the fryer or has bubbling on a burner. “One of his Clint Specials. Hope you like barbecue with your fried fish. If you want something else, just knock him over the head.”
I’m grateful for her casual words—they hit the air like a shrug of the shoulders that says the past few seconds were no big deal at all. But when the phone rings and she mumbles, “Busy tonight,” I get all knotted inside, knowing I’m about to be left alone with Clint—and I’ve just offended him horribly.
But it’s not even like I really thought he was going to try to make some kind of move on me. It’s just that I was trying to help him. I mean, he didn’t look like he wanted to encourage his mother in thinking we were going to have some sort of summer romance. You’d think he’d be grateful.
“Come on,” Clint growls as he scoops up our dinner plates.
I follow him out of the kitchen into the dining room. It’s pretty clear that Clint’s something of a local celebrity himself, the way eyes don’t just brighten but illuminate when he passes. Only makes sense, with his parents owning what’s probably the coolest restaurant in Baudette, I think.
Kenzie’s sitting at a table near the small platform that serves as a stage. Brandon’s obviously convinced Clint’s friends to let him play, and he and Greg wrestle with the amp, which fills the platform almost like a pro football player would fill a kindergartner’s chair. Todd’s left his drums for the moment and is leaning close to Kenzie as he talks, working overtime to get her attention. Kenzie’s head swivels as she watches Clint snake his way between tables; Clint’s oblivious, though.
The red brick walls we walk by are photo albums, filled with black-and-white framed images of turn-of-the-century life at the Baudette bank: women in buns, with skirts long enough to trail the floor, tellers with their faces hidden by those old-fashioned visors. But near the emergency exit, the bank portraits give way to hockey pictures. Indoor arenas with stands full of fans. Pond games with pines lining the shore, their top limbs looking like celebratory fists that pump the air.
The frame closest to the back door holds a close-up of a boy’s face, a sweaty black fringe of hair dangling toward his eyes, his white-toothed smile shining. Pads on his shoulders, a rink in the background. It’s Clint, obviously. As I stare, I remember the hand-painted signs that had hovered over the crowd during my last game. I glance at Clint, thinking maybe that’s the kind of celebrity he is. Clint Morgan, Pride of Baudette.
Even with his hands full, Clint manages to open the metal door and we step onto a cracked slab of concrete. Some sort of old patio, probably where the wait staff takes their smoke breaks. A couple of wrought-iron chairs and some overgrown weeds line the area; early summer fireflies are beginning to dance above the spindly green stalks of weeds like lonesome boys looking for something beautiful and shiny to flash back at them. Lovers looking for someone to love.
Clint puts the two plates down on an old table—the kind of thing that belongs on somebody’s back deck—and reaches for one of the rusty chairs. I take a step toward the table, but stop short when I realize I’m being watched by someone extraordinarily tall—
Make that something extraordinarily tall, looming on the far side of the cracked patio—a wooden pole, an orange metal hoop, a dirty white backboard. The ratty, soiled remnants of a rotten net dangle from the rim. My heart starts to pound inside my ears, making the same sound as a basketball whacking a concrete floor.
“What’s this?” I ask, putting a hand on my hip, right above the metal plate.
“Been so long you don’t recognize it?” Clint asks. While I stand there stuttering, he dips back inside.
I’m left there alone, blinking up at the towering monstrosity that slices through the warm glow of twilight to cast a cold shadow across my face. I shut my eyes, squeezing my lids the same way I might during some extra-gory scene in a blood bath on late-night cable.
Only when I open my eyes, the hoop is still looming, frighteningly. The terrifying scene has yet to end.
Inside, the band kicks into gear. Brandon’s bass lines thunder through the brick, into the warmth of early evening. And that hoop is still casting the shadow of everything I’ve lost across my skin.
I’m ravenous, suddenly—not