The Cactus League: A Novel

by Emily Nemens

  By dust and by deluge, diminishment. It is inevitable, in mountains and in men. But over the following week, as news of his run-in at Taliesin spreads, Jason’s team sweeps into action, holding up so many umbrellas over his head. A whole bevy of folks, attempting to keep him dry. Damage control, they call it, trying to hold up the mountainside. Jason has never been one to seek the diva treatment, doesn’t like an entourage or attention, the kind of thing most people expect out of celebrity athletes. He’s a good leader in the clubhouse, stoic but kind, highly motivational or slightly goofy as the situation requires, but he hardly socializes off the field—which makes this spring’s babysitting, the rabid-with-concern attention, that much more frustrating. He holds his own umbrella. No, better yet, he wears a raincoat.

  In the postgame press conferences, manager Dorsey Paine deflects journalists’ questions about his trespassing charge, No comment, No comment, Give it a rest already. Then Dorsey goes back to the clubhouse and waits for Jason to wash up: the two of them are going out to dinner, whether Jason likes it or not—they’re eating together every night this week, Boss’s orders, Dorsey apologizes—the boss being a very ticked-off Woody Botter, the GM. (Trey Townsend, his outfield neighbor, is the only guy on the team who seems to enjoy time with the bosses, and no one quite trusts him for that. Everyone else thinks it’s bad luck or brown-nosing to get to know the owners, but Trey’s relationship with Stephen Smith is its own strange and special thing.)

  Meanwhile, another umbrella or three are being spun by Herb Allison, who tries to mend fences with Nike (unlikely) and Taliesin (they gratefully accept a $100,000 pledge). He calls his star every morning, sending Sara to the stadium with bran muffins and coffee for a 7:00 a.m. rendezvous. Sometimes Jason’s waiting for her at the players’ entrance, like they agreed, and sometimes he’s not—when he was fifteen minutes late on Wednesday she went exploring, trying one walkway and then the next until she spotted him coming out of a supply shed with a bashful look. She promised him then she’d say nothing to Herb, but didn’t feel as good about her promise on Friday when she spotted him, late again, at 7:20, crossing the footbridge from the casino to the stadium complex. Your coffee’s getting cold, she said when she passed him the cup, which they both knew meant Fuck you.

  At least Jason has umbrellas, people trying to preserve his image and performance, attempting to keep him dry and protect that perfect, conical peak. When no one’s protecting you, or when they’re protecting the mountain next door: you’ll get soaked, and worse. With enough water, enough wind, enough relentless force, the earth of your slopes will start to slide away.

  WEDGE SHOT

  The waiter weaves across the shady patio and deposits the men’s margaritas, double pours of the elder’s favorite reserve gold blend, onto the table, then stands at prim attention. The older man inspects: a tan, almost milky tint. He licks the salt along the rim and tilts the drink toward his lips.

  Stephen Smith closes his eyes: yes. It’s sour, then a line of sweetness, then the round, toothsome taste of the aged agave fills his mouth with swelling, subtle heat. He flashes a smile of straight bright teeth at the waiter and watches the man’s retreat between the planters of aloe.

  Stephen and Trey Townsend, the Los Angeles Lions center fielder, have caught each other up on their holidays and starts to the year. Trey spends the off-season in Grosse Pointe, and is hardly in touch when he winters in Michigan, so this happy hour feels like more than an afternoon chat—it’s a reunion after several months apart. It’s strange to Stephen to have a friend so present for half the year, then nothing, a light blinked off. Stephen takes another sip.

  “So how’s the new outfielder?” They’ve already chatted about his impressions of the new stadium, his off-season training. Trey looks fit; he always takes care of his physique.

  Trey takes a sip, licks his lips. “Which one?”

  “Come on, Trey.” Now Stephen looks squarely at his companion. “You know, the right fielder. Our second pick, behind that kid first baseman, oh jeez, gimme a sec … Goslin.” The partial owner of the Los Angeles Lions is not good with names, not even those names for which he has paid millions. Numbers, he’s good at those, a walking calculator. Faces, absolutely—he could nail any precinct lineup with one eye closed, or, more important to his profession, the fabric of any blazer by one glance at the lapel. But names are hard. His daughter’s seventh-grade teacher, that old Triple-A batting coach who simply refuses to retire, the waiter who always serves him at this, his favorite restaurant in Scottsdale. All blanks.

  Trey shrugs, his shoulders announcing themselves under his collar. Navy blue, meant to minimize his bulk and complement his skin. Stephen notices the familiar sheep logo embroidered over the breast, but doesn’t remind his friend that he’d taught Trey that, years ago: Wear dark colors, conservative brands, to make yourself seem less imposing in mixed, or otherwise sensitive, company. These two black men, drinking expensive tequila together an hour before the Arizona sunset, are not a mixed crowd—something Stephen very much appreciates after walking into so many all-white boardrooms, after hosting so many press conferences wherein the sea of reporters was mostly all white. Nor, Stephen thinks, is he a “sensitive” audience for Trey. They’ve moved far beyond the owner-player, boss-employee relationship; they are friends. Is it just that Trey has internalized the lesson, as he has so many of Stephen’s offerings and advice? That now, this presentation—and following Stephen’s direction—are what come naturally?

  “Matthews. Corey Matthews,” Trey says at last. He takes his drink without salt—Trey claims the sodium bloats him up, which in turn may slow him down. And Stephen does not want anything to slow down his center fielder. I want my boys at their best! is his line on the occasional clubhouse visit, always delivered with forced jocularity. Though boys—with Trey he should say men. Man. Trey’s younger than Stephen by enough to make the owner feel old, but the outfielder’s been with the organization for a dozen years, which puts him solidly on Stephen’s side of thirty. “You’ve seen about as much as me.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Stephen presses the rim’s last salt crystals into the roof of his mouth, holding them there until they are gone. He licks his lips and smiles. His wife, Mona, tells him he looks like a Cheshire cat when he smiles. Usually, she says this with suspicion, like it’s a bad thing to act self-assured. “The locker room?” Stephen’s eyebrows raise suggestively.

  He thinks he sees Trey blush, but his complexion reveals almost as little as his expression, which remains a stern sort of poker. He’s been stiff all afternoon, or even stiffer than normal. Not unhappy to see Stephen but something … “I suppose,” he starts, staring at his drink as if he could see the young man there. “Good physique, if a bit slight,” he continues, deliberate in his words. “Though he says he did plenty of strength training during the fall league. Why?”

  “Just curious.” Stephen waves his hand like he’s flicking something away. “I watched a few clips, but still haven’t seen him in the flesh.” Emphasis on “flesh.” Stephen has read the scouting reports, has reviewed game highlights from Cibao and the first week of Cactus League play, but he’s had no luck in seeing the prospect in person. The week had been a bear: a board of trustees meeting and a financial report review in Santa Monica, a ribbon cutting for a store in San Diego. Then Mona needed him to go to a cocktail reception at LACMA and on a double date to some flashy new Thai place downtown. And his daughter, Alexis, begged him to attend her basketball game Wednesday night, which Stephen did even as he hated it: ten gawky girls, klutzy and maddeningly slow, playing like the hardwood was coated with molasses. He loves his daughter, cute but awkward in the seventh grade, yet after five minutes—no, after sixty seconds—on the court he can tell she will never be an athlete, not a real one, and it pains him to watch her try. Just because she is tall like him, lithe like him, darker than the other girls on the prep-school team—her skin tone is almost exactly halfway between his and Mona’s—does not mean she�
�s got, or will ever have, game. All this busyness in Southern California meant he’d missed the whole first week of spring training, the stadium inauguration, the debut of their new acquisitions.

  He’d taken the noon shuttle from L.A. yesterday, dropped his bags at their North Scottsdale home, and was over at the stadium in time for an evening matchup against the Athletics—but some sloppy old-timer was in right. Today the Lions were split squad—forty guys at home, forty driving over to the western Phoenix suburbs to play the Padres—and Stephen had picked wrong; he watched some minor leaguer bungle his way through the game. He could’ve called Paine to ask the field manager who was going where, but he didn’t want to sound too eager after any given player. No help in the team’s owner picking favorites before they’ve done their culling. His coaches already have their work cut out for them: there are eighty guys suiting up every morning in the Lions’ black and gold. The starters have their names in gold thread across their backs, while others just sport numbers—reminders that half of them will be sent to the minors, another dozen’ll be let loose entirely, not even worth a custom jersey. By the end of March, there will be twenty-five men left. Stephen wants his coaches to coach, to improve the best athletes and to release the men who have to be let go. It’s something he learned in business school: empower your employees and they will rise to the occasion.

  Trey swirls his drink, cracks his neck, and pops each knuckle, left to right. He skips the thumbs today, though Stephen has seen him crack those, too—the sick crunch of it loud enough to make him grimace. Trey’s body is deteriorating; both men know it but are unwilling to say as much. They can wait to have that conversation; there are three more years on his contract.

  But those hands: in them are three Gold Gloves, including one last season, and he did it so elegantly as to make it look effortless. If he weren’t on a team—in an outfield—with Jason Goodyear, Trey’d be their star. Stephen is proud of this, the almost.

  Trey must know that Stephen is watching him as he plays with his napkin, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. This, too, has always been part of their relationship: Stephen’s attention, Trey’s demurral. The push and resistance, pull and restraint, the one heaving the two until—once and only once—Stephen’s efforts broke the jam and they were swaying together. That one time the two men coupled, after a big walk-off win, Mona and Alexis in Hawaii, is another thing that Trey never acknowledges, even as the men continue their friendship, these postgame happy hours and rounds of spring golf. Not a word.

  After another moment of quiet, Stephen asks, “Is he as fast as they say?” Last season at UNC Corey’d stolen something like fifty-seven bases in sixty-two games.

  Trey wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. It’s a strangely casual gesture coming from a man so measured, so precise. Maybe that is something of the winter Trey, the man Stephen knows so little about. “He’s fast,” he says. “Stole two last week. In the field—” Trey pauses, presses his lips together in that way he does when he’s trying to be tactful. Sweet Trey, Stephen thinks. Most players these days are raunchy or disrespectful or mean-spirited, or all three. But not Trey. He so appreciates this man’s efforts.

  “In the field he…” Stephen prompts, leaning forward.

  “I guess you could say he dances a bit, under the ball. Reaches more than he needs to.” Trey lifts his hand over his head and does some kind of twist with his wrist. A delicate gesture, despite his arm being thick with muscle. That juxtaposition moves something in Stephen’s core, a sensation not unlike the small and sudden drop of an elevator at the start of its descent. “Ta-da, you know?”

  Stephen smiles. This man, this soft-spoken man he has known for a decade, more, has never said anything harsher than that he would prefer not to eat raw fish. (The first time they went for sushi together, Trey took one look at their two-person nigiri dinner and ordered himself the chicken teriyaki.) The outfielder looks uncomfortable now, fiddling with his glass, the tequila hardly touched. Because he said something mean? Or is it something about Stephen, something he’s said? Stephen takes another sip of his drink; his is already half gone.

  Trey clears his throat. “Just a touch showy, if you know what I mean.”

  “Trey”—Stephen guffaws, he can’t help it—“I think that’s the meanest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” Trey’s eyes find a spot on the ground. “Well, then,” Stephen raises his glass. “To the new brother on the ball club.”

  * * *

  Saturday morning Stephen sleeps in, which means waking at dawn rather than in the dark. Mona has called three times since they last spoke, which was at 4:00 p.m. California time the previous day. There is only one voice mail; on it her voice so angry it sounds nearly percussive. He has forgotten—they both have forgotten, but he is the only one out of state and unable to easily correct the oversight—some important charity function this weekend. A fundraiser at Alexis’s school, one that he had promised to attend. Our names are on the freakin’ invitation, Stevie—that was part of the message. Unless he gets his tail back to California ASAP, Mona will have to attend alone and she does not want to do that.

  She has also sent several texts. Four vehemently disappointed in him, including a threat to bring Marco, her stud personal trainer, to the gala as her date. One message in the middle of the stream shows mild concern; Mona must’ve briefly considered that an accident was preventing her husband from replying (rather than the three—or was it four?—margaritas he’d consumed with Trey, the two of them staying on the patio until well after dinner), but then she returned to the thumbed invectives. Asshole. Selfish bastard. You love the team more than your family. Stephen scrolls through the messages and deletes the thread, all the way back to Tuesday and a moment she was feeling generous. Have a nice afternoon. Theirs has always been a complicated relationship, made infinitely more so in November 1994. It was the MLB strike and a Lions investor wanted to wash his hands of his stake; he was asking the bargain price of $6 million. Back then, Mona had still loved baseball; as a native Angeleno she’d cheered for the Lions since their inaugural season. Their partial share was meant to be an anniversary gift, a “diamond” for his wife. A project for them to do together.

  You’re lucky you didn’t ask me if I wanted it, she likes to tell her husband. I wouldn’t have let you buy the team, Stevie.

  Let me? Stephen is, always, taken aback by her presumption.

  Let. You. She stretches out the words. Not even a single share.

  And Stephen had misjudged her reaction; he did not anticipate her quick-boil resentment. You’ve ruined baseball for me, dear. She resents the time spent on those men, the friendships grown. When he talks to her about performance and competition and fraternity, about all the things that make him love owning the Lions, she looks at him like he is speaking gibberish.

  But he didn’t regret the purchase, not at all. Over the past seventeen years he’s inched his way up. Far from the majority stake, but a big enough percentage that people pay attention to what he has to say. Nothing gets done without his okay. And as a black owner—that’s another kind of notoriety. He’s even been on SportsCenter, talking about the importance of diversity in sports leadership. Mona likes to remind him that his cable TV debut had occurred during the slowest of sports weeks, the doldrums between the NBA finals and the MLB All-Star Game. She thinks she’s being cute, saying something so sly. She is a beautiful woman still, at fifty, petite and regal, but she hasn’t been cute for decades, not since their undergraduate days at UCLA. And her smile is no longer as endearing as it was: now it has gray teeth, thinner lips, meanness at its corners.

  He turns on the morning news and does sixty minutes on the elliptical in the den, then showers, eats a yogurt, and goes to the field early. He asks around the clubhouse and someone tells him the outfielders are doing wind sprints on practice field six. He studies a map of the new complex, then heads down a fresh asphalt path, small, round cacti lining the edges. A crew guy, zooming along in a dusty golf cart, stops ab
ruptly, with a little squeak of the brakes.

  “Joe Templeton, groundskeeper,” the driver says, stepping from the cab and extending his hand. Stephen doubts the man knows his name, but at least he recognizes that Stephen must be important in his navy blazer and khakis. Stephen’s always overcompensated in his dress. As if an expensive pair of loafers and a good chortle could make up for the poverty of his youth, the prejudice of a nation. But since Obama’s inauguration Stephen’s noticed a certain uptick—more respect from service workers, more interest from Mona’s mainly white circle of friends. Maybe things are changing.

  Stephen introduces himself, and Templeton offers him a lift. He declines: he wants to walk, to take in the new complex at his own speed. Templeton wishes Stephen a good day, and the golf cart whirs off in the opposite direction. Stephen likes the Arizona morning: it’s brighter than those in L.A., or maybe just clearer, no smog or salty sea air dampening the resolution. The peaks are sharp on the eastern horizon, and Camelback Mountain pops in the west like a giant stone ungulate.

  At practice field six Stephen sees a number of faces he recognizes. Jason Goodyear is jogging along the warning track. The new kid, Corey Matthews, is running across the outfield green. He touches the chalk of the foul line and then pops up and pivots, his knees pistons pumping toward the invisible finish line fifty yards out. Trey was right: good speed in those legs. The boy jogs back, high knees for half, then heels up for the remainder. Trey is in the near grass with a cluster of other players, the men stretching, their legs splayed into wide Vs. Stephen nods hello as he approaches—all of the men polite, deferential, Hello, sir, and Good morning, boss—and squats on his heels by Trey’s side. “Want to introduce me?” Stephen says.

  Trey slides one heel into his crotch, reaches for the opposite toe. “If you need it.” The rookie crouches at the foul line and explodes up again. He runs with his head down, his hat’s bill nearly perpendicular to the ground, until he reaches his imagined finish, pivots, and starts the jog back. He kicks his legs out like a drum major. Of course he can introduce himself.