LITMIR.BIZ

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weeks later, he walked into the kitchen and found Pella standing before the sink, rather pointedly wearing a tank top in chilly March weather. “Hi,” she said.

      On her left arm was a black-ink tattoo of a sperm whale rising from the water. Its long square head twisted back toward its tail, as if it were in the process of thrashing some helpless whaling boat. The surrounding skin was pink and splotchy. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

      “Providence.”

      “How did you get to Providence?” Affenlight was shocked. Not by the fact that she’d defied him — as soon as she’d said the word tattoo he’d known she would defy him — but by the tattoo itself. It was a perfect mirror image of his own. Even the dimensions were identical, uncannily so. They could have stood side by side, pressed their upper arms together, and the ink would have lined up perfectly.

      Even now it was hard to parse what Pella had done. His tattoo, then thirty years old, now close to forty, had always been a secret, sacred, sentimental part of him. Was Pella defying him on the surface while allying herself with him more deeply, more permanently, underneath? She had always loved The Book, as they called it, and she probably loved her father too, somewhere in there. This was a bond the two of them now shared. Their hair, their eyes, their complexions, were nothing alike — Pella looked unreasonably like her mother — but this was proof, proof of something, a kinship even deeper than blood . . .

      Unless she was, for lack of a better phrase, fucking with him. She might have been fucking with him, playing around with things that were terribly, even preposterously, important to him. Pointing out the very preposterousness of his feelings for her, for The Book, for everything. Everything you’ve ever done is nothing, old man. Anyone could have done it, every bit. I’ve already done it, and I’m fourteen.

      Affenlight had never been so angry. When she was young he’d never dreamed of using corporal punishment, but now he wanted to shake her, to shake every bit of insolence and cruelty, if that’s what it was — of course, it might have been something very different — out of her body and onto the floor.

      Instead he walked into his study and softly closed the door.

      In a sense, that was the end of their relationship. Affenlight went off to Westish, Pella to Tellman Rose. She canceled half of her scheduled visits, claiming school or swimming commitments. Her grades were good, but every few weeks the phone would ring, and it would be an administrator, wanting to discuss some “incident.”

      And now here she was, asking to take classes at Westish, to be readmitted to his fatherly care. Affenlight opened his top desk drawer, pulled out his daybook. “What kind of classes did you have in mind?”

      “History.” Pella straightened in her chair. She wanted to prove she was serious. “Psychology. Math.”

      Affenlight’s eyebrows lifted. “No painting?”

      “Dad, please. I gave that up forever ago.”

      “No lit classes?”

      Pella yawned and fidgeted with her zipper. She looked exhausted — purple circles beneath her eyes, a small tic pulsing at the corner of her mouth. “Maybe one.”

      Affenlight made a few notations, clapped the book closed. Pella yawned again. “You should hit the sack,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

       Chapter 11

      Henry flipped the light switch, dropped his equipment on the rug, sank down on the edge of his unmade bed. He kicked off his shoes and almost instantly fell asleep. But the phone was ringing. He had to answer the phone. It might be about Owen.

      “Skrimmer.”

      “Schwartzy.” They’d last seen each other ten minutes ago, when Schwartz dropped him off by the loading dock of the dining hall.

      “Have you eaten?”

      “No. Not since lunch.”

      Schwartz gave a paternal sigh of reproof. “Gotta eat, Skrimmer.”

      “I’m not hungry.”

      “Doesn’t matter. Have a shake. What time are you running stadiums?”

      “Six thirty.” Henry lay on his back, eyes shut. “Hey. I forgot to ask. Any news from schools?” Schwartz was applying to law schools, top-notch places like Harvard and Stanford and Yale. Tucked into Henry’s bag was a bottle of Ugly Duckling, the big guy’s favorite bourbon, to give him when the good news came. Henry hoped it would be soon — the bottle wasn’t all that heavy, but he’d been lugging it around for weeks.

      “Mail only comes once a day, Skrimmer. I’ll keep you posted.”

      “I heard Emily Neutzel got into Georgetown,” Henry offered. “So maybe soon.”

      “I’ll keep you posted,” Schwartz repeated. “Have a shake. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

      Henry got up—last time, this — and pulled a pitcher of pilfered dining-hall milk out of the fridge, added two scoops of SuperBoost. Ever since he’d arrived at Westish he’d been trying, trying, trying to gain weight. He’d grown an inch and put on thirty pounds; he could do forty pull-ups and bench-press alongside the football players. But still the knock against him was his size. Teams wanted monsters in their middle infields, guys who could blast home runs; the days when you could thrive as a pure defensive genius, an Omar Vizquel or Aparicio Rodriguez, were over. He had to be a genius and a monster. He had to eat, and eat, and eat. He lifted weights so he could chug his SuperBoost, so he could lift more weights, so he could chug more SuperBoost, lift, chug, lift, chug, trying to gather as many molecules as possible under the name Henry Skrimshander. An economy like that wasn’t very efficient—it produced, to be honest, an awful lot of foul-smelling waste, which caused Owen to light matches and shake his head in dismay. But it was what he had to do.

      Hours after the game, he was still wearing his jockstrap and cup — not a pleasant feeling. He pried them away from his crotch, stripped naked, climbed into bed. His legs and feet, gritty from sliding and diving on the infield, chafed against the sheets.

      The phone again. He needed to answer the phone: it would be news about Owen, or someone looking for news about Owen.

      “Henry Skrimshander?”

      “This is Henry.” Not a teammate — a woman’s voice. Probably the doctor.

      “Henry, this is Miranda Szabo of SzaboSport Incorporated. I hear congratulations are in order.”

      “What for?”

      “What for? How about for putting yourself on par with the great Aparicio Rodriguez? Today was the day, right?”

      “Oh. Well, I mean, it’s . . . yes, today.” When a game ended midinning, which happened most often because of rain, the official statistics reverted to the last finished inning. Officially, then, the Harpooners had beaten Milford 8—3 in eight innings. Officially, the top of the ninth inning had never happened. Officially, he’d never made an error.

      “Splendid,” said Miranda Szabo. “Listen, I’m sorry to call so late, during your private time, but I’m out in L.A., closing a deal for Kelvin Massey.”

      “Kelvin Massey? The Rockies’ third baseman?”

      Miranda Szabo paused for a perfect, haughty half beat. “Kelvin Massey, the Dodgers’ third baseman. But don’t tell Peter Gammons, that snoop.”

      “I won’t,” Henry promised.

      “Good. The press can’t know till tomorrow. We’re still putting the finishing touches on this little objet d’art. Fifty-six million over four years.”

      “Wow.”

      “How’s that for a recession special? Sometimes I impress myself,” Miranda Szabo admitted. “But let’s stay focused.

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