Sam speaks softly. “The big fucking deal is real simple. Shut your friggin’ trap, Chapin, so I don’t have to open mine.”
“Fuck you, jack. Maybe you’ll open your gym bag someday and have an ounce of blow fall out.”
In a blur of movement, Sam slams Chapin against the wall with one hand and knocks the breath out of him. He leans into his face.
“And maybe you’ll eat a baseball bat, motherfucker,” he says. “Try me. I never wanted to fuck anybody up so much in my life.” Keeping Chapin jammed against the wall, Sam lifts him off the floor to speak directly into J.C.’s ear. “Keep her clean or you’ll be smoking your own dick, shithead.”
The AC hustles out of the weight room. “The hell is going on here?”
Sam drops Chapin to the floor.
Sullenly, J.C. mutters, “Nothin’.”
Sam smiles and pats the top of Chapin’s head. “Chapin said he wanted to get high. I was helpin’ him.”
“Spare me the cute bullshit,” growls the AC. “Styles, lemme remind you, you got a warning flag up. You looking for a vacation?”
Next morning is as raw as a clam slip-sliding down a gull’s gullet. The Mutant’s walking; she’s walked the whole four miles from Depot Street. She and Sam arrive at the juncture of the Main Road and Greenspark Academy’s curving driveway simultaneously. Muttering in inarticulate disbelief, Sam pulls up next to her. He stretches across the seat to pop the door. She ignores him.
“Come on,” he says. “You’ve walked far enough.”
“Another few yards won’t kill me.”
“Wanna bet?”
Haughtily, she accepts a hand up and settles back against the seat. Breathes like it hurts.
“Couldn’t get a ride?”
“Sure,” she drawls, staring out the window, “had eight or nine offers. It was such a nice fucking day and I need the exercise. I get sick of the limo all the time, you know. People could start thinking I’m impressed with myself.”
His gaze skitters over her. She still looks sick. Maybe that’s why he isn’t afflicted with an embarrassing surge of lust, just a surge of plain old incredulity that anything had ever happened between them at all. Maybe it was something like the way electricity discharges when it can between two points of conduction. His accumulated frustration had just had to go somewhere—try to go somewhere—and she was female, even if she did everything in her power to negate it.
“You okay?”
He thinks that’s about right. He’s stopped himself from telling her she shouldn’t be there; she should be home in bed.
She shrugs.
“The job’s still open,” he goes on. “See Mrs. H. about it. Maybe you could start again next week, you feel up to it.”
When he peeks at her, her head’s down and he can’t even tell if she’s listening. Fringe on her headrag shivers a little as she stares out the window. She’s out of the truck as soon as it stops.
“You’re welcome,” he calls after her.
She pauses long enough to show him two world-weary rigid middle fingers.
Rick catches up with Sam at the edge of the parking lot. “Did I see an ugly bald wench get outta the truck and flip you off or am I having a drug flashback?”
“The Mutant’s back.” Sam grins. “And meaner than ever.”
Rick points a finger at his temple. “Go ahead, make my day.”
Bopping the basketball comfortingly with his left hand, he closes the equipment closet and risks—purely as a scientific experiment—looking at her again. She is unhooking the chains from between her legs. Observing this as a mechanical operation, he notes with increasing cheer that it has no effect on him. With the chains between her fingers, the Mutant raises her eyes and looks at him. Her narrow features are impassive. There is no flirtation, no coyness in expression or body language. She merely catches him looking and her eyes glitter with irony.
But in a few moments she is crouched on the sidelines, rocking on her heels, her body racked with coughing. She hides her face in her arms. Sam brings her his old sweatshirt again and she submits wordlessly to his tugging it down over her head. At the end of practice, she’s gone and the shirt’s gone with her. Oh well. He’ll get it back from her later. What can she do with it—blow her nose on it? Use it to work some voodoo on him?
At the gym doors, Sam catches up with Nat.
“You know, Gauthier walked all the way this morning,” he says. “She shouldn’t be taking any four-mile strolls this time of the year, not after having pneumonia. You need her healthy, Nat. Maybe you girls could fix her up with rides?”
Before he’s finished asking, Nat’s got her arms crossed and she’s already shaking her head. “Not me, guy. My mother is convinced the Mutant’s a Satanist. She finds out I’m giving rides to her, she’ll have me into church for an exorcism and probably never let me out of the house again. Why doesn’t Mutie ride with her burn buddies?”
“None of ‘m get up before the first bell. Besides, the less time she spends with that bunch of thuds, the more likely she is to stay healthy enough to play. And stay eligible.”
Nat shrugs. “You have to come right through town. Why don’t you pick her up?”
Sam had been hoping she wouldn’t think of that question. He can’t help blushing.
Nat grins at his discomfort. “Gimme a break, Sam. You’re bigger than her. You can fight her off. Hey, how come you haven’t asked me out since last summer? Didn’t you believe I really had another date?”
He can’t bring himself to meet Nat’s eyes; his vision fills with his own restless, enormous feet.
“Maybe when the season’s over,” he mutters. “You know how it is. No time.”
“Sure,” she says. “It’s a bitch, isn’t it?”
He thinks he hears her say it’s the bitch. Backing away, he bumps against a bleacher.
“I gotta talk to someone,” he says.
He bolts to the water fountain and wets down his throat, does some deep breathing, wipes his sweaty face
