Alice briefly one last time before I let her go. “I’m ready.”
We make small talk as we walk down to Remington Field. I worry that the supplies I left on the field are gone. But this is Merritt, and it was only last night, so I’m in luck. I cross the field to the bench and drop my bag.
“What’s the last scene you created?” Zeke asks, settling onto the ground.
“Um, I didn’t really create one,” I say, my gaze firmly stuck inside my backpack as I pull out my signs. They aren’t classy, they aren’t gorgeous, but hopefully . . . “I wanted us to do a scene first.”
“But Marianne isn’t here.”
“Ce n’est pas pour Marianne.” It’s not for Marianne.
I’m too nervous to look at him, so instead I focus on pulling out two baseball gloves and a ball I borrowed from a couple of guys on my floor and planting Zeke’s signs.
“Je ne comprend pas,” Zeke says, watching as I empty the supplies from my bag.
Trust me, even if you don’t understand it.
“You’re a baseball player, aren’t you?” I ask him. The word baseball sounds so awkward when caught in the midst of all the French words.
He doesn’t show any outward reaction.
Welcome to Wrigley Field, Home of the Chicago Cubs reads one sign. There’s a scoreboard sign with numbers indicating that the Cubs are beating the pants off the Cardinals, 18-0.
There’s a paper that is supposed to look like a poster that one would wave at a baseball game, which reads Zeke Martin is #1. It’s not terribly creative, but in my defense I didn’t have all that much time.
There’s a few more but suddenly they seem dumb. Zeke still isn’t moving and clearly this is a terrible idea and it’s going to ruin our presentation later.
I’m moments from bolting when Zeke stands up and takes three steps until he’s right in front of me. It’s just like that night in my room, only maybe it isn’t at all. Maybe—
“Why are you doing this?” he whispers in French.
I swallow hard and wonder if I could grab my water bottle before trying to answer. Instead, I smack the baseball into the mitt a few times, the first time I’ve done it in four years.
God, it feels good.
“C’est Wrigley Field,” I whisper back. I hold up the picture that was distorted by my bag, a color printout of Wrigley Field. I hold it up in front of us, just like Zeke had done for the A to Z Tours. “It may not look like it, but if you stare closely at this picture, you’ll see the stadium that was built in 1914. It’s been called Weegham Park, and then Cubs Park, until it became known as Wrigley Field in 1927. It’s the oldest National League ballpark—”
“I know this, Abby. But I don’t get what you’re doing. The tours were for places in France, situations in French. This is—”
“This is about us.” The words are coming out fast and furious but I don’t want him to walk away, and I don’t want him to interrupt. It’s too important. It’s too important because of all the times I misunderstood what was really happening between us. “The situations we planned over the past month and a half, they might have taken place in France, but they were about us. It was a world we created. A world where we played in French and a world where I fell in love with you. You, Zeke. All of you.”
I take a deep breath because his eyes are wide and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop me anytime soon. That and I might pass out otherwise. “And so whether we’re in Chicago and you’re playing for the Cubs, or against the Cubs, or whether we’re pretending to be in France, it’s about us. It’s about us looking at what’s in front of us and turning it into what we want it to be.”
He’s still not speaking, so I have only one thing left in my arsenal. And then I’ll give up and we’ll walk back to class and hopefully the presentation won’t be a huge failure.
“Je t’aime de tout mon coeur.” I love you with all my heart. I stare at his Adam’s apple, watch as he swallows hard, the way his body shifts from side to side as though it’s not sure whether to come closer or move away. “I know it’s too late, and I feel ridiculous saying it—”
“Je t’aime aussi. Tellement.”
I love