My father sits up on one knee, and my eyes catch his across the rows of seats. The bus rumbles to a start, and while everyone else turns around to settle in, he keeps his stare on me as I poke my earbuds into my ears. No lecturing. No reminders. He looks at me to make sure I'm taking this seriously, and I look at him like I used to when I was seven and he'd send me up to bat against a boy.
With fire in my eyes.
My thumb runs along my iPod, and I hit play, letting Wes's playlist stream into my ears and warm my chest. He put songs on here purposely, some of them with hidden messages, about the quiet boy loving the firecracker girl. I know he did it for me, to tell me how he felt before he really had the courage to say it aloud. We haven't discussed it, other than when he asked me if I liked the songs. I simply told him yes.
I'm calm for the ride to the school, and I remain calm until Taryn decides she needs to talk to me as the bus exits the highway to ride up the main road through town. She kicks my foot from the seat, and I startle as I sit up, pulling the music that was distracting me away from my ears. All so she could ask me if she thought coach would let her ride home with TK and the guys.
"No," I say, my eyes blinking in disbelief. What I didn't add to the conversation was that if she even as much as asked my father not to ride with the team, he'd probably make her push the bus for the first mile. That's not an exaggeration. It's rumored he made one of his ballplayers do something very similar a few years ago. I remember a suspension. I also remember that suspension getting lifted the moment the baseball team dropped two games to region rivals.
Taryn grimaces at my answer, but eventually shrugs and moves to sit up in her seat. I pull my gear bag up to my lap and fold my arms over it, resting my head to the side to stare out the window.
Los Banos is a lot like Bakersfield, only smaller. Poor neighborhoods, and less-poor neighborhoods-it's a city where people have to work hard. I always wanted out of Bakersfield, but now looking at this small town, the mother holding her son's hand as they walk along the side of the road, groceries in a bag wrapped around her other wrist-I kind of like the spirit of places like this and Bakersfield.
The other team is already warming up when our bus ambles up the dirt driveway behind the field. The air outside is cooler than normal, and it hits me like a slap. It's the wind. I pull my jacket from my bag, zipping it closed in the front before slinging my bag over my shoulder, my hands pink with chill in my pockets.
"Remember, this weather is worse on her," my father says softly as he strides up next to me. He's pulling a large wagon with the buckets of balls, our nets, and the water cooler. I smile when I glance over him, and he cocks an eyebrow. "What? You don't believe me? She won't throw nearly as hard if her hands are cold. And that rain-it's coming."
"No, no … I believe you. I totally knew what you meant, I was just sort of … " I stop my words and shake my head, looking down to my feet. "I don't know, caught up in seeing you pull that wagon."
My father chuckles.
"I miss the Little League wagon," he says, wiggling the handle of the rusted metal one he's pulling now. "Our old wagon was a lot nicer than this piece of crap. Maybe I'll see if I can get some of that baseball money over here."
"Now you're talking," I smirk, splitting away from him while he pulls the wagon to one of the dugouts and I hang my bag on the other.
"I'm cold. The boys got cancelled. We should have been cancelled too," Taryn says, following it up with a sniffle as she tosses her bag into the corner next to mine. I chuckle to myself, because while the wind is chilly, the temperature is still in the seventies, I'm sure. Taryn's a bigger baby than I am. "Come on. Run with me. I need to move," she says, tugging lightly on my sleeve.
"All right, hang on," I say, switching out my shoes. Taryn rolls her neck and watches me change to my cleats. She never switches her shoes, which is why she's worn the spikes down to nearly nothing. I brought it up once and she only stared at me, wide-eyed, then pointed out that she doesn't need to be fast hanging out in right field and doing nothing all day.
It was a good point.
My shoes on, I step from the dugout and begin a slow run toward the main road and back again. I feel Taryn next to me for most of the trip, but when I reach the roadway and turn to run back, I realize that the rest of the girls are all close by too. Not ahead, though. No. They're following.
More accurately, I'm leading.
The red jackets stepping from the car near our bus catch my eyes first, and I jog over to the bucket of balls, my gaze on the team of coaches from Chico State. I don't know what they're looking for, and I've thought most of the day that the reason they're really here is to see if Caitlyn Moore can strike me out. I know she's their target. But if she doesn't …
My teammates are watching the red jackets too.
"We're gonna make you look good today," Bria says, patting my back with her flat palm as she picks up a ball from the bucket and jogs to the opposite end to begin throwing with her partner.
My eyes flit to Taryn, and she grins with half her mouth, blowing a bubble with her gum out the other side.
"Bows and all, these are your girls," she says.
I toss the ball in my hand a few times as she walks backward to her spot, and then I glance at the row of girls next to me. Their faces are serious, and they're hardly talking. They're nervous-nervous for me.
"Hey, Bria!" I shout, holding the ball up for Taryn to see and acknowledge before I throw it at her. She catches my throw and returns it. My eyes stay on her, while Bria answers.
"What's up?" she says.
"We should have a party. Like … a real team party. Maybe at the beach. Bonfire. Just the girls," I say.
I don't look at her, but I can tell she's smiling. A few seconds pass, but she answers.
"That'd be cool," she says.
"Only girls?" Taryn whines. I whip the ball back at her a little faster.
"Yeah, you can make it one night," I say.
She holds the ball in her glove for a beat, resting it on her hip as she pushes some loose hairs under her visor.
"Yeah, but can you?" she teases.
I narrow my gaze and lean my head to the side, pushing my tongue into the corner of my mouth.
"Yes, I can handle a girls night. Especially with these fine ladies," I say, exaggerating my words and speaking loud enough that the rest of the girls pick up on our conversation.
"Woot! Party Friday night!" Shannon, one of the more quiet girls near the end says. I laugh lightly to myself and glance at her. She's smiling as she throws, and her expression infects my mouth too, my lips unable to stop their curve into my cheeks.
"All right," I say, catching the ball from Taryn then waving her to take a few steps back. The rest of the girls follow. I lead-they follow. "Friday it is," I say. "But it has to be late. I've got work."
And I can't miss out on gum scraping with Wesley Stokes. Not even for the girls.
The quiet starts to fade, and soon there's a mixture of laughter and camaraderie along with the sounds of the balls smacking into the leather of our mitts. It's the sound of friends. I haven't heard it since I was little.
Maybe, I haven't been listening.
After warm-ups, we line the dugout, and there's a moment I notice that nobody else does. Coach Adams hands the blue lineup card to my father, and for a brief moment, both of their hands are holding it, their fingers pinching it in place. My father takes it completely, his lip twitching in a small acknowledgement to his counterpart. Taking the lineup card to the umpire is something the head coach does. This was the passing of trust.
We'll bat first, because we're visiting, so I pull my bat from my gear bag and step around the dugout to take a few practice swings. My father joins me a minute later, nodding over his shoulder for me to join him behind the brick side of the dugout. He's hung a small net against the fence and brought a few balls with him.
"Take a few swings for real, from the left," he says, kneeling down to steady himself in place to toss the balls for me to hit.
I glance behind me at the sound of Caitlyn's pitch hitting the catcher's glove with a commanding pop. She's throwing hard.
"You sure I should hit left today? She's throwing hard. I'm not sure I'm ready," I say, loading my bat over my shoulder.
"You're ready. You were ready before practice. You just needed to remember what you were capable of," my father says.
I smile, briefly, and take a quick but deep breath through my nose. I focus my attention on the ball in his hand as he spins it around, his fingers finding the seams.
"Ready?" he asks.
I nod.
He tosses, and I swing through the ball, hitting it hard into the net, the sound it makes when it pushes far enough through to hit the brick where the chain of the fence connects making an equally confident sound. I tuck my chin into my shoulder, but my eyes glance over at Caitlyn. She's watching.