Page 38 of Diamond Ring
“Sure.” Because he doesn’t really have the option to say otherwise.
“If you don’t mind”—Toni motions to the camera operator to indicate they’re recording—“I find it’s easier just to film everything and sort it out later.”
“Are you gonna do the thing?” Jake gestures with his hands to indicate a clapboard, the kind they used, years ago, when people wanted him in commercials.
Toni laughs. “That eager to be on camera?”
No. “Yep.”
A tech indicates they’re good to go. Toni turns to him. “We’re just gonna do preliminary stuff today to set the stage before the season,” she says. “How’s that sound?”
“Sure.” Though what it sounds like is that Jake’s going to spend a lot of the season in uncomfortable chairs thinking things he can’t say.
“Okay, as a formality, please introduce yourself.”
“Jacob Fischer. I go by Jake.” He smiles, the commercial smile that used to come easy. Now it hurts his cheeks.
“What do you do for the Oakland Elephants?”
“Play baseball, mostly.”
“This isn’t your first time playing for the Elephants?”
“Figured you’d rip that particular Band-Aid off now?”
Toni smiles, the kind ofaw shuckssmile that Jake knows, because he’s doing it too. The one that says she’s aware Jake doesn’t want to answer, which is why she asked the question in the first place. He assumeddocumentarymeantpuff piece. But Gordon’s never gone easy on anyone, himself included, so why start now?
“No, this isn’t my first time with the Oakland Elephants,” Jake says. He fiddles with the mic pack, winding the cord around his finger into satisfying little loops. Maybe if he inadvertently messes up the sound, they won’t be able to use the clip. An iPad sits next to Toni, its screen shuttered by a cover, like she’s going to cue up old video for Jake to suffer through on camera. “Is this where you show game footage? Like if this is a documentary, you run that with voice-over or whatever?”
Toni raises her eyebrows. “You thinking about how it’ll play out on screen?”
“Ten years is a long time to think about things.” A too-honest admission. He covers it with a smile, a shrug, ignoring the glare of the lights, the confinement of the room. How his product-less hair looks like a disaster. He resists the urge to pull at his own collar.
“Must be exciting to be reunited with your team,” Toni prompts. “Particularly Alex Angelides.”
And Jake knew it was coming but it doesn’t make it sting less. “Yeah, I know Alex—I mean, Angelides—signed too.”
Toni gets an interested gleam in her eye. “How does that make you feel?”
Asked like an amateur therapist, only about ten thousand times worse and with a camera recording him. He smiles. “Like a fifth starter.”
Because that’s what he is: the twenty-sixth man on a twenty-six-man roster, someone who’ll get skipped in the rotation if there’s an off-day. When Gordon saidHey, Fischer, if you’re not busy, why don’t you come back and play another season, it wasn’t as if Jake had a choice where to sign. Because it was Oakland or nowhere. Between two evils, Jake’ll pick the one that comes with a big-league paycheck.
Toni grants him a slight reprieve. “Any wisdom gleaned from your years away from the team?”
Jake breathes around the lump clogging his throat, around his own apprehension, around his hope that this season will go better than the last time he and Alex played together. “Yeah. Don’t lose a world championship if you can help it.”
Chapter Ten
March
Alex
Alex walks into the Elephants clubhouse braced for a fight. The plane ride up from Arizona that morning was uneventful, the traffic back from the airport only slightly snarled.
But Alex has been on edge ever since he got the push notification a few days prior:Jake Fischer’s unlikely reunion with the Oakland Elephants.
An article he read, then reread in disbelief. Because if he knew Jake was re-signing with the Elephants, he would have gone somewhere else. Like the moon.
