The signing ceremony was going to be a huge media deal, and the plan was for her to go home and pack everything she would need for the rest of the summer, since after that, she would be heading directly up to the team’s Class A Short Season affiliate in Pomeroy, New York.
They got back to Rhode Island the day after graduation, which was a little disappointing, but at least she had been able to avoid making excuses not to drink or anything, at what her friends assured her had been truly epic post-ceremony parties. Lauren kindly described the parties as being only modestly epic, at best, but the Snapchats Jill had seen indicated otherwise.
Being out of town had thrown off her workouts and throwing schedule. So, it was a relief to go for a run with Greg, as though life was still normal. They did about five miles all around the Pier. It was raining and foggy, so the beach was mostly empty, other than a few dogged surfers.
“I’m really going to miss this,” she said, as they ran easily towards Narrow River, where the inlet connected to the ocean. When they were doing serious workouts, they plowed through loose sand, but today, they were staying on the hard-packed stuff near the water’s edge.
“The beach, or me?” he asked.
Both. “The beach,” she said. “Although I might think of you occasionally.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I knew all of this was going to go to your head.”
Yes, she was very weak.
“A bunch of us were figuring we might road-trip to your first game,” he said.
They had reached the river now, and circled back.
“It’s probably going to be a madhouse,” she said. “It might be better to come when things die down a little, and I can actually spend time with you guys.”
“And when you’ll be starting to get wicked homesick,” he said.
Well, yeah, that, too. She nodded sheepishly.
They had left their gear at Greg’s house, so they ran there to get it, and then drove up to the high school. And, just the way they always had, they spent some time playing catch—both baseball and football. With the baseball, they gradually moved from about twenty-five feet apart to maybe a hundred and fifty, and then back in again. Easy tossing, just getting their arms loose. When they switched to the football, they started by throwing it back and forth to warm up. Then, Jill ran a few patterns—slants, crossing routes, posts, and whatever else he wanted—while he threw from three-step and five-step drops. The rain never really let up, but it was warm enough so that it felt pleasant.
“I’m thinking I need some Del’s,” Greg said.
The absolute best lemonade on the face of the earth, especially when it was prepared with lots of pieces of fresh lemon left behind in the frozen mixture. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “We definitely need Del’s.” Something else she was really going to miss.
When he drove her home, they sat in the car for a while, drinking their Del’s. Well, slurping, really.
Since there obviously had never been anything romantic between them, she sometimes forgot how good-looking he was. Dark curly hair, bright blue eyes, and one of those rugged jawlines, which pretty much begged to be touched.
“You’re too handsome for your own damn good,” she said.
Greg laughed. “Yeah, those Amherst boys are going to fall for me right and left.”
In fact, they probably would.
“You really don’t want a big send-off?” he asked. “Because people would be up for a total blow-out party or something.”
She shook her head. “Everything seems too big lately. Lauren’s going to come over tonight and help me pack. You can come, too.”
“Nah, that sounds like chick stuff to me,” he said. “I’m too manly for such things.”
She would refrain from mentioning that he had been the one who thought they should all go for pedicures during their pre-prom preparations. The prom itself hadn’t been much fun, since her date had ended up being Theo’s tallest suite mate, a very nice—and very boring—guy named Rakesh. They hadn’t been at all attracted to each other, although they had tried to pretend otherwise—for about ten minutes—and then, he spent half the night telling her about some EECS—electrical engineering and computer science—major named Maribeth, who he was trying to get up the nerve to ask out.
“When are you leaving for the airport?” Greg asked.
“Around six,” she said. “It’s a pretty early flight, so I can be there for, you know, the unveiling.” Otherwise known as a press conference.
He nodded. “Okay. Text me when you’re getting ready to head out, and I’ll come over to say good-bye.”
Greg was a morning person, anyway, so she decided not to feel guilty about him getting up early. “Thanks,” she said. She started to climb out of the car, then leaned over to give him a tight hug. “I’m really going to miss you.”
“Mutual,” he said gruffly.
Which, by his standards, was outrageously sentimental.
Dinner with her mother and Theo was quiet—but, in a good way. Her mother had made a bunch of her favorite foods—baked chicken with a creamy mushroom sauce, rice, roasted beets, carrots with honey and dill, a tomato and fresh mozzarella salad, and a batch of butterscotch brownies from her maternal grandmother’s recipe. Theo even made the big sacrifice, and didn’t bring his phone to the table.
“Oh, someone’s cravenly looking for another endorsement offer,” he said, when she poured herself a big glass of milk.
“Healthy teeth and strong bones,” Jill said.
“Think they would put you in a little milkmaid costume?” Theo asked.
“No, it’ll be a baseball uniform, with the cap turned sideways, braids, and freckles drawn on her face,” her mother said.
Milk ad campaign, a la Pippi Longstocking. Jill laughed. “That was a joke, Mom. Did you do it on purpose?”
“I think I did,” her mother said. “I’ll have to try not to let it happen again.”
For a moment, they were all amused, but then, there was one of the familiar awful silences, which fell whenever they had a reminder that the three of them were still trying to figure out how to be a normal family again.
Because, before her father died, her mother had been funny. Often.
“Dad would have thought this was so cool,” Theo said. “He’d love the whole baseball thing, and he’d be talking about his plucky little princess and all.”
Exactly the phrase he would have goofily used, too. “I like this kid, when he’s not on his phone,” Jill said to no one in particular.
Theo grinned. “He’d be laughing his head off, about a lot of this. And he would go through all the online stuff, so the rest of us wouldn’t have to.”
Yeah, her father had always spent time in the evenings wandering widely around the Internet, and at breakfast the next day, he would be full of unexpected fun facts of various kinds. Sporadic access, except for occasional emails and Skype sessions, had probably been a very frustrating aspect of being deployed for him.
She and Theo both looked at their mother, to see how she was reacting.
“It would certainly be easier,” her mother said, after a minute. “But, I think that as long as the three of us stick together, we can muddle through it pretty well.”
Versions of which, she had been saying for years now, although most of the time, it felt as though they hadn’t made nearly enough progress, when it came to moving forward. So, Jill felt herself tensing, even though she wasn’t completely sure why.
“I’ll tell you what, I am like a saint to be going along to Pittsburgh with you guys,” Theo said.
Jill let her breath out, and saw her mother do the same.
“Have phone, will travel,” he said.
Jill helped herself to another brownie. “So, it’ll be sort of like having you there with us.”
“You can think of me as a portable hologram version of myself,” he said.
Probably too true to be funny—but, she still laughed.
“Maybe you can look up briefly, if
they take a family photo,” her mother said.
Theo thought about that, and then nodded. “Briefly. But, that’s it.”
“We’ll take what little we can get, then,” their mother said.
When they were finished eating, Jill offered to help with the dishes—but, Lauren showed up with absolutely ideal timing, and they were able to escape upstairs to pack, instead.
“Did I get you out of the dishes?” Lauren asked, taking the stairs very carefully on her crutches.
Impeccably so. Jill nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”
They were about two-thirds of the way up, and Lauren paused.
“You don’t have to stay right behind me,” she said, more than faintly testy.
“You don’t have to get mad that I’m backing you up, just in case,” Jill said, maybe a little testy herself.
Lauren sighed. “Okay. It just gets really old, you know?”
One of the things that had surprised Jill the most about watching her recuperate for so many months was how relentless the ups and downs were. Progress one day, setback the next—over and over again. It was exhausting to watch, and she never wanted to know what it was like to go through something like that.
“I also just docked you five points,” Lauren said.
Jill grinned. They had a long-standing joke that Lauren—who loved numbers—was keeping track of everything Jill did, good or bad, and was, presumably, carrying a running total in her head. Which, Jill sometimes suspected, Lauren actually was doing.
Maggie was making her careful way up the stairs, too—and didn’t seem to mind at all when Jill hovered next to her, and helped her here and there. Then, once they were in her room, Maggie curled up on the rug with a comfortable sigh.
“You’re probably going to miss her more than the rest of us put together,” Lauren said.
Quite possibly, yeah. Jill nodded, and reached down to pat her.
She had already packed her baseball gear, because it was the easiest to assemble. The Pirates had given her an official team bag, and she had half-filled it with equipment, leaving room for whatever else she was going to be issued along the way. But, the basics were already in there. Cleats, turf shoes, running shoes. Regular glove for practice, her gamer, and a new one she was breaking in. Compression shorts, shirts and sleeves, a Narragansett Mariners cap, some sports bras—and so on. She had also tucked a small, empty knapsack inside, to use on the long bus rides she was already dreading. Her mother had pointed out that she was going to be lugging her stuff around a lot, and that less was absolutely going to be better than more, when it came to packing.
Lauren handed her the drugstore bag she had toted up the stairs, despite the crutches. “Here. These should be a good start.”
Jill sat down on the bed next to a pile of clothes and opened the bag to find a little manicure set and three bottles of nail polish—purple glitter, bright neon pink, and a splashy color described as mango. “Well, how fashionable am I going to look?” she asked.
“Extremely,” Lauren said.
“My mother gave me a bottle of light beige polish, plain mascara, and a very subdued little lipstick,” Jill said.
Lauren grinned. “Zany.”
That was one interpretation.
She had three basic packing categories—clothes, toiletries, and electronics. And books. Actual books, with pages, to go along with her iPad and Kindle. Shirts, shorts, a pair of khakis, a dress, some black flats, underwear, socks, her Top-Siders, and one light hoodie. Hairbrush, toothbrush, floss, shampoo, some disposable razors, tampons, ibuprofen, a three-month supply of birth control pills, the brand of multivitamins the front office had approved, several pairs of earbuds, some decent headphones, and assorted chargers.
“You look like you’re just about set,” Lauren said.
Jill nodded. “My mother keeps reminding me that I can actually buy things, if I need them.” With her new debit card, which had a bank balance her mother had just increased with a good-sized deposit, along with a credit card, for emergencies.
“Yeah, they probably have, you know, stores there,” Lauren said.
Plus, her new host family might provide things like that, too. Because, on top of everything else, she was going to have to move in with some strangers. Presumably, they were friendly, and nice—but, she didn’t know them, and maybe they wouldn’t get along, and her teammates were probably going to hate her, and—
“Are you totally losing your nerve?” Lauren asked.
Yes. “I wish there could have been someone else before me,” she said.
Lauren nodded. “Sucks to be the first.”
And how. It would be much better to be—the third female player. Or the fifth. “I can’t be who they want me to be,” Jill said. “I’m going to disappoint everyone.”
“They probably just want you to be yourself,” Lauren said.
No, a trailblazer was supposed to be impressive. Special. “I think they’re expecting someone—I don’t know,” Jill said. “Inspirational, and enthusiastic, and—cuddly.” Perky. Adorable. The girl next door.
Lauren laughed. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I don’t think ‘cuddly’ is ever going to happen.”
No, not in a billion years. As far as she knew, she wasn’t particularly abrasive—but, she also wasn’t exactly—huggable, or—delightful. “They’re going to want me to be bubbling over with joy, and—I don’t know—ebullience,” Jill said. Neither of which were in her wheelhouse.
“No one’s going to have a problem with it, if you’re just polite and gracious,” Lauren said.
Well, that would certainly come more naturally. “The media’s going to hate that,” Jill said. “They want me to have a lively personality and everything. To sparkle.”
Lauren shrugged. “So, screw them. It’s not like you have to pay attention to any of the coverage, anyway.”
That was true. She had already—mostly—learned that it was much better not to read the articles, or watch the feature reports—or look at anything at all on the Internet, since so much of it was unpleasant, and ugly, and misogynistic, and even threatening. So, when it came to social media, for example, she stuck to her actual friends and relatives, and didn’t really extend it beyond that. Although the Pirates’ media relations people had indicated that they were very much hoping that she would evolve into someone considerably more entertaining—and active—on at least some of her accounts.
“You haven’t technically signed anything yet,” Lauren said. “You can still walk away.”
So tempting. Jill shook her head. “No, they’ve gone to so much trouble, and my aunt worked really hard on the contract, and—I don’t know. All of the plans are made.”
“You still haven’t signed anything,” Lauren said.
No, but if she backed out, people would be upset, and mad at her, and think she was weak, and afraid, and that women weren’t up to the task of playing professional baseball, and—“I think it’s too late,” Jill said. “I mean, they used a really high draft pick on me, and everything.”
“If I’m the Pittsburgh Pirates, I don’t want someone who’s ambivalent, and is going to hate playing, when she’d rather be off at college,” Lauren said, and paused. “And if I were investing the money, I also wouldn’t want America’s Sweetheart standing out there on the mound. I’d want a ferocious, driven athlete.”
Well, she was actually capable of doing that, at least. “You would be so much better at this than I’m going to be,” Jill said. In fact, Lauren would have been an absolute natural—and cute as a bug’s ear, to boot.
Lauren frowned. “Not even close,” she said.
“You’re tougher, and you’re a better competitor,” Jill said. “If you hadn’t—” No, that wasn’t a sentence she wanted to finish. They really never talked about the car accident anymore, because Lauren insisted that it was in the past, and that she was moving ahead—although, as far as Jill could tell, it was more that she still got so scared, even thinking about it. ?
??You’re better at sports than I am.”
“For God’s sakes, Jill, I was adequate,” Lauren said. “Halfway decent, sometimes, but that was about it. Don’t god-damn humor me, okay?”
Not the direction she had expected this to go, but Lauren was nothing if not direct—about everything. Which could be intimidating, sometimes, but was, on the whole, one of her best qualities. It was good to have a friend who always told the truth. “Well—you’re wicked fierce,” Jill said.
Now, Lauren looked sheepish. “Maybe, yeah. But, you always leave out the part where I looked good on the court, because I was feeding the ball to you.”
Jill was going to argue—except, that it really would be insulting, because they both knew perfectly well that she had, in fact, been playing at a level that the rest of the basketball team wasn’t. Including Lauren. Which had also, of course, been true on the baseball team. On every team she had ever been on, for that matter. “Okay, but you usually got the ball somewhere right near me,” Jill said, “and that was—very helpful.”
Lauren’s laugh was entirely genuine this time. “You know, that might be an aspect of your personality you don’t want to emphasize in public,” she said.
Jill grinned. She was usually pretty good at keeping the staggeringly arrogant and patronizing jock side of herself hidden—but, every now and then, under very controlled circumstances, she let it sneak out for a few seconds.
It was quiet in the room, except for Maggie wheezing slightly, as she napped.
“You want to brag a little about your seven-figure contract?” Lauren asked. “While no one else is listening?”
It went without saying that her mother found the staggering amount of money unseemly, while Theo’s initial response had been, “Hey, give me a hundred bucks, rich lady.” So, she hadn’t had an actual “Wow!” moment about the huge bonus yet. “Yeah, that would be fun,” Jill said. A treat, even. “Can I whine a lot about the really high taxes I’m going to have to pay, too?”
Lauren laughed again. “Knock yourself out,” she said.