by Gish Jen
But we had a couple of guys out with the flu, so it was me or nothing. And after that one hit I did settle down. Sometimes I opened with a fastball. Sometimes I pitched upside down, leading with my newly sharpened slider or—now that I was throwing it deliberately—a slurve that just nicked the corner of the strike zone. Coach’s predictions notwithstanding, I wasn’t exactly Satchel Paige with his Infinite Variations on a Thrown Ball. But I kept them guessing, and Ondi encouraged me, as did the crowd and as did Renata, who was there in an orange hat. I ignored her, just as I ignored the fans, when I was playing. But every time I came off the field, I felt their energy. More and more people knew my name now and shouted, Gwen-nie! Gwen-nie! Or, Can-non, Can-non!, though some still seemed to be shouting Earl Grey! Earl Grey! something that still puzzled me until I heard Black Tea! Black Tea! Because wasn’t “Earl Grey” a black tea? I realized that even as I let the words wash over me. Until there it was: all I’d given up was that one hit on my first pitch, while their reliever had given up everything but the kitchen sink. 6–5, Net U!
In a PigeonGram, she reported what came next:
“You did it again! Just like at Army. You turned it around,” Coach said. “You broke their momentum. Stopped their advance.” And, of course, I could see this.
“But mostly, I just pitched as best I could,” I told him.
“Was Ondi a help?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I think it’s mostly that I know she can catch anything. Also, she knows what I’m thinking and encourages me to think that. If that makes any sense.”
He looked thoughtful. “She wants to Cross Over permanently.”
“I know.”
And then he asked what I guess I knew he would eventually, namely, What about me? Did I want to stay, too?
“I hope Ondi’s staying isn’t dependent on what I do,” I said.
“You know, it’s noble how you think at home,” he said. “How you live. It’s courageous and righteous. But you are just not going to win.” He was honestly sorry to say that, I could see. But like my sweater-bombing friends, that’s what he believed. “You belong here at Net U and you know it,” he said. “And I’m here to tell you that if you want your parents to come, too, they can.”
Did he know that for a fact?
“Yes. In fact, Net U would love to see you all Cross Over and stay.”
“Interesting,” I said. And then because no, I didn’t want to Cross Over—and yet—I said the thing that would end this discussion, the thing that I had managed not to ask for days.
“And what about Renata?” I said. “Did she belong here at Net U, too? Since we’re talking turkey.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, I know,” I told him. “I know what happened and I know you covered it up. I know you brought in an AutoCounselor when you knew it wouldn’t come down on her side. And I know you let people believe she was a drunk and a whore when in fact she wasn’t either of those things. When in fact, Demo Johnson raped her.”
All of which I guess I was hoping he would deny. But he didn’t deny it or say she was crazy or even that there were two sides to the story. Instead, he buried his head in his hands.
I thought I was going to throw up.
In her next PigeonGram she wrote,
Well, by now you have probably guessed. I am wondering if we shouldn’t all Cross Over. Not because it’s so great here. It isn’t. But I wonder if we can win against Aunt Nettie. I wonder if there’s any point.
Don’t you think this is a trap? we wrote back.
I don’t. Though I bet Aunt Nettie does figure that if you Crossed Over, you’d stop making meters and filing suits.
And is that all we should know?
If you’re asking, Do I have a boyfriend? No. And no, that’s not why I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it because all we know is dissent. And there is more to life than dissent. To which, I know what you will say. You will say, Of course, you are right—and yet. And if I say, What do you mean by “and yet,” you will answer that that’s just who you are, at this point. Resisters. Right or wrong?
We hesitated a long time but finally wrote,
Right.
So I guess the question is, Is that who I am, too?
We will love you no matter what.
How we wished then that she would PigeonGram back right away—that she would reassure us she would never stay. That she was of course a resister. But though we watched and watched for him, Hermes did not appear.
* * *
—
We did not hear from Gwen again until Traymore broke up with Ondi. Then Gwen GreetingGrammed,
He said she was like a boxer who couldn’t stop jabbing even after the match was over. A reflexi-rebel, he called her. Why was she so angry? And here she PermaDermed her skin for him! Although maybe that was why she did it—to show she was as adaptable and agreeable as a Surplus hoping to Cross Over into the Netted world would have to be. Which, of course, she really isn’t. Anyway, she’s stopped eating and drinking and has lost five pounds.
More happily, not two weeks later, Ondi had a new boyfriend, as we heard via PigeonGram.
Winny Wannabe! Of all people. When I had lunch with him, I thought his staying to be a done deal, seeing as how he’d passed the Final Test, but Ondi says he can’t stop thinking about things like what our parents wanted, and whether that was realistic, and what we ourselves want. Winny, having questions? I was amazed, but Ondi says he’s not sure he will ever belong to the Netted world—that the differences are so much greater than he ever thought. If nothing else, he’s realized that he will always be seeing things they don’t—indeed, that the very definition of the Netted is people who see nothing. Surprise! you will say. And does he now want them to see more or does he just wish he could see less?
Whatever his doubts, Winny wanted to preserve his options and Ondi’s, too. Another PigeonGram explained,
Winny wants me to help Ondi, who, he claims, contributed critically to my success in the Net West game. Indeed, he says, she could almost be said to have been the Secret Weapon’s secret weapon. Did he mean that Ondi set Bento up for failure in his disastrous last inning? Not exactly, but she was not, Winny hinted, as helpful as she might have been. And was this with the idea that I might then be brought in? Well, wasn’t it only Ondi’s job, he said, to know how any given A could lead to outcome B? As for my eventual success—if I could not be said to rely on Ondi, exactly, surely it was at least true that I was most in my skin pitching to her? In which case, what was the harm in making sure that Coach realized just how pivotal she was? And should I point it out, Winny said, well, it went without saying that I could count on Ondi’s help in the future. Which I could perhaps use, especially if I eventually Crossed Over permanently. Because as he could attest, an ex-Surplus will always have a lot to prove.
If you are proposing a tit for tat, I told him, get lost. First of all, I am not staying here. Second, I talked to Ondi and told her not only that she should support every pitcher equally, but that if I sensed anything else, I would ask that Beetle or Fudge catch me. Or Clara Zee.
Naturally, neither she nor Winny is speaking to me now. They’re lucky, though, that I don’t share their proposal with Coach, don’t you think?
To this I answered,
Yes, you did the right thing. And yes—they are lucky.
As for whether Eleanor and I felt lucky, too, that thanks to Winny Wannabe, a fissure seemed to be reopening between Gwen and Ondi—yes and no. Ondi was on the one hand just so unreliable. On the other, if Gwen was going to stay, wasn’t she going to need someone who at least understood where she came from? Indeed, who at least understood that she came from somewhere—that she didn’t, as my mother used to say, just fall off a cliff into herself? In such a fraught
world, it would be better—far better—if Ondi were a true ally and a true friend. But Ondi was the friend she had.
* * *
◆
Thanks to the Olympics and Redoubling, GenetImprovement was now not only being permitted but, for athletes, encouraged. The Net U baseball team received a friendly GovernorGram on the subject:
No doubt it has weighed on you to know that, were you to be selected for Team AutoAmerica, you would then have to compete with HomoUpgraded teams. But—good news! The field has been leveled. You can be GenetImproved in any way you like, and as for whether your offspring will be affected, should that trouble you, fear not. Thanks to GonadWrap, they will not. In the meanwhile, you will be availing yourselves of the best of our technology, at no cost. Congratulations!
Gwen, however, declined to avail herself of anything. Not that she was so perfect. As she wrote in a PigeonGram,
That’s why I train. To improve. But I am happy to get up at five a.m. as I do, and run and stretch and lift and do drill upon drill upon drill. I don’t need any procedures, thank you. As Coach does and does not understand.
“It’s a suggestion, not a mandate,” he said. “Against which I can see all sorts of arguments. But possible arguments are not what matter. What matters is your argument. Which is?”
“First of all, I am not going to try out for Team AutoAmerica,” I told him. “So if the point of getting Upgraded is to be competitive against ChinRussia, for me there is no point.” As for why I was anti-Olympics, I said it was because it was just our Aunt Nettie versus their Aunt Nettie. Our HomoUpgrade versus their HomoUpgrade.
“It’s not an Olympics. It’s a tech showdown. Is that it?” he said.
“The word I would use is ‘charade,’ ” I said.
Coach nodded then and said that I could still play for Net U. But he also pointed out that HomoUpgrade stood to make a lot of people more competitive. And that could be a problem for me, he said. Because a lot of people had already agreed to be GenetImproved, including Beetle. Rube. Ichiro. Bento. Pietro Martinez. Joe March. Warren Peese.
“And, let me guess, Ondi,” I said.
“She has no choice, Gwen. She’s doing great. But if Fudge and Beetle and Clara Zee all Upgrade, Ondi could be cut.”
Of course, even if she Upgraded, any one of them could improve more, I pointed out.
“True,” he said. “But otherwise she’s almost sure to have to leave. And if others improve significantly, you might have to leave, too.”
“The difference is I don’t care.”
“Is that true? You really don’t care at all?”
“Yes,” I said.
And then I said it again. I said I didn’t care at all, to which he didn’t answer.
When it came to ball playing, GenetImprovement was still a mixed bag. Even things like height were complicated affairs, involving a raft of genes and switches, and coordination was yet more complicated. The official claim was that though some might benefit more than others, no one would lose ability, but that turned out to be false. Post-Improvement, yes, there were people who could jump and run and field as never before. But there was also an outfielder who complained that his joints felt overgreased, and a first baseman who now gripped the ball more like a therapy ball than a baseball. No one, she said, would ever praise her for her quick hands again.
Ondi was one of the luckiest. A month later, she was far stronger than she had been. Her throws to second base—a challenge for her since she was a girl—were no longer a problem. Now she rifled the ball out there with ease, and with her confidence came accuracy: her erratic throws were a thing of the past. And now, too, she was batting balls way deep into the outfield, even out of the park—something she had never done before.
Clara Zee was likewise stronger than she had been but also slower. So she was out. As for Fudge Fisk and Beetle Samsa, both, too, showed a mix of gains and losses. Fudge traded his old knee pain for a new foot pain; Beetle gained flexibility but lost stamina. As for what this meant for their rivalry, who knew? And was Ondi now poised to become the second-string catcher, knocking one of them out?
The situation among the pitchers was similarly uneven.
Pietro Martinez opted to attempt to regrow his UCL in lieu of surgery—which looks like it’s going to work! So that’s great. Bento asked for focus—hoping to give me a run for my money in the off-speed department, I guess. But it seems that whatever the genes for off-speed control, they are too widely dispersed to be changed all in a go. Yes, his focus was improved. And not having to block out the crowd, the weather, his girlfriend, whatever, he reported less mental fatigue. But the pitches did not come. In fact, Bento’s slider—a pitch he’d relied on for years—up and left him. Where did it go? It was like a goat path that got buried in an avalanche.
It did not look as if Gwen was going to be dropped from the team. And the clearer that was, the more relief Coach expressed that Gwen had refused to be Upgraded. Indeed, when what had been a suggestion and an option got turned, a little later, into a mandate, Coach sweetly did not even tell me, wanting to keep the pressure off, Gwen wrote. What’s more, he kept it quiet that Gwen, and Gwen alone, had not been GenetImproved. She PigeonGrammed,
He brilliantly did the before-and-after assessments privately. So publicly he just said that while some players had shown changes, some had shown none. For that was the nature of the beast, he said—sounding sympathetic, and expressing the hope that those who had shown no improvement could accept it. But privately he said that I was getting better and better through practice and that Aunt Nettie should not be looking at how to improve me but how other people might be made to look more like me. Like she ought to be looking at my back, he said. Because I really did have a special back.
“ ‘I’m just such a fan of your vertebrae,’ ” I said.
As for our hunch that something was finally going on, that was confirmed in the next PigeonGram.
So you may not like this. But Ondi is not the only person with a boyfriend. I have one, too. He is a little older than me, and yes. It is Coach Link. Woody.
Eleanor glared at the paper.
See, I knew you wouldn’t like that. And I know you will tell me it’s a bad idea to date your coach. Or not a bad idea—you will say it is ill-advised.
“It is indeed ill-advised,” I said.
But you haven’t met Woody. I know—there are reasons to be wary of him. I know! Really wary. I think I know the worst already, though. And he’s different now. I really believe that.
“I know I speak as one dinosaur to another here,” said Eleanor, “but long ago professors were not allowed to date students, much less freshmen, and neither were coaches.”
“Maybe the rules have changed,” I said.
“Or else it is being Permitted, capital P.”
I had to force myself to breathe. “Who what when where how why,” I said.
“The why is the easiest. Aunt Nettie wants Gwen to help them beat ChinRussia. But more than that, she doesn’t want Gwen to return home educated. Equipped to be a troublemaker.”
“Which her becoming involved with the right guy would help prevent.”
“Touché.”
“And who could be more perfect than someone who loves what she loves. Someone who is like her and who understands her decision but who would have her choose the way Aunt Nettie would have her choose.”
“So that she might feel not that she is being co-opted but that she is choosing love.” Eleanor massaged her brow.
I could feel winter on its way—the wind harassing the plants, everything whipped one way then the other. Soon the sleet would be here, too, coating and recoating the garden in leaden sheets.
“As for her parents, how helpful of them not only to organize a League and encourage her ball playing, but make her tour
Net U,” Eleanor went on. “Helping Aunt Nettie at every step.”
I did not volunteer that, had it been up to me, I would have nixed the Net U option way back when. Instead, I said, “We couldn’t have foreseen what’s happening. No one could have,” and encouraged Eleanor to come indoors with me. Even without zone-heat, it was warmer inside than outside, after all, and she already felt bad enough.
* * *
◆
Net U was now headed into the championship playoffs against Cyber U. It was a best-of-three series and an exciting prospect, though Gwen didn’t think she would get a chance to play. The team would depend on its upperclassmen like Joe March and Warren Peese, she was sure. And she was mostly right.
In the seventh inning of the third game, though, Woody brought Gwen in and kept her there. As she GreetingGrammed,
It was the game of my life! I psyched out every batter right on the first pitch, just as Woody has been telling me to do. My fastball was in the eighties, and while I didn’t use my new hesitation pitch, all my other off-speeds were there. The fans were cheering so loud my ears hurt, and one of their batters actually tipped his batting helmet to me after I struck him out. Woody said it was the most gracious thing he’d ever seen on a ballfield, but that it was as if the guy just wanted to say, A woman and a Surplus. I’ve got to hand it to you.
She did not give up a single hit and, a week later, GreetingGrammed again.