A/N: Thanks as usual to those following this story, hopefully it's enjoyable thus far!
Disclaimer: Same as always.
Aunt Emmaline had her mind set on roast chicken for dinner that night, and Kevin, under her instructions, managed not to bungle it up too badly. The skin of the chicken was slightly too salty, but the meat was tender and juicy, and Aunt Emmaline had nothing but praise for him.
"There's an easy and filling meal for you, hmm?" she said as she spooned up some of the rice that he'd cooked to go with the chicken, again with her instructions. "Rosemary, thyme and sage. They add instant zing to any chicken entree. And the good thing is, we'll have enough leftovers to make chicken salad for tomorrow's lunch, and maybe some chicken soup too. That will get us through to this weekend, and then we'll have to buy some more groceries."
"How do you plan on getting those?" Kevin asked.
"Oh, dearie, you'll help me buy the groceries, won't you?" she smiled as though this were the easiest thing in the world. "My car has a full tank of gasoline, and the supermarket is about five minutes away."
Kevin really, really didn't want to, but he figured that the alternative would be eating pizza every night. "I don't know what to buy."
"That's easy enough," Emmaline answered calmly. "You can buy whatever looks good to you, dear. Heaven knows I've more than enough recipes for just about anything. I can make out a list of the basics for you if you'd like."
He grunted, but let her show him how to pick over the meat off the half-eaten chicken. That would be refrigerated, and she would add chopped celery, sliced cucumbers and ranch dressing tomorrow. He wanted to tell her that he was not particularly fond of celery, but then again, he could probably just pick the pieces out later. He was just finished doing the dishes when she gave him an indulgent look and hmmed.
"You've spent most of the day being cooped indoors, haven't you, dear?"
"I mowed the lawn this afternoon," Kevin replied laconically. This new topic didn't seem relevant to anything at all. But Aunt Emmaline shook her head even as she started to wheel herself towards the parlour again.
"You should go outside, go to the park, maybe. It's no longer so hot outside, and there's still two hours or so left of the sunlight. A young boy like you shouldn't spend your days cooped up indoors like a grandpa, you know."
Kevin thought that he was just a little bit too old for parks and the like and surveyed her dubiously after helping her settle into the sofa. "I don't mind being indoors, and what about you, Auntie?"
"Oh, I'll just go on reading this book," she waggled a paperback at him. "Penelope borrowed a few books from the library for me, and this is an adventure. It's the story of a young woman disguising herself as a pirate captain and sailing the seven seas! She meets an impoverished seafaring duke in a port in the Caribbeans and I think that they'll probably make a match of it."
Of that Kevin had no doubt, getting a glimpse of a shirtless, broad-shouldered man with a rapier at his side torridly embracing a strikingly voluptuous young woman with a pirate's plumed hat perched atop her luxuriant black hair. Well, then. If those were his two options...
"I'll go to the park, I guess. I'll be back in a bit."
He locked the front door behind him and took a walk through the neighbourhood. Emmaline settled in happily with her book.
The park was within the neighbourhood, where one of the streets dead-ended. It boasted a track enclosing two fenced tennis courts, a playground, a pool and a baseball diamond amidst a sweeping expanse of shortly trimmed grass scattered here and there with picnic tables and drinking fountains. Despite the hour, or perhaps because of it, all areas aside from the swimming pool were teeming with people. There was an old man with thin silver hair and Bermuda shorts jogging sedately to the music from his walkman around the track. A young mother grinned and caught her toddler in her arms as the latter flew down a slide in a flurry of toffee-coloured curls and Disney Princess sneakers and giggles. In one of the tennis courts, there seemed to be an actual lesson going on as a machine fired neon-yellow balls at a school-aged boy, and a trim, twenty-something instructor stood by the net and critiqued the student's form as he swung a backhand.
Most of the action, however, seemed to be around the baseball diamond. Kevin wandered through the park at a leisurely pace and followed the sounds of childish laughter. There was a game-of-sorts in progress on the diamond, and in the stands, voraciously slurping at an ice cream cone, he spotted a familiar face.
"Hey Mister!" Junior waved with his free hand and beckoned Kevin over. His round, somewhat chocolate-smeared face was a study in exuberant youthful good-humour. "How're you doing?"
"I'm all right," Kevin answered as he sat down next to Junior. "Did you sell a lot of lemonade this afternoon?"
"Yep," Junior grinned over the top of his nearly-gone ice cream. "Frankie and I made seven dollars and fifty cents today. We went through a whole stack of cups. We split it right down the middle, and that's more than three dollars for each of us, which can buy THREE king-sized candy bars at the store, you know. But I'm going to save mine for some baseball cards. I heard that some baseball cards are awfully expensive, but it's a great sport." He crunched into the cone portion of his summertime treat, chewed and swallowed. "That's my sister Angelina going up to bat now!"
Kevin looked down and saw a slim, wiry girl of about ten with braids peeking out underneath a rakishly tilted white baseball cap skipping up to the plate. She gave an almost flirtatious glance at the pitcher, who was about her age and had a faint cleft in his chin and had his own cap pulled low. Angelina kicked the dirt with her cleats and hoisted the bat up to her shoulder, and a tall, older girl, clearly the coach, walked up behind her and adjusted her stance.
"GO GET 'EM, ANGE!" Junior hollered over a mouthful of sugar cone, and the Little League coach glanced up, and Kevin's heart skipped a beat as he found himself staring into a face of perfect beauty. In the rose-gold backlight of sunset, she looked like something from a dream, sweet-lipped and dimpled, the mannish baseball jersey emphasizing a slim figure and endless legs. She'd stuffed most of her hair underneath her hat, but what was visible glowed like candleflame in the dying light of the sun.
Kevin didn't notice Ange miss the first pitch, and didn't hear Junior's continued shouts of encouragement. He didn't notice Junior's cheer of glee or frenzied clapping as she hit the second pitch and sprinted to third base, sending the two previous batters home. His focus remained on the girl coach, her smooth southern drawl, her balletic grace, as she went from player to player, correcting stances, giving encouragement and instruction. When the game was at an end, he hadn't the foggiest what the final score was, or which team won, and just barely remembered to ask Junior who she was.
"Oh, that's Mina," Junior answered, glancing around for any sign of attentive adults before wiping his sticky hands on his shorts. "She's on the high school's softball team and plays pitcher. She just took over the Little League this summer, 'cause Darien, that's who did it before, went to college in Boston and he had to move and stuff. She doesn't have to go to college for another two years, and maybe she won't move when she does. I hope so, 'cause I'm not old enough to be in Little League yet, and I'd rather Mina be the coach than someone new and mean when I'm old enough."
"Now now, Junior, you know full well that they'd never make someone mean coach the Little League," a warm, chiding female voice interrupted them. The girl named Mina had walked over, a mitt on one hand, a bat in the other. Up close, she was even more bewitching, her eyes the blue of cloudless skies, a faint hint of rose in her delicate cheekbones. She surveyed the young boy's face and shook her head with a chuckle. "You'll need to wash off your face and hands before you head home, buddy. I think I see more ice cream than skin." Her gaze shifted to Kevin then, and grew curious. "New to the neighbourhood?"
"I... er, kind of," Kevin wiped suddenly damp hands on his jeans. "Just visiting for the summer. I'm Kevin. Kevin Ellis."
"Mina Atherton," she slipped a slim hand out from the baseball mitt and proffered it. "It's a pleasure."
He shook her hand wordlessly, and in his flustered state, didn't manage to reply before one of the other kids called her away. He watched wordlessly as she turned towards her young charge, giving him a slight wave over her shoulder before jogging off.
"You look funny," Junior pronounced next to him. "You all right there, Mister?"
"Yeah, okay," Kevin answered distractedly. "I'm just fine. I should head on home, though. See you around."
He walked home in a slight daze as the moon and stars came out and the crickets started to chirp. Everything about the house, the street, the magnolias blooming in the yard, looked exactly the same as when he'd left. Kevin unlocked the door quietly and for a moment, almost wondered if he'd just imagined her. In his experience, such beauty was never anything but an illusion.