Page 39 of Diamond Ring
So Jake’s back. Alex got no fewer than a dozen texts about it from his family and a few former teammates, most of which he ignored. Except Evie’s:Didn’t you used to play with him???Because Evie was nine the last time she saw Jake and probably remembers him as a vague Uncle Alex friend. Lucky her.
Alex gets off the bus carrying a duffel bag he wants to drop by his stall. He could just dump it in his truck and bring it back tomorrow, but that’d mean he wasavoidinggoing into the clubhouse, and he’s not avoiding anything. Especially not Jake.
He’s only in the clubhouse for a minute when Courtland—whose bellow has only intensified in the past decade—hollers his name.Angelides. He still says it likeAngel, as if Alex didn’t correct him for the last six weeks of spring training. An irritant like the Arizona dust coating his duffel.
“Angelides, if you got nothing else to do, go talk to Tony.” Courtland points a stiff, imperious finger down the hallway that holds several training rooms.
Who the fuck is Tony?But Alex goes.
Toni is apparently an Olympic-softball-player-turned-documentarian. She looks like an aging infielder and smiles at Alex like she expects him to smile back.
He doesn’t.
Toni gestures to an uncomfortable chair. “Have a seat.”
They mic-pack Alex and fuss with sound levels. He occupies himself counting the Velcro strips anchoring the black backdrop they’ve swaddled the room in. Toni prods him with small talk about how spring training went.
“It was fine.” What else is there to say about spending six weeks in suburban Phoenix in an aggressively beige rental house? He grilled in his backyard, tried not to get exasperated by their pitchers, and definitely didn’t text his ex Eric, because he allows himself only one text every four days. Today is day three.
Toni sits in a chair next to his, possibly to make her seem less adversarial. “Okay,” she says once the cameras are rolling, “as a formality, please introduce yourself.”
“Alex Angelides.” He doesn’t elaborate. If Toni wants to outwait him, she’s more than welcome to. Alex might not be a world champion at baseball—which is what happens when you lose not one, but two, Fall Classics—but he once didn’t say a word for an entire cross-country flight. He can be the world champion of shutting the hell up.
Eventually Toni cracks. “Maybe there’s a better time to do this?”
“Now’s fine.”
“So I’m here with Alex Angelides, one of the catchers for the Oakland Elephants.”
Alex grunts a concurrence.
“Alex, this isn’t your first time with the club.”
It’s not a question, so Alex doesn’t answer it.
“How does it feel to be reunited with Jake Fischer?” Toni asks.
Yeah, that’s what Alex thought—Toni’swe’re all just buddiessmile is the teeth of a trap. One Alex knew was coming and stuck his foot in anyway.
He signed a one-year contract with the Elephants because the market isn’t exactly kind to catchers in their thirties. His knees hurt every morning. He could have just hung ’em up. But Gordon, with that damned persuasive grin of his, called him up and said, “Hey, Angel, the front office told me they’re looking for guys. Why not come back to the Bay for one last go?” It sounded good. He likes Oakland, mostly because no one sticks microphones in his face, unlike in Toronto, which wants to be the New York of Canada.
So the Elephants are giving him a paycheck and, this interview aside, not a lot of grief. If he survives this year, he can get his big-league pension, move back to Rhode Island, and live out his life dream of being left alone.
How does it feel?When he signed his contract, he knew that they’d ask about Jake. Because baseball is all aboutnarrativeeven if Alex’s main inducements for playing are the monthly amounts he sends to Sofia, and now Evie, to pay her design-school tuition.
He’s had ten years to consider the question after he left Jake’s house carrying an argument that lasted for his flight and the weeks after until it was time to head to Arizona for spring training. They resumed texting, though Jake didn’t apologize and Alex sure as hell didn’t either.
Each conversation, however innocuous, brought up more and more stuff they purposefully weren’t talking about—the loss, Jake’s elbow rehab, the season—a set of silences that stretched and stretched until something between them broke, irreparably.
Like Jake’s arm.
Because Jake didn’t make it back to Oakland, his recovery long enough that the feverish sports news cycle moved on. And it was Alex’sfault, a guilt he hasn’t been able to dislodge for ten fucking years, that sits on him like the microphone at his collar.
He unclips the mic pack, cord tangling as he casts it on his chair. “Yeah, maybe another time.”
It’s not fleeing if he walks at his normal pace, through the clubhouse, to the parking lot and into the spotlight of the California sun. Just in time to see Jake, in all his fucking glory.
Jake—Fischer—looks different than the last time Alex saw him in person. Alex has a few white hairs at his temples, mostly because dealing with pitchers is enough to make anyone go gray. Still, his face is his face in the mirror, even if he looks a little more weathered.
