At some point the three of us did manage to get a ride for the last leg of the journey. So instead of arriving back home the next day, we got back around half past midnight.
Mrs. Haines was quite pissed with me.
Gordie and Chris headed on to that empty lot and spent the rest of the night in virtual safety at the Clubhouse. As for me, my fate had been sealed as soon as I missed dinnertime.
"Marlene, do you have any idea what time it is?" My mom hadn't even opened the door all the way to let me in. She was wearing a fluffy pink robe, a thick layer of white face cream, and her hair was rolled up in curlers. I hardly ever saw her this way and I tucked back a smile.
"Pretty late." I admitted. I didn't even try to escape to my room. My place, for now, was sitting on the living room sofa so that my mother could yell at me. Not too loudly, though. The neighbors might hear and think we actually had problems.
"Do you know how embarrassed I was holding dinner for you?" Mom said, wringing her hands in shame. She began pacing back and forth in front of me, almost as if I wasn't even there.
"Jane had been looking forward to seeing you." She added. Of this I wasn't certain, but it was definitely fuel for my mother's fire.
I waited until an appropriate pause before I told her I was sorry. My mother looked worn out but she glared at me heatedly.
"What were you and those boys up to, anyway? If you got into any trouble, Marlene, so help me..."
"We were just exploring in the woods and we got a little lost." I said. My mother accepted this but she still wasn't happy. It took her a minute before she lent a voice to her concerns, the thing she had been wanting to say ever since we'd moved here...
"Don't you think you've been spending a little too much time with your cousin and his friends?" She asked. I grumbled inwardly.
"Not really. We don't see each other that much." I said.
"By all means, let me rephrase: don't you think you should be spending more time with kids your own age?" She said.
"What about Clarence?" I suggested.
"And that's another thing. A girl your age shouldn't be spending so much time with a young man who isn't her beau. Why not spend some more time with Jane?" My mother said.
"She's really nice but I don't think we have much in common." I said. My mother shook her head because she had never understood friendship in terms of having "mutual interests."
According to her logic, every 17-year-old girl should be best friends just because.
"She invited you to a pajama party over at her house tomorrow and I told her you graciously accepted." Mom said.
"Girls my age don't have pajama parties anymore!" I said in protest.
"Her brother, Kenneth, is still in town visiting and I was hoping you would make a good impression on him." She said with finality. After adjusting a few errant curls underneath her night cap, she kissed my forehead and went to her bedroom.
My mom was used to getting her way, and she would probably have a good night's sleep imagining Jane and I braiding each other's hair and talking about how handsome her brother was. We'd listen to some Andy Williams records and giggle about the impossibility of basic algebra, and what month is most ideal for a wedding.
The only problem was that I was due to work a double shift tomorrow at the Soda Shoppe. I didn't have time to be a girl over at Jane's house.
I groaned and stumbled all the way to my bedroom.
"I didn't know you had a job. Wow." Jane said. Her house was a few blocks behind Gordie's, and it was a beautiful colonial. I could almost see the dollar signs in my mother's eyes as she prayed to God for Kenneth to fall madly in love with me. The Carmodys seemed pretty well off.
One of the best things about living in Castle Rock, or the worst depending on your outlook, was that everyone pretty much knew where everyone else lived in town and what the bulk of their business was about. Mom had gotten the rundown on the Carmodys before she had even spoken to Jane's mother at the store.
"Yeah. I'm really sorry I didn't show up last night, too." I said. I didn't know how much of this pajama party was really Jane's idea, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
"You can still come over to my house after work. If you want." Jane said. I smiled warmly and considered that maybe I had been stereotyping Jane unfairly. It wouldn't be so bad to have a girl friend my age. I was starting to realize that the reason I was holding off on Jane was that she was so pretty, and sweet, and down to earth. Next to her, I didn't look so good.
"Thanks. I will." I said. And I meant it.
Jane waved to me from behind her white picket fence and I immediately headed over to the Clubhouse. I was in the mood for some sympathy and some playing cards.
Gordie and Chris were still there, laying across their bedrolls and smoking a cigarette. The game was three-card-under. The pot was just under a nickel.
"Did she hide ya?" Chris asked. He flashed me a quick smile.
"No. It turned into an intervention. My punishment is to make good with Jane Carmody and her older brother." I said. I picked up one of Gordie's detective mags while I waited for the next game to be dealt in. I imagined Chris' version of a hiding was a lot more serious. I felt kinda bad for admitting that my mother didn't even do anything to me for breaking curfew.
"She also thinks I hang out with you assholes too much." I said, trying to change the subject. Gordie and Chris snickered.
A few seconds later a series of rapid little knocks sounded against the crate.
"Vern, you knock like such a little pussy." I heard Teddy's voice say.
I lifted the crate and both Vern and Teddy crawled through, followed by a pair of virtually interchangeable, mousy little dirt-faced boys. No doubt the infamous DeSpain twins.
"Hey." I said to them in a friendly voice. The twins looked at each other, unsure of my species.
"Don't worry about them, Marley, they're a little shy around girls." Vern said, as if he was some kind of suave playboy himself. Compared to the DeSpain boys, he might as well have been.
I suddenly began to feel a little self-conscious at the way one of them was staring at me.
"This is Jacky, and this is Marty." Teddy said, punching each one in the shoulder as he introduced them.
The ten minutes that followed were in a word: awkward. The DeSpain boys huddled in the corner looking at me like I was an alien from Mars or something. Gordie and Chris weren't really into the cards anymore, and Teddy was pissed that he was winning all the games, even though he was thirty cents richer.
"You bastards aren't even trying." He said.
Vern was pretending like everything was cool, like he was cool. He was putting on a show for the measly little doe-eyed twins. If I had wanted to feel this uncomfortable I'd go back home.
I had a few good hours left to kill before dish duty at Pop's Shoppe, and I wasn't about to waste it.
"Hey, Vern, you still got that taped-up baseball?" I asked.
Next to the vacant lot where the Clubhouse stood, there was an empty sandlot that used to be a Ford Dealership. Plenty of room for baseball when the weather permitted, and if you had enough guys to get up a proper game. Vern's taped-up baseball had no doubt been gathering dust since school started, and I figured this would be one of the last gorgeous Saturdays left in the year.
It took half an hour to scare up enough guys to put two measly teams together, and even then we were short a bunch of outfielders.
Vern, Teddy, and the DeSpain twins were on one team. They grabbed Crybaby Joey Campion for their fifth player. Gordie, Chris, and I were on the other team. The boys invited Stevie Darabont to play, whose older brother Royce was the guy who supplied them with Wild Irish Rose whiskey if the price was right. And I ended up recruiting Pop's son, Vic Trenton, to round out our five.
Vic worked part-time at the Soda Shoppe with me at half-pay, but he was the kind of guy who didn't seem like he had anything better to do anyway. Vic was fifteen and kinda handsome, but he was a little too shy and gawky to be a decent object of affection. He wasn't very coordinated, either, but he was a warm body, and exactly what we needed.
I put Chris, Gordie, and Stevie on all the bases (the fastest runners) and stuck Vic on home plate. Since this whole thing was my idea, I insisted on pitching. Plus, with Gordie and Chris still wearing casts, I knew I was probably the better choice anyway.
As I walked up to the makeshift pitcher's mound, Joey Campion pitched a fit.
"Girls can't pitch." He said, like it was some direct assault against baseball. I got right up into Joey's face and waited until he backed down, which didn't take too long because Joey was shorter than the rest of the boys and I was a good head taller. He clammed right up and took his place in the batter's line.
The first time I played baseball was in South Side park with a bunch of the Sisters from St. James Prep. I never thought girls could or should play baseball either, until I saw a nun hit a home run and jump over a German Shepherd to finish the play. Ever since then, as far as I was concerned, anybody could do anything.
At first most of the guys seemed unsure of how to have fun with me playing, but once I got my arm warmed up, everyone seemed determined to beat me and save face. But it was all in good fun, because after a while, I didn't feel like some girl. I felt like one of the gang.
We played six innings until I accidentally beaned Crybaby Joey in the cheek, with the obvious results.
"Will you give it a rest, ya lousy pussy? There's three more innings." Teddy said. Some of us had been hoping Joey would dry it up so we could finish the game, but it was a fool's hope.
"It ain't his fault. She hit him on purpose." Marty (or Jacky?) DeSpain said, pointing at me with a scowl. I knelt next to Joey and looked at the side of his face, cringing. I'd knocked him pretty good because the left side of his face was swelling like a balloon.
"Jeez, I'm sorry, Joey...you want some ice cream?" I asked.
"He's not a baby, Marley." Teddy said.
"I don't care how old you get, ice cream always makes everything better." I said. I managed to get Joey calmed down enough to give him a piggyback ride and then the ten of us began walking toward Main Street and the Soda Shoppe.
"Can I get a banana split, Marley? I'm nuts about those things." Vern said.
"You gotta let her hit you first." Chris said.
"The bigger the bruise, the bigger the ice cream." Gordie added.
I had the feeling I'd be running short on cash this week.
My shoulders were killing me by the time our group ended up at Pop's, and I was looking forward to depositing Joey in a chair. Pop took one look at us and rolled his eyes, though he couldn't have been too mad. I was buying ice cream all around.
"What's this, Haines? You getting to be a bad influence on my kid?" Pop said, chuckling a little. He seemed kind of uneasy and I thought maybe he really wasn't happy about my asking Vic to play, until my eyes drifted over to the jukebox in the corner. Ace and Eyeball looked like they were rigging a quarter to the end of a string for endless tunes.
Vic leaned over the counter and whispered in Pop's ear.
"What are they doing here?" He asked. Pop shrugged and then gestured toward me.
"You wanna ask your boyfriend over there what he wants?" Pop said. Chris, Gordie, and the rest of the guys glanced at me in disbelief.
"How would I know? I'm not his mother." I said. Pop was unconvinced that we weren't involved somehow, and suddenly I found myself responsible for Ace.
Ace and Eyeball acknowledged me with a grin, severing any ideas that we didn't know each other. I propped Joey up on one of the stools near the counter and took another look at his face.
"Can this kid get a towel and some ice?" I told Pop. Joey had nearly stopped crying and some of the other guys were starting to give him a hard time. When Ace and Eyeball approached us about a minute later, I realized I'd spoken too soon.
"Picking up some extra money babysitting?" Ace asked me.
"She's not doing a very good job. Getta load of that squirt's face." Eyeball said. Joey looked indignant about the whole thing, but he knew better than to say anything out loud.
"This isn't your usual haunt, fellas. What gives?" I asked. Pop had since come back with the ice and I placed it against Joey's face gently. Gordie and Chris were beside me, not really knowing what to do while Vern and Teddy were hanging way back with Stevie and the DeSpain twins. The tension was as thick as frozen butter.
"I've come to talk about a trade." Ace said. My mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that Ace was going to let me keep my money. But then I realized that since money was really high up on his list of priorities, this trade must have been a real lulu.
"Marley wouldn't trade shit with you." Chris spoke up. Eyeball shot him a dirty look.
"You want more than a broken arm, Chambers?" Ace glanced at Chris with severity.
"You mentioned a trade. Can we talk about it after I get off work tonight?" I asked him, trying to diffuse the situation. He and Eyeball looked at each other and gave a nod.
"I'll be here." Ace said, somewhat threateningly.
With that the two of them walked as casual as-you-please out of the Soda Shoppe, like they hadn't just threatened bodily harm to a kid wearing a cast. Gordie and Chris were still stunned by the entire ordeal, especially considering the fact that they had left so easily.
Eventually the rest of the guys then ordered their ice cream and even Crybaby Joey was starting to forget about his bruised cheek. Gordie and Chris, however, weren't about to let the whole thing with Ace just slide on by.
"What's he talking about? A trade?" Chris said.
"Whatever it is, don't do it. Ace is nothing but a bad seed. You're gonna get in shitload of trouble." Gordie turned to me with his dark brown eyes, warning me.
"I stuck some fish in his car. I kinda owe him." I admitted. It was finally my turn to tell the truth.
Sitting in a faded booth with red vinyl cushioning, over a couple of purple cows, I explained the situation in depth to Gordie and Chris. It had been point 1 of my 6-point plan of vengeance, and a complete disaster, to boot. Yes, I'd completely ignored their advice. Yes, I probably deserved whatever I had coming to me. Blame it on my patriotic forefathers of yesteryear, who had inspired me to revolt in the first place.
The boys listened carefully, slightly horrified by my stupidity and blind nerve. The general consensus was that I had a death wish. Before Gordie and Chris left, they took one last look at me as if they were absolutely sure they'd never see me in one piece again. They'd never heard of Ace or any of the other Cobras beating on a girl, but it wasn't exactly impossible to imagine. But I wasn't scared at all, really.
If I was absolutely honest with myself, I was sorta looking forward to it. (I certainly didn't realize that at the time, though.)
