mother, his ex-wife, his older sister, and his manager. You’ve got to admit, it’s…you know.”
“No, what?”
“Intense.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s going to have to see much of me anytime soon, so she’s got that going for her. And what do you mean by you get us ‘sort of’?”
“I’m saying it’s unusual.”
“What’s unusual?”
“This platonic soulmate thing you do is not something that most people do.”
“No, I know.” A buzzer went off. “It just…it happened, you know?”
“Fate?”
“Domestic necessity,” she said. “When he got divorced, Lilly was a baby and Rose was a toddler. And Lori was…poof.” She made a motion with her hands like a magic trick. “Did you know she took all the spoons? For some reason, when she set up her new place, she wanted more spoons. He wanted it to be over, and he wanted it to be easy, so he told her—even though, for the record, I told him not to—‘Take whatever you want.’ So she took all the spoons from their kitchen. I went over there one morning a week after Lori moved out, and Rose was trying to eat cereal with a plastic fork.”
“Kell didn’t order five of everything for him?”
“He didn’t tell her. But he told me. So I brought him some spoons. And I bought him a cookbook. I stayed with them when he had to go out. I was staying with them the night Lori called and said her mom had died, and I rubbed Rose’s back until she fell asleep. I taught Andy…well, I tried to teach him how to braid their hair.”
“He told me you saved his life.”
“He did?”
“Yeah.” The ball Dean was playing rolled down into the depths, and he looked hard at her. “And all I’m saying is: that takes up space. He’s got kids, an ex, a mother, he’s got his regular friends. And he’s got you, the totally no-big-deal platonic woman friend he tells everybody saved his life.” He reached over to the nearby coffee table and grabbed a sip of coffee. “All I’m saying is that it could be intense.”
“Point taken. You really have seen a lot of psychologists. So, what are you up to today besides this?”
“Well, there’s some conditioning work with the team, and then I’m supposed to talk to this reporter.” At her surprised look, he nodded as he shot a new ball. “I know. I like this one, though. He wants to write about what guys do after they’re done. He said he wanted to profile somebody who didn’t retire voluntarily. That was his expression. ‘Didn’t retire voluntarily.’ It’s a fuckin’ polite way of saying ‘crashed so hard you left a crater they turned into a swimming hole.’ ”
“And you’re sure you want to talk to him?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m sure, no. But at some point, I have to figure out what I’m doing besides living in your house and bumming around with a bunch of high school juniors. I’m going to have to stick my head out eventually and see whether it’s six more weeks of winter out there or what.”
“Mm, I’m afraid you already missed Groundhog Day.”
“Well, then for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll stick my head out and see if there’s six more weeks of not-Irish idiots throwing up on the sidewalk.”
“There you go.”
Watching Dean try to play pinball turned out to be a pretty decent way to blow a weekend morning. Still, she missed the coffee warmups, and the bacon, and she missed sitting across from someone who found a babysitter every single weekend, so they could sit around and talk about nothing in particular.
* * *
—
The following Thursday, Andy texted her: Can’t do Sat. Can you get together Sun.? Crazy busy wknd w/M & Lil & Ro.
She wrote back: Busy here too. Let’s regroup next weekend. Then she deleted the text she’d drafted and saved and never quite sent, which said, Can’t wait to see you Saturday. Sorry we’ve been missing each other, hope we can talk.
* * *
—
The article Dean had been interviewed for appeared in the second week of March, during spring training. It was the first spring training he hadn’t been part of in eleven years. The piece was supposed to be published online at ten o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday when it was raining in Maine but undoubtedly gorgeous in Tampa. Dean stayed in the apartment with his iPad and his coffee and a bagel. Upstairs with her laptop, Evvie refreshed the site and watched a few movie trailers—she hadn’t been