Pitch Perfect(26)

“Still taking nasty slides?”

“You know me.”

Emmy smiled and considered giving him a hug, but given his state of undress it might be unwise. “Good to see you, Riley.”

“Hey,” he said, halfway down the hall. “Nice piece in the Sun-Times today.” He gave her a thumbs-up and almost lost his towel in the process.

What piece in the Sun-Times?

Emmy waited until Riley was gone before turning and ducking back into the visitor’s clubhouse. Amongst the copies of Sports Illustrated and Baseball Digest was that morning’s copy of the Chicago Sun-Times. She discarded the world news and local interest, dumped arts and entertainment on the floor and went right to sports like her father every Sunday.

Her own face was looking back at her, the smiling first-day photo she’d had taken for her Felons press release. There was a second inset photo of her, a candid snapshot from her days as the Sox assistant A.T., laughing at something one of the players was saying.

She was too dumbfounded by seeing her picture in the paper to absorb the headline at first. Breaking the Big League Glass Ceiling.

Simon Howell’s byline was beneath it, and a lump formed in her throat.

Her vision blurred, and she couldn’t properly focus on the entire content of the article, but the best she could tell was Simon was singing her praises as a new feminist icon in the sports industry. The first female head athletic trainer of any major league sports team, he pointed out, and an icon for young women everywhere.

It should have been sweet. It should have been flattering. She should have felt something other than a blinding white rage that overcame her.

He wrote an entire article about her without telling her.

The whole goddamn thing was about her, and there were no quotes from her. There were, however, an awful lot from Cassandra Dano at ESPN. She’d met Cassandra a handful of times at different sports dinners, but they weren’t exactly pals. The leggy reporter sounded like a big fan, telling Simon about how Emmy was changing the world one elbow sling at a time.

The fuck?

There were quotes from players on the Sox she’d worked with. Quotes from coaches and managers. And there it was, near the bottom, a quote from goddamn Tucker Lloyd.

We like her, the quote said. I like her. Do I think she’s different because she’s a woman? No. Do I think she’s good for the team? Yes. She’s good for us.

Good for us.

I like her.

More importantly, though…what the hell was Tucker doing talking to Simon about her?

She lowered the paper and looked around the room, hoping something there might offer her a little insight. All she saw was Tucker’s duffel bag and a pair of street shoes tucked into his locker.

Emmy clutched the paper to her chest and marched out of the clubhouse, up through the dugout and into the open air. It wasn’t until she hit the field that she realized it was still cool outside and she was only wearing her uniform polo. When she crossed her arms, the paper crinkled under her armpit, and she jogged across the field towards the visitor’s bullpen.

The steady whap sound grew louder as she approached, first silence, then the smacking sound of a hard-thrown ball hitting something that wasn’t a glove. The ball-in-glove sound had its own specific, lovely cadence. This was something different.

She got to the gate leading into the bullpen and stopped.

Tucker was standing on the makeshift mound with his back to her, staring down a pitching target at the end of the green like it was his worst enemy. He set up, huffed a breath, then released his pitch.

It knocked the corner of the target, nowhere near the strike zone.

Tucker growled and announced, “Fuck you too, you goddamn piece of shit.”

“You know, it didn’t actually move,” she pointed out, the newspaper rustling in the wind.

He jumped and turned towards her, a nervous expression on his face. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to see you walk the invisible batter.”

His shoulders slumped, and his frown deepened. Emmy had the distinct feeling she’d hit him where it hurt without trying to.

“I was teasing,” she said.

“Yeah, except you’re right. If I keep pitching like this, they’re going to banish me to the farm team.” He tossed the ball up and caught it in the same hand. His long fingers made it look positively miniscule. Emmy sucked back a sigh and reminded herself she was there because she was angry, not because she wanted to think wanton things about Tucker’s long fingers.

“I have to ask you something.”

“If it’s to teach you how to pitch, you’d have better luck asking the groundskeeper.”

“Ha-ha.” Emmy rolled her eyes and didn’t pretend to smile. She held the newspaper up and pressed it against the chain-link fence. The pages didn’t rest flat, their edges ruffling in the late-morning wind.