“Yeah?”
“But the rest of your face comes from somewhere else.” Wyatt remembered Coach Bouchard’s old photo: there was no doubt about that. Greer handed back the phone. “Enough chitchat-come here.”
Dub and Aunt Hildy were in the middle of dinner when Wyatt got back. Spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread, probably Wyatt’s favorite meal, and a place was set for him. They looked up. Something was wrong: Wyatt knew Dub very well, had been reading that face practically all his life.
“Hi, sorry I’m late.”
“No problem,” Aunt Hildy said. “Just a call would be nice.”
“Sorry.”
“I can heat this up if you want.”
“It’s fine like this.” And it was. Wyatt was starving. He realized he hadn’t eaten a thing all day, maybe a first. “How was practice?” he said, putting down his fork at last just out of decency.
“Not bad,” Dub said. “It’s such a piss-off.”
“Dub,” said Aunt Hildy.
“But it is, Aunt Hildy. They-we’ve got nobody close to Wyatt in the outfield. He’d be starting in center and leading off, maybe even batting third.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Aunt Hildy said. “I meant your language.”
“Language?”
“Piss-off,” said Aunt Hildy. “We’re at supper.”
“Oh.”
All of a sudden, Wyatt started laughing, couldn’t stop. He covered his face with his napkin.
“What so funny?” Dub said.
“Drink some water,” said Aunt Hildy.
Wyatt drank some water, pulled himself together. “Thanks for dinner, Aunt Hildy. It was great.”
“You’re more than welcome. Seconds?”
“Yeah. Please.”
“You boys have homework tonight?”
“Not much.”
“Hardly any.”
“Meaning plenty,” said Aunt Hildy. “One of you go up and get started, the other helps me wash up first.”
Wyatt and Dub flipped a coin. Dub won and went upstairs. Wyatt got a dish towel and stood by the sink. Aunt Hildy believed the dishwasher used too much water, tried not to use it. She had a two-part sink, filled one half with warm, sudsy water, the other with plain, washed and rinsed the dishes, then handed them to Wyatt, in charge of drying and stacking in the cupboard. Aunt Hildy’s hands were small, square, efficient; Wyatt spotted a few faint liver spots on them.
“How’s everything going?” Aunt Hildy said, eyes on her work.
“Good.”
“School all right?”
“Yeah.”
“Holding up without baseball?”
“Yeah.”
“Dub told the coach all about you.”
“I know.”
“Next spring’ll be around before you know it.”
For a moment, opening the silverware drawer-Aunt Hildy’s knives and forks so much heavier than those at home-Wyatt felt a sharp sudden pang, like a real pain in his chest, from missing baseball. Then his mind moved on to Greer, and the pain was gone.
“Meeting new people?” Aunt Hildy said.
“Yeah.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that.” She turned to Wyatt, handed him the last dish. “Not my business, goes without saying, but you’re new in town, couldn’t possibly have learned the lay of the-how things are yet. Know what I’m talking about?”
“Not really.” Aunt Hildy hadn’t let go of the dish, meaning they each had a hand on it.
“I understand you’re seeing Greer Torrance.”
Wyatt felt himself turning red. He hadn’t told Dub, hadn’t told anyone. It was all so new. “How do you know that?”
“I just do.” Aunt Hildy let go of the plate. Wyatt lost his grip on it, snatched it out of the air with his other hand just before it would have hit the floor. He turned, put the dish in the cupboard.
“Do you know her?” he said, his back to Aunt Hildy.
“Not face-to-face,” she said. “This is a small town, Wyatt-maybe not as small as East Canton, but small enough so nothing stays secret for long. I just feel your mom wouldn’t be too comfortable with you and someone like Greer Torrance.”
Wyatt turned. Sometimes he got stubborn, and when he did his chin tilted up, pretty much on its own. It was doing it now. “I don’t see anything wrong with her.”
“No, of course not. She’s very attractive-maybe a bit too old for you, what with girls being more mature to begin with, no offense-but there’s no way you’d be aware of her reputation.”
Wyatt’s chin tilted up a bit more. “Which is?”
“For one thing, I’m sure you don’t know that her father’s an arsonist. A firefighter of my acquaintance got burned that night.”
“Greer told me.”
“Told you about the firefighter?”
“Not that part, but about her father, yes.”
“And what about her role in it?”
Wyatt felt himself turning redder. “What role?”
“It was pretty clear that she was involved, too-they couldn’t prove it, is all.”
Wyatt didn’t believe that. He just stood there, shaking his head, not trusting himself to stay calm if he replied. He was starting not to like Aunt Hildy.
“And before that, she was into drugs-very lucky she didn’t get thrown in jail herself.”
Into drugs-that could mean a lot of things. What did it mean to someone like Aunt Hildy, a middle-aged, small-town woman?
“I’m talking about serious drugs, like heroin,” Aunt Hildy said. “The police knew.”
Serious drugs? He’d seen no sign of that-her apartment was tidy, her skin unmarred, no mention of drugs, not even once, in any context. A thought came to him. “Do you have friends in the police?”
Aunt Hildy nodded. “A coworker is married to one of the sergeants.”
“This sergeant,” Wyatt said, “a beefy guy with a pink kind of face?”
She nodded again.
“He ran my plate?”
“It’s a small town, Wyatt, but with rough edges. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
He gave her a long look, not friendly. She blinked a couple of times. “I’m going for a walk,” Wyatt said.
The rain had stopped but the wind still blew, very cold. Scraps of cloud raced fast across the moon. Wyatt found shelter behind a tree, called Greer, got put straight into voice mail. He wondered about driving over to her place. Not cool. But he still hadn’t rejected the idea when his phone rang.
“Hello?” he said.
Not Greer, but a man. “Hi, there,” said the man. “This Wyatt?”
“Yeah-who’s this?”
“Sonny.”
“Sonny?”
