All Ryan needs is popcorn to watch our show.
“I spent all that time collecting signatures on my petition and talking to you about it,” I start, “and you couldn’t even tell me to my face that the land was never available?”
Alex shifts in his chair. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I didn’t figure you’d be able to get all those signatures…”
“I didn’t figure you’d get all those votes for class president either.”
“Damn,” Ryan says, as their teammates go, “Ooooooh!”
“I can’t believe you,” I say.
“Lulu, c’mon,” Alex replies.
“C’mon, what?” I throw my hands in the air.
“Shhhhhh!” The librarian glares at me.
“Don’t you ever care about anybody but yourself?” Alex asks.
“I do care about others. That was the whole point of a garden. Healthy food for everybody.”
“Hear, hear,” Ryan interjects. “Meatloaf Monday was the worst day of my life.”
I grin at Ryan’s joke, which makes Alex scowl.
“But what about me?” Alex says.
“What about you?” I reply. “You could eat the vegetables too if you want. Or do you not eat vegetables? Do you only drink other people’s blood?”
A tiny smile quirks on his lips, but it goes away more quickly than it appeared. He stands up from the table and begins to speak more quietly. “The batting cage is important for me.”
“Why? You can practice on that big baseball field, you know.”
“I need all the batting practice I can get, okay? I’m great at first base, but my hitting could always be better. I need to be able to hit eighty-mile-an-hour fastballs.” He pauses. “So I can get a scholarship.”
“A scholarship?”
“Yeah, my family expects me to work at their restaurant the rest of my life. I need a scholarship to go to college.”
Not going to college seems impossible. My parents have been talking about college since I could crawl. As the town dentist, my father fully expects me to find a good job, and my mother is all about girl power and thinks women should bring home just as much money as men. My sister, Lila, graduates college next year and plans to apply to law school. She’ll be a district attorney before you know it.
For me, college is the expectation.
Alex is probably overreacting. “I’m sure you’ll get to go to college,” I say. “Now back to the garden—”
He holds up a hand to stop me from talking. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Whose fault is that? You wanted to be class president so bad, but you’re always busy. You never have time to talk to me about my ideas—”
“You’re so selfish, Lulu. You only care about you and your big ideas,” he snaps, making air quotes. “I’m sorry, but the only land left is the school’s front lawn, and like that’s gonna happen,” he says sarcastically.
“There’s gotta be something we can do.”
“I can’t suddenly create more land. I’m not God.”
“You could get rid of your batting cage.”
“Gah! You never know when to shut up.”
All his boys go, “Oooooooh” again.
Alex shoulders his backpack, grabs his books from the library table, and storms off.
What an ass.
I’m so angry with Alex, and hurt that he misled me and made me look like an idiot getting all those signatures, that I skip class, ride my bike to the hardware store, and buy a heavy-duty padlock. Last period I sneak outside, lock the batting cage, and throw the key in some thick bushes. I sit up in the back of the stands.
Then the baseball team arrives for batting practice before their game against Winchester.
Alex pulls at the gate. It doesn’t open. He rattles the fence as the other players try to find a way in.
Coach Rice examines the padlock. “What the hell? Where’d this come from?”
“I guess we’ll have to warm up on the field,” says Jeremy, one of the senior captains.
Coach Rice shakes his head. “I promised Winchester they could take batting practice on the field since we have the new cage.”
“What are we supposed to do?” the captain snaps. “We have to warm up.”
“Y’all can go play catch next to the parking lot,” Coach Rice says. “Just don’t hit any cars. And unless I can find a bolt cutter, no batting practice today.”
Alex’s shoulders droop as the coach heads off toward the school, presumably to try to find bolt cutters. Alex puts on his baseball mitt and pounds his fist into it as if frustrated, and throws his head back to look at the sky. When he lowers his chin, he sees me sitting at the top of the stands. I duck my head down, but it’s too late. He saw me.
He glances at the batting cage, then back in my direction, and I can see him working out the math in his mind. “Wells?” he calls out. “Did you lock the batting cage?”
The players begin to turn my way and start shouting.
“Where’s the key?” one guy yells at me, but I can only shrug. There’s no way I could find it in those thick bushes. I wish I could, though. I’m starting to regret this…
“What a fucked-up thing to do,” one player says.
“What a weirdo,” another guy adds.
The captain comes to stand by Alex. He drops a hand on his shoulder, and speaks loudly enough for everyone to hear him, “Keep your girl problems off the field, Rouvelis.”
Alex’s face turns redder than his Red Raiders uniform.
The only player who doesn’t care is Ryan. He thinks it’s hilarious.
“Damn,” he says with a laugh. “Lulu knows how to hold a grudge.”
Today
Freshman Class Trip
“So you planned this entire field trip to get back at me for locking the batting cage?”
Alex cracks up.
“You’re such a pain in the ass.” I rotate my arm in slow circles. It’s sore from where I banged it against the glass.
Alex glances at my arm. “Is your elbow okay?”
“I think so. I might have a bruise.”
He moves closer to examine it. His brown eyes meet mine as his warm fingers brush across my skin. I’d never noticed he wears leather bands around his wrist.