Chapter 2 - Birthday Beers
“Bet this isn’t the way you were figuring on spending your birthday, was it?”
In the year that Emma had known the Malones – Gabriella, who preferred Gabi, and her husband Devin – she’d found that over time, the accent that had seemed so strong, so obvious when they first met were now unnoticeable. Even in that first meeting, those first conversations, it had been Devin, the stereotypical Irish Catholic from ‘Southie’ that talked like he’d never left Boston. Gabi, who’d only gone to college in the city, and had grown up in the middle of the state, just picked up his words from time-to-time.
After raising her ‘birthday beer’ to her closest friends, Emma shook her head with a grin. No, going over the finer nuances of the game of hockey with these two fellow New Englanders was not exactly the life she’d expected when the Kansas City Times offered her a position straight out of school. Still, with enormous college loans to pay off, Emma had begged her editor to find her something – anything – to keep her employed at the paper. “Sports,” she said, “I’ll even write sports!”
Those were famous last words, as it would indeed be sports where she was shuffled off to. Football, baseball, all had been fodder for her new writing grist. Emma felt like she’d spent four years at school studying Italian, only to find herself in Germany.
But, that trip to “Germany” had netted her an unexpected friendship with the couple, who were only too pleased to have ‘someone from home’ with whom they could talk with. What began as sharing beers after a baseball game had turned into a weekly gathering at the Malone homestead, trying to help Emma learn more about baseball and football, and of late, hockey.
For it was hockey that was to be her permanent assignment, and in a few short weeks the action would begin. The brand new local team, in their shiny new arena, would be holding tryouts for the players who would soon make up the Blue Springs Blizzard.
Not that anyone outside of the Malones knew anything about hockey, best that Emma could tell. She had her doubts that the team would even last beyond their first year – how far could fascination of the unknown carry attendance anyways?
“Spearing.” Devin’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she could only furrow her brow at him in response.
“Oh, let me get the stick! I can show her!” Gabi said in an all-too-gleeful tone, one that had Devin wrapping his arms around his stomach as though to shield it.
Giggling both at the couple and Devin’s unintended hint, Emma pointed a finger in the air in a triumphant manner and told them, “Major penalty. Almost always a game misconduct. Using the pokey end of the stick to whack another player in the midsection.”
“The pokey end?” Devin asked before he started laughing hysterically.
Emma made a face at him. “Yeah, what the fuck, what the hell is it called? Not the shaft. I remember that’s the top part.” Furrowing her brow once more, Emma shot a glance over at Gabi, but found her friend smiling but shaking her head, refusing to help further. Growling low under her breath, Emma started going through her mental catalog of hockey equipment until finally it hit her. “Blade, dammit! The blade of the stick. Fucker.”
Smirking, Devin asked, “Another?” before Emma soon shook her head at him. “Good. I was hoping you could help me figure out why the fuck this team is going to be called the Blizzard.”
“Yes!” Emma exclaimed. “I was wondering the exact damn thing. I mean, were they going for an alliteration thing? Something that flows off the tongue? Cuz I’m sure these people wouldn’t know what the hell a real Blizzard is.”
“Outside the kind you can get at the local DQ, you mean.” Gabi injected drily while they nodded agreement. “I get the Blue Springs part. The rinks are in an area annexed by that town. Fine, name it after the town. But Blizzard? Seriously.”
Devin stood from the couch he’d been lounging on and started to move towards the kitchen. “Getting another beer. Either of you want one?”
Emma thought about it for a moment, cut a glance to the right and eyed her watch, and then shook her head. “I shouldn’t. In fact, I should maybe let you two do whatever it is you do after I leave.” She winked at Gabi before continuing. “I do appreciate the flash cards though. These suckers are going to get transcribed into the tablet and taped all over the apartment.”
“I’m so glad we got you into that place.” Gabi murmured softer, more seriously than any of the conversations had been throughout the evening. “I still remember your birthday last year, and while the conversations that night were hilarious, getting woken up the next morning to get your phone call…” Trailing off, Gabi shook her head, though she leaned back against Devin upon his return, both gazing at Emma, sending her thoughts drifting back to a night so similar, yet worlds apart.
~*~
One Year Earlier
“C’mon darling, I know they’re setting you up to fail so they’ll get rid of you, but you can do this. Just think about it a little harder.”
Growling in Devin’s direction, Emma shook her head stubbornly, muttering, “You hit the round thingy with the wooden thingy, and hope you score. But not the kind of scoring that I’d like to be doing!”
Palming his face and rolling his eyes at his wife, Devin tried again. “And what’s the name of the sport?”
“Baseball.” Emma retorted immediately before her eyes lit up, the obvious finally dawning on her. “Right. So the round thingy is the baseball. And the wooden thingy was an alliteration. Baseball bunt? Baseball branch? No, baseball bat. That’s it, bat!”
Reaching across the table to give Emma a high five, Devin gave her a wide grin, “Exactly. And yeah, the rules are a bit complicated, but the essence is like most stick or ball sports; you’re trying to get more points than your opponent.”
“And is that the same for football? Do you kick the ball with your foot? Is that how it got its name?”
Exchanging another grin with Gabi, Devin shook his head. “Not quite. There’s a bit of kicking in football, but it’s more of a running and throwing game. Except it’s only called football here in the States. In other parts of the world, football is what we call soccer, and they do kick the ball with their feet.”
Emma furrowed her brow, then shook her head, mumbling at them, “So why the fuck do we call it football then?”
Finally, for the first time in the better part of an hour, Gabi interjected, voice wry but still soft, “Because we’re the States. We’re the same country that pays athletes and actors millions, and teachers and public safety people barely enough to live on. The only thing logical about this country is that we completely lack in logic.”
Nodding her head in agreement, Emma stretched her arms over her head with a yawn, taking one final sip of the beer she’d been nursing for the better part of the evening before setting it on the table. “I should head out. Baseball game tomorrow, and I’m hoping after tonight’s chat I’ll have a bit better handle on what I’m watching. But the press box boys look out for me and try and point me in the right direction.”
Once more exchanging glances, it was Devin who again spoke, telling Emma softly, “You know you don’t have to go back to that dump tonight, right? You’re for sure welcome to our guest room, we’d even give you earplugs so you don’t hafta risk hearing anything we might do.”
With a wrinkle of her nose and a shake of her head, Emma declined their offer, telling them, “I know you don’t understand the appeal of my place, but the people there are salt of the earth. Working hard for their piece of the pie. And yeah, some of them have some ugly backgrounds, but they’re trying. And I enjoy talking to them, learning more about their lives, finding out what brought them to our shared homes.”
The only response Emma received was a pair of shaking heads before Devin rose to his feet and pulled her into a loose hug, already well familiar with her dislike of the affectionate gesture, but knowing that she tolerated it from him. “We worry, little one. It’s not so much a bad neighborhood but...”
“But I’m a big girl and I can handle myself.” Her voice was quiet but confident, and after another moment she pulled out of the hug, reaching for Gabi’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Thank you guys, for everything. I don’t know where I’d be right now without you.”
“That’s what best friends are for.” Gabi assured her, and after another moment, Gabi too tugged her into a quick, loose hug before letting go. “Just text to let us know you got home safe, okay?”
Rolling her eyes, but in an affectionate manner, Emma nodded, teasing, “Yes Mom,” and as she ducked a swat from Gabi, she shifted away laughing, moving to gather up the keys to her jalopy and head home. Emma turned long enough to give Gabi a mock salute before waving and letting herself out of their nice not-so-little suburban digs. Glancing over her shoulder as she approached her car, she could make out the outlines of her friends watching her from the front window, Devin’s arms wrapped around Gabi, and his chin resting on her shoulder. Waving at them one final time, Emma climbed into her old, rusted, junker of a car, offered up a prayer to the God of Starters, and fist pumped when the vehicle started up on the first attempt of a key turn.
She knew that Gabi was right about her apartment – it was in a less desirable part of town. She’d not understood when she’d moved to the Midwest that the town structures weren’t as they were back east. A property in Blue Springs could technically be in Independence or Lee’s Summit or even Oak Grove. So, while her apartment was “part of the Blue Springs school district”, it was actually located in Raytown. And while Blue Springs proper was the kind of town her parents would have no doubt considered living in had they ever desired to leave New England, Raytown – at least the part where she ended up - was not.
In the approximately 20 minutes it took her to drive from their place to hers, Emma once again wished that her lease agreement had allowed for her to get a dog – even a small one – to make her feel safer in her own place. Or that she had opted to spend the extra $250 a month to go for a second-floor unit, rather than the tiny one-bedroom on the first floor that she currently occupied. But neither of those situations was likely to change anytime soon. As with most of her life, Emma was going to have to deal with the cards she had been dealt.
After a brief stop at the community mailboxes to grab what were no doubt bills, Emma eased her car into her carport spot and glanced around cautiously. She wasn’t quite as naïve as Gabi thought her to be, and once she was convinced there were no strange men or monsters hiding behind any of the other cars, Emma grabbed her work satchel and scurried over to her apartment’s kitchen door.
With the door safely closed and locked behind her, Emma finally let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Pulling her smartphone out of the satchel to text Gabi, Emma continued straight through her living room and into her bedroom, not the least bit surprised to see that her answering machine was blinking. Two blinks meant two messages. The first was undoubtedly her family, singing “Happy Birthday” and then chorusing the same sentiment, but who was the second? She pressed the button on the machine to find out.
And indeed, the first message was from her family, singing “Happy Birthday” before her siblings dourly wished her the same. Oh, to be so loved.
Shaking her head a bit, Emma waited for the next message to queue and was surprised to hear her brother, Keegan. “Hey sis. Just wanted to call an wish ya a Happy Birthday separate from that family shit. Y’know I don’t agree with what you’re doin’ but I am proud of ya for stickin’ to your guns and doin’ it. Try an keep in touch, aight?”
Blinking for a long time, Emma could only stare at the answering machine in stunned silence. A member of her immediate family, giving a damn? Yes, it was her birthday, but was the world ending or something? She couldn’t believe Keegan had called on his own, to express a desire that they remain in touch.
Wandering out of her bedroom and into the small area that was supposed to serve as her living room, it was then that Emma looked up and noticed that her hallway door didn’t appear to be sitting right.
Swallowing her instinctive reaction to scream, Emma edged closer to the door to examine it – there was no two ways about it – someone had tried to break in. Glancing around for something suitable to push against the door until she could get the landlord to fix it, Emma’s eyes finally settled on her beloved and entirely too large recliner. Grunting, muttering and otherwise shoving at the unwieldy chair, she finally got it blocking the door.
Taking a step away and gazing around the room, Emma took a silent inventory. Nothing else appeared to be missing or out of place. Still, perhaps Gabi was right. Maybe it was worth it after all to find a safer place to live.
Could she spend another 10 months living in constant fear?