“My old man’s a butcher at the ACME. There’s a shitload to learn like Meat Evaluation and Technology.”
“So you want to get your family land back to farming?”
“Hell, no. Even if I did, no way he’d let me.”
“A meat judge?”
“Hell no. Pro ball. Baseball. If you’re good enough to be drafted out of high school, you’ll have an agent. If not, you play for the major league farm teams or the Independent Leagues. I’m pretty fucking good but if I can play for a college team, I have a better chance to make it work. Get an agent; make the major leagues.” He grinned. “And I’d even have a degree.” And on he always went about baseball. Always.
We made a game of sharing worst family episodes, at least the ones we were willing to reveal. I mentioned Dad bragging with his bar mates over my pharmacy exploits, and a humiliatingly hilarious episode when he cheered me on in blue language as I struggled to finish a regional track meet relay.
“I got nothing funny. My mother’s out of the picture. My asshole father’s a bitter, dried up son-of-bitch.”
His parental figures were the overworked Methodist preacher and church janitor across the lane, and the BHS lunch ladies who snuck him extra food. The real kicker? My life was far closer to the Brady Bunch than his.
A few days later bleacher seat chit chat lead to, “So, do you have a girlfriend?”
Ethan fidgeted. “Nope.”
“So I guess I misread that kiss you laid on Brittany from my Driver’s Ed class as she got on the bus yesterday.”
“Cripes, Emma, you can be intimidating. I figured you wouldn’t go out with me if I told you.”
“No shit, Sherlock. I’m not a two timer.”
“See? You’re totally, I don’t know, in command, about your life. About everything.”
Talk about revelations.
“I swear-to-God, before school started, I planned to break up but I’m no good with confrontation. Especially with girls. Just so you know I ended it this morning.” He made eye contact and crossed his heart.
I asked him to hang out at my house. I wasn’t as ashamed of this one, especially after Ethan’s farm descriptions. His first Sunday arrival after church, he and Dad talked baseball, especially Cardinals trivia. The moment he left Dad hailed me from his ratty orange recliner. “Emma, you see to it that boy knows he’s welcome any time.”
Football games, shrill whistles, the marching band, concession food aromas—all of it ignited the rest of my fall weekends. I’d traded my screwed-up Liam Weller-Wash U-college Fantasyland for real life with high school hero Ethan Paige. My heart hammered every post-game as he emerged from the locker room, in required khakis and dress shirt, all wet hair and aftershave. We’d heft his duffle bag of equipment and head for his gum-and-duct taped pickup. We shared beers in parked vehicles and weed in his older brother’s seedy apartment, complete with Goth wife and baby. Brucknerfield terra firma. I lived under a blanket of neglect but Ethan was under a boot heel of abuse. I understood the void in his personality and the caring soul beneath it. He took me to meet Maxine whose concern for both of us was genuine. Even my parents recognised a kindred spirit. They gave him rides home and by the new year Dad’s welcome anytime included an open-ended dinner invitation. We made a good pair. It felt like love.
Like every other Brucknerfield High School couple, we yearned to consummate our devotion at Gerty’s-on-Thirty, known to all as Dirty’s-on-Thirty. Eighteen-year-olds sang the motel’s Prom Night praises. Porn could be rented on the TVs, weed procured in the parking lot.
Dad got wind of Gerty’s, and let me know when he, too, suspected Ethan and I thought it felt like love. “That motel’s a drug bust or prostitution raid waiting to happen. And my new passel of bar mates knows my car, Ethan’s truck, and every other mode of transport you two might be thinking would fool your mother or me.”
Instead we explored the Paige nine acres and settled on cave-like nooks in the rock formations off from the trailers. After some long-forgotten spat, Ethan’s erratic, hateful stepmother went from loving me to forbidding me to visit. We’d scampered off to The Nook in warm weather, but the chill forced me to fine-tuned night time excursions. Quicker than you can say clandestine, I oozed through his bedroom window then vanish before daylight, leaving my Oscar de la Renta-drenched panties on his bedpost. I mastered the midnight run; Ethan mastered coitus interruptus.
In early February I wandered into Beehive Fashions and Accessories, hunkered into my parka. Even inside Genevieve and I made constant fun of the dress shop, clearly named for the hot sixties’ hair style. The mod décor screamed Brucknerfield, The Town that Time Forgot. With the closest mall a hike and a half, the shop stayed in business by covering the gamut from grandmas to teens, with a kids’ department tucked in the back.
I was cold and bored. A handmade: Help Wanted Ask for Ruth Birnbaum on the jewellery counter had fallen forward obscuring the low display rod. As the nearest saleswoman chatted away, two bracelets practically slid themselves off the hanger and into my pocket. I made a point of perusing the blouses and sweaters on the way back to the door.
“Miss O’Farrell?” The hand on my shoulder shot my pulse into my ears. The woman smiled at me. “A moment in my office?” Cripes. She led me into the storeroom and motioned to the corner desk, chairs, and file cabinet. I sat. “You know my name?”
“My sister works in the high school guidance department, and coordinates the paper grading you help with. She pointed you out in here one afternoon.”
Not good. I scrambled for a light bulb moment. “Small world. Are you Mrs Birnbaum?” I stood and shook her hand. “I saw the sign. I’d like to apply for the job you’re offering.”
She did the raised eyebrow thing. “I’m familiar with your comments about my inventory.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No, You’re right. The shop could use a youthful touch, but then, you know that.” She moved to the file cabinet. “I have to get back to my customers, but you may fill out the application and leave it on the desk.”
I looked at the door half expecting cops summoned by some secret alarm button. When no one appeared I took the paper and got to work. On the way out of the shop, I made a big deal of straightening the sign then slid the bracelets back in place.
Mrs Birnbaum called me back the next afternoon for a real interview. I talked my way into the job with specific suggestions for the teen section, surprised by my itch to bring it into the current decade, but mostly anxious to start saving for my California plan. You’d never have known there’d been anything amiss the day before. If she didn’t want to mention it, I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up.
As the school year progressed, I became the consummate shelf straightener. I rubbed polyester between my fingers, silk against my cheek. Mrs Birnbaum taught me the difference.
Glamour,Elle and Vogue fashion layouts swam in my head as we concocted fresh ensembles for the window. I became less of a smart ass as I realised women of all sizes, ages, and incomes wanted to feel satisfied or confident with what they bought. I made suggestions; customers listened.
By spring the addictive risk of my romantic Ethan escapades fed our insecurities, and exacerbated our dysfunctional behaviour. He’d break up with me; I’d beg him not to. I’d insist it was over; he’d want me back. Even when he was legitimately too busy to be with me, I stayed mired in doubt.
When his family flat out refused any financial support, like mine, his dream of college collapsed. “I was a fucking idiot to get my hopes up. Parents who won’t pay for my lunch aren’t about to cough up tuition.” Ethan swallowed his fury and dug in his heels. Not playing on a university team left him one option: try to secure a spot with an independent league. He pitched with decent control and velocity of eighty-nine to ninety-one miles per hour. He was convinced he could work his way up to the major leagues.
The unlikeliest person in my life progressed to role model for goal setting and perseverance. I daydreamed about getting to California, but Ethan Paige practiced to get into baseball. He filled notebooks with everything from coach’s advice to sketches to sports magazine articles. That spring while he played and planned, I shopped for my first prom outfit, shoving dresses along the racks as I obsessed over change, maturity, and my empty future.
In April fact replaced rumours. The local paper announced a Hollywood production company planned to use deserted area landmarks to film scenes for Mischief, and posted their cattle call for hundreds of teenage extras. My mother presumed my drama queen personality and fashion obsessions would land me a major role, her a way to score some cash. Ethan wasn’t thrilled until I insisted, he’d make minimum wage of three forty-five per hour.
The high school granted a half day off and teenage hoards packed our gym. Ethan and I shared the only free chair and desk. St. Louis Post Dispatch photographers roamed with local pros, shooting the casting team talking to prospects. As Ethan and I huddled over the paper work trying to stay on the chair, a middle-aged man swooped in, asked questions, and initialled our applications. “Perfect.”
A photographer stepped forward. “What’s perfect?”
“These two. They have the look we’re after.”
