“Can you get into your fastball stance but not throw?”
Tucker regarded her doubtfully but drew up into his stance. Emmy did a circle around him, staying professional as she observed his posture. She stopped moving when she was in front of him and instructed, “Now move your arm like you’re going to throw, but slowly.”
Tucker went through the motions of his pitch in slo-mo, and Emmy frowned. When Tucker returned to his standing position, Emmy took his elbow firmly in hand and thrust it back towards his body.
She gave it a few jerks, and it wobbled in her hand without resistance.
“You let this pop out too soon.” She smacked his elbow. “And you’re locking it when you twist, when you should be keeping it loose.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but she arched a brow.
“So you want me to keep it tight and loose?”
“Don’t be smart. Try it.”
After forty minutes Tucker had thrown seven perfect fastballs in a row, all dead in the strike zone. Emmy had broken his handicap.
And now she had a date she didn’t want to be happy about.
Chapter Fifteen
Getting called out of a game in the fifth inning was bad for anyone, but worse if you weren’t even playing.
Emmy got the wave from Chuck, who told her Darren Meritt, the Felons General Manager, wanted to have a word with her privately in his box seats. Given that the most interaction Emmy had, or wanted to have, with the GM was via her one-sided daily emails, this was not a positive call.
That it had come in the middle of a game when the Felons were winning? Probably not a great sign.
She made her way up through the bowels of the ballpark, taking an escalator from the clubhouse level up to the main floor and flashing her security pass to gain access to the VIP elevators. On the way up, the lack of Muzak made her more aware of her thunderous heartbeat.
She was about to get fired a month into the regular season. The team hadn’t started shunting players down to the farm leagues yet, but she was going to be the first Felon to get the axe.
Or, perhaps more appropriately, to swing from the gallows.
She let out a whimper then shook her head. If she was going to get fired, she’d do it with grace. She was good at her job, and she could be good at her job somewhere else. Maybe the title wouldn’t be as great, and there was no way she’d be paid better, but she’d land on her feet. Certainly the place she landed wouldn’t be as beautiful as San Francisco, but even Milwaukee had a certain charm.
Baseball towns were special because they had one thing in common. A ballpark and a team to root for. As long as she had that, she’d do fine.
The elevator door pinged and slid open, unveiling a long white hall with dozens of doors fanned out in either direction. On the walls were framed prints depicting great moments in White Sox history, and the suites were all named to represent the storied past of the organization.
It was both wrong and somehow perfect she would lose her job here, considering this was the home she’d left to start anew in San Francisco.
Maybe this was the sign she needed to tell her things with Tucker weren’t meant to be. Surely losing her job in Chicago was a signal from the heavens she was meant to be with Simon after all.
She found the suite reserved for the managers of visiting teams and knocked softly on the door. Part of her hoped it was soft enough she wouldn’t be heard.
“Come in,” boomed a stern voice.
So much for that pipe dream. Emmy threw her shoulders back and held her head high. She wouldn’t be taken out of the game. Trying to think of a baseball metaphor for her pending doom proved difficult, so she sucked in a deep breath and remembered something her mother often told her.
It all happens for a reason.
And what did the old song say? Whatever will be, will be.
She opened the door and stepped inside. Darren Meritt was alone, sitting in one of the plush leather armchairs in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The pristine green of the outfield grass shone up, looking like a beacon of summer even though it was only May. That’s what baseball was, a certainty of summer. A herald to the change in seasons.
“Have a seat, Miss Kasper.”
And this would be another change of season for her.
Emmy took a seat in the armchair nearest Darren and angled herself so she was facing him rather than looking out at the field. Her father had often told her strong people meet their futures head-on, while cowards try to avoid the gaze of destiny. “Destiny,” her father said, “can see through bullshit. So you might as well look her in the eyes.”
“Your call was unexpected,” Emmy said bluntly.
Darren was a portly, middle-aged man, and a rare breed of baseball general manager who had no history in playing the game. Emmy wasn’t even sure he liked the sport very much. Owners she could understand buying into a franchise for the investment opportunity. But she was convinced a good GM must first and foremost love the sport. Hard decisions needed to be made when you were the fearless leader of a team, and it took more than a head for business to make those kinds of decisions.