Authors: Paige Farmer
More players arrived and the game got underway. Buddy’s team had first ups and they were in the dugout waiting their turn at bat. Everyone wanted first ups since some moron left his bottle in the field a few weeks before and a player gashed his knee open. In response to that incident, a new rule was made that players could only drink while on the bench. Buddy was batting fourth so he brought Nan a beer. She looked at it as if it was a foreign object, but the sun was hot and she knew it was unlikely there would be anything else to drink.
Her brother ran back to his place on the bench and raised his bottle to her.
“Cheers,” he mouthed.
Obliging him, she raised hers back and took a sip. She hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since finding out she was pregnant with CJ and was surprised at how cool and good it tasted. At least her mouth felt alive.
The man batting just before Buddy was tall, with thick tree trunk arms and a mop of blond curls spilling out underneath the beat up ball cap he wore. From where Nan was sitting she could see the large gap between his front teeth, but in spite of that, he was still fairly good-looking. She could tell by the cheerful ribbing her brother was giving him that they were friends, however she had no idea who he was.
He struck out on the first pitch, though sent the second one flying far into center field. Nan could see the sinewy muscles in his legs flex and retract with every lope of his long stride as he rounded second base and headed to third. The ball had been thrown, and it was now a race between him and it to the bag. He leaned back and slid, despite his bare legs, his feet hitting the base well before the infielder’s glove. He jumped up and brushed at a painful looking swath of road rash that stretched the length of his thigh and laughed. He caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye and tipped his hat in her direction. Nan tried to smile, but it felt like a grimace. She clapped her hands lightly to let him know that she was impressed.
The game played on, and now Buddy was up to bat. He hit a double, driving the guy with the road rash home. Her brother turned to wave at her as he reached second base, but Nan was no longer on the hill. She was at the bench fishing around in the cooler for another beer. As she plunged her hand into the ice, fingers closing on the neck of a bottle, a voice spoke from behind her.
“Want something with a little more kick?”
She spun around and was standing face to face with the guy who hit the triple. He was holding a square bottle of Jack Daniels and took a swig from it. Up close, Nan could see a glint in his pale blue eyes. He wasn’t as handsome as she’d first thought, but there was something undeniably powerful about him. She looked over at Buddy, but he was now engrossed in the game. Accepting the whiskey and taking a hearty gulp, she welcomed the way the smooth amber liquor ignited a fiery comet that worked its way to her belly. She smiled and sipped again.
“Heath Merrill,” he said, taking the bottle back and leaving a pause for her to fill.
“I’m Nan Bower. Buddy’s sister,” she told him. He looked surprised by her name and nodded at the field toward Buddy.
“How’d such an ugly mug like that end up with such a pretty girl for a sister?” Heath said with a lopsided smile.
It had been a long time since Nan had been paid a compliment on her looks, albeit a meager excuse for one. She found herself feeling like she actually existed for the first time in a long while. She laughed and allowed him to steer her back to the spot on the hill, though not before he grabbed a couple more bottles of beer. As they sat on the grass, a crack of the bat sent Buddy running. He circled third in front of them, but didn’t pay attention as he tried to reach home. He slid like Heath, but was wearing jogging pants so sustained no injury.
Buddy stood up, brushing himself off and reveled in his teammate’s excitement. He looked up at the hill and finally noticed Nan sitting with Heath. His expression was perplexed, but gave them a quick wave. Nan waved back before Buddy went for the cooler. After one more strike out and a caught pop fly, it was time for Buddy’s team to take the field. One of the guys called out to Heath to grab his mitt, but he begged off, pointing at the tender looking scrape on his leg.
“Gonna sit this one out, boys! Next inning,” Heath told them in his booming voice.
Nan could barely remember what they talked about, but she remembered the glow of the alcohol and that he’d been able to make her laugh. They spent almost the whole game sitting in that spot on the hill, watching the players. She recalled telling him an abridged version of the events that had unfolded over the year and welcomed his coarse “that bites” conclusion.
“It certainly does,” she responded.
Heath worked with Buddy, or more accurately
for
Buddy, at the docks. It was clear he admired Nan’s brother, but his hard attitude made Nan wonder what Buddy might be like when he wasn’t around his family. She knew from her experience with the two faces of Sam Bower that just because you were related to someone and lived your life right next to them, it didn’t necessarily mean you knew them.
Nan learned that Heath had been born and raised in a town about an hour away, but had been in Portsmouth for the past eight years and working at the docks for the last six. He had one older brother who’d joined the Marines before Heath graduated high school, and they hadn’t seen each other since. Heath didn’t seem to mind at all that Nan offered little to the conversation. He clearly liked talking about himself and Nan’s reservation gave him plenty of room to do just that. They finished off the bottles of beer and more than half of the whiskey by the time the game was over. Nan had to be helped up and almost staggered while walking to Buddy’s motorcycle.
“I can’t drive her home like this on the back of a bike!” Buddy said shooting Heath an annoyed glance.
“No problem man. I’ll bring her home,” Heath said, winking at Nan.
Buddy looked wary, but Nan knew her brother wasn’t going to let Heath take his bike so he could drive her, and there was no way she could hold on behind him.
“Alright Heath, but bring her right home. No place else,” he said firmly. Buddy gave Heath the address, repeating his instructions for him to bring Nan directly home, and headed off to catch up with some of the other players for drinks at State Street Saloon.
In Heath’s car, Nan had to roll her window all the way down and close her eyes to stop the wave of nausea that swept over her as soon as the tires hit the road.
“You okay?” Heath asked, appearing concerned. “It took me over a year to save up the down payment for this baby, and it’s impossible to get the smell of puke outta’ leather.”
Concerned, yes. About her, not so much.
“Yeah. Jus’ probly a little too much hooch,” she replied, slurring some, but not opening her eyes.
“Want me to find somewhere to park?” he asked.
“Might be a good idea,” she said swallowing hard.
They were near Pierce Island which was connected to Portsmouth by a short humming bridge. The city’s public pool was located here, along with a small playground and picnic area nearby, but with the pool closed on weekends the island was likely to be deserted. He turned right, heading over the bridge and drove a bit past the pool, pulling into a clearing between the trees that looked over the river. The playground sat empty to their right, swings swaying gently in the breeze.
“Wanna get out?” he asked her.
“No, just let me sit here a minute,” she replied. With the car shut off, Nan’s nausea eased and she opened her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him, hoping he didn’t think that she couldn’t hold her liquor. It had just been a long time, and what had only created a mild buzz and given life to party-Nan several years before, now made her drunk.
“Not a problem, baby doll.” Heath said. For some reason, Nan flinched at the casual term of endearment. Heath would go on to call her that hundreds of times, and on every occasion it sounded to her as if he couldn’t bring himself to say her name.
“Do you come out here often?” she asked him, without particular interest, but wanting to keep him talking.
“Yeah, from time to time,” he replied.
He picked up the bottle of Jack from the floor between them and took a swig. The shot of alcohol seemed to push his talk button again and he launched into more stories about himself. Heath went on to tell her that he’d dated his fair share of women, but had never really gotten serious with anyone. He liked his life as simple as it could be and didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else. Although Nan had told him about CJ, she made it clear her mother was really raising him, and Heath appeared to have dismissed him completely.
Without a lot of grace, Heath stretched his arms with a yawn, landing one on Nan’s shoulders. She jumped, but thought he’d pulled it off with such adolescent flair, she found it a little charming. She was still feeling fuzzy from the alcohol, but the emotional fog that had settled over her throughout the past eight months seemed to be clearing some.
When Heath moved in to kiss her, Nan didn’t pull away. His breath, in waves of stale liquor, came in short bursts as she, without any encouragement from him, reached down and rubbed her hand over the hard mound in his shorts. It was clumsy and unceremonious when Nan let Heath have her in the back seat of the car, but for the length of the brief encounter, she only focused the call of her body and let it block out everything else. They sat up afterward and Nan fished around on the floor for her shorts, pulling out her now slightly squashed pack of cigarettes. Heath reached through the two front seats, opened the glove box and took out one of his own.
With their smoke wafting out the windows, Heath continued to talk about himself, his life, and his ambitions, modest as they were. Nan determined that nodding strategically was enough to convince him she was listening, and so he went on undeterred. She used a pause in his stories to remind him that she probably needed to get home. All the effects of the afternoon’s alcohol had dissipated and although regret wasn’t exactly what she was feeling, there was a resignation that she was getting what she deserved. And it was with the same resignation Nan accepted Heath’s invitation to dinner for later that week.
He didn’t bother to walk her to the door when he dropped her off after their first encounter, promising to see her on Tuesday night. Standing on the porch, she waved one hand as he pulled away, feeling more alert, yet more desolate than she’d felt in months. Once his car was out of sight, Nan slowly ascended the porch stairs and plopped herself down on the swing next to the door. The day was just giving way to dusk and mosquitoes swirled around her head in the thick, warm air. The river breeze didn’t reach this side of the house and Nan could feel sweat trickling between her breasts in long, slow descent. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cigarettes, indifferent as to whether Elsie might catch her. She believed that Elsie would expect no less from her right now.
As Nan exhaled a stream of smoke from her nostrils, it suddenly occurred to her that the anniversary of Sam’s accident had passed weeks before and she hadn’t even noticed. She tried to remember if she had recalled it in years past but it seemed like a lifetime ago and she wasn’t sure. Nan wondered what Sam would have made of the mess her life had become and supposed that he probably would have felt pity for her. Imagine, she thought,
he
would feel pity for
me
. She took another drag of her cigarette and reflected what had just happened with Heath. Nan knew that getting involved with him was like sticking her head in the lion’s mouth, but she steeled herself for it none the less. Without her foggy shroud, her situation was stark and staring her in the face and she didn’t think she could face it just yet. She finished her cigarette, unwilling to admit that “it” was really her son.
Nan was aware that her voice had become devoid of emotion as she recounted act one of the story of Heath. Lying with her head on Charlie’s bare chest, she paused briefly. Their naked legs were intertwined and she let herself reflect for a moment on how it had felt to have Charlie inside her. Wholeness came to mind but she thought it wasn’t quite the right word. Was there a word that existed to describe the way time stopped and everything beyond the confines of their lovemaking ceased to matter? If there was, she’d never heard it. What had transpired between she and Charlie was so very, very different from her experiences with Eddie and Heath and honestly, she’d never believed that it could be so powerful.
Sharing this part of herself with Charlie was painful, especially in light of the way he’d repeated how much he loved her as she came. There were no excuses for how she had emotionally abandoned her son and she offered none. As bad as it was though, it paled in comparison to what had come next.
Nan knew Heath couldn’t stand children and wasn’t surprised that he never warmed up to CJ. He’d made it clear from the beginning he wasn’t ready to be anyone’s daddy. This wasn’t a problem given that Elsie continued to care for CJ and Nan continued to avoid him. In some vague way, she probably did love him, but truth be told, he didn’t need her now. And besides, she would never be able to provide him with the life that Elsie and Joe could.
When Buddy heard Nan was dating his friend, he came to see her to make sure she was thinking straight. As they sat on the front porch, Nan assured him she knew what she was doing. What she didn’t say was that she was harder, colder and unwilling to let anything hurt her. The budding relationship with Heath was perfect because she knew from the moment she laid eyes on him she would never be able to love him. This kept the stakes comfortably low.