The Saint by Kathleen O`Brien Page B

him. That he was tired and trapped and sick of the whole thing.
    But how could Coach help? Coach had been born one of the big boys. He practically owned Heyday,as his father had before him. He had no idea what it felt like to be on the outside, straining to get in.
    Besides, he was so damn straitlaced. Everyone around here called him the Saint. He’d never allow the paper-selling thing to go on—and he’d never let Eddie get away unpunished.
    â€œEddie?”
    Eddie hesitated, still unsure. Yes, telling Coach would be suicide, but at least it would be over. The temptation was almost irresistible. It would be a relief if someone like Coach could just force him to stop, since he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself.
    But in the end he didn’t have the courage. He didn’t have the nerve to see Coach’s face when he realized Eddie was a scumball. He didn’t want Coach to withdraw his offer to bring Eddie onto the team.
    And he definitely didn’t have the guts to give up the hope that someday Binky Potter would say yes. Maybe even tonight. They had a movie date at eight, and if he didn’t get started mowing those lawns soon he’d be late. When they went to the movies, she liked to tease him, sucking slick popcorn butter from his fingers one by one till he nearly died.
    No way could he give that up.
    â€œEddie?” Coach’s voice was tighter now. Really concerned. “You can tell me. What’s wrong?”
    â€œWrong? What could be wrong?” Eddie stood up again and tossed Coach a smile as fake as anything Cullen Overton had ever produced. “Life’s sweet, man. Sweet.”
    Â 
    K IERAN WAS DOG TIRED , and he would have given anything he owned to be able to take a long hotshower, order a sloppy pizza, open a freezing cold beer and spend the evening in front of the TV.
    Instead, he had to dress up in a penguin suit and go next door to Aurora York’s house, where he would spend three hours pretending he gave a damn who was elected Heyday’s next parade Ringmaster and Ringmistress. Even worse, he might well be nominated himself, which would mean he’d have to pretend to be delighted.
    Frankly, he wasn’t sure he had “delighted” left in his bag of tricks tonight. It had been a very long day.
    He did take the shower. That wasn’t optional, not after standing in the sun all morning helping teenagers wash cars. And he got the beer, too. That wasn’t optional, either, not after having spent the entire afternoon listening to the Heyday Historical Society bitch about Larry Millegrew, a newly arrived artist who had dared to paint his house orange.
    Kieran didn’t know how he’d stopped himself from laughing. When had this town become so darn snooty? Pretty ironic for a town that got its jump-start because of a drunken circus animal trainer to begin having apoplexy at the sight of an orange house. “Gray and white,” Dolly Jenkins had kept repeating at today’s meeting, sounding weak with shock. “Gray and white. Anything else is just vulgar!”
    But what did they want Kieran to do about it, anyhow? He had inherited a lot of the property around here, but his dad’s estate wasn’t even probated yet, and besides, this wasn’t feudal England. He couldn’t exactly throw Mr. Millegrew in the dungeon and commandeer his absurd orange house.
    Kieran tossed his towel on the bed and, still yearning for the pizza he couldn’t have, he reluctantly began to assemble his tux. He hated parties. This must be one of the ways in which he took after his mother, who everyone said had been a quiet, unassuming woman. She’d died when Kieran was born, so he knew her only as a wispy, smiling face in a small watercolor painting on the living-room wall.
    He certainly didn’t take after his dad, who even at seventy had been all strong, primary colors, all great bold strokes in oil, like the portrait of him