The rest of the conversation turned to other topics as the teachers finished their meals. Occasionally one of us would yell across the lunchroom for a certain table to settle down, but for the most part we ate in peace. When lunch was over, April and I walked together out of the lunchroom as the students stormed out, seeming eager to get back to class, which I knew wasn’t the case.
“Hey, let’s take the elevator,” I said, almost dragging her in the opposite direction of the stairs, which were going to be crowded and chaotic with kids returning to class from lunch, and the other group of classes heading down for their lunch.
“I didn’t even know there was an elevator,” she mused.
We beat the kids upstairs and the hallway was thankfully less loud.
“Listen, Luke,” she said as we walked. “I could tell by the things on your desk and by your keychain that you seem to be a pretty serious baseball fan.”
I nodded.
“So, I am guessing you know who my husband is?”
I nodded again.
She stopped walking and turned toward me, forcing me to stop too. She had a pained look on her face.
“Look, I am sure those teachers are probably all going to go home and Google my husband, or try to tell other people that the new sub is married to a professional athlete. Do you think there is any way you could mention to them that I might prefer it be kept under wraps?”
“Of course. Sure. I mean, I don’t think they have a clue who he is, and I’m not sure who they would even tell.”
“People treat you differently when they find out. It always happens. Plus, if they read anything about him, they’ll...”
Her voice trailed off and she didn’t have to finish what she was going to say for me to know what she was thinking.
“I understand. Really. I have all their phone numbers in my phone. I will text them when I get back to the classroom.”
“God, thank you.”
She looked relieved, and for a second I thought she might actually hug me. But maybe I imagined it, because we resumed walking back to our classes. I wondered why she hadn’t bothered lying, telling everyone that her husband was a pilot or something else that would give him an excuse for being gone as often as he must be. But, I imagine it would have come out eventually, like all lies do.
We wished each other a pleasant afternoon and went to our respective rooms. I texted the teachers, advising them to keep everything on the down low for her sake, and got responses back surprisingly quickly from everyone saying that of course they understood and would respect her privacy.
When that was out of the way, I turned on my computer screen, and went about reading up on Marco Batista. He was thirty-eight years old, which made him one of the older pitchers in the league. He had been playing in the big leagues since he was twenty-two, and although I knew he had been playing for a while, I didn’t realize he had been playing since I was twelve. Being a hard-throwing left hander was not particularly common, which was a big reason why his career had lasted as long as it had. There was always going to be at least one team willing to pay a lefty who could throw hard.
I could hit him, I thought to myself. He couldn’t throw one past me.
That might actually have been true now, but it wouldn’t have been true in his heyday. He had been to six All Star games in his career, was on two World Series champions, and had played in another two but had been on the losing end.
I felt a twinge of jealousy. I always wondered what would have happened if I had been able to keep playing after college. I knew I had been good enough to go pro, but life happened and kept me from it. I was good at not sitting around dwelling on it much anymore, but occasions like this brought the feelings back. I loved baseball too much to not be able to sit and watch it, but there had been a time when I couldn’t even do that. Now, I found myself wishing I had gone pro, just so I could have hit a home run off of April’s hard-throwing, hot-tempered husband.
I went home after work and found Holly lounging on my couch in her underwear, my computer on her lap.
“Doesn’t it burn your legs when you sit like that?” I asked.
“No, I barely even notice it,” she replied, and then turned back to her computer.
She was twenty-six and had spent her post-high school years working odd jobs to support her siblings. Both of her parents were alcoholics and she ended up raising them on her own. I think that’s why she normally gravitated toward needy men in relationships—she liked to help people and fix things. Once her youngest brother had finished high school, she decided to go back to college, and now did online classes while working as a bartender on weekends. The irony of her being a bartender wasn’t lost on her, but she liked the money.