The gates must have opened very early, because there were already fans in the stands when they were leaving the field. The State College public relations person, a curly haired woman in her forties, asked if she would mind stopping to sign autographs, and whether she would be willing to be interviewed by the local press, and since she had quite a lot of time to kill before the game started, she was happy to agree.
The whole thing took longer than she expected, but she and the PR woman both were mostly able to deflect any questions she didn’t feel like answering—and gradually, the reporters shifted into less stressful topics. By the time she got down to the clubhouse, the pre-game spread had been pretty well picked over, although it didn’t appear to have been at all lavish in the first place. So, she fixed herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—which was going to get boring, sooner rather than later, helped herself to a bottle of water and an orange, and sat in front of her locker to read, until it was time to change into her game uniform. Christ, being a baseball player was so much more monotonous than she ever would have guessed.
The clubhouse was pretty rowdy, with a series of highly competitive Ping-Pong games going on nonstop, and Raffy and a couple of other guys were dancing around to some very loud salsa music. But, she was really only interested in her too-late lunch and her Kindle, and paid no attention whatsoever. Maybe they’d all had one too many Red Bulls or Monster Energy drinks or something. Rip It was another brand she had noticed around the clubhouse—and around National Guardsmen, for that matter. As far as she knew, team officials didn’t really want them abusing energy drinks, but they weren’t outright banned, either. Especially since they could accomplish pretty much the same thing by getting a few shots of espresso somewhere and adding a bunch of sugar to it.
On her way to the cavernous, empty Penn State locker room, she passed Adler in the hallway, and he stopped.
“You get why I gave you a hard time last night, right?” he asked.
Maybe, but she still wasn’t in favor of it. “After two different people explained it to me,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “When you didn’t come back out, I started to worry that you might be in there crying.”
Yes, she was the most delicate of tiny flowers. But, there was no reason not to be as direct as he was. “I was on the phone with my best friend, yelling about how mean you were being,” she said.
“Glad to hear it.” He started down the hall, then stopped again. “Are you hanging in, Cafferty?”
Was she? “More or less,” she said.
“Good enough,” he said, and continued on his way.
The game that night was one of those wandering, lead-changing ones, with a lot of pitching substitutions, and an unsatisfying rhythm. Jill spent most of it up at the railing with Shosuke, both of them watching, while Shosuke kept the chart, but they also showed each other the grips they used for their pitches. He threw lots of cutters and sliders, neither of which had ever really intrigued her, because—well—she was kind of in love with her hammer. Their mostly speech-free friendship had progressed to the degree that they could amuse each other by making incredulous or judgmental expressions, upon seeing the other person’s changeup grip and the like.
In the eighth, their third baseman, Geoff, went into second base hard, trying to stretch a single—his fourth hit of the day—into a double. Somehow, one of his spikes caught on the bag, and he flipped over awkwardly, landing with most of his lower leg pointing in the wrong direction.
Louis and Sofia ran out there, along with the Spikes’ trainer—since the fact that Geoff had screamed when he hit the ground made it clear that it was a serious injury. In the end, he was taken off the field on a gurney, and left in an ambulance.
The dugout was really quiet after that, and players on both teams were swinging at first pitches, trying to end the game as quickly as possible. The early word was that Geoff had a compound fracture of both bones in his lower leg, and was gone for the rest of the season, at a bare minimum.
The post-game spread was somewhat-cold meatball and chicken parmigiana subs, and people ate without much conversation, before filing out to the bus. A few of the guys were planning to go out to some bar, but no one invited her—and it really wasn’t something she wanted to do, anyway, especially since searching for eager local female companionship was the primary goal. She was fine with going back to her room, making a few calls, and then working on War and Peace.
She was in bed reading, when Sofia came dragging in a couple of hours later, looking very tired.
“How’s he doing?” Jill asked.
Sofia shook her head. “He’s having surgery to stabilize the fractures, and it looks like he did some serious knee ligament damage, too. He has a long rehab ahead. With luck—I don’t know. They’re trying to figure out how soon he can travel, so they can get him home to Oregon.”
Somehow, it felt like an extra bitter pill, on a night when the poor guy had gone four for four, and had to have been feeling on top of the Short Season world. “It can happen that fast, can’t it,” Jill said. “One minute, everything’s great, and then, just like that—” She snapped her fingers, and winced at the thought of his bones making a similar sound.
“It’s true of life in general,” Sofia said.
Yes, she knew that all too well. In fact, she and Lauren had talked for quite a while tonight about the randomness of everything, and how—frankly—scary it was.
Sofia disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower, coming out in black mesh shorts and an Ithaca College T-shirt.
“Is that where you went to school?” Jill asked.
Sofia nodded, rubbing her hair with a towel to dry it. “Yeah. And then, I got a master’s in kinesiology at Michigan.”
“Did you always want to be a trainer?” Jill asked.
Sofia peered under the towel at her. “Do we have Twenty Questions going tonight?”
“Sure, why not,” Jill said.
“Well, I’ll do ten, maybe,” Sofia said, and carried her towel into the bathroom to hang it up. “I was aiming towards being a physical therapist, but I love sports, and played a lot of softball, and I ended up going for athletic training.” She looked over. “You never played any softball at all?”
Jill shook her head.
“Do you hate softball?” Sofia asked.
“No, I really like watching it,” Jill said. Especially since almost every female friend she’d ever had had been a player. “But, for me, it’s sort of like comparing crew and kayaking. They’re similar sports, but also totally different.”
Sofia nodded. “Okay, I can see that.”
“Would you rather have been a softball trainer?” Jill asked.
Sofia shrugged. “Softball or baseball. Or—anything, really. Except for football. I did some work as an assistant when I was in school, and those guys really get hurt. I mean, I hate what happened to Geoff tonight, but if everything goes okay, he should be able to come back, and it isn’t going to endanger his life or well-being. Football is just madness.”
Jill had often felt guilty about enjoying watching the NFL, especially when players got carted off the field right and left during every game. “My father was totally into football,” she said. “He was an outside linebacker at Holy Cross, and sometimes, he got some snaps at tight end, too.”
“Pro-level talent?” Sofia asked.
Jill shook her head. “He always said he was at least two steps too slow.” She noticed that she was holding his dog tag—her usual reflex—and dropped it back into her T-shirt.
“You don’t talk about him much,” Sofia said.
“No,” Jill said. Except, maybe that sounded too abrupt. “It’s still too hard. So—well, I try to keep it from coming up.”
Sofia nodded. “I’d love to tell you that it goes away, but my mother died when I was a junior in college, and it really doesn’t. It gets easier, over time, but it never leaves you.”
No, grief hadn’t been at all what she would have e
xpected it to be. There were still days when it felt as though it had just happened, seconds before, and she had the same chilling sense of utter shock. “I’m sorry about your mother,” Jill said.
“I’m sorry about your father,” Sofia said.
It was quiet for a minute.
“Well,” Sofia said, and picked up the room phone to request another wake-up call. She started to climb into bed, and then paused. “I don’t know if I should bring this up, but you know I’m a lesbian, right?”
She hadn’t, actually, so she just shrugged.
“Is that going to create problems for you?” Sofia asked.
And what would give her that impression? Jill frowned at her. “In what way?”
“We’ll obviously be spending a great deal of time together,” Sofia said. “A lot of people are going to think that you’re gay, too.”
Oh, please. “People already think that,” Jill said. Routinely. Constantly. They always had, and probably always would. Except, of course, for people who thought she was unusually promiscuous, and sleeping with half the guys on whatever team she was on. Old news, in her life. “What do I care?”
“Okay, but—” Sofia frowned, too. “Well, yes, I suppose they do.”
“I don’t think the notion of women playing sports should lead to any assumption of sexuality,” Jill said. “But, we both know it does. Especially when you play at a high level, and you’re tall.”
“Can’t argue with you there,” Sofia said. “But, I didn’t want to make things even harder on you than they already are.”
Which she appreciated.
“You’re a lot less irritating than I was afraid you’d be,” Sofia said.
Jill had to laugh. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said. “That’s what they all say.”
With luck.
CHAPTER 19
The next day was her bullpen day. They had her throw to the backup catcher, a guy named Ramón, who was in his third year, after spending his first two seasons in the Dominican Summer League and the Gulf Coast League. His English was pretty comprehensible, when it came to baseball terms, but he wasn’t very comfortable with regular conversations.
Marcus hovered nearby the entire time, leaning against the fence with his arms folded, even though Ramón grinned and said, “Mamá!” while making a waving-away motion with his hand.
“Stay around sixty percent, seventy-five percent max,” Sawyer said, standing close by and holding his clipboard. “We’re going to work from the stretch today, get you on a better footing. No slide-steps, though—we’ll save that for down the road.”
Jill nodded. “I’m definitely weaker from the stretch.”
“Most of you guys are,” Sawyer said. “You’re not used to having people on base, the way you will here. It’s why your pickoff move isn’t anywhere close to where it needs to be.”
He was talking to her like a pitcher. It felt good.
The session went pretty well, although he stopped her a few times, to give instructions, or adjust her position, but she actually learned things—which was great.
“Okay, nice work, Cafferty,” he said, when she was finished. “Go get fluffed, and iced, and be sure to get some cardio in.” He turned to Marcus. “We’ll sit down with Jonesy after stretch.”
During their post-BP downtime, it occurred to her that there was an easy solution to her collared shirt problem. So, she grabbed her debit card, went up to the concourse, and walked around until she found the team store. It wasn’t officially open yet, but when she knocked on the door, they were quick to let her in—and even seemed excited to do so.
They sold Penn State gear, as well as Spikes’ team items, and she left with a navy blue women’s Nittany Lions polo shirt. They had wanted to give it to her, but that didn’t seem appropriate, even though she appreciated the offer. They ended up steering her to a shirt that had been on a clearance rack, and she was fine with that.
It was probably silly, but as she left the store with her bag, she was kind of proud of herself for solving the collar problem. It was a small thing, but somehow, it felt like an adult accomplishment. In fact, she wanted to call her mother immediately, and say, “Guess what I did!”
“Hello, Jill!” a too-hearty voice said. “How are you? I was hoping to run into you. Great to see you.”
It was Aaron Marshak, a man who was so damn determined to be her agent that he didn’t seem to grasp that that made it even more unlikely ever to happen. She had gotten used to him popping up unexpectedly for the past couple of years, although it usually felt more like he was pouncing.
“Nice to see you, too, sir,” she said, and then moved past him.
“What do you have there?” he asked.
Was it any of his business? “It’s for my stuffed animal collection,” she said. Of course, she didn’t have a stuffed animal collection, but for a few seconds, she wondered if she wanted one, and she could maybe collect mascots from every ballpark the team visited, and—then what? Give them personalities? Play imaginary games with them? Cuddle them in the dark of night?
Aaron did a double take, but then seemed to try and hide that reaction. “I wish you had let me buy that for you, Jill. It would have been my pleasure.”
“Thank you, but I’m all set,” she said.
“I hope they didn’t make you pay for it,” he said. “I can go in there and speak to them about it, if you’d like.”
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said.
“You really shouldn’t be paying for much of anything anywhere,” he said. “You don’t have to anymore.”
Jill repressed a shudder—since that was surely not a world where she wanted to live.
Aaron was the kind of guy who always wore an ostentatious gold watch, and would probably love telling her how much it had cost. In fact, from his casually draped sunglasses to his polished leather shoes, she was pretty sure he could itemize the price of every single thing he had on without a second thought.
“So, are you finally ready to sit down and do the paperwork?” he asked.
The man was a walking self-delusion.
“Come on, you’re not a little girl anymore, Jill,” he said. “It’s time to step up, and get down to business.”
“Mr. Marshak—” she started.
“Aaron,” he said.
“Mr. Marshak,” she said, again. “I have a legal advisor, and that’s all I need right now.”
Aaron shook his head, and she was afraid he might be going to sling his arm around her, so she took two steps backward, out of reach.
“You only say that because you don’t fully understand what I can do for you,” he said.
“I’m really not looking to cash in, sir,” she said.
He moved his hand dismissively. “Don’t be a fool. You have stratospheric earning potential. In fact, I have a global strategy to monetize your career, and I’d like to lay it out for you.”
“I appreciate your interest, Mr. Marshak,” she said, “but I’m really not—”
“You always say that, but this is the time for us to bring all of this to fruition,” he said. “Not tomorrow, not next year, not five years from now. Today. You can’t just be a child and stick your head in the sand and pretend it isn’t there.”
She wanted to look around and see if there were any nearby security guards or ballpark personnel to run interference—but, she could take care of this herself, right? Even though it was stressful. “Sir, I don’t know how to put this,” she said, “but I really don’t want an agent, and if I did, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be picking you.”
He stared at her. “What?”
How would it be possible to be more clear than that? “I’m sorry, but if I decide, at any point, that I want representation, it’ll be someone else,” she said. Anyone else—up to, and including, Batty-Oscar, the bat-fetching dog.
His expression darkened so much that it was an effort not to back up a few more steps. But, instead, she folded her arms and held her ground.
&nb
sp; “You unbelievable bitch,” he said through his teeth. “Don’t you have any idea how much work I’ve already done for you? I’ve been laying the groundwork for your future for months now. Years, really.”
Without ever noticing that she hadn’t actually hired him? And didn’t take his calls? “I’m sorry if you went to any unnecessary effort, sir,” she said.
He scowled at her. “Your fastball’s nothing special, you know. I would have been wasting my time, anyway. Your only hope is to cash in now, before everyone else figures it out.”
Nice guy. A prince, even. “Well, let’s hope no one catches on,” she said, and headed towards the clubhouse.
The next two games were uneventful, other than her spending the second one leaning against the railing—with her very own clipboard—and charting pitches. It was harder than she expected, and she had to ask Jonesy for advice a few times, and also switch from a pen to a pencil, because she kept making tiny mistakes. Since she would be pitching against an entirely different team, it wasn’t going to help her learn much about the hitters, but she could see that it was a good way to improve her concentration—and quietly absorb the way other pitchers worked, and what was, and wasn’t, successful.
They were back at the motel just before ten o’clock, and most of the team seemed to be planning to go out and take advantage of being in a college town, where potentially dateable young women were easy to find. She assumed that the availability of said women was why several players had seemed more than slightly hungover during the past couple of days.
It was easy enough to slip out of sight, and go to her room, without anyone really noticing. Hector did shout, “Come on, Ladybug, come paint the town with us!”, but she just smiled and said, “Thanks, maybe next time.”
If nothing else, she was making excellent progress with War and Peace lately.
Before settling down, she went out to the hall to get ice, where she found Scott buying a couple of drinks from a soda machine.