Page 64 of Triple Play

“Yeah, I’ll just be a minute.” Because back outside, there’s a whole world of things we have to deal with.

Felix dips his head as if he’s going to kiss me again, then pulls back like it takes effort not to. “Take as much time as you need. You know I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Absolutely no one looks good in yellow rest-stop bathroom lighting, but I look worse than most: as if I’m a second away from crying, which I am. I wave my hand under the paper towel dispenser until it issues me a length of scratchy brown paper towel. I dab my eyes with it and examine myself in the mirror. Yep, I still look like shit.

Next to me, a woman in her mid-forties with blond hair is in the process of fluffing it even higher. She must catch me sniffling because she pauses. “Whatever he did, I promise he isn’t worth it.”

Something about it reminds me of being in the dressing room in the club—how it was more like a party, with girls dancing and drinking and drifting back and forth between their turns on stage. The solidarity that comes from seeing humanity if not at its worst, at least at its sleaziest.

The lump in my throat expands even more. “It isn’t him who screwed up,” I admit. “It’s me.”

She pats my arm, gently, then replaces her comb in her purse. “Well, everything’s the end of the world when you’re young. I’m sure it’ll get better.”

That’s what my mom used to say. That lump expands to where I can barely breathe. I nod, then pull myself into a stall. Something, some hiccupping place inside me, wants to see my mom, to tell her she was right: that I should have gone with the safe option. That taking a leap always comes with the risk of falling. Right now, I’m landing hard.

I take out my phone, compose a text. Even after I got a new number so my family would stop calling me, I put all their info in it. Hi Mom, it’s Shira, I’m in a rest stop in South Carolina, Lilac is breaking down and so am I. But I don’t hit send. I’m not ready to admit defeat.

Instead, I cry a few tears I blot with one-ply toilet tissue, then take enough deep breaths that I don’t feel like I’m gonna completely fall apart. Outside, I’ll have to fix Lilac or at least accept that I’m gonna have to deal with life without her. And there’s the other thing I need to fix—this mess I’ve made with Blake.

Okay, that’s enough, Shira. Finally, my tears ebb. It’ll suck, but I’ve come through worse on my own.

Calmer, I emerge from the stall, wash my hands, set about fixing my mascara. The thing about dancing is you find the most waterproof stuff. Small favors.

When I get out of the bathroom, Felix is sitting at a table next to three sweating cups of iced tea. “Better?” he asks.

I nod.

“I texted the team that I’m going to be late to spring training.”

Right, the thing we got on the road to avoid—that Felix was adamant couldn’t happen. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you to take the bus. I guess some part of me was sure things would be okay. Look how that turned out.”

Felix smiles. “Pretty well, I’d say.”

“The team isn’t pissed?”

“Don’t know yet. It’s possible that when we get in tomorrow, I won’t have a job.”

“Fuck.”

“It’s possible I didn’t have one in the first place. They might send me down or trade me.”

“You don’t think they’re gonna keep you in Boston?”

Felix shrugs, not like he doesn’t care but like he knows there’s nothing he can really do. “Not sure where I’ll end up. Guess we’ll see.”

“You know,” I say, “you’re handling all this much better than I am.”

Felix laughs—his boom of a laugh that makes a few other eaters turn our way. “I’m not. If I don’t have a job playing, who knows what’s going to happen with the farm?” He shrugs, a what can you do? shrug like he’s been doing the same calculations I did in the bathroom. That things might not be okay, but they’ll be okay enough.

That same lump in my throat reappears—or not quite the same. This one feels dangerously like hope. Hope I don’t have any right to, until I’ve come clean about my past. “Any word from Blake?”

“Haven’t heard.”

“I thought about it. When we get to Florida, I’m going to tell Blake I used to dance. Not about you and me—but you’re right, I should stop hiding that.” And that’ll be the end of things between us.

“Are you sure?” Felix asks.

“Weren’t you the one trying to get me to tell him? Blake deserves the truth.” No matter what it costs me.

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