to the curb. The mail carrier gave him a honk and a wave out the window and then held the mail aloft for Edward Everett. “I think you’re gonna wanna see this one,” he said, waving a business envelope in the air. They had been classmates, Edward Everett and the carrier, Geoff Symons. “It’s from the Cardinals,” Symons said, opening the door. He was vastly overweight and thrust himself out of the truck only with a great effort, then waddled to the curb with the mail in his hand, the letter from the Cardinals on top. “What’re they offerin’ this year? A hundert grand, I’m guessin’.”
Edward Everett felt his head go light when he saw the envelope. Contracts came in thick manila envelopes, but only one thing came from the team in a thin business envelope. He took the mail from Symons dumbly and walked back inside.
“Ain’t you gonna open it?” he was aware of Symons calling after him, but went on into the house. “Man, you’re going to have one great-ass season.”
“What on earth are you doing?” his mother asked. She was rehanging the ornaments the cat had knocked off the tree and he only then became aware that he was still holding the trash can, canted at an angle so that daubs of dressing and cranberry sauce oozed onto the carpet. He set the trash can down and stared at the mess he’d made.
“Oh, my God,” his mother said. “Someone died. Who died?”
“I did,” he said.
By then, he was nearly fully healthy, walking without pain. When he ran, he was still conscious of the fragility of his joint, though: doing laps at the high school track, his knee was often stiff and he could hear disconcerting pops. He had yet to test it completely, running full-out, but he knew he would have to get past his fear if he was to play again: speed had been his greatest asset, compensating for his shortfalls—it added points to his average because it gave him eight or ten more hits in a season than someone slower might have, and that was the difference between batting .300-something and .280-something; without power, .280 didn’t get you noticed, but .300 did.
He called Hoppel, certain someone in a rush had copied a wrong name onto the letter. It would turn out to be something they laughed about. Frame it, kid, Hoppel would say. The letter will be as famous as “Dewey Defeats Truman” someday.
Hoppel’s wife answered the phone. He couldn’t remember her name: “M” something. Madeline. Martha. She was large-boned and lacked what Edward Everett’s mother would call “polish”: her voice was gruff and her movements awkward. On the one occasion Hoppel brought her to the clubhouse, he seemed to show her off as if she were a great prize of a woman. Some of the team was undressed, coming out of the shower, wet towels draped over their shoulders, but she gave them no mind. “Hell,” she snapped as one of them—a young black kid who played second base—darted back into the shower when he saw her, “ain’t nothin’ I ain’t seen before.”
“Yeah?” she said into the phone now, as if challenging whoever called. When Edward Everett asked to talk to Hoppel, she shouted, without taking the receiver away from her mouth. “Hop? Hop?”
“What is it?” Hoppel said when he picked up. In the background, Edward Everett could hear voices: loud laughter and the squeal of a baby.
“It’s—” Edward Everett started to say, but Hoppel interrupted him.
“Hang on.” To someone in the background, he yelled, “I ain’t done with that plate yet. Leave it.”
It was obvious that Edward Everett had interrupted a family meal, Hoppel and his children and grandchildren.
“Sorry to bother you, Skip,” Edward Everett said.
“Who is this?”
“Yates,” he said.
“Yates?” Hoppel said as if he were trying to place him.
“Double E,” he said, hating the nickname as he said it, as if he were a pair of shoes for some large man.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“I got this letter—” he began.
“Those fuckers,” Hoppel said.
“Yeah, I thought it was a mistake,” he said, thinking that Hoppel was going to say the letter was meant for someone else or at least curse the team for cutting him loose, but Hoppel went on: “Christmas. They send those things out at Christmas. Christ.”
Edward Everett felt a stone in his stomach. “It’s not—”
“Look, here’s my advice. Go sell straw or whatever the fuck it is guys sell in whatever neck of the woods you’re from. Indiana, right?”