Hardball (35 page)

Or so I thought.

“Back off her,” he shouted, his deep voice working a different sound spectrum than the sirens. “Just step back.”

He was looking right at the cameras. I knew how much that bothered him. I knew he was seeing the parts of himself that shamed him the most. The parts he tried to keep under control.

The trainers tried to get him to lie down, and he shoved the older one away, taking the man’s shirt in his good fist.

Don’t don’t don’t
.

Don’t hurt him.

A replay of his episode with his mother, on camera, in front of the world, was about to happen.

“Dash!” I shouted.

I didn’t know if he heard me over the din. Didn’t know if it was my intervention that brought him back to earth, but he stopped.

The conversation between Dash and the trainer was wordless and brief. The trainer nodded. Dash let go, patting the guy’s shoulder. I scrambled to my feet. Grimacing, Dash slid down to the ground and toward me.

“Are you all right?” he asked, left hand out.

“I’m fine.” I took his hand but didn’t use it to steady myself. I was pretty sure he shouldn’t have even been standing.

I turned toward the cameras, shielding my eyes, and when I turned back, his lips were on mine. I took a breath of surprise then put my hands on his cheeks and kissed him back. The skin of the world sloughed off, and he and I were connected at the core, where everything was quiet but for the beating of our hearts.

“I didn’t know what happened,” he said. “I hated that I couldn’t go find you. I saw a life in front of me where I couldn’t love you, and I knew I’d never be happy again.”

I must have squeaked, but I couldn’t hear it. I only felt the sides of my throat stick together and release. In ten words, he’d wiped away all my worry, all my fear, and embraced me for who I was. Even if his career was over that night, he was still with me.

“You need a goddamned doctor,” the old trainer interjected, yanking me out of my reverie. “Get in.”

But Dash wouldn’t listen. He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, exploring me with his eyes. There was noise everywhere, questions being shouted at him, unnatural lights blasting his face white on one side.

“This arm’s not going to keep me from fucking you so hard—”

“Stop. Before I blush in front of all these cameras.”

He brought his gaze back to me. “I love you. I’ve never loved another woman. I was waiting for you, and I didn’t even know.”

Angry car horns from far away. The night birds of Elysian park. The whoop of the siren. None were as loud as his words. None came close to shaking my heart the way he just had. I felt grounded and ready to take off for the moon at the same time.

“Can you kiss me before I cry?”

He did, right in front of the news cameras as if he didn’t care anymore. As if I’d taken away a measure of his fear. He held me with one arm, and I pulled away.

“We have to get that arm looked at.” I stepped back.

The space in front of the ambulance had cleared, and fans were leaning out of their windows, hooting and hollering encouragement. I was mentally ready to go back to my car and meet him at the hospital, but Dash pushed me toward the ambulance, and one of the younger trainers grabbed my bicep and pulled me in. The doors slammed shut behind us, and in an instant, I was caught up in the bright lights and sounds.

The trainers pushed him to sit on the gurney, but he was smiling. Even when the trainer pressed his arm and his face contorted in pain, he polished it off with a smile.

“What are you so happy about?” I said, sitting as far out of the way as possible in the crowded ambulance.

“Nothing. Except that you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. I saw the way you fell.”

“Just a flesh wound.” His head twitched, and his brows furrowed as if he’d thought of something. “You saw it? Were you there?”

“I was in Sequoia with a student. She went into diabetic shock in my library.”

“Can’t have that.”

I wanted to hug him but couldn’t. He had three men around him, whispering things I couldn’t understand. His body was so lucrative to so many people and so precious to me. I needed to be there, yet I felt as though I was in the way.

When it got silent and we were only waiting for the space between the stadium and the hospital to fold and disappear, I took my Kindle from my bag.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“I started
Reaper’s Weekend.
It’s not bad. Guy’s kind of a jerk.”

“Can I see?”

I scooted close to him and handed him the device. A second passed as he glanced at the screen. The room clattered and rocked.

“Read with me,” he said.

I remembered. He read when he was overwhelmed. It calmed him.

In the minutes I’d spent back there in front of the cameras and feeling like an interloper, I hadn’t seen in his eyes what I saw then. He was broken and in pain, yet those things were nothing compared to the panic he held low in his gut. He was worried about his arm, his career, the one thing he’d ever loved.

“Excuse me,” I said to the trainer next to me before I got up.

Crouching under swinging instruments and wires, I crossed to Dash’s left side. I sat next to him as close as I could.

He put the device on his lap, and we read together.

Dash

I assumed I was destroyed. A hundred ninety pounds landing on oddly bent bone and soft tissue meant I was finished as a ballplayer. The possibility of being on the field dropped into a void.

I could do other things. The possibilities spun around the edge of the sinking vortex. I could be a commentator. I could coach. I could write books on strategy. I could live off my savings for the rest of my life.

Each option sucked. I’d seen all of them as second-rate alternatives to the power of actually playing. But through the X-ray and poking and prodding (
Does this hurt? What if I do this?
) I had to stop rejecting them outright, and I could because Vivian was there with me.

Getting the X-ray took an hour. We read together, sitting side by side with my arm raised and iced on a rolling table. I could breathe with her next to me.

“What do you think they’ll say?” she asked, looking at the screen.

“I’ll never play again. Turn the page.”

She clicked the button. “Come on. Really? It’s not like there’s bone sticking out of the skin or anything.”

“My fingers are numb.” I didn’t want to go into it further. I didn’t want to have to say or hear the phrase “nerve damage” until it came from a doctor.

In my peripheral vision, I saw her slight nod. I had no idea if she knew what numb fingers could mean or if she had intuited that I didn’t want to talk about it.

I looked away from the screen at her face. Her hair had seen a long day, and the ponytail was coming out. Her forehead was topped with an inverted V and her face was framed with blond escapees.

“Jim wants to get laid,” she said.

“He’d better look elsewhere.”

“He thinks good seats at Dodger Stadium will do it. Personally, I think he’d get laid anyway, and I don’t want to start a pattern of me getting tickets for friends.”

If she thought my career was over, she wouldn’t ask. She was a shrewd woman, but transparent. The request was her way of telling me she thought I’d be fine without empty platitudes.

I couldn’t dismiss her optimism.

“I’ll set you up with the PR department. They set tickets aside each game. Page.”

She didn’t have a chance to flip it.

“Wallace.” The doctor came in, white coat flapping, a tablet in the crook of his arm. He was young and confident. Earring. Tattoo peeking out under his shirt.

“Doctor.”

“Quite a catch.”

Vivian held my hand. She was more nervous than I was. I liked that. It took some of the pressure off. She made me safe. Safe to fail. Safe to be nothing more or less than a roofer’s son from upstate New York.

“You’re a lucky guy,” the doctor said.

The tension fell out of her. I heard it in a little nervous laugh that had a life of its own.

“I am,” I said, squeezing her hand. “But how’s the arm?”

“Nice clean break.” He flipped the tablet to show me the X-ray. “With the proper care from yours truly and whomever else Major League Baseball can hire, you’ll be back in by the All-Star game.”

“His fingers are numb,” Vivian said, throwing a ball before making sure the catcher was ready. She sat back deep in her seat, turning red in the cheeks.

God, I loved her. As a man well-acquainted with his comfort zone, I admired how easily she stepped out of hers on my behalf.

“We have some compression at the shoulder. Once the swelling goes down, I think you’re going to be just fine. No guarantees, insert disclaimer, et cetera, et cetera.” He flipped the tablet back into the fold of his arm. “I’ll be back to set you in five minutes. Your manager and half the team are in the hall.”

“Tell them to fuck off.”

“All righty then.” The young doctor spun on his heel and was behind a closed door a second later.

“Ready to turn the page?” I asked.

Amazingly, because she was Vivian and she was the woman I loved, she turned the page. She gave me space while still being present.

“We’re going to need a code for that,” she said. “Like ‘turn’ or ‘go’ or something.”

“I wasn’t joking,” I said, changing the subject abruptly. “I might not play again.”

“I know.” Her eyes flickered across the page.

“Does that worry you?”

She looked up at me. “Does it worry
you
?”

“I asked first.” I wasn’t ready to put my true worries into words.

She wasn’t either, because she swallowed so hard I saw the lump in her throat. She looked away then shut off the Kindle. “I’m afraid if you don’t need me to walk the bases, you won’t need me.”

Her chin quivered. She cleared her throat. That had been a hard admission for her, and I wanted to say every word of love in every language in her honor. I wanted to rip those hidden sobs away. My arm hurt like fuck, but I could have killed a bear with it.

“Look, I—” She took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I think, with the game you had tonight, you know your talent isn’t about me walking the bases or you wearing something on your glove. You know you have everything you need. And I have everything I need. But man, I really love you.”

“I can’t believe I played at all. All I could think about was you. You. Not how you affected me, but you. How I treated you. I didn’t know where you were. And it was you, but I was greedy. If you weren’t with me, I’d miss you in the morning. I’d miss you drinking coffee on the couch. I’d miss a life with you. I may never play ball again, and I care about that. I care a lot, but I’ll get over it. You? I’ll never get over you.” I took her hand in my good one, lacing the fingers.

“I can’t believe you’re reassuring me right now. I should be reassuring you.”

Everything did seem flipped around. I was more concerned with her than with my arm. I worried about her career more than my own. Her unsurety made me unsure. Was this what it meant to love someone?

“I am reassuring me,” I said. “I’m telling myself it’s okay to doubt the purpose of my life. It’s okay that I’m going to lose everything I depended on. I thought I’d built something stable, but I didn’t. It was shit because what we have is forever. It can’t be shut down. I can doubt everything, but I don’t doubt that I love you.”

She leaned her head back against the wall. “‘Love is an ever-fixed mark.’”

“Be my ever-fixed mark. Be my north star.”

I didn’t wait for her to answer. I just kissed her long and hard. I kissed her with everything I had because I’d run out of words. Even Shakespeare had nothing to say I couldn’t say better with that kiss.

I’d said I knew I couldn’t control my luck and I was okay with that.

That I might not play again and it was all right.

I was a small man in a big world I didn’t understand. A fool and a fraud. A gambler whose luck had run out. I was a meaningless ball of thoughts and fears with no control over the way my life unfurled.

But with her, I wasn’t afraid.

Vivian

I missed games sometimes. I still had my job, and it wasn’t glamorous or lucrative, but it was important. I had a father who needed me, and sometimes I had something else I had to do.

So I walked the bases when I could and made the first pitch whenever possible, but sometimes I missed games. I watched from the TV in my little apartment or at the bar with my friends. I heard them on the radio in my car on the way to Echo Park to catch the fourth inning.

But I’d never miss a second of the World Series. Especially not the seventh game of a nail-biter. And of course, my man’s talent was all his, and walking the bases with him while he had our sex somewhere on his body was no help to him at all.

But for the World Series? We figured it couldn’t hurt.

It was close from the first game to the seventh inning of the seventh game. The Boston Red Sox bullpen had never been better, and Los Angeles had to bring their best for every game.

I hadn’t spoken a word to my father, Francine, Larry, or Dash’s parents in two innings even though they surrounded me in the seats behind the dugout. There was nothing to say. We were all too wound up.

They’d been tied at one since the third inning, and both teams had come close to scoring. Right now, the Sox had three men on base with two outs. No one was breathing. Rodriguez had been traded to the Sox in September to get them through the playoffs, and now he was up. The same guy Dash had caught when he landed on his wrist. The hairline fracture had healed by the All-Star break, but I’d never forget how worried he’d been, how lucky he was, and how close he had come to ending his career.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Dash, legs spread between second and third as though he could go either way. I watched him every second of every game, the way he moved and when. He chose a direction before the ball even left the pitcher’s hand, and he was right about where the ball was headed every single time.

In the seventh inning of the seventh game of the series, Dash stepped right then took half a step back before the bat connected with the ball and went flying three feet to his right. He took another step and caught it, making it look easy, and retired the side.