Suncatchers (43 page)

“Tryouts are next week, you know,” Howie said to Joe Leonard. Then he began a lengthy story about a boy named Huron DeLacey, who had moved to Derby from Delaware during the summer and was reportedly such a good basketball player that he had carried his team to the regional finals last year in Delaware, rallying them to win the championship game with only four players on the floor during the last ten minutes.

“We
might
let him play on our team, huh, Joe Leo?” Howie said, and Joe Leonard grinned but said nothing. As they neared the miniature golf course, Howie started describing a game he himself had played in the year before as a sophomore, subbing for a senior who fouled out. “I scored twelve of the last fifteen points,” he stated proudly.

“Wow,” one of the boys in the backseat said.

“I'll bet you played a little basketball yourself in school, didn't you, Mr. Warren?” Howie said to Perry as they got out of the car a little later at the Palmetto Miniature Golf Course and Batting Range. But before Perry could answer, Howie sprinted away, pretending to dribble forward for a lay-up, then leaped and turned, extending one arm and flicking his wrist. Perry suspected that his performance was for the girls, who were standing beside the Pucketts' van.

“Think we can all stay together?” Sid Puckett asked Perry.

“Oh, probably. We can try,” Perry replied. “It doesn't look all that crowded.”

“They said six would be a good time,” Dottie Puckett said. “I just hope everybody had time to eat a bite at home so they can make it till we eat our subs back at the church afterward.”

“They have vending machines over by the batting cages, ma'am,” Howie pointed out.

A few minutes later they were all clustered around the first hole. Sid filled in six names on his scorecard, and Perry took the other six.

“Okay, Josh, you go first, then Brian,” Sid said. “We'll keep all our young people with their guests all the way through but alternate who goes first. Go ahead, Josh, start us off right and show us how to do it.”

Joshua Chewning stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth in a goofy smile and crossed his eyes. “Duh—okay, everybody, watch this!”

Perry saw the girl who had come with Marilee Tucker raise her eyebrows. Marilee whispered loudly, “He's a doofus!”

Hole 1 was a straight stretch of green between red two-by-fours, but at the very end was a short, sharp slope with the hole situated at an angle. Joshua's first putt was so hard that his ball hit the end board and bounced out onto the concrete. Everybody laughed, Joshua loudest of all. By the time he negotiated his ball into the hole, he had taken seven shots. His friend Brian fared a little better with only five.

“Who's
she
, Joe Leo?” Perry heard Howie ask when Trisha Finch stepped up for her turn.

“Her name's Trisha,” Joe Leonard said. “Her family just started coming to our church.”

Perry thought back to the day in early September when he was taking Eldeen to her afternoon shift at the G.O.O.D. Store. Spotting a moving van pulled up in a driveway over on Geranium Lane, Eldeen had grabbed his arm and pointed. “Stop! Pull in there! Now I know why the Lord laid it on my heart to leave a little early this afternoon.” And he had watched her in disbelief as she got out of the car and walked over to the moving van. She grabbed a floor lamp sitting beside it and then marched purposefully up the front steps to the door, which was standing open.

“Yoo-hoo!” she had called, and a petite woman about half her size had shown up at the door. Perry had watched them standing there together on the small porch, Eldeen towering over the other woman like an Amazon warrior, holding the floor lamp like a spear as she talked. The other woman had stood there, her hand against her forehead like a visor, gazing up at Eldeen as if confronted with some rare museum specimen. Shortly they both disappeared inside, and when Eldeen came back out, she was no longer carrying the floor lamp.

“You wait right here just a minute, Glenda. I got something for you in the car,” he heard Eldeen say as she started down the steps from the porch. The woman stood at the door watching Eldeen curiously. Perry knew just how she felt. He remembered well the first time he had met Eldeen. Glenda was probably standing there thinking, “Is she for
real
—or is there a hidden camera somewhere?” He thought he even saw her glancing toward the eaves and then down to the bushes beside the steps, then out toward Perry's car, as if searching for the
Candid Camera
crew.

Perry got out of the car and met Eldeen on the sidewalk. “Did you want these?” he asked, holding out the plastic Thrifty-Mart bag that contained her latest two sets of pillowcases.

“Oh, you're a mind reader, you are, Perry! You can just see right into my brain!” Eldeen cried. “I told Juanita at the G.O.O.D. Store that I was bringing in two sets today, but I'll tell her something came up.” She reached inside the sack and pulled out both sets. “Which one do you think is the prettiest?” she asked, lowering her voice and drawing her thick eyebrows together.

“I like the lavender,” Perry said after studying them both. “But the red is pretty, too.”

Eldeen dropped the red set back into the sack and took Perry's arm. “Come on up here and meet the new lady in the neighborhood! Her name's Glenda Finch, and she's just the sweetest little thing. They got a teenage daughter and an eleven-year-old boy, and her husband's already been here a month findin' 'em a house—this one right here—and gettin' all set up to teach at Derby High. He's a science teacher—isn't that interesting? Biology and chemistry and all them kind of things—and I'll just bet you Joe Leonard's in one of his classes. He's signed up for biology this year, and he said he had a new teacher from Alabama—and that's where the Finches moved from—Boaz, Alabama. Isn't Glenda sweet-looking? Doesn't she remind you of a little china doll?” Eldeen spoke loudly, beaming up at Glenda, who looked temporarily disconcerted at hearing herself described in this way. “I got a welcome-to-Derby present for you!” Eldeen called.

Glenda met them at the bottom of the steps. She looked up at Eldeen, still uncertainly, then darted a glance toward the moving van. Perry wondered if she thought the camera could be hidden in there. Or maybe she was just eager to get back to her work.

“Here you go,” Eldeen said. “This here's a set of pillowslips I embroidered just for you. 'Course I didn't
know
you when I was working on 'em, but I just had me a feeling inside here”—she thumped her chest—“that somebody
special
would end up gettin' 'em.” Glenda took them and held them in her hands as if they were breakable, staring back and forth between them and Eldeen. From the look on her small heart-shaped face, Perry couldn't tell if she was about to cry or laugh. Maybe she was thinking, “
Purple
lambs on a
blue
hillside?”

Eldeen reached forward and patted the embroidered lambs. “There now, little fellers, you got you a new home! Y'all be nice and soft and quiet when Glenda here goes to lay down her pretty little curly head at night. Don't you be bleatin' and baa-in'!” And Eldeen shook with laughter. “I got to go now, honey,” she said to Glenda, then looked over at the moving van. “Maybe we can come back later, after Joe Leonard gets home, and help you get some more of your things moved inside.”

Glenda finally spoke. She had a frail, whispery voice—or maybe it was just that way, Perry thought, because she seemed to be all choked up with emotion. “You don't know what this means,” she said with a sharp intake of breath. “It's been really hard these last few months, and . . . now everybody's off at school, and I'm by myself all day trying to . . . well, I was inside before you came, just sitting in the kitchen . . . well,
upset
. And . . . oh, thank you for coming. I won't
ever
forget this.”

Howie nudged Perry's arm. “Me and Joe Leo both got threes, Mr. Warren. Are you keeping score? I'd be glad to do it if you don't want to.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Perry said. “I'm doing it.” He took the short pencil from behind his ear and marked down the scores. The first group of six had already finished Hole 1, he noticed, and had started on the second one. Perry heard someone say, “There goes Josh again,” and he looked up in time to see Josh's blue ball plop into the narrow pool under a tiny bridge on Hole 2.

Joshua stuck his club into the water and fished the ball out. “Look what I caught!” he shouted, holding it up and shaking the water off. “It's a slimy bluegill puffer!” He laughed uproariously, and Bonita Puckett's friend—a sophisticated Polynesian-looking girl named Rochelle—turned her back to Joshua and spelled aloud, “I-m-m-a-t-u-r-e.”

Undaunted, Joshua grinned and drawled, “I heard that. She done called me a name. But I ain't never larned to spell. It started with i-m-, though . . . hmm, now what was it? I know!” He stuck his index finger up in mock inspiration. “Im-portant!”

“Imbecile,” his brother, Caleb, called out, and everybody laughed.

“Impertinent,” Joshua countered, making a face and then bending to replace his ball on the little rubber mat.

“Impaled,” Caleb said, pretending to stab his brother. Josh writhed around briefly, struggling as if to pull a knife out of his stomach, then took another shot, swinging more carefully this time but still too hard. The ball passed safely over the bridge but hit the hole on the other side too fast and flew over it. It hit the end board, then rebounded briskly and once again landed in the water.

“Immersed!” groaned Joshua, and everyone laughed again, even Rochelle. The next time he aimed carefully and hit the ball gently. It stopped just inches from the cup, and he putted it in easily.

“Improved,” Caleb said.

“Impressive,” Joshua added, flexing his muscles and striking a winner's pose. Then he moaned loudly, faked a cramp in his biceps, and hobbled off clownishly to sit beside the Pucketts on the bench. These Chewning twins were quick, thought Perry. He would hate to try to keep up with them.

“How old is he—
eight?
” Perry heard Rochelle ask Bonita, but she was smiling this time.

“Did you get Marilee's score?” Howie asked. Perry looked at him blankly. “She got a four,” Howie said. “And Vicky's on her seventh stroke.” Perry quickly recorded a four and a seven and made up his mind to keep track of his six players more closely.

“I'd be glad to help if you want me to,” Howie offered again, but Perry shook his head and smiled.

“Caleb, you're next,” Howie called, looking at the scorecard over Perry's shoulder. Caleb and Kent jogged back to take their turns on Hole 1.

“You know where she lives?” Perry heard Howie ask Joe Leonard. Howie was watching Trisha Finch take her turn on Hole 2.

“Sure. We helped them move in a month or so ago. It's not far from my house. Her dad is—”

“Hey, wait! He's that new teacher, right? Finch—yeah, that's his name. Dan Simpson says he's gonna be the assistant basketball coach this year.”

“Maybe, I don't know about that. He's my biology teacher.”

“Yeah?” Howie watched Trisha bend to retrieve her ball from the cup. “What is she—a sophomore or what?”

“No—a senior. She's seventeen, I think.”

“And she goes to your
church
?” Howie whistled low and shook his head in disbelief, as if unable to picture someone so pretty attending church regularly.

“Yes. The girl with her lives a few houses down from hers, I think—Jill somebody. She's a senior, too.”

“Uh-huh,” Howie said, but Perry could tell he had no interest in Jill or her place of residence.

Two hours later they were all back at the church eating submarine sandwiches that Sid and Dottie had ordered earlier and picked up on their way back from the Palmetto. All twelve of the young people were sitting at a long table, and the three adults sat at a card table over by the kitchen.

“That fellow with Joe Leonard seems to be such a nice young man,” Dottie Puckett said, nodding toward Howie, who had just stood up and was approaching the kitchen window where the potato chips and bottles of pop were sitting. “Sometimes you just have to look past a kid's appearance,” she added.

Howie looked over at the adults' table and smiled angelically. “It's all delicious,” he said. Perry was surprised the boy could eat anything after devouring two bags of corn chips, a Dr. Pepper, and a package of Hostess Twinkies at the batting range. He noticed Howie had managed to get a seat at the table across from Trisha and Jill, and he had to admire the kid for being so resolute. He knew that he himself would never have dared to pursue a girl a year ahead of him in school. But then, Dinah was the only girl he had pursued, and he hadn't even meant to do that. It had just happened.

After they ate, Sid and Perry set up the Ping-Pong table, and the young people played several games of what they called a “round robin blitz.” They lined up six on a side, and after the first person in line hit the ball, he laid the paddle down and ran around to get in line on the other side. When someone missed a shot, he had to sit out. In the last game, Caleb Chewning, Howie, Rochelle, and Joe Leonard were the last four left. When Rochelle fumbled the paddle and hit the ball with the palm of her hand instead, Josh Chewning wagged his finger and spelled out, “I-m-p-r-o-p-e-r!”

“Oh, hush!” Rochelle shouted back and kept playing. But a few minutes later only Howie and Joe Leonard were left.

“Okay, Joe Leo, are you ready?” Howie said. Perry saw him cut his eyes over at Trisha before rapping a swift, rhythmic tattoo on the table with his two index fingers. To determine the winner between the two players, each boy had to stay on his own side of the table. After hitting the ball, he had to lay his paddle down, spin around, pick the paddle back up, and be ready to make the next return. Howie wiped his hands down the sides of his jeans, picked up the paddle, and bent forward in a wrestling stance. Before long both boys were making shots, slinging their paddies down, spinning around, and fumbling for their paddies to return balls. When Joe Leonard finally hit one across the net before Howie could grab his paddle and return it, everyone clapped and cheered.