held Lilly on her lap for a while, she ate a pretzel, and she received a few visitors who wanted to lean over and goggle their eyes at her about whether she’d known this was going to happen. All she’d tell them was, “I had a feeling he might show up.” She took out her phone and saw that Dean’s name was trending pretty much everywhere, that his surprise appearance was in the list of headlines on SI, and that ESPN had decided in its first version of the story that Dean had been living as a “recluse,” which would be news to the high school athletes whose backs he’d been slapping for the last six or seven months.
All in all, she was pretty sure that if he popped out of the dugout right now, she’d leave an Evvie-shaped puff of smoke behind as she Road-Runnered down to the field to climb him like a tree.
Andy leaned over. “You look happy,” he said.
She smiled. “I am.”
“I’m glad.” He went back to explaining the backstory of Ginger’s lighthouse to Monica, who was dividing her time between listening to that and shelling peanuts for Lilly.
Evvie picked up Dean’s shirt and scooted her arms into it, pulling it tight around her and sneaking a sniff of the collar while she pretended to look at a spot on the ground. The sun was starting to slip away and leave an orange thrum behind it, and the lights in the park glowed white. A breeze blew her hair back from her cheeks, and she closed her eyes and licked pretzel salt off her lip. Oh, that’s right, she thought. I remember having good days.
WHEN THE GAME WAS OVER, Evvie said good night to Andy and Monica and the girls and went and waited by Dean’s truck, leaning against the driver’s side door, trying to look busy on her phone. By now, the Portland paper had sent their sports reporter up, and it seemed like there would be others. Tomorrow, the motel in town would be fully booked, there wouldn’t be a rental car to be found any closer than Brunswick, and she’d be back to shooing reporters off her porch. Only this time, they’d be here to take it all back. Maybe Ellen Boyd would show up with her little leather notebook to say she was sorry and apparently Dean wasn’t drinking and maybe they hadn’t been having an affair and maybe she didn’t know anything. Maybe Ellen Boyd would admit that nobody called Tim Doc, and that Evvie had never threatened her, and that there was nothing wrong with Dean at all. Maybe Ellen Boyd would fall down Evvie’s steps and land with her face in the flowerbed.
“Ma’am, you’re leaning on my truck.”
She looked up. He was the absolute picture of hoo boy howdy in his jeans and his Henley and a brand new Calcasset Claws jacket. She stuffed her phone into her pocket and ran toward him. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” she said as she hurled herself at him. He grabbed her and she felt her toes leave the pavement, then he set her down and gave her one quick smooch right on the mouth. “I cannot believe how good you looked,” she said. “I can’t believe it. You looked amazing. How do you feel?”
He put his hands on the back of his neck. “I don’t even know.”
“Well, you should know. You should feel amazing. Those guys got up there, they never even saw it coming. I almost felt bad for them, they looked so pitiful and—”
“You know this was for charity, right?”
“They were pitiful for charity. Charitably pitiful. Nobody got close to anything you threw the whole time.”
“You know it was eleven pitches, right?”
“Yes, I know it was eleven pitches. But it was eleven great pitches. You had your stuff, I couldn’t believe it. Everybody was so excited, and so happy for you, and—”
“And we won the game.”
“Right! We won the game! I forgot we won the game! I’m very happy about that, too.” She bounced up and down on her toes. “I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you. Oh! And I have something for you at home.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
She laughed and held up her index finger. “Not what I meant.”
He leaned down toward her. “Okay, but can we still make out in the kitchen a little bit more? I barely got your hair messed up and then I had this thing I had