To anyone still reading this story, thank you. I didn't realize it had been almost four months since I had updated. My bad. I do hope you enjoy this chapter.
Feb 19, 2000. It would take Portman and Lizzy both years to figure out why that was one of the worst dates in their pasts. For Portman it would be close to 3 1/2 years, for Lizzy, closer to two. On that specific date though, it just meant the full moon and the day after the Ducks had won another hockey game. At least, that's all it was to Portman. To Lizzy, it was her first date with Lex Mason. She had finally given in to the boy who had been asking her out off and on over the last two years. They went down to a local cafe for dinner and he was caring, attentive, and had a dry sense of humor that Lizzy couldn't help but find attractive. It lifted her out of the bad mood a letter from home had put her in at least until the next day at lunch. Then she was right back to that bad mood.
"Is everything alright, Liz?" Connie asked Sunday at lunch. "You look like ..."
"You look like you got benched before the finals," Guy finished when Connie couldn't.
"Was it the date? If Mason crossed a line ..." Charlie trailed off.
"It's not that," Lizzy answered. "He was sweet and made me laugh. No. It's about the card we just got; not that it would bother you all that much."
"What card and why not?"
"Because what's another boy cousin to you? You've already got four of them." She stabbed at her mashed potatoes.
"You haven't even met him yet and you have a thing against him?" Charlie asked.
"It has nothing to do with him other than he's my father's sixth child."
"And now you will forever wonder if you only got shafted because you are the only girl?" Fulton asked.
"Could be," Lizzy answered.
"What'd they name him?" Luis asked.
"Tyler. Tyler Nicholas. Apparently, they came up with the name together," Lizzy answered.
"And you already hate him?" Portman asked.
"I said I don't hate him or have anything against him, I just—" Lizzy stopped and sighed.
"Don't like the change and being so far away from him is taking you time to adjust," Luis supplied.
"Exactly."
"Are you going on this year's Spring Break trip?" Julie asked. Every year the classes got to go on a trip to a certain destination around the country. She was pretty sure this year was to Florida for the senior class.
"Planned on it," Lizzy answered.
"Well, that kinda rules out going home for break and seeing if you can get to know him," Julie said.
"Maybe he could come up sometime in the next few months and you could talk to him that way?" Averman suggested.
"Or we could talk about something completely different?" Lizzy suggested, looking around at her friends. She really hoped someone would take the subject change and distract her from thinking about the baby. It was like she said, she didn't hate him, rather just the idea of him and the fact that once again her father had a kid to pay more attention to other than her. She really hated change because it wasn't something she could account for.
"Like Sadie's? Or Prom?" Kenny asked.
"That. That sounds good," Lizzy agreed.
"I want to know if you're entering the dugout design competition," Connie said, looking at her.
"The what now?" Lizzy asked, turning her attention to the other brunette female at the table. She hadn't heard anything of the sort either from her art teacher or the baseball coach and she should have heard something, especially since it involved the actual baseball field.
"They're holding a competition to decide what design they're going to paint on the back of the dugouts. It's all the art students have been able to talk about for days," Connie told her expectantly.
"Must have missed it." Lizzy shrugged. The more she thought about, the more it didn't really bother her as her last year at Eden Hall just meant that she'd get to enjoy it for one season before moving on.
"A chance to leave your mark on Eden Hall, who could pass that up?" Russ asked. Apparently, her teammates didn't actually agree with her.
"I got them to redo the entire baseball field, isn't that enough of a mark?" Lizzy asked. Two years prior, she had found a reference to a fund ear-marked for a new library expansion that had just been sitting in the school's account on account of the land being rezoned for business and not the school. When she realized that the fund had been donated to the school to make improvements and not specifically just for the library, she had convinced the board to donate it as part of the money needed to improve the baseball stadium. As her team had raised the rest needed, the board agreed.
"Sure, if you're not interested in an entire day out of classes and getting to paint the design yourself," Russ answered nonchalantly.
"I have a feeling you're all trying to manipulate me into doing this," Lizzy said. She looked around the team suspiciously. "You, a team full of Ducks, is trying to manipulate the Puppet Master into doing something. I can't decide if it's poetic or ironic." That's what she had been called all throughout Peewees, both playing for and against the Ducks.
"But why not?" Adam asked, speaking for the first time since he had sat down. She stared at him then glanced at Fulton.
"Could be fun. Besides it's not like you're guaranteed to win," Fulton said.
"Me, not win? You have that little faith in me?" Lizzy asked. Fulton stared at her in disbelief. Lizzy stared back until Fulton rolled his eyes. "Of course you don't, you think—"
"Liz, we all think you are one of the best, if not the best artist in the school, especially when it comes to drawing our logo. There's no doubt about any of that," Guy told her. "However, you and I both know these preppies run on popularity contests and this is another way for them to try to show we're not welcome at this school."
"You'd think they'd be over that by now. Look, I can put something together, maybe get your input on it but I really think this should be a school-wide design," Lizzy agreed.
"Well, if that were true, they'd never come to a consensus on the design," Fulton said.
"Which I'm pretty sure is why they're holding a school-wide vote. The designs will be hung in the front hall and the one with the most votes wins," Connie explained.
"And I'm betting somewhere in the fine print says the board gets final approval?" Lizzy asked.
"Yep," Connie told her.
So, Lizzy checked with her Art teacher when she was in class next and she confirmed that there was indeed a design competition and the board got final approval but as long as it had to do with baseball and the school logo, it was up to them how the design was done.
"Come on, Lizzy. Don't be stubborn. We just want to know what the winning design is on the dugout," Anna pressed one day at lunch not long after Lizzy had been announced the winner.
"If I told you, it would not be a surprise," Lizzy answered.
"Oh, come on, if you can't tell us, who can you tell?" Emma asked.
"I haven't even told Charlie."
"Well, no one blames you there. Charlie does love to brag about his cousin," Ellie said.
"How about this? You tell me what your favorite design is and I'll tell you if my design was any one of the four." To make sure the competition was as fair as possible, none of the pieces were allowed to have a name on them, instead they were labeled with numbers and voted on that way. Each girl at the table, Emma, Anna, Ali, and Ellie described their favorite piece but only Ali described Lizzy's.
"Well, mine was one of the ones you liked, but you'll just have to wait until Friday afternoon at the pep rally to see what it is."
"You mean the pep rally before your opener against Hampton Academy?" Ellie asked.
"Yep." Lizzy smirked and the subject was dropped.
Most of the school turned out on Friday for the pep rally, though Lizzy was sure they were only doing it to get out of class. Dean Buckley had a few announcements followed by some words from their coaches. "Alright, alright, now it's time for the part you've been waiting for. The dugout painting designs. Ms. Lizzy, if you please," the dean said taking over the mic again.
Lizzy stepped up to the visitors' dugout, grabbed the tarp covering it, and pulled it off. While it was not as amazing as her design for the home dugout, it was decent in its own right. In the top left and bottom right corners, she had drawn the overlapping EH for Eden Hall. Across the top was their conference name, then the other nine conference teams with their school logos were stenciled on below it. That was the hardest part of the design, finding the logos for the other teams.
"And now, the home dugout," Dean Buckley said. Lizzy stepped over to the home dugout and gripped the tarp. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The cheerleaders started a countdown as they ruffled their pom-poms and at one, the crowd cheered as Lizzy pulled the tarp off. Lizzy had spent some time working on the design and seeing the reactions from the crowd made her proud. Across the top it said "Eden Hall Ducks" painted in bright yellow whereas the rest of the dugout was scarlet. In the center of the wall was the school's logo: a white hockey mask with a duck bill over top of crossed baseball bats. Behind that was a black circle over a red upside-down triangle. While the original design had been of crossed hockey sticks behind the duck mask, it didn't make sense for any team but the hockey team so the school agreed the sports' teams would come up with their own and the one for general Eden Hall designs was just the mask over the two shapes. For her design, besides the logo, she had drawn a cartoon duck to the right of the logo and he was swinging a bat. It made it look like the logo was coming off the bat like a homerun ball. Also, if you looked closely at the duck's feet, you could see it was standing at home plate. Also, along the left-hand side in white, outlined in black, were the words "Minnesota High School Varsity Baseball State Champs". Last year's school year was printed underneath.
"Well done, Ms. Jacobs. I think I speak for the entire school when I wish you and the team good luck this season and say let's bring home another State title," Buckley said.
The crowd cheered again then headed back to the school. The varsity team on the other hand headed for the locker rooms. After they got ready for the game, Lex sat down next to her. "How come you didn't show me the design before today?" he asked.
"To be fair. I didn't even show Charlie," she told him, running her hand over her bat.
"I bet you let Adam see it."
"You have a problem with that?" She still didn't look at him as much as she wanted.
"I'm your boyfriend. You think that would get me more privileges than—"
Her head snapped up, her blue eyes turning to her boyfriend. She paused and carefully thought over what she was about to say, making sure she kept her tone even. "A man I've known since I was 12? Six years vs a boyfriend I haven't even had for six weeks? Does that seem fair?"
"Mason! You are not pissing off our pitcher before the season opener, are you?"
"Stay out of this Yogi," he snapped at the other trainer.
"But it's my question too." Both Lizzy and Lex turned to look at the coach. He didn't look very happy.
"Coach," Lex said surprised. "Of course I wasn't arguing with Lizzy and she's not angry. You're not angry, right?" It came off as more of a demand than a statement. That should have been her first sign that something wasn't right but being a believer in not being quick to judge, she figured it was just growing pains of their relationship. So, she agreed with him. Their coach observed them both carefully but didn't object any further. Despite Hampton Academy being one of the toughest teams in their league, the Ducks managed to crush them that night 5-1.
The next night, the Varsity hockey team went on to play for the State Championship against one of the high schools from the Northeast corner of the state and won that game too. It may not have been as great of a record as the year before but it ended with a good result so the team and the school board were happy.
For Lizzy, she could finally say that it felt like things were going good in her life especially when her applications and admission letters started coming in. "So, we're going to Sadie's together, right?" Lex asked a few days before the dance. It really sounded less like a question and more like a demand but Lizzy figured that was just the way he talked and didn't try to push back too much.
"Uh, yeah, of course. I should have asked but since we've been dating for a bit, I guess I just took that as a kinda known thing."
"No big deal. Less assumption in the future though."
"I will remember that," she agreed.
"Lizzy, what are you doing for spring break?" Chris asked a few weeks before said occasion. He had called Tuesday afternoon just to talk, or so she had thought at first.
She didn't think anything of the question. "First thing Saturday I'm meeting a transportation van out front that's going to take me and a bunch of Seniors to the airport and we're headed down south to the Florida Keys for our senior class trip."
"When you due back?"
"Friday mid-morning. Baseball team is leaving early so we can get a couple hours of practice in before our game on Saturday."
"You have a baseball game on Saturday the 29th?"
"Yeah. Against Central High."
"That you're not going to want to miss."
"Not unless it's your funeral."
"Quite the opposite."
"Your birthday's in October and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss Ben's. It was in March."
"I'm getting married."
"You're … oh." She knew that he had proposed to Danni over a year prior but she hadn't realized they had everything ready and had a date set, though to be honest it did seem a little late notice for her to be told.
"What time's your game?"
"3:15. The rest of the class that's going won't be back until Saturday night. It's at least a 6-hour flight according to Luis because there are no direct flights into the Keys. They all lay-over somewhere."
"Well, I'll figure something out for Charlie but, Lizzy, even if you have to duck out of the reception please come to the ceremony. I want my kid sister there."
"Ok. I'll make sure my coach knows. Is it alright if I bring—"
"Port or Fulton? Sure."
"My boyfriend Lex?" Lizzy finished, trying not to sound too irritated.
"You have a boyfriend?"
"I do and he's a decent guy. I've been seeing him for just over a month and I think he's good for me."
"He's a rocker? Goth punk?"
"Baseball trainer and preppy but he's really sweet and I like him. I think you'll like him too."
"Ok. That's fine."
"Where are you getting married? Wisconsin?"
"Actually, St. Paul. We visited last winter and Danni just fell in love with this place. Your invite is already in the mail. It's got directions on it. Ceremony starts at 12:30."
"Formal attire?"
"Like school dance attire. You have a dress for that? Or, if you must dress pants and shirt."
"I do—Uh, have the dress that is. The same one I wore for homecoming. Probably wear it to Prom too."
"I'll see you then."
"Yeah."
"Remember, even while you're on spring break keep practicing. I hurt my wrist because I overdid it after coming off the bench."
"Yeah, I know. Love you."
"Love you too, kiddo." She wasn't surprised that was the end of their conversation. That's usually how Chris was. Mostly all business until the very end when he often reminded his kid sister how much he loved her. Lizzy appreciated those phone calls even if she didn't show it while she was on the phone.