Free When No One Was Looking by Rosemary Wells Page B

It’s like when your mouth is parched and you see a big glass of water and you can just taste it. Promise you won’t tell anyone I said that. I’d be laughed out of tennis if anyone heard me mention the New England championship.”
    Affectionately Julia placed her arm around Kathy’s shoulders. I don’t think it’s funny. I think you have a shot,” she said. “By the way, I forgot to give you this. Marty gave it to me.” Julia reached around to the back of the pointed rock and brought out a trophy labeled Ladies’ Doubles Championship—Plymouth Bath and Tennis Club. Kathy and Marty’s names were yet to be engraved on the plaque. Kathy grabbed the trophy, looked at it, and tossed it into the sea, where it banged once against a half-submerged rock and sank. Julia watched it go. “What’s the matter, kiddo? What’s wrong?” she asked softly.
    “This afternoon,” said Kathy, “I spent an hour beating the crap out of two sweet old ladies because Marty made me. It broke their hearts.”

4
    K ATHY’S MOTHER PLACED A large platter of corn fritters and sausage on the kitchen table. Over it she distributed half a tub of margarine. “Eat!” she directed, smiling. “It’s your big one, tomorrow, honey. You can win the whole shebang. I got your favorite dessert, Twinkies.”
    Kathy thought briefly about the eclairs she had eaten at Julia’s house. “The Sox are in first place,” she said, helping herself to six fritters.
    “I wish we lived in Toronto,” said Jody.
    “Toronto?” asked her father.
    “Toronto has a last place team,” said Jody. “Kathy’d never root for a last place team, and then I wouldn’t have to listen to all this baseball talk.”
    “What would you rather talk about, Jody?” Kathy asked. “Poetry?”
    “Well, it wouldn’t hurt,” said Jody.
    “How about ‘Casey at the Bat’?” joked her father, but Jody did not laugh. When Jody appeared to be finished, her mother told her she could be excused without doing the dishes.
    “Why don’t you wait until I go to bed if you want to talk about something I shouldn’t hear?” said Jody.
    “Sometimes, Jody,” said her mother with a sigh, “you are too smart for your own good.”
    “What is this?” Kathy asked. She wished Oliver were there. Oliver’s presence usually modified things somewhat.
    Jody left for the den with Bobby and with the parting shot that it looked as if everybody was planning a bank robbery.
    “Well, you start, Frank,” said Kathy’s mother when the door to the den had slammed and the television’s noise came through to the kitchen. Kathy’s father shrugged and raised both hands in the air in response. Kathy guessed that her mother had won some argument with him but that parts of it remained unsettled. He lit a cigarette in an irritated way, shaking out the match as if it were as stubborn as an eternal flame.
    “What is this?” Kathy asked again.
    “Well,” he said, “to be blunt and simple, Kathy, your mother has pulled some strings.”
    “That’s a fine way to begin, Frank,” said Kathy’s mother.
    “Well, that’s what it is, isn’t it?” he asked.
    “You don’t have to put it that way, honest to God, Frank.”
    “Okay, okay. Honey, Mom went to see Ken Hammer the day after Mrs. Diggins came to see us about your algebra. Remember?”
    “Yes, Dad. Who’s Ken Hammer?”
    “Oh, Kathy,” her mother broke in, “Kenneth B. Hammer is the superintendent of Plymouth public schools. You’ve seen his name on a hundred forms you’ve ...
    “Okay,” her father said. “Anyway. Your Mom went to see him. He’s a real nice guy, by the way. Loves sports. Loves sports.”
    “Yes?” said Kathy uneasily.
    “Well, Mr. Hammer is running for local office this November.”
    “Frank, you are putting the complete wrong slant on it. Why begin that way?”
    “Well, he wants the Plymouth schools to have a big new sports complex. Tennis courts, everything. He has to raise a bond for it, of