A few families had spread blankets on the grass out beyond the centerfield fence where they could picnic and let their children run around while watching the game, and several hardy souls were even jogging along the oval track that circles next to the trees bounding the school’s perimeter. As I munched on my hot dog, it made me hot just to watch them.
Coming down the homestretch was a man dressed in one of those Civil Suit T-shirts, but at that distance, I couldn’t make out his face under his black ball cap.
“Millard King,” said Portland when I asked.
“That’s Millard King? Last time I saw him, he was carrying at least fifty more pounds.”
This man was trim and fit.
Portland nodded. “Love’ll do that.”
“Who’s the lucky woman?”
She shrugged. “Some Hillsborough debutante’s what I heard. Old money. Very proper. I think her father’s on the court of appeals. Or was it the state Supreme Court?”
The parking lot was gravel over clay but with all the rain we’d had in the last couple of weeks, we didn’t have to put up with the clouds of dust that usually drifted up over the tall shrubbery as cars pulled in and out with some people leaving and more arriving.
The game in progress wound down to the last two outs, and Avery and Dwight, the two team captains, started counting heads and writing down the batting order.
“Where the hell’s Reid?” Avery asked Portland. “He swore he’d be here by five-thirty.”
“Reid?” I asked. “Reid Stephenson’s playing softball?”
Reid is a cousin and my former law partner when the firm was Lee, Stephenson and Knott, before I took the bench. He’s the third generation of Stephensons in the firm and I was fourth generation because his grandfather was also my great-grandfather. (The Lee is John Claude Lee, also my cousin, but no kin to Reid.) Generationally, Reid’s on the same level as my mother and Aunt Zell. In reality, he’s a couple of years younger than I am, although John Claude, who’s been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, has made it clear more times than one that he considers us both on the same emotional level.
That’s not particularly accurate.
Or fair.
I think of myself as serially monogamous and I don’t mess around with married men, but ever since Reid’s marriage broke up, he seems to be on a sybaritic mission to bed half the women in Colleton County, married or single.
“Reid’s always been a sexual athlete,” I said. “That’s why Dotty left him. But when did he take up outdoor sports?”
Portland laughed. “Back in July. Right after he pigged out at your pig-picking. One of the young statisticians in Ellis Glover’s office said something about his cute little tummy and Reid signed up for our team the next day.”
“Unfortunately, he still has his own idea of warmup practice,” Avery said dryly. “And he never gets here on time.”
* * *
Ralph Freeman’s team held on to their comfortable lead in the bottom of the seventh and our game could finally get underway.
First though, each team had to line up at home plate and let the Ledger photographer take a group picture. The picture itself only took a minute, but we had to stand in place another five minutes while the photographer laboriously wrote down every name, double-checking the spelling as he went. He must’ve been reamed good by Linsey Thomas, the editor and publisher, who believes that the Ledger thrives because Colleton County readers like to see their names in print. And spelled correctly.
Dwight won the coin toss, elected to be the home team, and we took the field a little before six-thirty.
Colleton County is mostly sandy soil, but the ball diamond has a thick layer of red clay that was dumped here when the Department of Transportation widened the four-lane bypass less than a quarter-mile away as the crow flies.
With so much humidity, my feet soon felt as if I had about five pounds of clay clogged to the bottom of each sneaker, but that didn’t stop me from making a neat double play when Jason Bullock hit a grounder through the box in the first inning.
Reid had arrived, cool and debonair, just in time to have his picture taken, but I didn’t get to speak to him till the bottom of the second when I hit a double, then moved to third—Reid’s position—on a pitching error.
He just smiled when I needled him about getting there late.
“Is she in the stands?” I asked. “Or doesn’t she care for ball games?”
“Not softball games,” he said with a perfectly straight face as one of the dispatchers popped up, leaving me stranded.
Top of the seventh, tied three all, and Millard King doubled to score Portland before we could get them out. Heat lightning flashed across the sky and there were distant rumbles of thunder. As shadows lengthened across the field, the floodlights came on. We were down to our last out when Avery walked me. Then Dwight stepped up to the plate and smacked the first pitch clear over the right field fence for the only home run of the game. I was waiting for him at home plate and gave him an exuberant hug.
A gang of us went out afterwards for beer and pizza—Portland and Avery’s treat. Jason Bullock and one of their paralegals joined the two Deeds clerks who’d scored in the fifth inning, the dispatcher, Dwight and me. Everybody else, including my randy cousin Reid, pled previous commitments. Our waiter pushed two tables together and we sat down just as the rain started.
“They say Edouard’ll probably miss the coast,” Avery said as fat drops splattered against the window behind him. “Fran’s still out there though.”
Lavon, the small trim dispatcher, said, “And Gustave’s tooling along right in behind her.”
“I’m real mad at Edouard,” said the paralegal (Jean? Debbie?), giving him a pretty little frown. “I bought me a brand new bikini to wear to the beach this weekend but I was afraid to go with a hurricane maybe coming in. And then it blew right on past us so I stayed home for nothing.”
I instantly hated her. It’s taken constant vigilance to keep my weight the same as it’s been since I was twenty, but even on my skinniest days, there’s no way I’d ever have the nerve to wear a bikini in public.
Beneath her mop of tight black curls, Portland was looking indecisive, but not about bikinis. She and Avery have a condo at Wrightsville Beach and a small boat with an outboard motor for waterskiing and puttering around the shoals. “Bertha didn’t hurt us, but if we’re going to keep getting bad storms—?”
Avery nodded. “Maybe we’d better run down tomorrow, close the shutters and bring the boat back up here.”
Our pizzas arrived amid trash talk and laughter as we rehashed the game. Jason jazzed me that he’d given me such an easy double play that I owed him a good decision on his next DWI defense. We didn’t get into courthouse gossip till there was nothing left of our pizzas except a logpile of crusts. As I suspected, the paralegal had her eye on Lavon and cut him out of the pack as soon as we’d finished eating.
That broke up the party.
Rain was falling heavier as Dwight and I drove back toward Cotton Grove, with the taillights of Jason Bullock’s car ahead of us all the way till we turned off onto Old 48 and he kept going on into town.
By the time we drove into my yard, the rain was coming down so hard that we sat in the truck a few minutes to see if it’d slack off.
“You were right,” I told Dwight as rain thundered on the truck roof. “Tonight was fun. I’m glad you asked me to fill in, but I have a feeling I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”
“You probably ought to soak in a hot bath and take a couple of aspirin before you go to bed.”