Page 9 of Triple Play

I might be wearing a hat—not a Monsters branded one, but an old one with the Lake Champlain monster on the front—but at least I wore boots for the flight. That’s practically formal wear.

Unknown Number: All the flights are canceled.

Me: yeah

Unknown Number: I’m going to drive if you want to come

My eyes widen involuntarily at my phone. Drive. To Florida. From Boston. I Google Maps it quickly. It’s a twenty-one-hour haul if we drive straight through and if traffic is kind. Two big ifs. Still, that should put me at spring training on time. Hauling down to Florida would show the team I’m serious about playing in Boston this season. Maybe, just maybe, the team will feel the same way.

Me: Sure, I’m in. Let’s meet by the baggage claim.

Only after I send the text do I realize I don’t know who I’m looking for. I could be signing up to drive to Florida with a new bench player or minor leaguer: guys who are probably just grateful to be invited to spring training—who understand what it’s like to be clinging to edge of a team’s roster. Hopefully, whoever it is doesn’t mind driving for ten hours a day. I don’t. The thing about growing up in the country is that you get used to long drives.

Yeah, it’s probably someone like that. I imagine an easy trip to Florida: we split gas money, we take turns driving, and we get to Florida in plenty of time, nice and simple.

No matter who it is, there’s also no gracious way to bow out of this—some guys take that stuff personally. Besides, I really do need to get to Florida.

So I just write back See you in a minute, gather my duffel, and head down to retrieve my suitcase.

I’m standing by the baggage claim, peering around to make it clear I’m looking for someone, when I spot a guy swaggering toward me.

Not just any guy.

It takes a second for his face to resolve from the crowd. Fuck… I usually don’t have this kind of bad luck. But no, it’s exactly who I feared. My heart starts beating double-time against my chest. Sweat springs up on the back of my neck.

Because the guy walking toward me is Blake Forsyth. He’s grinning at the people who are momentarily interrupted from having a terrible travel day to elbow each other and go, “Is that…?” as he strolls past.

There can’t be more than a few seconds between when I spot him and when he ambles up to me, but time does that thing where it stretches like in a horror movie.

I don’t know him, but I know of him. Everyone in baseball knows of him. He just signed a three-year eighty-million-dollar contract with the Monsters—a surprise three-year eighty-million-dollar contract, because everyone thought he’d be with the Atlanta Hammers ballclub for life.

So now he’s coming up to Boston to be our new first baseman. The only problem? We already have one of those. Me.

And of course I just agreed to drive to Florida with him.

In person, Forsyth looks like he does on TV, only about a thousand times better, as if he stepped off a poster to play professional baseball, with not a blond hair out of place. He’s smiling like he’s being photographed—which he is—a flash of even white teeth. He looks like who he is: a three-time All-Star. Someone who deserves my job because he’s earned it.

I run my fingers over my beard like that’s going to fix it while trying not to blurt something like teach me to field better or you took my fucking spot in the lineup.

Last June, my triple-A manager called me into his office. Shook my hand. Congratulated me on my promotion. After I called my sister and texted my friends, I went to the florist. Asked for a bouquet with irises and calla lilies, bound up in a purple ribbon.

Now I imagine that conversation in reverse. The Monsters’ manager gruffly shaking my hand, wishing me best of luck as they send me back to Worcester or trade me someplace far from Vermont.

I’m so wrapped up in imagining my inevitable demotion that I almost don’t notice the woman striding behind Forsyth.

Her glossy dark hair has slipped from its ponytail during her hustle. A few strands of it frame her heart-shaped face. She’s either wearing no makeup or the amount of makeup women use when they want to look like they aren’t wearing any. Her eyes are framed in thick dark lashes. Her lips are a natural pink.

Even in thick platform sneakers, she’s short. No, petite would be more accurate. She’s also pushing her way through the crowd with a certain ferocity. Forsyth turns back and says something to her. She smiles at him, candy-sweet, like she hasn’t been parting the crowd like a sea.

He also gestures to the heavy duffel slung on her shoulder.

She shakes her head like she’s refusing his offer to carry her bag. Just take it from her, you jerk. I don’t know if I’m talking to myself or to Forsyth.

And I’m so busy thinking about that—how perfect Blake Forsyth isn’t carrying his girlfriend’s bag—that I almost don’t recognize her.

Then something clicks.

Melody.

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