each joint so human you couldn’t tell the difference between my hands and the bear’s. Soapley cut off the head, leaving it one piece with the hide.
He grinned at me. “Liver’s in the truck if you want a taste.”
“Raw?”
Maurey nodded. “Animals get scared and shoot adrenaline into themselves right before they die. It goes to the liver so when you eat it your head buzzes. Indians thought eating raw liver gave them the animal’s spirit.”
“This is way out of my background.”
In bed, Maurey snuggled against my ribs with both hands under her chin and her bear down by Alice at our knees. “I’m glad we’re just friends. I wouldn’t want to be alone tonight.”
All afternoon I’d been working on a question, so now I asked it. “Why was Dothan friendly at lunch?”
Her eyes were on my shoulder where I couldn’t see them, but I could feel the lashes when she blinked. “I screwed with him last night.”
“I knew it.”
“I told him we could keep it up so long as he’s nice to you.”
I sat up. “Dammit, Maurey, I’d lots rather him beat me up than screw you.”
She rolled onto her back with an arm over her head. “I would have pretty soon anyway, I guess. He’s my boyfriend.”
“A person doesn’t screw her boyfriend to protect her best friend. That’s not how it works.” I was all upset. For months I’d imagined them doing it—him on top, her sucking his thing, him licking hers. It about drove me nuts, but now I knew for sure and for some bizarre reason it was my fault.
“Did you have an orgasm?”
She scooted back and sat up next to me. “It was his first time. He squirted quicker than you ever did.” We were quiet awhile, each thinking something, hell, I don’t know what. I’m finally back in bed with my true love, the mother of my child, and she’s been screwing the king-hell creep of North America. His mayonnaise was probably up there right this second, touching my baby.
Maurey seemed to talk to herself. “I like him in the right way and I was looking forward to doing it for the right reason, you know, love, but since I did it for the wrong reason it wasn’t any better than doing it with you.”
Not exactly what I wanted to hear.
“At least with you I got off. With Dothan all I got was muddy.”
This was awful. ‘‘Maurey, don’t ever fuck with someone to protect me.”
She touched my arm above the elbow. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. I’m scared and Dad doesn’t love me anymore.”
She had on her white nightie. I loved her more than I ever had before, I guess because she said she was scared.
She poked her index finger into my stomach. “Look—here’s me. Here’s my father, here’s my boyfriend, and here’s my best friend.” She was on the belly button with me on the left rib, Dothan on the right rib, and her father at the top of my pubic hair.
“I’ve lost Dad and I don’t want to lose either of you. If Dothan hates you, I’d have to choose between you guys and I’d be down to only one. I don’t think I could have this baby with only one connection.”
“Which would you choose?”
“Him, I guess. Except then there’d be nowhere to live. Dothan’s parents are grotesque.”
At least she couldn’t say that about Lydia. “You screwed Dothan so you could live with me?”
“I guess. No. I don’t know, Sam. I wish Dad still loved me, then I wouldn’t need either of you and I could live at home.” On my stomach, she traced the connection between her and Buddy.
“I need you.”
Maurey fell back into a lying-down position. “I know, Sam. That just makes everything even weirder.”
I picked up Maurey’s bear and put it on her chest. “I’m sorry.”
She rubbed the bear’s head against her cheek. “Being a grown-up is too complicated.”
In Jackson Hole, one sort of athletically inclined boy goes rabid for mountain climbing—“The cafeteria wall is a five-point-five with a forty-foot exposure”—and the other sort of athletically inclined boy defines himself by rodeo—bullriding if he’s short and self-destructive. That doesn’t leave much pickings for Little League. The baseball players are mostly kids who would rather waste the summer drinking Kool-Aid and hassling little girls, only their fathers make them do something, and baseball is less stress than climbing mountains or riding bulls.
Skipper O’Brien’s dad volunteered to coach the team. He was on workman’s disability from falling off the dam and messing up his inner ear, so he didn’t have a regular job or anything interesting to do. The first day of practice Mr. O’Brien sent the whole team to the outfield for fungo-catching. He took off his windbreaker, picked up a bat, threw a ball in the air and whiffed. Missed by a foot.
Right then I told Kim Schmidt we were in for a long summer.
Mr. O’Brien was also the kind of coach who prides himself on not giving his own son special attention, which meant that every day we had to stand there and listen to him yell at Skipper.
“You’re a sick excuse for a ballplayer. You can’t run, you can’t catch, you can’t hit. You throw like a girl.”
Typical junior high-coach child psychology. Made me glad I didn’t have a father.
We opened against Jackson East and lost 17-3. Kim and I scored all three runs. Jackson West shut us out 21 -zip.
Most nights I listened to the Dodger game on the radio, then crawled into bed next to Maurey and told her the frustrations of my day, just like we were a real couple. “Rodney Cannelioski is disabled, I swear the kid puts his jock strap on backwards. You know what he did at the plate this afternoon?”
“Sam, I don’t give a rat’s ass what happened at baseball practice today.” She would slap her growing belly. “I’m uncomfortable. I miss my horse. For the first summer since I can remember I’m not riding every day. Little League baseball means nothing to me. Do you understand, Sam. Nothing.”
“How can baseball mean nothing?”
Sometimes this launched another round of foul-mouthed tirade—Maurey’s language went downhill after that day she said
“You’re just jealous cause you’re too fat to barrel race.”
That one got me Alice across the neck.
Every now and then Maurey was king-hell happy. One afternoon I came in from practice to find her, Dot, and Lydia in total hysterics over baby clothes. Maurey was holding a mint green sunsuit over her head and dancing while Dot slid clear off the couch and onto the floor from laughing so hard, and Lydia smoked two cigarettes at once. I didn’t see anything funny about dancing with baby clothes and said so and that set them off all over again. When she tried to get up, Dot hit her head on the coffee table.
