7 Days at the Hot Corner Read Free Page B

the chair, I take over the little cotton ball that Dorothy presses against the pinprick. It stings a little, but nothing too bad; now for the scary part. I take a deep breath and ask, “Can you look at it right away? I’d like to get the results before I leave.”
    Dorothy half smiles and says, “I’m sorry, but it takes five business days to get the results back.”
    â€œWhat!” I hear my voice get loud, almost yelling. I quickly do the math. “Today is Tuesday. If it takes five business days, doesn’t that mean—Monday! Monday before I’ll have the results?” I say, still in a loud voice. “Counting the rest of today, Monday is seven days away! The tournament will be over by then!”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Dorothy says.
    I don’t say anything. I am stunned.
    Dorothy looks at me sympathetically. “I know that these seven days are going to feel like years, but here in Spokane there’s just no way for us to do the test any faster. I’m sorry.”
    I take a couple of deep, slow breaths so that I won’t get dizzy again. “Seven days,” I say softly to Dorothy.
    â€œCounting today, yes,” she says, “but I’m sure the news will be good.”
    It’s the only time I feel that Dorothy has lied to me. Not that she doesn’t believe the test will be all right—I don’t think that’s a lie—but for her to say she’s “sure” it will be okay just isn’t true. Not knowing is why people have to take the test. Only the test can make anybody sure.
    And the test takes seven days!
    Ahhhhh!! All I ever wanted to do was play baseball, and now I’m trapped at a hot corner that’s real different than just playing third base.
    How did my life change so quickly? Everything was so good, and then blam!
    It started two weeks ago.
    That’s when Travis Adams moved out of his parents’ house and in with my dad and me. He wouldn’t say exactly what it was his folks were so upset about that he’d had to leave their home. He seemed pretty upset himself. He showed up at our door on a Thursday night at about eight o’clock with a suitcase. He asked Dad if he could stay with us.
    â€œFor tonight?” my dad asked, not so much inviting Travis in as getting out of the way; I can’t remember the last time Travis rang the doorbell at our house.
    â€œYeah, for tonight,” Travis answered Dad. “Tonight and maybe some more nights too.”
    â€œDo your parents know you’re here?” Dad asked.
    â€œYep,” Travis said, looking away from Dad, down at the floor.
    Dad said, “You’re always welcome, Trav.”
    I know that later the same evening Travis’s dad, Roy, phoned my dad and they talked about what was going on, and that Travis’s parents said Travis had their permission to stay with us “for the time being.” Actually, because he’s seventeen years old, Travis can live pretty much anywhere he wants—that’s the law in Washington State—but I knew he didn’t leave his parents’ house on his own, and my dad wouldn’t tell me more.
    A couple of times since he moved in, I tried to get Travis to talk about what was going on, but he kept saying, “It’s kind of private. I’d rather not discuss it.”
    That was enough to shut me up. But my curiosity had been killing me. I’ve known Roy and Rita Adams, Travis’s parents, for as long as I’ve known him. They’re really nice people. When my parents got divorced I was seven, and I’d just met Travis; his parents became real important to me—the whole family did. I was too young back then to talk much about how I felt about my parents’ divorce—in fact, to this day, I’ve still never talked about it with Dad or Mom. What’s the point? Yakking about it won’t change anything. But the divorce was hard—real