Chapter Three
Maisy did a rudimentary heel, toe, ball change on top of her desk and hoped this wouldn’t go on too long. The classroom was at least ninety degrees, and her deodorant was beginning to fail.
“Miss Gray, what are you doing?” Anthony’s mouth was so wide his table mate almost made a basket with a wad of paper.
“I’m tap-dancing on my desk so you won’t forget how to simplify fractions over the summer. Quick, before I fall off, someone tell me how to simplify.”
Marla raised her hand. Damn. Maisy was hoping it would be one of the boys at the front table. They always forgot the math rules.
“Marla…shhhh. Don’t tell her.” Anthony tried to get Marla to put her hand down. Smart aleck!
“Oh, I see how this is,” Maisy said, gasping for breath. “It’s more fun to watch me tap away the last few minutes of the school year than to actually do any work?”
He gave her the cheeky smirk she was going to miss.
The leftover cookies from the class picnic were in the back of the room. The lockers and desks had been cleaned out. The students had participated in an awards assembly that ended with the fifth graders being “clapped out” by enthusiastic applause to celebrate their graduation to middle school.
Now, instead of letting the kids race around the playground aimlessly for the last hour of the school year, Maisy was being selfish.
She skipped across three desks as if they were stones in a stream. Finally, she hopped onto Anthony’s desk.
“Is this, like, allowed, Miss Gray?” asked Marla.
“Tap-dancing on the desk?”
“Yeah. You’re kind of old and you might kill yourself if you fall,” Anthony added. The rest of the class giggled.
God, she was going to miss them. All of them. Anthony most.
She faked a glare. “Anthony, answer my question before I keel over.”
He crossed his arms, enjoying the show.
“Come on, have pity on me before they call the morgue!”
He laughed. “Okay, you divide the top and bottom of the fraction by as many numbers as you can until you can’t go any further.”
Maisy collapsed into a cross-legged position on Anthony’s desk. She offered her fist and he bumped it. “Thank you! You saved my life.”
“Miss Gray, you’re weird,” Marla said for the hundredth time this year.
Maisy winked at her. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day!”
Twenty-eight fourth graders returned her smile with their own. Only her smile came with a big lump in the throat.
They’d started the school year ten months ago on a hot day in August. When they’d walked into the room, wearing their favorite back-to-school outfits, they had waved to everyone they knew and darted curious glances at the new students who’d moved into the district over the summer. As fourth graders, they were excellent at pretending they didn’t want school to start again, but the excitement in their eyes was impossible to hide.
By the end of the first week, things were different. They dragged themselves out of bed for the school bus and complained about homework. The excitement was over. Not for Maisy. She was just getting started.
She’d dressed like Princess Leah and paraded the class through the hallway on Halloween, showed them how to lead the first graders during their annual Thanksgiving Pilgrim Feast, and made them memorize every winter song that was allowed in public school for the holiday concert. In between it all, she’d felt heads for fevers, wiped bloody noses, busted up playground fights, and lectured the girls about mean-girl behavior and the entire class about cyber bullying.
Now, she gazed at them, cherubs all, and blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “Have a wonderful summer, fifth graders.”
“Fifth graders? We aren’t—”
The bell rang.
“Congratulations!” Maisy hopped off the desk and stood by the door. One by one her students passed, some giving her a high five, some bumping fists. But most giving her a hug.
Anthony was the last one to pass. “You better be careful this summer, Miss Gray. The way you jump around, you’re going to get hurt.”
She leaned down to look him in the eye. She didn’t have far to get there. Anthony had grown at least three inches this year.
Maisy tapped her chest. “The only thing that is going to hurt is here, buddy. My heart is going to hurt, like, really badly, if you don’t keep up the good progress you’ve made this year. I’m proud of you. And I want you to assure me you won’t run with those older kids who get you in trouble.”
He rolled his eyes. “You and my grandma always talk that way.”
“Your grandmother is a really smart lady! Much smarter than me. She yells at you almost as much as I did all year because she cares.”
“You weren’t that bad…” Anthony lowered his head and ground his heel into the floor.
Maisy took a card out of her back pocket. She had prepared it just for Anthony. “Your grandma already has my number. But this is for you. This is my cell phone number. Call if you need to talk about things. Anything.”
He sent her a strange look as if he couldn’t believe she had done that. “All right…” He waved the card, suddenly shy. “Bye, Miss Gray.”
He was two steps out the door before he turned around and launched himself into her arms. Then he pulled away and dashed down the hall.
Maisy leaned against the doorframe and let the tears finally come. Lockers, display boards, and even the hallways were already starting to empty. Heather crossed the hall from her classroom.
“Tears again?” Heather put her arm around Maisy’s shoulder and handed her a tissue. “Maisy, you’re the only teacher in this school who cries at the end of the year. Every other teacher is down the hall playing ‘School’s Out’ and eating leftover candy.”
Kevin had always hated her tears. A reason she relished them now. Even on days like today.
She wiped the moisture from under her eyes. “I just can’t believe how quickly the year passes. They were so young that first day and now they’re almost in middle school.”
“Oh, honey, you wouldn’t want them much longer. Thirteen-year-old girls in heels and facial hair on boys…ugh!”
Heather tucked a newspaper she had been holding under her arm and followed Maisy inside her classroom. She made her way to the back table and picked over the last of the cookies. She tasted several and tossed the rejects in the trash. When she settled on a cookie she liked, she held it up. “Your class parents were better bakers than mine this year. These snickerdoodles are good.”
Maisy grabbed one from the platter and tasted. “Mmm. You’re right.”
Heather kept her eyes focused on her cookie. “Anything else going on?”
“Besides crying and packing up the classroom? No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No. I’ve got lots to do before I can close up the room for the custodians. It will be wonderful to do nothing but drink lemonade on the porch swing all summer.”
“You can’t fool me. You’ll be working yourself harder than ever, helping your mom and doing whatever farmers do all summer. What is it you did last year? A new fence and yard for that horse of yours and walking beans around or something?”
Maisy squinted at her friend. “You mean walking the beans?”
“I still don’t get what that means. And even that wasn’t enough. You even found time to chair the fundraiser for school supplies.”
Maisy didn’t bother explaining the old-fashioned term for weeding. Having grown up in Chicago and later Indianapolis, Heather was a city girl all the way to her bones. Their differences didn’t matter. From the day they’d both started their first teaching job in the Lake County Public School District, they were drawn to each other. Their friendship had survived two disastrous principals and three fourth grade camp-outs. They talked almost every day, even when school was out. Maisy didn’t have a sister. Heather was as close as she would ever get.
Right now, Heather was acting very oddly. She was biting her lip and showing unusual interest in the empty plate in front of her.
Maisy finished her cookie and followed Heather’s gaze to the crumbs on the tray. “What’s wrong? There are more cookies on the table behind you.”
Heather blinked. “It’s not that.”
Maisy touched her shoulder. “Hey, I know I’m sad, but I’ll be fine. I go through this every year.”
Heather pulled the newspaper from underneath her arm. “I wasn’t going to tell you.” She handed it to Maisy. “Lamar saw this in the newspaper. And then two of the first-grade teachers pulled me aside this morning and asked about it. I figured I’d better show you before they corner you and demand answers.”
It was the sports section. “Oh, no, someone on the Colts got traded?”
Heather angled her chin at the newspaper. “Look.”
Maisy unfolded the paper and almost choked on the snickerdoodle when she saw her own face looking back at her. Dropping into a nearby chair, she read the article. Twice.
Saying good-bye to her class had been really hard. Now she had something else to cry about.
***
Sam sat at the conference table and took a quick look at his Fitbit. Damn. He was nowhere near his daily goal. Maybe he could take the long way around the stadium’s third floor front offices on his way to his next meeting.
Tristan droned on. He flashed the stats for getting the most out of the batting lineup on the conference-room screen.
Numbers. The bane of Sam’s existence. Sometimes he dreamed about them. Usually those dreams morphed to nightmares…especially when dollar signs were attached. The business of baseball had changed in the past few decades. Television contracts and endorsements brought in huge revenue. Social media was transforming things all over again. He had a whole department that handled that. And then there was the game itself. Another numbers game.
They had already discussed the options for rotating the cleanup hitters in the current lineup. A shift between his designated hitter and the rookie who hit left-handed seemed promising on paper. But the personalities told a different story. Anderson was a cocky veteran who would go ballistic if he knew the team wanted to shift him out of his traditional spot.
Sam’s cantankerous field manager understood that. Numbers guy? Not so much.
“We don’t have to make it permanent,” argued Tristan. “If we made the switch only for right-handed pitchers, we’d be at a ten-percent variable for bringing anyone on second base home.”
Fuzzy Waslaske leaned toward Sam and whispered loudly, “The kid’s got plenty of left-brain stuff going on, but nothing is happening in the frontal lobe.”
Sam raised a brow at his field manager. Brain science? That smart SOB surprised him sometimes. He didn’t agree with him, though. Contrary to what Fuzzy thought, the young MIT graduate shifting slides on the screen wasn’t a robot. Tristan just felt that numbers mattered as much as instinct. Sam liked the way it counterbalanced the “gut” his veteran field manager thought was so important.
Tristan glared at the older man, who was one of the more famous personalities in baseball. “My frontal lobe is well developed, Mr. Waslaske. I believe in quantitative and qualitative analysis. Both have proven validity.”
Fuzzy made no bones about the fact that he hated both analytics and the business of the game. The whiskers at the side of his face, that were more sideburns than beard, shifted. “I’ve got a Cuban cigar for you at the end of the game if you think this is going to work.”
Tristan wrinkled his nose. The kid hated the smoking and tobacco chewing that were the fabric of baseball’s inner sanctum.
Tristan placed both hands on the table. “Make it a fine Chianti and you’re on.”
Fuzzy’s face turned red. “Chianti—Jesus! That’s the problem with this sport these days. It’s bad enough I have to put on a tuxedo and go to shindigs like that gala in July. Now they’ve got margaritas in the stands and Chianti in the clubhouse. It used to be cheap beer and chewing tobacco. We’ve got a whole generation of buttoned-up fans who would rather watch the donuts racing around on the jumbotron than keep score.”
While the two argued, Sam ran a hand over his eyes and weighed the merits of making them sit in time-out until they got along. It had worked on almost everyone in the Turbos’ administrative offices. Only instead of time-out he called it overtime. The last time he’d added extra hours, his secretary pointed out that the staff was calling him buzzkiller behind his back. Good. At his age, he needed to be tough. So far, his no-nonsense managerial style was working on everyone in the Turbos’ front office…except the two men sitting in the conference room.
As a man who had stood toe-to-toe arguing with more umpires than were currently employed in all of baseball, Fuzzy was untouchable and unfazed by anything. The main reason Sam respected him.
Tristan was another story. At twenty-five, he was a phenomenon. A man-boy who could tally complex math in his head and analyze stats like no one Sam had ever seen. But he was oddly intuitive. Extremely logical and unemotional. And out of his element in the world of baseball.
Since being hired as the general manager two years ago, Sam had grown to trust both men more than anyone in the Turbos organization. They represented both tradition and the new analytics that defined the way the game was played these days. He’d worked his ass off making sure the front-office politics, field politics, fans, and the media were satisfied. These men helped him keep that balance.
Sam grabbed the mouse Tristan had used for the presentation and moved the computer analysis back and forth. Tristan was right. There was something to be said for making a change. But whereas his analysis was correct, it risked the volatile personal dynamics that made the team click. Fuzzy understood this far better than Tristan could ever comprehend.
Sam raised his voice and cut off the argument. “Anderson has a day off coming to him next week. Why don’t we make the change in the lineup when he’s off and see what happens. Until then, I’m with Fuzzy on this one.”
Tristan’s shoulders slumped. “One game isn’t enough to observe a trend.”
“It’ll have to do for now.”
Fuzzy sent Tristan a triumphant smile and pushed away from the conference room table. “I’m not buying you no wine for a base hit in the first, kid. If your man is going to work in the cleanup spot, he’ll have to fire a homer with a man on base.”
When Fuzzy left the room, Sam caught Tristan making a face at his back.
“Really?”
Tristan put his hands in his pockets and acted like he’d been caught mocking his teacher.
Sam gathered the paperwork in front of him and wondered if Tristan would ever mature enough to figure out how to handle Fuzzy. Sam had a lunch meeting with one of the corporate sponsors and a phone-in meeting with the MLB Network later. Babysitting didn’t fit into his list of jobs today.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?” Sam stood up, reading a new message on his phone.
“Did you get a chance to read the papers earlier in the week?”
Sam frowned at the text from his secretary. Charlie Zumaeta, the Donut King more commonly known as Zoom, was unhappy with the concessions this year. He had a colleague with a new line of condiments and was pressuring Sam to make a change in the contract. Fans had been loyal to the stadium’s Indianapolis-based ketchup and mustard brand for years and were unlikely to accept the change.
Sam texted his secretary and answered Tristan. “I only have time for headlines and the sports section these days, so you’ll have to be more specific than that.”
“Ummm, well, a reporter from the Star wrote a compelling little article about the team.” Tristan picked up the mouse and scanned his computer for something.
Sam didn’t have time to trade stories with Tristan. He was late to a meeting. “Just send it to me when you find it.”
“I will. But let me sum it up,” said Tristan.
“Make it quick, kid.”
“Well, it seems Kevin Halderman had a fiancée a few years ago. A childhood sweetheart, to be exact.”
Seriously? He was surprised that a geek like Tristan would be interested in gossip.
“She was at the game last week when Kevin pitched the no-hitter.”
“Great for her.”
“Some guy took her picture and recognized who she was.”
“Is she suing?”
“No, but it was in the Star. In Luther McLean’s column.”
“That guy’s an ass.” Sam gathered his paperwork and moved toward the door. “If she is suing us for breach of privacy, call the legal department. That’s not something you have to deal with.”
Tristan held up his hand. “Wait. Her name is Maisy Gray.”
Sam didn’t even pretend to be patient. “Look, is there a point to this?”
“McLean linked Maisy Gray to Kevin’s win.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Luther was always stirring things up.
“Have you never heard about Maisy Gray?” Tristan asked.
Maisy. The name sounded sweet. And familiar. An old girlfriend’s dog, perhaps? Sad. He remembered the pets more than the women.
“This McLean pointed out that when Kevin made his major-league debut with the Turbos, five years ago, she was at every home game. He pitched a 2.90 ERA and was on fire back then.”
“So was the team,” Sam said. “They had the benefit of five first-round draft picks and a pitching budget that was worth more than the total budget we have now.” And no one cared back then that Kevin had a two-hundred-million-dollar seven-year contract. They certainly never dreamed it would eventually sink the team.
Tristan nodded emphatically as if Sam had figured out something important. “That’s the point. Everyone played better and was happier when she was in the ballpark.”
“When she was in the— Wait, there were about fifty thousand other people in the ballpark back then, too.” How could a numbers guy miss the fact that thousands of people attending winning games meant everyone was happy, not just one girl?
“Yeah, but Maisy was the most loyal fan they had. The camera loved her. I found some old video. She would do all these funny rituals for luck and the fans loved it. She was a real personality. A fixture of sorts.”
Sam was afraid to ask what kind of things she’d done. Seriously. The way the game was going, she’d probably flashed the crowd.
“Kevin dumped Maisy when he met Alexa Ventura.” Tristan sniffed. “Typical, right? I mean, a supermodel.”
“Is Halderman in some kind of trouble?” Halderman popped into his office every few weeks. Usually, Sam did his best to ignore the kid. Keeping tabs on his dating habits was not his job unless something was about to hit the fan.
“Kevin seems happy with his girlfriend. They have quite a social media following.”
“Is there a point to this?” Sam put his hand on the doorknob, ready to leave if this didn’t get anywhere soon.
“The point is that Kevin dumped Maisy for a supermodel. Well, the point isn’t the supermodel part, although I’m sure it’s hard to meet regular girls.”
“Not that hard.” Sam thought about the way he had flirted at Plato’s Pub a couple of weeks ago. There was a face he would never forget. Just remembering his tequila-loving bar friend made him forget Tristan’s point. He should have gotten her number. Her name at least.
Tristan had been scrolling through screens and he stopped on a graph. “The point is the Maisy part. I tracked Kevin’s games to see if what McLean was saying was actually true. And this is what I found.”
The numbers on the screen came together in a big blur. Sam didn’t feel like math right now. He leaned against the door and ran a hand over his eyes.
Tristan stared at him. “Do you see it?”
Back to numbers. “Why don’t you explain?”
“Look.” Tristan walked over and pointed to the screen. “Kevin was great back then. But it was his home-game winning streak that was so strong. Those were the games she attended. All the home games. He rarely pitched fewer than ten strikes or allowed more than seven hits per game.”
“Yeah?”
“They broke up on July twenty-fifth. Three months before their wedding was supposed to happen. That’s when Miss Gray stopped going to his games. That’s when he dumped her for Alexa Ventura.” Tristan tapped the screen with his finger. “That’s exactly when he started losing. Look, the Red Sox blew him out of the water and he was pulled in the second inning.”
Sam crossed his arms. “Come on. The guy had a lot going on and there was…well…Alexa was probably wearing him out.”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “You sound like the guys in the locker room.”
Sam didn’t visit the locker room much. He didn’t like getting too close to the guys he might have to let go. Instead he made Tristan monitor the press interviews after the game. It had taken a long time for Tristan to get over his nerves being around half-naked sweaty guys. Tristan was gay. Almost everyone but Zoom knew it, but no one talked about it much. Baseball was a tough sport for men who didn’t think cover girls were sexy and boobs were the best set of balls around.
“Look, Sam. The trend continued. Kevin never struck as many out per game again. He won a few, of course, but they were tight games. Look at his ERA.”
Sam moved toward the screen. He had to admit it. The numbers were quite different post-Maisy. “And this is because of his breakup?”
Tristan pointed to the newspaper on the table. “It doesn’t matter what we think. It’s what the fans think that’s important.”
“Come on, Tristan, I have a meeting. Are they back together or something?” Sam felt dumb. That irritated him. Usually he was the whiz at understanding the nuances of the sport he loved so much. For some reason, this was beyond him.
“They aren’t back together. But Kevin pitched a no-hitter on the very day his ex showed up for a baseball game. Ms. Gray brought her fourth-grade class. It was a school field trip. Kevin wasn’t even supposed to pitch that night. Remember? Fuzzy had to change the lineup when Lopez caught the flu.”
It had been going through the clubhouse. His catcher had caught it the next day. Sam had ripped on the cleaning staff and told them he wanted the clubhouse hosed down and decontaminated from now on or he was terminating their contract.
“So, this Maisy showed up and Halderman pitched a no-hitter.” Sam was slowly getting it. But it was stupid.
“Exactly.”
“And this is a big deal now?”
“To the fans. Yes. Didn’t you notice the signs in left field before the team went on their West Coast trip earlier in the week?”
“No.”
“There were at least half a dozen people holding signs that said, ‘Come back to the ballpark, Maisy Gray.’”
“Seriously?” Fans always amazed Sam. Their face paint. Their wacko posters. The way they would make out for the kiss cam at the drop of a hat. Whatever made them famous on the jumbotron.
Tristan slapped the newspaper. “They think this Maisy is Halderman’s good luck charm. And based on these stats, they are right.”
Sam had no time for this bull. He moved to the door again. “I guess Kevin’s got a lucky rabbit’s foot to catch.”
“No. We do. It was the talk on 97.1 Radio yesterday. They made it a segue into sports and superstition. The conversation lasted half the Bert Ives show.”
“You should have phoned in and told them they were all delusional then.”
Tristan raised his hands. “One in four Americans is superstitious and half of them are baseball fans. You can ignore it. But I suspect unless Halderman finds another win like he had last week, this is going to grow.”
Crap. Kevin had tanked in Oakland just last night. Tristan’s argument would be stronger now. Another reason Sam hated numbers. They could be used to prove any point, no matter how ridiculous.
“I don’t really see what we can do about it. But thanks for telling me.”
Tristan shoved the newspaper in Sam’s hands. His hooded eyes and curt tone told Sam he was making a mistake. “Just doing my job, boss.”
Sam hurried back to his office and tossed the newspaper on his desk. He was late. Grabbing a folder and popping a piece of gum in his mouth, he barely glanced at the image on the front of the sports section. He was halfway out the door when he froze and turned back. He picked up the article about Kevin’s lucky ex and took a closer look.
The black-and-white picture was grainy. But there was no mistaking the shoulder-length bob, the wide-set brown eyes, and the magic smile.
The only thing Maisy Gray was missing was a remote control and a shot of tequila.