“Of course I knew that. I’ve seen you walking up and down the aisles.” He followed her through the door into the ice cream shop, which smelled of burnt sugar and chocolate.
“You have? Aren’t you supposed to be focusing on the game, not the aisles?” she teased. “Are you really supposed to thinking about cotton candy and peanuts?”
“Believe me, that isn’t what I think about when I see you up there.”
She turned pink, and he felt like doing cartwheels. He’d made her blush. He wanted to eat her up like a strawberry cone. She took his hand and pulled him toward the glass case where all the ice cream flavors were displayed. For so long, he’d been dreaming about how her hand would feel in his. The reality put his fantasies to shame.
“I have to warn you,” she told him. “When it comes to ice cream, I’m very, very serious.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” She proceeded to approach each flavor, one by one, and analyze how it would taste in combination with every other flavor. She asked for samples, which came on tiny pink spoons, and mixed and matched them in a cup. Finally, the server cut her off at five samples.
She grumbled at that. “How am I supposed to make an informed decision? I mean, black cherry next to lemon sorbet could be amazing or it could taste like cough syrup.”
“We can always come back,” he pointed out. As far as he was concerned, they could return for every combination under the sun. “I would have no problem with that. Think about all the different variables. Nuts, toppings, sprinkles. Cone or waffle. Pecans or walnuts. Fudge syrup or butterscotch. Then we have to try each one with whipped cream on top. Cherry or no cherry. We could come back every day for a year and try a different combination every time. This might even call for an algorithm. Or an app.”
Her face lit up like a million fireflies. “You’re right. Let’s do that. Let’s come back here every single night.”
“As long as I’m not on the road,” he added, because he was literal like that.
“Right. And until you get called up.” Her smile dimmed, which made him want to dance a jig. Would she miss him if he got called up?
“You probably don’t have to worry about that.”
Normally, that fact might make him glum, but not at the moment. Right now, if Duke called to tell him the Friars wanted him, he’d probably say “I can’t, I’ve got a date.”
“I never thought I’d get this far in baseball. It’s all icing on the cake for me.”
The server cleared his throat. “You guys planning on ordering anytime soon? We close in like, two hours, and at this rate…”
Nina glared at him. “Don’t you know this is a member of the Kilby Catfish? You should be honored to have him in your shop.”
The server, who was probably in high school, yawned. “Baseball player? That explains everything. Baseball games take forever.”
Jim laughed good-naturedly, but Nina couldn’t hide her outrage. “Baseball is the best game ever invented, and if you can’t appreciate the nuances of the game, you should—”
“Cone or cup?” the server interrupted.
“Waffle cone, one scoop chocolate mint, one scoop toasted coconut, no sprinkles,” she rattled off. “And a side of ‘who cares what you think about baseball anyway.’”
“Same for me,” Lieberman said, smothering the laughter that threatened to burst out. The server narrowed his eyes at Nina, as if she were some kind of python waiting to strike while he dished out the ice cream.
Cones in hand, they claimed a table nestled into the bay window that looked out on the restored redbrick downtown area of Kilby. “You really are tough, aren’t you?” Lieberman marveled as he pulled out her chair for her.
“Only about the things that matter. Baseball, my family, truth, justice and ice cream.” She twinkled at him as she sat down.
“Good list,” he said approvingly. “I can’t argue with a single one of those priorities.”
For a moment, they focused on the frozen deliciousness. Jim loved the fact that they were eating the same flavors. It made the experience that much more mutual. He also loved the ecstatic expression on Nina’s face as she touched her tongue to the icy chocolate mint.
“You never answered my question,” he said after they’d eaten half their cones and were nearly comatose from the sugar high. “About your dreams. You listed off all your jobs, but you didn’t really sound excited about them. Did you imagine selling cotton candy to baseball fans as a kid?”
“No, I was more about the Cracker Jacks,” she joked.
He laughed, but refused to get distracted again. “I’m serious. I know you’re still really young, but—”
Uh oh. Nina’s spine snapped straight and she frowned at him. “I’m barely younger than you.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“And I’m twenty-two. That’s only three years. And chronological age doesn’t mean much. Some people mature earlier. Some people have certain experiences that make them feel older than they actually are.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t mean to imply anything about your age. I just meant that you might not know what you want your future to be like and that’s perfectly normal for someone—”
“My age,” she finished.
He winced, and filled his mouth with toasted coconut ice cream rather than say anything else that might rub her the wrong way.
“As a matter of fact, I know exactly what I want. I’ve wanted the same thing since I was little. Actually, since my mother died.”
Her big blue eyes watched him over the top of her cone. She was licking at it as she spoke, which somehow didn’t detract from her seriousness at all.
“Okay, well, I’d really like to know what that is.”
“Fine. Then I’ll tell you.”
But then she seemed to lose her nerve, and instead swirled her tongue across the surface of the ice cream scoop. He lost himself for a moment in that mesmerizing movement. He started when she finally continued.
“I want a family. I had one, a really good one, and then my mother died, and my father couldn’t handle the pain without the help of pharmaceuticals, and then…well, you know what happened. I hurt a gang member and my brother went to juvie and I was all alone. So I want everything I didn’t have for most of my life. A normal, ordinary family. Security. I know it’s not fancy or ambitious, but that’s what I want.”
He forgot about his cone as he took in her serious expression. He knew she was resilient and brave, but he hadn’t seen this side of her. The focused, determined, possibly still grieving side. “You deserve that,” he said gently. “You should have whatever you wish for.”
As he dove back into his ice cream eating, something occurred to him. Something very depressing. He wanted her to have that “normal family” she longed for. But baseball life was nothing like “normal.” It was unpredictable, exciting, frustrating, but it definitely wasn’t normal or ordinary. And secure? No way. A Starbucks barista had more security. Maybe he should have stuck with neuroscience.
But he hadn’t, so how could he possibly fit into Nina’s dream? Why would she ever want to be with a ballplayer, especially a Minor Leaguer who had no idea if he’d ever make it to the Majors?
“If there’s anything I can do to help make your dream come true, just let me know,” he said, trying to keep it light. “Although ballplayers aren’t very good at ‘security’, to be honest. Even the superstars live on the edge. You probably know that, being the sister of one.”
She stared at him for a long, withering moment with those big baby blues of hers. Under her reproachful gaze, he grew self-conscious. Did he have a stray bit of ice cream on his face? Or, more likely, had he stuck his foot in his mouth? “What’s wrong?”
Shaking her head, she returned her attention to her ice cream cone. “Maybe we should drop the subject. We should talk about something else. Trevor, for instance.”
Now she had him completely confused. Before,
she hadn’t wanted to talk about Trevor, now she did. And in between, he’d obviously made an error. Something unforced and upsetting to her.
His phone beeped with a text message. Balancing his ice cream cone in one hand, he fumbled in his pocket. “Wow, big news.” He stared at the message. “Dwight just got called up.”
“Really?” She seemed to forget her irritation with him. Her face lit up and she leaned over to read the message herself. While she did so, he lost himself in the fresh scent of her skin combined with the minty chocolate of the ice cream. “That’s so exciting! I’m really going to miss him though. The whole town will.”
Jim nodded morosely. Count him in that category. Dwight Conner was one of the good guys, someone with a huge heart, generous in every way. He’d taken Jim under his wing. He was a grade-A teammate. He deserved this call-up. He was a great player and would do the Friars proud.
Jim, on the other hand, would still be scooping up grounders in the Texas dirt until he died.
“It could be you next,” Nina said gently. He lifted his head to find her soft gaze on him. It felt like a ray of morning sun on his face. She touched his shoulder, causing a warm sensation to spread throughout his body. Right down to the part of him that knew exactly what he wanted from Nina.
“Sure.” But more and more, he doubted that he’d ever get The Call. “Maybe,” he corrected, since he was the literal sort. “My batting average is marginal, and my fielding is up and down. I’m not a big-time prospect like Dwight or Trevor. I’m what they call a ‘lunch-pail’ player. I come in, I get the job done, but it’s nothing spectacular.”
“Well, then maybe you should do something spectacular. Something dazzling.”
“Like what?” He broke off a piece of waffle cone and crunched on it.
“Like those crazy double plays guys like Derek Jeter used to make. Or Ozzie Smith. Behind the back, through the legs, twisting into a pretzel in mid-air.”
“Derek Jeter.” He said it like a prayer, since Jeter was his all-time idol. “He was the best. One of the best ever. But that’s him. I’m not gifted like that.”
She popped the rest of her cone into her mouth and wiped her hands on a napkin. “You know what your problem is?”
“What?”
“You worry too much.”
This was so close to his own self-diagnosis that he stared. “Of course I do. It’s a family trait. But how did you know that?”
She let out a long-suffering sigh, as if he were a troublesome child she didn’t quite know how to handle. “You’ll have to figure that part out by yourself.” She gathered up her bag, ready to go, but when he started to follow suit she put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay, I’m going to walk home from here.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
“No, thank you. I grew up in the slums of Detroit and I nearly killed a man when I was twelve,” she said pleasantly.
He nearly choked on his coconut ice cream. It really was hard to believe that such a petite pixie-like woman could be so fierce. But he’d also heard another side to the story. “Is it true that you sent care packages to him during his recovery?”
“Of course I did. I felt so bad about hurting him like that, even though he was threatening my father. I found his address and sent him anonymous gifts, like books and movies and cookies. I’ve been sending him stuff for ten years. Now that he knows who I am, and that all those gifts came from me, he sends ‘thank you’ notes. We’re friends now, in a weird way. He doesn’t threaten people anymore. I think he’s a lot happier now.”
With a sunny smile, she got to her feet while he gaped at her in wonder.
Only Nina, he thought. Nina was magic, one of a kind. He’d never been so entranced with a woman in his life, and he never would be. And she was about to walk out the door.
“Wait.” He scrambled to get to his feet. “Are you coming to our next home game?”
“Do you mean am I working your next home game? Selling cotton candy? Yes.”
“No, that’s not what—I wanted to—ugh.” He dug his fingers into his rich brown hair. “We’re going on the road for a week but when we get back, I can get tickets right behind home plate. And maybe I can, I don’t know, dedicate the game to you.”
She fixed her big summer-sky eyes on him while he died inside. Nina’s brother was engaged to the team owner’s daughter. She could get tickets to any seat in the stadium. And if she wanted to see a Major League game, Trevor could get her box seats at Friars Stadium. If he wanted to impress Nina, he’d have to do better than tickets to a Catfish game. Why was he so bad at this?
Her words came back to him. You worry too much.
And then Dwight’s words from the hospital. You want Nina or not?
Yes. He wanted Nina, with her courage and her innocence and her toughness and her big blue eyes. He wanted her so much his heart ached with it. Maybe it was time to show her.
He stood up a little higher. “Either way, I’ll be playing for you every game until I get back. I don’t know exactly when or where, but I’m going to do something amazing. I’m going to dazzle you. Just watch.”
Finally, she smiled the way he’d always wanted her to smile at him. Like a woman flirting with a man. A woman who was impressed with a man. “Of course I’ll watch.” She added some mischief to her tone. “You know how much I love those Catfish.”
She was such a tease. But she sure knew how to make him smile.
“Can I call you while I’m gone? Maybe we can FaceTime.”
“Sure. I’d like that.” Her radiant smile rocked his world. If he had to, he’d hit ten homers and make twenty double plays a game just to see that smile again.
7
When the Catfish were on the road, Nina had lots of extra time on her hands. Sometimes she went to Bullpen Ranch, where she was helping Crush get the grounds cleaned up for the wedding. Often she volunteered at the Kilby Community Library, rebinding books and conducting Story Hour for the kids. Still, it got lonely—but luckily, she now had a roommate.
Maggie was a fantastic roomie in every way except one. Nina found her the tiniest bit intimidating. She was obviously brilliant. She had a graduate degree in statistics and a master’s in computer engineering. Her memory for arcane baseball facts was insanely detailed. She was also several years older than Nina and came from Boston, which in Nina’s mind translated to sophisticated and brainy.
But the more she got to know Maggie, the more she realized they had certain essential things in common. They had both been largely homeschooled, for one thing, although Nina had attended the last year of high school in Tucson. They were both skimpy on experience with dating. They were both trying to establish their independence from their families (Maggie from her parents and Nina from Trevor). And they both loved baseball.
How many roommates would be excited about watching the San Diego Friars game on TV on a Saturday night? Nina had no idea, really, but she guessed not too many. But Maggie jumped at the idea.
“It’s Dwight’s debut, of course we have to watch.”
“Wow, it sounds like you two really hit it off last night.”
Maggie blushed, red tinting her creamy skin. Maggie had a unique look that Nina envied. With her curly dark hair and tip-tilted eyes, she looked like a surprised, sleepy-eyed cat. But when she really got excited about something, her eyes would sparkle deep green instead of black, and her entire face would animate with passion.
“He’s nice,” Maggie said in a dreamy way that Nina recognized all too well. “He taught me how to hit a baseball. And he—” She broke off as someone rang the doorbell. They were expecting a pizza delivery, but to Nina’s mind, finishing that very interesting sentence ought to come first.
Maggie paid for the veggie supreme, Nina took a bottle of beer from the fridge and they settled in front of the TV in enough time to watch the pregame show.
“Dwight did what,” Nina prompted her, “besides teach you how to hit a baseball?”
Maggie stuffed half a s
lice of pizza in her mouth and made an exaggerated “sorry, can’t talk now” gesture.
“Fine, be that way, but I will get it out of you. If it has anything to do with the general theme of men and love, I want to know all about it. It’s the most fascinating topic in the world, don’t you think?” She glanced again at Maggie, suddenly remembering all her degrees. “I mean, probably not as fascinating as all your algorithms.”
Maggie laughed, then coughed because her mouth was full of pizza. Nina thumped her on the back and mentally prepared herself for the Heimlich. Her bodyguard had taught her how to do it but she’d never tried it on a living person. Finally, Maggie swallowed down her chunk of pizza.
“Fascinating in a different way,” she murmured. “Look, there’s Dwight!”
Possibly afraid to risk another choking attack, she put down the slice of pizza and propped her elbows on her knees to focus on the screen. They were showing a shot of Dwight practicing his fielding. One of the coaches would hit a long fly ball to center, and Dwight would chase after it, then drill it to the cut-off man. Nina peered at him.
“Does he look tense to you?”
“I’m sure he’s nervous. This is the ‘Show,’ it’s what they all dream about.”
There was a note of something in Maggie’s voice that Nina couldn’t quite identify. Maggie never talked about the specific results of her computer model. She never named names, since all that information was confidential and meant only for the front office. But she must have recommended that the Friars call up Dwight.
Why else would it have happened so suddenly?
“But he’ll be fine, right? That’s what you do, you predict which player will adapt best to the majors so they know who to call up.”
“Well,” Maggie didn’t quite meet her eyes, “that’s part of it. The model can also give teams an idea of how long it might take for any given player to adapt. And it’s not infallible. I’m still refining it, and feeding more information into it.”
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