They dug deeper, ran into rounded sandstone boulders. Over the eons Santiago Creek had wandered over the alluvial slopes tailing out of the Santa Ana Mountains, and it seemed all of El Modena had been the streambed at one time or another, because they found these stones everywhere. The pace was casual; this was town work, and so was best regarded as a party, to avoid irritation at the inefficiency. In El Modena they were required to do ten hours a week of town work, and so there were opportunities for vast amounts of irritation. They had gotten good at taking it less than seriously.
Kevin said, “Hey, where’s Ramona?”
Doris looked up. “Didn’t you hear?”
“No, what?”
“She and Alfredo broke up.”
This got the attention of everyone in earshot. Some stopped and came over to get the story. “He’s moved out of the house, on to Redhill with his partners.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No. I guess they’ve been fighting a lot more lately. That’s what everyone at their house says. Anyway, Ramona went for a walk this morning.”
“But the game!” Kevin said.
Doris jabbed her shovel into dirt an inch from his toe. “Kevin, did it ever occur to you that there are more important things than softball?”
“Well sure,” he said, looking dubious at the proposition.
“She said she’d be back in time for the game.”
“Good,” Kevin said, then saw her expression and added quickly, “Too bad, though. Really too bad. Quite a surprise, too.”
He thought about Ramona Sanchez. Single for the first time since ninth grade, in fact.
Doris saw the look on his face and turned her back on him. Her stocky brown legs were dusty below green nylon shorts; her sleeveless tan shirt was sweaty and smudged. Straight black hair swung from side to side as she attacked the ground. “Help me with this rock,” she said to Kevin sharply, back still to him. Uncertainly he helped her move yet another water-rounded blob of sandstone.
“Well, if it isn’t the new council at work,” said an amused baritone voice above them.
Kevin and Doris looked up to see Alfredo Blair himself, seated on his mountain bike. The bright titanium frame flashed in the sun. Without thinking Kevin said, “Speak of the devil.”
“Well,” Doris said, with a quick warning glance at Kevin, “if it isn’t the new mayor at leisure.”
Alfredo grinned rakishly. He was a big handsome man, black-haired, moustached, clear clean lines to his jaw, nose, forehead. It was hard to imagine that just the day before he had moved out of a fifteen-year relationship.
“Good luck in your game today,” he said, in a tone that implied they would need it, even though they were only playing the lowly Oranges. Alfredo’s team the Vanguards and their team the Lobos were perpetual rivals; before today this had always been a source of jokes, as Ramona was on the Lobos. Now Kevin wasn’t sure what it was. Alfredo went on: “I’m looking forward to when we get to play you.”
“We’ve got work to do, Alfredo,” Doris said.
“Don’t let me stop you. Town work benefits everyone.” He laughed, biked off. “See you at the council meeting!” he yelled over his shoulder.
They went back to work.
“I hope when we play them we beat the shit out of them,” Kevin said.
“You always hope that.”
“True.”
Kevin and Alfredo had grown up on the same street, and had shared many classes in school, including the class assigned to debate the proposition. So they were old friends, and Kevin had had many opportunities to watch Alfredo operate in the world, and he knew well that his old friend was a very admirable person—smart, friendly, popular, energetic, successful. Good at everything; everything came easily to him and everyone liked him.
But it was too nice a day to let the thought of Alfredo wreck it.
Besides, Alfredo and Ramona had broken up. Obscurely cheered by the thought, Kevin hauled a boulder up into a hopper.
When they stopped for lunch they were about eye-level with the old surface of the intersection, which was now a chaotic field of craters, pocked by trenches and treadmarks, with wheelbarrows and dumpsters all over. Kevin squinted at the sight and grinned. “This is gonna make one hell of a softball diamond.”
After lunch the spring softball season began. Players biked into Santiago Park from all directions, bats over handlebars, and they fell collectively into time-honored patterns; for softball is a ritual activity, and the approach to ritual is also ritualized. Feet were shoved into stiff cleats, gloves were slipped on, and they walked out onto the green grass field and played catch in groups of two and three, the big balls floating back and forth, making a dreamy knitwork of white lines in the air.
The umpires were running their chalk wheelbarrows up the foul lines when Ramona Sanchez coasted to the third base side and dumped her bike. Long legs, wide shoulders, Hispanic coloring, black hair…. The rest of the Lobos greeted her happily, relieved to see her, and she smiled and said, “Hi, guys,” in almost her usual way; but everyone could see she wasn’t herself.
Ramona was one of those people who always have a bright smile and a cheery tone of voice. Doris for one found it exasperating. “She’s a biological optimist,” Doris would grouse, “it isn’t even up to her. It’s something in her blood chemistry.”
“Wait a second,” Hank would object, “you’re the one always talking about values—shouldn’t optimism be the result of will? I mean, blood chemistry?”
And Doris would reply that optimism might indeed be an act of will, but that good looks, intelligence and great athletic skill no doubt helped to make it a rather small one; and these qualities were all biological, even if they weren’t blood chemistry.
Anyway, the sight of Ramona on this day was a disturbing thing: an unhappy optimist. Even Kevin, who started to play catch with her with the full intention of behaving normally, thus giving her a break from unwanted sympathy, was unnerved by how subdued she seemed. He felt foolish trying to pretend all was well, and since she ignored his pretense he just caught and threw, warming her up.
Judging by the hard flat trajectory of her throws, she was considerably warm already. Ramona Sanchez had a good arm; in fact, she was a gun. Once Kevin had seen one of her rare wild throws knock a spoke cleanly out of the wheel of a parked bike, without moving the rest of the bike an inch. She regularly broke the leather ties in first basemen’s gloves, and once or twice had broken fingers as well. Kevin had to pay close attention to avoid a similar fate, because the ball jumped across the space between them almost instantaneously. A real gun. And not in a good mood.
So they threw in silence, except for the leather smack of the glove. There was a certain companionableness about it, Kevin felt—a sort of solidarity expressed. Or so he hoped, since he couldn’t think of anything to say. Then the umpires called for the start of the game, and he walked over and stood beside her as she sat and jammed on her cleats. She did it with such violence that it seemed artificial not to notice, so Kevin said, hesitantly, “I heard about you and Alfredo.”
“Uh huh,” she said, not impressed.
“I’m sorry.”
Briefly she twisted her mouth down. That’s how unhappy I would be if I let myself go, the look said. Then the stoic look returned and she shrugged, stood, bent over to stretch her legs. The backs of her thighs banded, muscles clearly visible under smooth brown skin.
They walked back to the bench, where their teammates were swinging bats. The team captains gave line-up cards to the scorer. All activity began to spiral down toward the ritual; more and more that was not part of it fell away and disappeared, until when one team took the field—first basemen rolling grounders to the infielders, pitcher taking practice tosses, outfielders throwing fly balls around—everything extraneous to the ritual was gone. Kevin, the first batter of the new year, walked up to the plate, adrenaline spiking through him. Players called out something encouraging to him or the pitcher, and the umpire cried “Play ball!”