Out of Left Field

by Kris Hui Lee

  To be honest, I’d rather have the bat.

  • • •

  The restaurant is one of those dimly lit, sit-down places with waiters clad in black and white, mini chandeliers hanging over each table, and special dessert menus that are as long as the ones for the main courses. I partly suspect Abram chose the place so he could feed us ginormous servings of lasagna, tortellini, ravioli, and the best tiramisu known to mankind so we wouldn’t inspect his fiancée too closely.

  Inside, Mom leads us through the crowded waiting area to the hostess stand and tells the host that we have a reservation under Barclay. He gestures for us to follow him.

  As we weave through tables piled high with drool-inducing Italian food, Mom quietly reminds us all (mainly me) to behave, and by that, she means I should think before I speak so I don’t surprise anyone with how sharp my tongue can be. I’m hardly listening. All I can think about is how happy my stomach is going to be.

  The host leads us to a table all the way in the back. My attention shifts to Abram’s fiancée and her son. I’m not sure what to expect. Mom said Geanna is a fashion designer. As for her son, I know zip about him, not even how old he is. Nick has three inches on me, so I don’t get a visual until we are almost table side. I stop dead in my tracks.

  Dad runs into me.

  “Hey,” he says, “remember when we taught you how to walk about sixteen years ago?”

  I ignore him and swallow the What the hell? on my tongue because sitting between my uncle and my soon-to-be aunt is Santino Acardi.

  • • •

  Santino frigging Acardi. Psychotic, malicious, demon pitcher! Here! My…cousin-to-be. I must have done something really awful to have been dealt this hand.

  I don’t know how long I stand there, Santino and me staring at each other. Is he staring because he recognizes me for nearly starting a fight with his baseball team or because I’m going to be his cousin? He’s smiling at least. But is it fake?

  Either way, he’s the bastard who fractured Cody’s wrist and benched him for the postseason. And even before this last game, Santino has been the bane of Cody’s high school baseball career. From the brushbacks to the unnecessary condescension to the giant ego, Santino has relentlessly and successfully played the part of archnemesis.

  Mom clears her throat and gestures at the chair between her and Nick. Translation: Sit down before they think you’re weird.

  I slide into the seat and turn my attention to Geanna. She definitely wears the look of a fashion designer with her perfectly curled hair, manicured nails, and tight, silky, expensive-looking electric blue top. She’s smiling pearly white teeth and looks nice enough, but what does any of that matter when her spawn is frigging Santino Acardi?

  Under the table, someone kicks my shin.

  I bite back my yelp and glare at the culprit.

  Mom.

  She throws me another look. Say something!

  Right. Because I’m supposed to act friendly.

  But he wrecked Cody’s wrist! My brain protests. To hell with civility! Deck the bastard!

  Interestingly enough, I never knew how loyal I was to Cody until just now.

  Mom clears her throat again.

  “Hi,” I say. So lame.

  At least it initiates the introductions. Abram goes around saying names, then a lot of useless small talk takes place, and while everyone else seems to get along easily, I stew in my newfound dilemma.

  I’m loyal to Cody, yes, but I’m also loyal to my mom, my bearer of flesh and blood, who wants more than anything right now for us all to be one big happy family. Mom and Abram are the closest out of their four siblings. Abram used to come around all the time when he worked at an industrial design studio, which was close to us. But after he started traveling for work, he cut his semimonthly visits to only Christmas. Apparently that’s his excuse for not having us all meet earlier. Both he and Geanna have been too busy earning frequent flyer miles from their jobs.

  When I tune back in, Geanna is saying, “Santino’s girlfriend would have come too, but she had to teach a guitar lesson tonight.”

  Girlfriend?

  The fiend has a significant other? What kind of demon must she be?

  “Neha’s practically part of our family,” Geanna continues. “I think you guys will really love her.”

  “She’s a riot,” Abram adds with a laugh. “In a good way.”

  I don’t know what to make of this. Santino has a girlfriend, and my uncle, who I greatly admire, approves of her. I believe in some twisted way that means Santino, in a surprising turn of events, might actually not be a crony of the devil…?

  “So, Marnie,” Abram says. “I was telling Santino that you and Nick have a lot in common with him.”

  Other than the fact that we are all Homo sapiens?

  I’d rather have more in common with a crocodile.

  I study Abram’s fingers tapping on the edge of the table. Usually he’s so chill, but I can practically smell the nervousness on him. He, like Mom, wants this to be a success. Little does he know it’s already an epic fail.

  “He said you guys are big fans of baseball,” Santino chimes in. He looks at me and Nick as if he’s not sure who to look it. Is he nervous, too? Is Santino Acardi, notoriously cocky asshole, nervous? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s putting on a show for Abram and Geanna before he murders us all with an ax.

  Mom nudges my shin again.

  “Yes. I like baseball,” I say. I sound like I’m about to murder someone with an ax.

  “Cubs or Sox?” Santino asks.

  It’s such an innocent question that I can’t tell if he’s pretending not to recognize me from Friday night or if he really doesn’t remember. Does Geanna know her son benched another guy for the most important part of his baseball career thus far? I mean, considering Santino’s affront to Cody wasn’t deemed “malicious” by the ump, she could think it was an accident. It’s baseball. People get hit sometimes.

  “Cubs,” I say flatly. Mom shoots me another look. Why do you have to sound so cold?

  I’m saved from more icy conversation by the waiter, who comes to ask us what we’d like to drink (waters all round) and if we’d like any appetizers (eggplant bruschetta and fried mushrooms). When he leaves, Abram turns the conversation to Geanna’s new store opening up at the Corrington Terrace soon. That leads to questions about whether Dad is going to open up a second restaurant, which leads to questions about how Dad’s current restaurant is doing. We would have gone there tonight, but Abram and Geanna are saving Dad’s master chef skills for the wedding. As we wait for our appetizers, Dad tells the story about how he had to fire one of his chefs for being stoned on the job.

  Multiple times throughout dinner, between bites of my four-cheese ravioli and minestrone soup, I have the strongest urge to jump out of my seat and shout at Santino, “Why did you do it?! Why are you such an arrogant piece of shit?! Why couldn’t you just let Cody be?!”

  But I bite it back, which, for me, is like trying not to scratch an itch.

  “So,” Abram says toward the end of dinner when all our stomachs are stuffed. “Geanna and I have some big news.”

  I can’t help it. “Is it that you’re getting married?” I say dryly.

  “No, smarty-pants.” Abram turns to Geanna. “Would you like to tell them?”

  She leans forward. “Well…I…” She smiles wide, draws in a breath, and then gushes, “I’m pregnant!”

  “Really?” we all say, but Mom’s voice is the loudest. Her eyes are wide. It’s like she can’t understand how her little brother could possibly impregnate a woman.

  Abram smiles sheepishly. “Yes, really.”

  No wonder they’re getting married so quickly. It’s a shotgun wedding.

  “We’ve started putting the nursery together,” Geanna says. For some reason, it shocks me
that they are already living together. It makes this union tangible. Inevitable. Geanna’s bubbliness triples, as if this—the baby—is what she’s waited to talk about all evening. “It’s going to—”

  “Anyone want the rest of my tiramisu?” Santino interrupts. He lifts the plate with the half-eaten cake and offers it to each of us. It’s like if he doesn’t get rid of it now he’ll die. Strange. But not as strange as him offering it to me the longest.

  I shake my head, afraid that if I speak, I’ll wind up saying something mean. I’m not sure there’s a passive-aggressive way to decline tiramisu, but I’m sure my mouth would find a way before my brain stops it.

  “Marnie, you love tiramisu,” Mom says. Her eyes scream, Take the peace offering! Take it now!

  “No thanks,” I say.

  Mom shifts in her seat. She knows something is wrong—I never say no to tiramisu.

  Santino retracts the plate, defeated, like he’s been rejected from the family too. My cold introduction, lack of chitchat over dinner, and now this refusal must make him aware that I hate him. I mean, if Cody, who is typically the chillest of us all, was ready to egg his house, fork his lawn, and saw the dude’s arms off, then I see no reason not to dislike him.

  Well, besides the fact that he’s going to be my cousin…

  I can’t even look at his face without wanting to punch him. He might look harmless now, but that doesn’t erase the countless times I’ve seen his conniving smirk, and it will be a very, very long time before I forget the look on Cody’s face when he got hit by Santino’s pitch. Cody’s not even the only one who felt the force of that pitch. Chizz felt it too, and the whole team and his parents and Sara.

  And me.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I say way more abruptly than I mean to. I can feel Mom’s frustration as I push my chair back and stand.

  In the restroom, there’s a line for the three toilet stalls. Not that it matters. I’m not here to relieve myself. I pull out my phone and start texting Sara.

  But how do I word this? How do I ease her into the news? What would Sara say, anyway? She’d probably encourage me to run a fork through Santino’s chest.

  “Um, are you going to use the bathroom or not?” an old lady snaps at me.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, stepping back outside the bathroom without sending the text.

  I run straight into Santino.

  “Whoa, what the hell?” I snap at him. “Are you following me?”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says.

  I narrow my eyes at him but don’t say anything. Now is not the time to start a scene. I try to sidestep him, but Santino says, “So what’s the deal?”

  I gape at him. “What deal?”

  He shrugs, almost sheepishly. “I don’t know, I just…get the feeling you don’t like me.”

  The insecurity in his voice doesn’t match the arrogance I associate with him. “What do you care if I like you or not?”

  I try to step around him again, but he goes, “Because we’re going to be cousins.” Like I haven’t figured that out. “Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I really want this to work out. For my mom. And you should too, for your uncle.”

  So he doesn’t remember me from yesterday.

  I can’t play nice any longer. “My problem is you’re an asshole.”

  Suddenly his face turns cold. It’s the look he has every time he steps onto the mound at a game. “Well, maybe from my point of view, you’re being the asshole.”

  He still doesn’t get it. I cross my arms. “Fine. You wanna know what my problem is? First, you let your teammate get away with being a complete asswipe to not only me, but my best friend. And second, you purposely hit Cody with that pitch, and now he can’t play for the rest of postseason. That’s exactly the kind of asshole move that makes me resent that we’re going to be family.”

  Realization dawns on his face as he takes this all in. “You’re friends with Cody.”

  “You fractured his wrist,” I say, “and you better be glad I don’t tell your mom or Abram what a dick you are.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “I know you think you’re some baseball god who can throw brushbacks at people for the hell of it, and that two years ago when Cody was chosen over you to be pitcher for the all-star team, you went online and tried to convince people that Cody had bribed the coaches.”

  He looks taken aback that I know this but doesn’t hesitate to defend himself. “I was a dumb freshman when I made those posts, okay? I was jealous. It happens.”

  “Was jealous? You mean you are jealous, and you think you can sabotage Cody for being better than you.” A woman coming out of the bathroom stares at us as she walks past, most likely because my voice is becoming steadily louder. I lower it as I glare at him. “Look, I don’t like you, and I don’t want to be your cousin. But for the sake of my mom and my uncle, I’ll put up with you. Just don’t try to be my friend, or we’re going to have some real problems.”

  Before a real argument breaks out, I push past him and head back to our table. A few moments later, he returns, too. He doesn’t make any eye contact with me. Maybe it’s because he knows that one wrong look and I’ll tell his mom and future stepfather what he did to Cody.

  Thanks to Cody, we both transitively despise each other, but my prejudice won’t scare him. Of course it won’t—he is Santino Acardi. He’s not going to be afraid of a hundred-and-ten-pound loudmouthed girl.

  The question is: should I be afraid of him?

  5

  Before school on Monday, I go to the atrium in the library. That’s where we hang out before homeroom. I kept the events of Saturday’s dinner to myself all weekend, trying to figure out how to break it to everyone gently. As I head to our table under the skylight, I have every intention of telling Sara about it, but when I get there, I find she’s not alone.

  “Hello, Marnie,” Joey says in a suspiciously formal tone.

  I slide my backpack onto the table. “Hello, Joseph.”

  “So,” he says, “you’re going right home after school today, yes?”

  Sara shakes her head as she weaves strings for a rope toy she’s making for her dogs. “He’s been complaining for the past fifteen minutes about how he doesn’t want you to try out.”

  I take a seat next to Sara. “Who said I was trying out?”

  In answer, Joey gestures over my shoulder. I turn. Cody’s in the print lab on the other side of the library.

  In addition to stressing over the whole Santino issue yesterday, I also spent an unhealthy amount of time on Google learning about girls who have played on boys’ baseball teams. I went back and forth on if I should try out. The last thing I did was watch that unspeakable YouTube video someone posted of the last play of my last softball game. The one of me completely botching up, just to remind myself of the pain of ultimate failure. I had to close the window before the ending.

  “You’re going straight home after school,” Joey insists.

  Even though I know that I will indeed be going home straight after school, I tease him just because it’s fun. “What?” I say with a smirk, “you worried I’m going to start a one-woman crusade against your team and overthrow your reign as captain?”

  “I’m dead serious. Don’t do it.”

  “Why not?” Of course, I know why I shouldn’t—stress, failure, embarrassment, etc. But I would like to hear it from a member of the team.

  “What do you mean, ‘Why not?’” he asks. “You’ve been butting into everything I do my entire life. Can’t you find your own thing for once?”

  I raise my eyebrows in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Let’s take a gander, shall we? In third grade, I wanted to research marine animals for my science project, but then you stole the topic from me. In fifth grade, I wanted to
be Paul Revere in the school play, and you stole that from me too. In seventh grade, I said I wanted to learn how to play piano, and then suddenly you wanted to play the piano too. And then last year, when Cody and I wanted to do that April Fools’ Day joke on Sara with the water balloons, you invited yourself along and then took credit for it. Now this. Why do you have to go and insert yourself in my thing again?”

  “All ‘That’s what she said’ jokes aside, that is ridiculous.” But even as I say it, I realize I do stuff like that to him all the time.

  Sara clears her throat. “And there was the time you were going out with Ling Wu, who broke up with you because she turned out to be gay, which she realized only after admitting she was more attracted to Marnie that she was to you…”

  Joey glares at us as we stifle laughs. “Yes,” he says, gritting his teeth, “and there’s that.”

  “Don’t forget Ling is now dating Brie,” Cody says, dropping himself in the seat between me and Joey. “Brie, your other ex-girlfriend.”

  At that, I completely bust up.

  Joey shoots us all the middle finger.

  “So,” Cody says, “are we reliving Joey’s entire sucky streak of relationships? Did we talk about…” He leans forward and looks directly at Sara.

  “Fuck off,” she tells him.

  Cody sits back in his chair. “It was worth a shot.”

  “What we were talking about,” Joey says, “was her. And how she’s going to try and invade our team.” He backhands Cody’s shoulder. “No thanks to your encouragement.” He stands up abruptly.

  “Where are you going?” Cody asks.

  “Gotta go print something,” Joey says, pulling Cody’s shirt.

  “But—” Cody doesn’t get to finish before Joey yanks him off back to the print lab.

  “What the hell’s his deal?” I ask when they’re out of earshot.

  “He’s Joey,” Sara says, as if that explains his behavior. Which, I suppose, in a way, it does. Joey is possessive about baseball. It’s what he lives for. It’s his thing. And obviously he doesn’t want me stepping all over him. But to hold grudges against me for stuff I did back in third grade? That’s harsh.