Chase meets me the rest of the way up the sidewalk. I don’t think I realized how tall he is, more than a head taller than me. I’m used to looking down at T.J., not up like this. “He had to help his dad finish some big lawn job in Ashland, I guess.”
“Well, thanks again.” I’m not sure whether to go back in or wait until he leaves.
“Anyway,” Chase says, “he felt pretty bad about you missing your driving lesson and all. So I thought maybe I could stand in for him?”
“Wait. Did T.J. put you up to this?”
Chase grins, showing straight white teeth. “No. But I got the feeling he thinks you can use all the lessons you can get. I figure this will square me with T.J. for good.”
“You must have owed him big-time.” I wait for Chase to fill in the blanks.
“Okay,” he says at last. “But don’t tell T.J. I told you. In the Lodi game last year, he didn’t just talk Coach into letting me pitch. He pretended he hurt his arm so Coach would have to put me in.”
“Why would he do that? I didn’t think you guys were that tight. It doesn’t even sound like something he’d do.”
Chase seems to be studying our cracked sidewalk. Then he says, “T.J. overheard my dad and me arguing in the locker room. Dad thought I wasn’t working hard enough and that was why I wasn’t getting to pitch. It was a pretty big blowup. T.J. walked in on it.”
Now things are starting to make more sense. T.J.’s probably never fought with his dad. He would have wanted to fix things for Chase, no matter who he was.
“It was T.J.’s idea,” Chase says. “But I went along with it. I threw a horrible couple of innings, but it got my foot in the door. He’s right. I do owe him.”
“And teaching me to drive lets you off the hook?”
He nods again. “Not just off the hook… but out of the house. To be honest, I’m grateful for an excuse to get away from my dad for a while. But listen, Hope, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. If this is, like, your and T.J.’s thing, I don’t want to get in the way of that. I make it a rule never to mess up a relationship.”
For a second, I don’t know what he means. Then I get it. “T.J. and me? We’re friends. It’s not a ‘relationship.’ Not like you mean anyway.” I laugh a little, picturing last Sunday’s driving lesson, when T.J. vowed he was quitting. “I’m a terrible driver. I wouldn’t be surprised if T.J. made up the whole story about helping his dad so he didn’t have to go through another driving lesson with me.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m just kidding, except for the part about me being a terrible driver. I don’t think I’ve gotten any better either.” I glance at his car. It’s reflecting sunlight so bright I have to squint. Did he wash it overnight? “Even if I agreed to let you waste your time trying to teach me to drive, I couldn’t do that to your dad’s car.”
“Yeah, you could,” he says, dangling the keys in front of me. “I’ll have you driving by midday.” His smile fades. “And there’s something I want to talk to you about anyway.”
He heads for the car, and I follow him. “What?”
“Later,” he says. “It’s about the trial.”
“The trial?” I can’t believe he’s the one bringing up Jer’s trial. Good ol’ T.J. His crazy plan might be paying off already.
“What about the trial?”
“Not yet,” he says, motioning for me to get in the other side. “I promise. Drive first, talk later.”
16
When Chase and I get to the high school, we’re the only car in the parking lot. T.J. and I picked this spot because there’s nothing you can hit here, except a big tree a few yards to the east, and the school, of course, but it’s half a football field away. Good thing. My driving performance has never been worse. Chase makes me more nervous than T.J. does, even though he doesn’t scream at me.
“Give it some more gas,” Chase says, watching my feet. “Gas. That’s the one on your right.”
“Gotcha.” I press the pedal, and the car lurches forward, so I slam on the brakes with both feet.
“You really haven’t driven, like, at all, have you?” he says.
“I told you I haven’t.”
He laughs and makes me circle the lot until I’m dizzy. Then he has me change directions and drive in more circles “to unwind.”
I’m not sure how long we do this-longer than T.J. and I usually last-but eventually I’m not horrible. I can flick on the turn signal and make the car turn, and I can stop without dashing our heads through the windshield.
“Not bad,” Chase says. “Let’s take a break. Pull up under that tree on the edge of the lot.”
It’s the one shady spot in sight. “Are you sure? I could hit the tree, you know.”
“Are you kidding? I promised I’d have you driving by midday, and I never break a promise.”
I remember what he said about his dad breaking promises. Apparently, promises are big deals to him. If Rita makes a promise-to quit smoking or drinking or whatever-I don’t even pay attention.
When I pull up exactly where I’m supposed to, Chase gives me a thumbs-up. Then he reaches into the backseat and brings out a cooler. “I’m hungry. How about you?”
We set up on a wool blanket by the big tree. Chase hands me a peanut butter sandwich and an ice-cold bottle of root beer. It feels like a real picnic. Jer and I used to go on picnics when we lived in Oklahoma. I can’t remember why we stopped.
“I love root beer.” I take a deep swig from the bottle and try to think of the last time I had one.
“Told you we were alike,” he says. “I even took my shower last night instead of this morning.”
I laugh. “Doesn’t count. It was already morning when you left my house.”
“You’re right.”
While we eat our sandwiches, we talk about schools, his and mine. He asks about Jeremy, and I tell him about the time we let them keep Jer in a hospital, on a mental ward, overnight. “It took Jer a month to get over it. Rita thought it would do him some good. I knew better, but I went along.” I fight off the images of my brother the day we brought him home-Jeremy without his energy, sitting in a heap wherever I parked him.
Chase talks about running, the “high” he gets running hard, alone.
Before I realize it, I’ve eaten my whole sandwich. “I still can’t believe you made sandwiches. What if I hadn’t come along for the lesson?”
“I’d have eaten both sandwiches,” he answers. “I needed to stay out of the house until my dad left for work. He and I can use a little distance.” He wads up his napkin and wipes his mouth.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it? Did your dad find out you were with T.J. and me last night?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a cop thing. He doesn’t like the idea of relatives of the defense fraternizing with relatives of the prosecution.”
“Fraternizing?” I can’t help grinning at that one. “I’m not sure I’ve ever fraternized before. Is this it?”
“Apparently so. Yes.”
I lean against the tree and let the bark dig into my shoulders. I don’t mind.
Chase pitches his trash into the cooler and leans back next to me. The tree trunk is big enough so our arms don’t touch, but I feel him there. “Okay. Let’s talk,” he says.
I know what he means. I’ve been waiting for him to tell me what he said he would, promised he would, about the trial.
“So, tell me.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about your brother’s case,” he begins. A leaf falls, spinning in front of us until it brushes the grass and tumbles to a stop. He scoots around to face me. “Okay. Hear me out on this, Hope. I think we need to keep in mind that it’s not up to us, to you, to prove who really murdered Coach.”
Disappointment begins as a slow burn in my chest, rising up through vessels and veins. I thought Chase understood. He doesn’t. Fine. I’ll do it with T.J., or I’ll do it myself. I wasn’t counting on his help anyway.
As if he’s reading my mind, he holds up one finger. “Hang on. I know that’s what you want, to prove somebody else murdered Coach. But it can’t be easy to prove murder. I mean, even if you know who did it, it’s a whole different thing proving it. I don’t think even you could pull that off, Hope. But here’s the good part. You don’t have to. All you have to do is create reasonable doubt. And people doubt just about everything. That’s what I’ve been thinking.”