire up the stereo any hour of the day or night, or bang on doors demanding Ruby Jane run the vacuum cleaner or fold laundry. Daylight or dark, it didn’t matter—someone else’s mess was always hers to clean up. But if she told Mrs. Parmelee about Bella, things might lead to Dale. She tried a weak smile.

“I don’t play well with others.”

“You do all right during games.”

“Games are different.”

“I know.” Mrs. Parmelee rested her arms on the desktop. “Did you know I played high school basketball?”

“You’re kidding.” Yet Ruby Jane could believe it. Mrs. Parmelee possessed long fingers and an athlete’s gait. She was as tall as Clarice.

“I almost played in college, but I hurt my knee and never got my quickness back.”

“That’s too bad.”

She waved a hand, dismissive. “I’d never have been more than a role player.” She studied Ruby Jane’s face. “Have you thought about college?”

Ruby Jane looked away. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“You have a lot to learn, but with your shot, you could start for a lot of programs.”

“That’s a long way off.” But Ruby Jane couldn’t help but feel pleased. She tried not to smile.

“Scouts will be at the games this season. They’ll come for Clarice, but they’ll
see
you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Trust me, they will—if you can get over this problem you have with her. You need to play like you’re part of the team, not a rival. The women’s game isn’t like the men’s game.”

“It was a fight. No big deal.”

“Why is it always Clarice?”

“Sometimes it’s Moira.”

Mrs. Parmelee didn’t have to say anything. Moira was Clarice’s proxy.

“I’m not good at the popularity contest the way Clarice is.”

“Is she popular?”

“That’s what everyone calls it.”

“What do you call it?”

Ruby Jane sat back. Her cheek was cold. “I get it. We’re doing therapy.”

“It was your question.”

“Fine.” Ruby Jane thought for a moment. “It’s more like … authority. I mean, hardly anyone likes the popular kids. But everyone defers to them.”

“I think that’s an insightful observation.”

Ruby Jane felt like she was being played, but she didn’t care. If Clarice was what Mrs. Parmelee wanted to talk about, Ruby Jane was happy to oblige. “My brother does this thing. You ask him a question and even if he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll blurt something out like it’s holy writ.”

“Male Answer Syndrome.”

“Hah. But it’s not just boys. Girls too. Talk like you’re in charge and people act like what you say is true even if it’s total bullshit.”

“Ruby, you really need to watch your language.”

“Like you don’t swear.”

“That’s not the point.”

She was quiet for a while. “It’s bullshit, but we let them get away with it because they act like no one else knows better.”

“It’s not all BS.”

“Sure it is.”

“You don’t think you’re popular?”

“Not like that.”

“Sweetie, it’s tenuous for everyone. Trust me. You’re not alone.”

Ruby Jane didn’t have an answer for that. “I need to go.”

“Practice?”

If she hurried, she could still make the second hour. Speed drills. Lots of sweat. “Yeah, fucking practice.”

“Language.” But it didn’t sound like her heart was in it. Ruby Jane gave her a quick, tight smile, grabbed her backpack, and fled.

- 25 -

Interview, April 1989

There were days when Ruby Jane felt if she looked through the most powerful telescope or burrowed deep into the interstices between atoms, her father would be there. Dale Whittaker, the scarred-knuckle brawler who clawed free of the morainal till and into a life he couldn’t hope to sustain. Child of a woman who worked twelve-hour shifts at the tire plant until she collapsed on the line weeks shy of retirement and died not long after, Dale picked up where his imagined father left off: lingering in West Dayton taverns and after hours joints until starting time on the road crew each morning. His marriage to the rebellious rich girl was less surprising than its issue—two children spawned in the ashes of countless cigarettes and the dregs of untold bourbon bottles. Bella and Dale held out for two decades, an eon of late night screaming fits and broken furniture. But not long enough to get the one thing they most wanted: the rebellious rich girl written back into her father’s will.

Gone eight months now, Dale Whittaker, a man who behaved like the whole world owed him a favor because he showed up for work every day, hungover or still drunk, but on the goddamn clock. Every morning when Ruby Jane awoke his was the first face she saw, gazing up out of a muddy hole in the woods. When Jimmie called from Bowling Green, early in the day while there was still a chance Bella would be sober, it was Dale Whittaker’s voice on the line ignoring her questions and telling her to put her mother the fuck on the phone already. Eight months, almost long enough to give birth if only Ruby Jane had had the sense to make a completely different kind of mistake. She couldn’t be rid of him.

“So what you’re saying is you don’t know where he is.”

Hands under the edge of the table, she put her fingers to her wrist and checked her heart rate. Too fast. Grabel had been on this track for half an hour. He had her perched on a knife’s edge now. If she fell to one side or the other her life would change forever, for better or worse. But the real danger was in slipping straight down.

More than anything, she hated that Grabel had caught her off guard, had left her feeling so turbulent and lost. He’d played her from the beginning, dancing past Clarice and rooting around in her family history as if it was an aside, when it was the set up all along. She’d allowed herself to fall into his trap, given in to wishful thinking. She couldn’t let it happen again.

“That’s what I’m saying.” Her throat felt raspy and dry. “I don’t know where he is.”

“He just up and disappeared.”

“I guess.”

“You guess? You don’t know?”