Heart of the Game Read online

  “No sir,” she replied, lowering her voice. “My work is part of the warm-up process for them, too. They’re used to me being there. They recognize me. Every now and then one of them will seek me out. My pre-game interview is part of their routine.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe a small part of it.”

  “Yes, just a small part of it.”

  “Hey, did you hear Aidan started a traveling baseball team for him and the boys down at the Elks?”

  She forced a smile even as her stomach dropped at his mention of her older brother. “No, he didn’t tell me.”

  “Well, he did. And it’s baseball, too, none of that softball stuff. He’s still finding a way to play the game the right way.”

  She looked out onto the field where players stretched and jogged, athletes already at the top of their game still taking every chance to hone their skills. The sun shone on the grounds crew as they meticulously chalked white lines down the base paths, measuring down to the centimeter in search of perfection. Three umpires in all black huddled near the pitcher’s mound reviewing the boundaries of play, the gleam of their freshly polished shoes visible even from this distance.

  The crowd poured in beneath her, their hum growing with each passing minute as the sea of red spread like a rising tide. The energy built steadily, the heartbeat of the stadium pulsed rhythmically, but somehow, for the first time she didn’t feel like a part of it. The expansive view seemed confined, the air dull and heavy. Her father’s voice remained just an echo in her ears.

  She had to get out of there, had to get away from the place she’d been so proud to occupy. “Hey, why don’t we go find your seats?”

  Her father quieted his chatter about her brother’s glory on the beer league team, and her mother smiled weakly, making her suspect she’d been too abrupt with them, or too transparent. She tried to lighten her tone before saying, “You don’t want to miss the first pitch.”

  Her father made a show of looking at his watch but said nothing about the official start time still being twenty minutes away as Duke led them down the stairs and out into the stands.

  God, what had come over her? Had his talk of Aidan made her jealous? She loved her brothers, and they adored her. She didn’t begrudge them their accomplishments, and they’d expressed envy at her position, too. Either one of them would’ve loved the tour she was currently giving their parents, but did she need any of their approval? Much less her father’s full attention? She wasn’t a child anymore, eager to garner a piece of the pride he lavished on her brothers. What did it matter if he didn’t gush at her job or share her enthusiasm? She hadn’t done all this for him, or at least not for him alone. Embarrassment burned her cheeks as they waited for the crowd to thin out around their section. She had to pull herself together. She was in her favorite place with people she loved most. She’d dreamed of this day for years. Why did she feel so hollow?

  Someone touched her shoulder and left their hand there. The warmth and weight of the touch seeped through her oblivion, soothing her, calming her, easing the tension in her neck and shoulders. Slowly the haze of emotions evaporated, and she turned to meet Molly’s deep brown eyes.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Duke’s voice sounded soft and raspy even to her own ears.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You looked, I don’t know…lost.”

  She shook her head, trying to loosen the last cobwebs. “In work mode, I guess.”

  Molly’s eye narrowed skeptically. “No, your work mode looks different, focused, intense. Like you’re more here than anyone else around you. Just now you seemed far away.”

  Duke felt a surge of something new at the revelation, something hot and sweet, a more intimate connection than anything she’d shared with her family so far today. Molly was always so hard to read, but she’d clearly paid enough attention to her not only to recognize her moods, but to care when they altered significantly.

  “I called your name three times. You were somewhere else entirely.”

  “Sorry.” Had she really been so deep in her own head she’d missed Molly? Molly, with her deep eyes and lyrical voice? Molly, who didn’t laugh but smiled often enough to keep her wanting more? Molly, who was gay and a single mother and a beautiful woman both so young and so old all at once? She wouldn’t have thought it possible to miss someone like Molly.

  “Hi, I’m Sarah’s mother, Lorelei.”

  “Oh, it’s so nice to meet you,” Molly said, her eyes wandering from one person to another as if now tying the new additions to Duke’s disconnect. She extended her hand. “I’m Molly.”

  “And how do you two know each other?”

  Duke blushed at her mother’s directness. There was nothing wrong with the question itself, but her tone of voice, or perhaps the unnecessarily dramatic rise in pitch, signaled she was digging for information.

  Molly motioned to the seats behind her where Joe and Charlie sat. “My sons are enamored of your daughter.”

  “You have children?” Her eyes rounded like a kid who’d seen a lollipop as big as her head. “Dale, come meet Sarah’s friend Molly and her two adorable little boys.”

  Her dad turned around and regarded the family, then turned to Duke. “Your friend, huh?”

  She shrugged, not wanting to overcommit herself. She knew what her parents implied in their use of the term. They were dancing around the idea of Molly being a girlfriend, and while she certainly wasn’t that, Duke wondered if she even fit the platonic sense of the word. They’d seen each other often over the first month of the season, and Molly’s distrust of her had waned. They spoke amicably, even comfortably about neutral topics like the team, the boys, or their jobs. She looked forward to seeing her at every day or weekend game, and missed her and the boys while on the road. She supposed those things constituted a kind of friendship but still didn’t know if Molly felt the same. As a writer, she understood more than most that words’ meanings came only from a shared understanding. Did the definition of friendship demand a mutual regard?

  Her mother had no such issue with semantics. “Are you all sitting here for the game?”

  “That’s Charlie’s seat. Don’t move it,” Charlie said emphatically.

  “My goodness, you are such a little man,” Lorelei exclaimed gleefully, then turning to the people in the row in front of him, she orchestrated a seat swap so quickly that the terms of the trade had been agreed upon before Duke even realized what happened.

  “Wait, those seats, I mean, you were supposed to be on the other end of that row, and um, Dad?”

  “These are much better than I’m used to,” he offered, knowing better than to contradict his wife when she went into grandma mode.

  “Where do you usually sit, Mr. Duke?” Joe asked politely.

  He regarded him seriously for the first time, glancing from his STL ball cap to the birds on the bat across his chest to the scorecard neatly balanced on his knees. The light in his eyes that signaled interest sparked blue against his tan skin. “Do you know what a Sherpa is?”

  “Yes sir,” Joe replied.

  “Well, you need one to get to the places I can afford to sit in. I’ve only ever been this close for batting practice.”

  “You watch batting practice?”

  “Always,” he said, settling into the seat in front of Joe and leaning back to examine the scorecard. “That’s good work you got going there. Keep solid records, and some day it will help you when you play against some of these guys.”

  Joe blushed. “I’ll never play in the big leagues.”

  “Not if you think that way, you won’t,” he replied gruffly. “You gotta believe you are the baddest batter around every time you step up to the plate, even on your Little League team.”

  “I don’t play Little League,” Joe said softly.

  “What?” Duke and her father asked in unison.

  “I like to watch baseball, but I’m not any good at playing,” Joe explained, sinking ba
ck into his chair.

  “He’s got a brilliant baseball mind,” Molly cut in, the protective rumble in her throat belying her light tone. “He knows more about the game than most of the grown men in this stadium. Go ahead, ask him to explain the infield fly rule.”

  Her father looked at Molly, then back to Joe before saying, “It’s important to know the rules. You should never underestimate the power of the playbook, but don’t let people who’ve never played fool you: without the playing part, it’s just a book.”

  Joe’s shoulders slumped, but he answered with a polite “Yes sir.”

  Duke’s stomach ached, and sweat pricked her palms. The little dig at people who don’t play the game stung as much as it always had, but Joe’s reaction hurt much worse. Didn’t her dad see what a special kid Joe was? Couldn’t he tell what his comment did to his enthusiasm level? Her dad was a master at breaking down little tics and triggers that made a ballplayer who he was. How could he miss something she saw so clearly in Joe? Was he not paying attention or did he not care?

  Irritation burned the muscles in her jaw, but guilt followed quick on its heels like a cooling balm. Maybe she was too sensitive. Her dad was every bit as enthusiastic about the game as Joe, just in different ways. He valued different things than she did, she reasoned silently, then tried to end that train of thought before she reached the realization he didn’t value her contributions at all. His gentle dismissal of Joe had nothing to do with her even if the look on Joe’s face felt revealingly familiar.

  “Hey,” Molly said, touching Joe’s shoulder and Duke’s arm in much the same fashion, pulling both of their attentions back into their comfortable circle. “You two want to go over lineup cards?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, brightening slightly. “Are the Reds going to have their left-handed batters in against Ben LeBaron today?”

  “They sure are.” She crouched down beside him and examined his pre-game notes. They weren’t as detailed as hers, but they were neat and thoughtful. He hit on a few of the key trends she’d listed in her report. The kid was a baseball savant.

  “You must be so proud of your daughter,” Molly said to her mom.

  “I am,” her mother answered quickly. “We both are, right, Dale?”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re proud of Sarah.”

  He shifted in his seat to look at them. “Sure we are. Hey, any of you want a hot dog?”

  “I want a hot dog,” Charlie answered quickly.

  “Not until the third inning,” Molly and Duke answered in unison, then laughed together.

  Her father stood up, oblivious to the connection passing between them. “You always were a superstitious kid, but I need something before the game. Any of you want to come with me?”

  “No, thank you,” Joe said. “I want to review the lineups before the game starts.”

  “And I need to do the same,” Duke agreed. Knuckling Joe’s shoulder, she proudly proclaimed, “It’s time for us to get to work.”

  “Suit yourselves.” He shrugged and tugged the bill of his hat.

  They watched him go, the sting of his earlier comments subduing their normally jovial interactions.

  “You’re such a well-mannered young man,” her mom finally said to Joe. “And you have your mother’s beautiful eyes.”

  Joe blushed again, and this time pulled his cap so low it rested on the top of his glasses, but he still managed a mumbled “Thank you.”

  “And you,” Molly said turning to Duke. “You clearly get your good nature from your mother.”

  Defensiveness pricked her skin and tightened her shoulders. “Both my parents are good-natured. Dad’s got a one-track mind around ballplayers, but he’s a good guy once you get to know him.”

  “I’m sure he is.” Molly returned her hand to Duke’s arm, instantly calming the heat rising in her chest. “But we all think you’re a pretty great person, too.”

  Emotion sprang thick behind her eyes and in her throat. Normally she would’ve brushed off such a simple comment, but for some reason it tightened the connection that started with the brush of Molly’s gentle touch on the bare skin of her arm. Just a little touch, but it left her feeling so vulnerable. “Thanks. I, uh, I gotta get back to work.”

  “I understand.” Molly met her eyes with a seriousness that made Duke suspect she understood more than she wanted her to. Maybe even more than she understood herself.

  “See you all later.” She walked briskly away. She needed to get back into her game-day mode. She needed to get back to what she knew and understood. Perhaps she should have said more or hugged her mom, but she had a job to do, and whether that mattered to anyone else or not, she intended to do it well.

  *

  Duke couldn’t sit still. She checked her scorecard obsessively and tweeted twice as much as usual but couldn’t shake the feeling she should be doing more. Restlessness jumped through her legs and twitched her hands. If she’d had more room, she would’ve paced. She could’ve gone out into the stands like usual, but even though her desk felt confining, the thought of what she’d find in the crowd seemed more daunting. Only questions remained there for her now.

  Questions: her job was founded on them. But she did the asking, and her readers expected clear-cut answers, not murky, mixed emotions. She had to stick to what she could put into words, so she began jotting down post-game questions in her notebook. On the paper everything looked as standard as the game unfolding on the field. A few hits for each side, two walks, and the Cardinals down a run in the eighth. It wasn’t a great game, but it wasn’t terrible either. The players were settling into the season and bearing down for a long summer ahead. Why couldn’t she do the same?

  Turning over the page, she began to scratch descriptors along the margins. She’d developed the nervous habit in college when she used to practice listing all the words she could ever use to describe various aspects of the game. Sometimes, she’d focus on a specific play, like a home run, towering, arching, floating, stratospheric. Other times she’d work with an attribute ascribed to a player, like power, crushing, catastrophic, explosive. Words were tools, and she wanted to always have the right one handy. Tonight’s list featured words like paradise, Eden, cathedral, heaven.

  “When did you find Jesus?” Cooper asked.

  “When I was eight,” she answered blandly.

  He stared at her, disbelieving. “Wow, you really are some sort of big gay choir boy, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t give a shit when you were baptized, I just wondered why you were writing down all the religious terms.”

  She glanced down at her list. “I didn’t notice I was. I only meant to compile a list of terms to help me talk about the ballpark.”

  He snorted. “And those are the words you chose? Did you learn this game from a nun?”

  “I learned this game from my father.”

  “He some kind of a saint or something?”

  “You know what? He kind of is,” she snapped. “He worked two jobs to feed his kids. He got nothing handed to him, no money, no family business, no education. He busted his ass day in and day out and still made time to coach his kids’ baseball teams.” She felt the rant get away from her as surprise registered in the deep creases along Coop’s forehead, but she couldn’t stop the words spilling out of her. “So he doesn’t talk about the game the way you want. He’s not the kind of guy who tells you what you want to hear, maybe he’s not nice even, but—”

  “Geez, Rook, what’s gotten into you? I wouldn’t have pegged you for a girl with daddy issues.”

  Her short fingernails dug into the palms of her clenched fists. “I don’t have daddy issues.”

  “Whatever you gotta tell yourself, but it sounded to me like you were shadow boxing someone there. Let me guess. He never showed up to your softball games.”

  “I didn’t play softball.”

  “I thought all your people played softball.”

  She should have been offende
d by the generalization, but she was already too upset about other things. “I love baseball. I couldn’t settle for some approximation.”

  “Careful, you’ll lose your women’s-libber card.”

  “I’ve got nothing against softball. It’s a great game, but it’s not the same game. We’re a baseball family. We play baseball.”

  “We? You mean you played on some team with your dad and brothers.”

  She opened her mouth and shut it. She didn’t like this conversation. She didn’t like Cooper, either. The tightness was back in her neck, and now it tugged at her stomach, too.

  “Let me guess, your old man didn’t think softball was a real thing, but he didn’t think baseball was a girls’ game either. Classic. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Either way, you showed the old man, right? He’s sitting at home in the armchair, and you’re part of the grand game now.” He raised his beer in a mock salute.

  She stared at the field. It seemed so much farther away now. “Are we part of it?”

  His studied disinterest returned as if he’d remembered he wasn’t supposed to reveal how much the game mattered to him. “Who the hell cares? You’re more a part of it than your old man is.”

  “My dad’s a great man.”

  Coop rolled his eyes. “Sure he is. They all are. Doesn’t mean they didn’t screw us up. It’s what parents do. They shatter their kids. His old man probably did it to him. Someday you’ll do it to your kids. Whether you mean to or not.”

  An image of Joe’s slumped shoulders and downcast eyes hiding under the bill of his cap shot through her memory so hard she grimaced.

  “What’s the matter, you don’t want kids?”

  “No. I mean yes.” She scrubbed her hands roughly over her face. “I gotta go.”

  “They’re down to the last two outs. If something important happens, you’ll miss it.”

  She was already halfway out the door before she called back, “I might have missed something important already.”