Page 3 of Diamond Ring
Fischer’s mouth twitches at that. His lips aren’t bad, reddish and unchapped like he’s vigilant about lip balm. Not that Alex has opinions about that kind of thing while he’s in a clubhouse. “Don’t think I could do that. Pitchers—we can be a little high maintenance.”
Some of Alex’s annoyance dissolves. “I’ve noticed. I’m excited to work with the Oakland pitching staff.” A baseball soundbite he actually means.
Kimberly clears her throat like she’s reminding them they’re being videoed, and asks if their parents are coming to see them play.
“My mom booked the tickets before I could finish telling her I got called up,” Fischer says. “It’ll be cool to pitch with them here.” A smile to go with it, though a shade dimmer than the previous ones he’s aimed at the camera.
A silence, one Alex should fill; he goes for the easiest version of things. “My family’s coming out too.”
Which is enough for Kimberly to move onto the next question, even if Fischer glances over like he noticed Alex being vague. “What players did you model yourselves after growing up?” she asks.
Fischer gives another media smile. “There are a lot of really talented guys in the league, but the one I probably studied the most was Koufax.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly. “Most players don’t go back a generation. Why him in particular?”
If Alex didn’t know better, he’d think something hardened in Fischer’s smile. “You know, good curveball.” He nods to Alex. “How about you?”
From there, it’s an interview, Alex grunting answers, Fischer making jokes at his own expense. The clock reads noon when Kimberly finally tells them they’re done. Fischer hops up, thanks her, unclips his mic battery from his waistband, a move that comes with a brief display of the muscles of his lower back.
Alex undoes his own and is about to go find the weight room when Fischer makes a frustrated noise. He smiles when Alex looks over at him, like he’s embarrassed to be caught being anything less than megawatt-level happy. Except he’s picking at the cord for his mic pack, now an intractable tangle, skinny cable tightening with each effort to loosen it. He looks nervous, as if a tangled mic cord matters.
“Here.” Alex reaches for the pack, which Fischer hands over, then unpicks the wire until the snarls come loose, the way he undoes his cousin Evie’s shoelaces when she quadruple-knots them.
“Thanks, man,” Fischer says, when Alex sets the pack down on a chair. He sounds slightly too relieved given the circumstances.
“No problem. I have to do that for audio cables all the time.”
Fischer’s eyebrows rise.
“I’m in a band. Was in a band,” Alex says.
“Were you guys any good?”
“Not really.”
Fischer laughs at that, a flash of his straight white teeth that makes Alex press his tongue to his own crooked lower incisor.
Nearby, the caterers are laying out the pregame buffet. Alex’s stomach reminds him that he hasn’t had anything to eat since he got road food the night before, rumbling audibly.
Fischer smiles what would be a smirk except for the slight scrunching of his nose. He has freckles, a scattering of them across light olive skin. “You wanna see if the food here is as good as guys say it is?”
Alex studies the long line of chafing dishes, the cook-to-order station set up at one end. “You think they’d make me an omelet?”
“It’s our call-up day. I don’t think they’re allowed to say no to us. C’mon, let’s go find out.”
The Elephants say no to Alex later that day.Noto his being in the lineup.Noto if he should get ready to pinch hit.Noto if he should do anything other than sit on the high-backed dugout bench and try not to let his eyeballs fall out of his head staring at everything.
He’s played in stadiums before, but never one as immense as Elephants Coliseum. Played with pro ballplayers, but none who feel as impressive as his teammates do, their uniforms tailored and not the drapey minor-league ones he wore as of a day ago. They feel older, even though some are his age at twenty-four, like they’ve gotten the full complement of adulthood that comes with a big-league contract. He resists the urge to tap his spikes against the concrete dugout floor like an impatient kid.
He migrates from the dugout bench to the railing, from the railing to the dugout bench, a circuit he repeats enough that John Gordon—Oakland’s star player who’s been in the bigs for ten years and shows no signs of slowing—tells him to give it a rest. Gordon’s slightly shorter than Alex expected him to be, but no less imposing, his jersey sitting on his broad shoulders like he was born to wear it, his brown skin deepened from a decade of sun exposure.
“First-game jitters are no joke,” Gordon says. Which is more charitable than he needs to be, given that even acknowledging Alex’s existence is more charitable than he needs to be.
“How’d it go for you?” Though Alex should probably know that, given Gordon’s status on the Elephants. Another thing he feels unprepared for.
Gordon shrugs. “Went oh-for-four. Got booed.” Not exactly a reassurance, except for the casual way he says it, like those past offenses slid right off his veteran-player shoulders.
Alex does give it a rest. Or tries to, fidgeting without fidgeting. He’s scanning the pristine sleeve of his uniform for loose threads when Courtland, their manager, bellows a directive. Courtland is Alex’s height, scrawny with time-withered muscle mass, a voice like a megaphone and a temper like a cartoon alarm clock. His size doesn’t keep Alex—who people occasionally crossed the street to avoid when he had all his piercings—from being slightly afraid of him.
