Bridge of Scarlet Leaves. Kristina McMorris

Чтение книги онлайн.

      12

      Hunched over the kitchen table, TJ attacked the page with a vengeance. He scrubbed at his lead markings with a pencil eraser, but the layered numbers still peeked through. Five layers to be exact. That’s how many times he’d been stumped by the blasted stats equation.

      Such a waste. Waste of an evening, wasted effort. Baseball had already taught him all the math he ever wanted to use. Measurements from the mound to every point of the plate, the trajectory of hits, angles of pitches, addition of runs, the subtraction of players.

      He’d chosen Business as his major. It seemed the least specific option. In actuality, a degree was never part of the plan. His vision of the future had been nothing but stripes. Not of the flag, a symbol of patriotic roles meant for guys like Lane. No, his own allegiance lay with the good ol’ Yankees, with those dapper stripes, their topnotch talent. And TJ’s name could have been—should have been—added to their roster long before now.

      Freshman year, only one teammate besides himself had been recruited on scholarship. The second baseman, a fellow All City player, signed last year with the Red Sox. Yet here was TJ, still stuck in Boyle Heights, trying to rid his life of another mistake that couldn’t be wiped clean.

      Although that didn’t keep him from trying.

      Rubber shavings scattered as he wore down the eraser at an angle. When the nub snapped off, the pencil’s top skidded across the paper. The metal rim tore a rut through the single problem he’d actually gotten right.

      He chucked the pencil across the room. Growling, he crumpled the page. “Stupid, useless piece of—” He reared back to pitch the wad, but a discovery halted him.

      Company.

      At the entry of the kitchen, Jo Allister leaned against the doorjamb. Her oversized peacoat hung open around her overalls. “Don’t let me interrupt,” she said. A baseball cap shaded her face, though not her bemusement.

      “Don’t you ever knock?”

      Her mood instantly clouded. “I’m looking for Maddie. If that’s acceptable to you.”

      This made for the second time this week he’d misdirected a vent on his sister’s friend. He surrendered the balled paper onto the table, tried his best for a nicer tone. “She’s not here.”

      Jo upturned her palm as if to say, You wanna elaborate?

      “She . . . went to see our dad.” Based on periodic reports from the nurses, any visits were pointless. Maddie just hadn’t accepted that yet. “Afraid I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

      “Fine. Then tell her I swung by.” With a scathing smile, Jo added, “I’d stay and wait, but you might take up throwing knives next.”

      Once again, he watched her ponytail shake with fuming steps away from him. She certainly had a knack for jumping straight into his line of fire.

      “Hold on,” he called out weakly. Her shoulder flinched, indicating she’d heard him, but she didn’t stop.

      He marched after her. “It wasn’t you, okay?”

      Ignoring him, she opened the front door. He caught hold of her sleeve.

      “Jo, please.”

      She didn’t face him, but her feet held.

      “I just got a lot on my plate, with baseball and finals and . . . everything.”

      Gradually she wheeled around. Her bronze eyes gave him a once-over. “That supposed to be an apology?”

      TJ found himself without a response. He had lost the skill of presenting a proper sorry. It was tangled up in the net of regrets that a million apologies couldn’t change.

      “You’re welcome to stay”—he gestured behind him—“if you wanna wait for Maddie.” Padding the peace offering, he told her, “No knife throwing, I swear.”

      A reluctant smile lifted a corner of her mouth. She glanced past him and into the house, considering. “I dunno.”

      Man, was she going to make him crawl over hot coals for her forgiveness?

      “Looks like we’ve both been cooped up too much,” she said. “Come on.” She waved a hand to usher him down the steps.

      He had to admit, it was a nice night. From the smells of leaves burning and cookies baking next door, he sensed his stress dissolving, making her offer tempting. Still, he felt the tug of obligation, recalled the equations that weren’t going to solve themselves.

      “Stop your fretting,” Jo said. “Your books aren’t gonna run off. Or your pencil—wherever it landed.”

      He gave in to a smile. “All right, all right. Let me grab a jacket.”

      TJ glued his gaze to the asphalt to avoid the lineup of houses they passed. It wasn’t the string of gingerbread cutouts that made him want to scream, but the normalcy.

      Middle class to upper class, nearly every ethnicity peppered the neighborhood—Russians, Mexicans, Jews, you name it. The families’ after-supper scenes, however, varied little. Fathers smoked their pipes, slippered feet crossed at the ankles, reading newspapers or books, or playing chess with a son eager to turn the tide. Mothers in aprons tended to children all bundled in nightclothes; they double-checked homework or darned socks beside the radio; they nodded to the beat of a youngster plunking away at a piano. Some even had the gall to hang Christmas decorations—December had scarcely arrived!

      TJ was so intent on blocking out these lousy Norman СКАЧАТЬ