Page 39 of Heavy Hitter

“No,” Maddie says, “I guess he wasn’t.”

Claire puts a hand on her arm and squeezes. “Are you okay?”

Lacey shrugs her off before she can quiet the impulse, wincing when she sees Claire flinch. “I’m fine,” she assures them, trying to soften her tone while simultaneously sounding as if she’s got it all together. “I think we should ignore it, don’t you? Like you said, it’s already backfiring. He wants to hang himself out to dry, that’s his business.”

“Okay,” Maddie says. “Well, if you’re sure, then, we should talk about a PR rollout for you and Jimmy Hodges.”

Lacey hesitates. It’s not like she didn’t know this was coming; it’s not that she doesn’t know they need a plan. Still, she finds she doesn’t want to talk about it right this second, to turn it into one more thing she needs to manage and strategize about. It’s overwhelming. She feels overwhelmed. “I don’t think we need to cross that bridge yet.”

“Really?” Maddie looks surprised. Lacey is not at all a person who buries her head in the sand. “Because I do have some concerns that after the blind item on the Sinclair, and you flying down there—”

“No, I know, but we discussed it,” Lacey says, “and we decided we’re going to keep it private for a little bit.”

“And if it leaks?”

Lacey smiles. “We can move on.”

Maddie eyes her a moment longer, visibly nonplussed. “Sure,” she says finally. “Of course.”

That was a pretty good hang, Jimmy texts her, just as the car pulls into the driveway. We should do it again sometime.

Lacey blinks, surprised by the tiny zip of anxiety that ricochets through her at the sight of his name on the screen, the sinking suspicion that there may be a cost to whatever it is they’re doing here that she didn’t adequately anticipate—then tells herself not to be ridiculous. Who gives a shit about Toby and his comedy set? She’s the one in control of the narrative. She’s the one in charge. Some stupid stunt by Toby doesn’t change that.

It was, she agrees. We should.

***

THE WILD CARD SERIES IS SHORT, JUST THREE GAMES OVER three nights in Seattle: the Orioles win the first, but they lose to the Mariners in the second, forcing a tiebreaker Tuesday night. “Washington’s basically Northern California, on the off chance you’re in the mood to take in some playoff baseball,” Jimmy says when she calls him that morning to say good luck. “I can leave a funny nose and glasses for you at the gate.”

“Tempting.” Lacey bites her lip, letting herself imagine it for a moment, being there to watch him on a night as important as this one. Cheering him on while he does what he loves. Then she thinks of Toby workshopping his set back across town at Largo and reminds herself it’s better to keep this whole thing under wraps for at least a little while longer. “I’m going to be wearing my Hodges jersey and cheering you on from my mayoral residence,” she promises. “Don’t fuck it up.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jimmy tells her. Then, just before he hangs up: “Hey. You doing okay, about that video?”

Lacey winces. It’s been everywhere the last few days, clips of it playing on the morning shows and on late night, the subject of a million think pieces about misogyny in stand-up and who owns whose stories. She and Maddie both agreed it was better not to comment this time, but none of it shows any signs of letting up and she’s starting to wonder if maybe that’s a mistake, too. She feels off her game, foggy headed. Distracted, to borrow Jimmy’s word.

“Totally,” she says. “I’m doing fine.”

Lacey’s never watched the entirety of a baseball game before, and she makes a little one-woman party of it in her screening room later that night, with a bowl of chocolate-covered almonds and a new flavor of kombucha. She’s always thought of baseball as a deeply boring sport, but it turns out she sort of likes it when she’s got some skin in the game, remembering stories Jimmy’s told her about his teammates, watching for a quick glimpse of him behind the plate. His friend Tuck is pitching, the one who’s been on the Orioles almost as long as he has. She spies a few guys she recognizes from that very first night at the club.

The Orioles are behind the first three innings, then tied for the better part of the middle of the game. Briefly ahead. Behind again. Jimmy strikes out in the seventh—“Shit,” Lacey says out loud, gnawing her thumbnail before she can catch herself—then redeems himself with a three-run homer at the top of the ninth, and then all at once it’s over. All at once, he’s won.

“Fuck yeah!” Lacey exclaims before she can stop herself, then claps a hand over her mouth even though there’s nobody around to hear her. She feels like she’s the one who’s going to the Division Series. She feels like there’s a hot air balloon inside her chest. She watches as the guys rush the field and pile onto each other like puppies, the joy palpable, Jimmy ripping his mask off and dropping it into the dirt as he goes.

She picks her phone up to text him, ignoring a couple of missed calls from Claire from earlier tonight, even though she knows his phone is back in the locker room. She doesn’t want to talk about her own stuff right now. She wants to be happy for her boyfriend, who’s going to—she knows it in her gut—win a World Series after all this time. I’m so fucking proud of you, she types, thumbs flying over the keyboard. I can’t wait to show you in person how much.

She tucks her phone into the pocket of her hoodie and walks around the house for a bit, the excitement inside her turning to restlessness. She wants to stretch her legs, to go until she runs out of road. Lacey gets this feeling sometimes, even though she knows it’s silly: like she’s stuck in a cage of her own construction. Like she’s trapped. All at once she wishes she’d gone to the game after all, that she was there to celebrate with him, to run her fingers through his champagne-soaked hair. Who cares if people know they’re together? she thinks wildly. She wants people to know. She wants to be there for him. She’s going to go to the next one, she decides. When is the next one, even? She’ll find out.

Upstairs in her bedroom she flicks over to ESPN to watch the postgame press conference while she washes her face and puts on her night cream. She’s never watched one of these before, either, but she wants to keep looking at him, to see the flush of pleasure on his handsome face. She liked watching Toby perform, obviously; she thought his jokes were reasonably funny. But this feels different.

“Hey, Jimmy,” a reporter says, first question out of the gate, “any truth to the rumors you’re dating Lacey Logan?”

Lacey whirls around as if someone has stabbed her, watching as Jimmy freezes, like there’s a glitch in the cable feed. The panic is naked on his face. Even if she didn’t know anything about it, she’d know the reporter was right.

There’s a brief, horrible silence, nothing but the sound of the cameras clicking like a plague of cicadas. Lacey can hear her own breath in her ears. She waits for someone to jump in and end the press conference, to hustle Jimmy back to the locker room. That’s what Maddie would have done. Lacey would have been in the car by now. Lacey would be in Burkina fucking Faso.

“I’ll tell you one thing for sure,” Jimmy says, the words coming out all in a rush. “If I was dating her, I sure as shit wouldn’t write a corny fucking comedy routine about it.”

Lacey drops the jar of night cream all over the floor.

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