Blake Pitch's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Blake was still holding the finance officer's call in his head when Lovelie showed him her phone. The grandmother who had spoken at home plate was talking to the reporter again. A fresh complaint. The signal at her corner still blinked yellow. The crew had skipped her block for the next job. If it ran, the story would flip from overdue to broken promise overnight. "She won't take my call," Blake said. "She'll take his," Lovelie said. "Send someone she believes." Blake thought of the Little League coach from the east side. The man had run the same team for years and never missed a season. Half the block had played for him. Blake called him first. Coach Mike Henderson met him at the grandmother's gate an hour later. He wore a cap and a whistle he hadn't taken off. He studied Blake a moment before he spoke. "You skipped her corner," Henderson said. "She's not wrong." "I know." "Then don't tell her she's wrong." Henderson went up the steps and knocked. The grandmother opened the door, saw the cap, and let them both in. The reporter's number sat open on the table beside her. Blake didn't make an excuse. He pulled out his phone and called the contractor on speaker, in front of her. He moved her signal to the top of the list. Start date Monday. The contractor confirmed it and read the corner back. The grandmother listened. She didn't soften yet. "I heard that before," she said. Henderson spoke once. "He fixed my field. The lights work now. He did it before he needed the vote." He didn't say more. Blake set a framed photo on her table. Two pictures, side by side. Her corner last year, cracked and dark. Her corner next to it after a crew painted and paved, taken from a block that had already been done. "This is what Monday looks like," he said. "Same corner." She picked it up and held it a long time. Then Blake carried in the basket he'd brought from the car, fruit and greens stacked high, grown off a farm outside town. It was small and he knew it. He set it by the door anyway. "That doesn't fix the corner," she said. "No. The crew Monday fixes the corner. That's me saying I made you wait and I shouldn't have." She set her phone face-down. She didn't call the reporter. "Monday," she said. "I'll be watching from that window." Outside, Henderson stopped at the gate. "You bought one block," he said. "There's forty more like her." Blake drove home with the save intact and the reporter quiet. The story held. But the contractor's confirmation ran through his head. He had just promised another start date, on the same reserve fund the finance officer swore was already spent. He had bought the week. He had not found the money.