think you should have something.” She could see the precise moment he heard himself say it. “I don’t mean you don’t now. I mean something that would be fun and great and different.” They looked at each other.
At that moment, Monica appeared beside the booth and pushed on Andy’s shoulder, so he scooted in to make room, still looking at Eveleth, still wondering exactly what had happened. “Did I miss anything?” Monica asked.
“Nope,” Eveleth said. She picked up the check that Marnie had slipped onto the table and stood up. “I’m going to get this. It was great to see you guys, though.”
“Oh, Evvie, thank you,” Monica said, reaching over and squeezing her elbow. “Next time’s on us, okay?”
Evvie put her hand over Monica’s. “Absolutely. Next time.” She slid the tip money under the edge of her plate, then she went up to the counter to pay the check. Andy and Monica waved to her on their way out, their fingers casually tangled together, and then they were gone. Standing by the cash register, she felt eyes on her. They wouldn’t be used to seeing her cleaned-up on a Saturday morning, they wouldn’t be used to seeing her leave this early, and they wouldn’t be used to seeing her standing by herself. They’d be used to seeing gossip that continued out the door, and then the hug by his car. Not today.
THAT AFTERNOON, EVELETH AGAIN CLIMBED into Dean’s truck, and again he said, “All right, let’s do this.”
This time, he took her to the soccer field at the high school. “Dean, I am not a sports person, particularly, but I do know this is not a baseball field,” she said as they walked across the grass.
“That’s true—that’s your first win on your first official day as a pitcher. As it happens, there’s a JV game on the baseball field, and all you’re doing today is throwing a ball. You don’t need anything except a ball and a glove.” His right hand came up from between them with a baseball in it. “So take this.”
“Is this, like, a sacred thing, taking a baseball from you? Do I have to promise to uphold the laws of the—?”
“Take the ball,” he said, and his voice got sort of low and sandpapery. He turned and stood right in front of her, holding the ball between them, so close it almost touched her ribs. She took it, and he reached into a duffel that was over his shoulder and produced a black baseball glove with hot pink lacing.
“You’re joking,” she said.
“Take it.”
“It’s pink,” she said, not touching it. Leaning back a little to not touch it.
“It’s not pink, it just has pink.”
“I’m not wearing it. I object.”
“Why?”
“I think…the patriarchy.”
“Evvie, I’m not doing that well with the patriarchy myself. I got chased out of New York by guys on the Internet who spell ‘loser’ with two O’s. Would you please put on the pink glove?”
“It’s not pink, it just has pink,” she groused as she slid it onto her hand and tentatively fit the baseball into it. “And I don’t think you understand the patriarchy.”
Dean gestured with the beat-up glove on his left hand. “I probably don’t. Okay, walk backward until I tell you to stop. And don’t fall over.”
“Is this part of your coaching? ‘Don’t fall over’?”
“Absolutely. I say it in a really wise way, though. With the benefit of experience,” he said as he held up a hand for her to stop. “Okay. Now, don’t think too hard about it, just throw me the ball.”
She turned her left shoulder toward him, remembering with her body a lesson her father had once given her. She took a step as she threw to Dean. It sailed a little and he reached across his body to his left and caught it. “That’s a good start. Do it again.” He flipped the ball back to her, and as he did, she couldn’t help thinking about poor Mackey Sasser. She turned the glove palm-up to make the catch, cradling the ball as it reached her. “There you go,” he said. “You have talent.”
“Really?”
There was a pause. “You could have talent.”
She laughed. They did this a few more times—she threw reasonably consistently for a person who never threw anything except maybe crumpled-up tissues into a garbage can, and she caught what he gently lobbed in her direction about half the time. “Okay, I want to show you something,” Dean said, and he walked over to her. He came and