Play for Me

Chapter 1I lost everything I loved in the span of twenty-four hours. Well, nearly everything, since Dad was still safely tucked away in Sommerset Meadows, but that's a different story. Heartbreak comes in all forms.For me, baseball went first.My home in Boston and cannoli from Vitales in the North End quickly followed.I was eating my feelings in the form of a chocolate chip cannoli when a man holding a sheet cake paused to look me over, and upon recognizing me, he promptly spit in my face. He was wearing an autographed Big Papi jersey and an expression that can only be described as murderous. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned . . . well, a woman scorned has nothing on a Red Sox fan who just stumbled upon the trainer responsible for ruining the team's World Series run stuffing her face with pastry."That's for benching Iwasaki!" he hollered. "You cost us the series!"The rabid fan couldn't have known that only two hours earlier I'd been forced to resign in front of a room full of middle-aged men in ill-fitting polo shirts. He wouldn't have seen me sitting on the T next to a cardboard box full of my things, willing myself not to cry. And he definitely had no earthly notion that I'd arrived home to find the rest of my worldly possessions packed away in a matching luggage set my boyfriend, Patrick, had originally bought for me to use on our trip to Zurich in January. As the team doctor, he hadn't taken kindly to me calling his medical judgment into question. He'd carved me out of our shared brownstone and his life with speed and surgical precision.I didn't fault any of them for being angry, even this guy. I was a Red Sox fan, after all, one who grew up watching every home game while my dad worked as a custodian in Fenway; the agony of defeat had rocked me to my core more than once. But I wasn't at my best, and my cheek was damp with spittle, which is probably why I exploded out of my chair, knocked the cake box out of the man's hand, and smashed my half-eaten cannoli into his face."I'd do it again!" I yelled. Cake splattered on the floor around us. It was completely out of character-the aggression, I mean, not the thing that had brought me to that moment; still, I meant what I said. At only twenty-two, Iwasaki was already the kind of pitcher that comes along once every hundred years. He'd had an ulnar collateral ligament sprain that the medical team had been treating with stem cells and plasma injections, but his body wasn't ready. I could see it in his face, the way he grimaced and guarded his arm when no one else was looking. Just hours before the game, he'd been drenched with sweat after throwing a couple of easy pitches."How bad is it?" I'd asked him.He'd shaken his head. "Not bad," he'd said. "Just nerves." As if the league's best pitcher had ever been that nervous a day in his life. I gave him a look. "I'm good," he lied.What ensued was a series of fights with what felt like everyone in the organization from Patrick to the GM, but in the end Iwasaki went back on the injured list, and I went on a list too-one that started with "black" and ended with "balled.""It'll be fine," I'd assured everyone. "Morano is one hundred percent and he's looking great."The backup pitcher, Morano, was solid. The pitching coach agreed, and everyone conceded; no problem, I thought. I am an optimist.Morano choked. Epically.The Phillies hadn't just beaten us; they'd humiliated us in Fenway Park.The man who'd been on the receiving end of my cannoli was screaming, a strangled animal sound. Espresso cups stilled. Around us, the bakery patrons fell silent. There were no shouting spectators here egging us on. A woman with a small child cowered, shielding the toddler with her body. The worker behind the counter who had winked at me when he handed over my food now picked up a phone to make a call. I retreated, accidentally placing my shoe directly in the middle of a chunk of cake. I slipped on the mass of buttercream and nearly fell. Frantically, my arms windmilled, and I grabbed for anything to keep myself upright. I caught the man's shirt; a button popped off and thwacked against my forehead.I looked up. The man's screaming ceased. He reached up and wiped the cream from his face. A glop of frosting landed in my hair-pale white against my deep red waves. I had a sudden, sickening realization that there was no team behind me, ready to get in the mix, and there never would be again. I was on my own, and my life in baseball-and at my favorite bakery-was over.There's no bullpen in the North End, no dugout to cool off in, and since, as I learned later, the delectable flaky pastry scratched the man's cornea, I spent the better part of the afternoon in a holding cell in the Boston district A-1 police station.I was braiding my hair and trying to figure out how I was going to tell my dad about my fall from grace when my best friend, Astrid, appeared, looking like a cross between a blonde bombshell with a foul mouth and a glorious angel. She was wearing oversized black sunglasses, ripped high-waisted jeans, and a tube top with puffed sleeves that revealed her pale midriff. She might have been the only person over the age of thirty who could pull a look like that off. Astrid was warm and disarming, and at the sight of her, relief pooled in me and that feeling of utter loneliness dissipated.She tossed her blonde waves over her shoulder and removed her sunglasses."Sophie, in all of our years of friendship, I never once envisioned having to bail you out of jail," she said, tucking the glasses into her purse. "I feel like we've reached a whole new level of closeness.""Thank you for coming." I smiled; I couldn't help it.A cop unlocked the door and gestured for me to get out with a quick jerk of her head."It better be a good story," Astrid said, folding me in her long arms. "Was it a pervert? I love it when a perv gets what's coming to him."I grimaced. "I was defending my honor. Sort of." I eyed the room. From the glares I was getting, the police were also Red Sox fans. It was Dunkin' Donuts with a side of dirty looks in there. "I didn't mean to hurt him.""Let's get you out of here," Astrid said. "I know everyone loves Iwasaki, but geez." She raised her voice. "It's just a game.""Astrid, shhh. Don't antagonize them." She slung one arm around my shoulders and together we speed-walked toward the exit."So, where to?" Astrid asked once we were outside beneath the old blue station sign, standing in the shadow of the brick behemoth. "Home?""About that . . . Patrick's pretty mad." I glanced up at the brick building. The architect must've had a mandate to put in as few windows as possible.Astrid's eyes narrowed. "How mad?""'I can't be with someone who would question me at work. It's over' mad. At least that's what he wrote in his note.""Wait, you haven't talked to him? He left a note?""It was taped to my suitcase.""You've been together for what . . . four years? I know you said things had kind of cooled off a bit, but that's beyond cold. Okay, well . . . I never liked him anyway. His nurse was an extra with me on ShadowWorld back in March and she said he's a dick to all the office staff.""You're just telling me this now?""Yeah, game night's been wicked awkward."Astrid was trying to cheer me up, so I obliged her, but the laugh I managed to conjure was paper-thin. My stomach swirled. I wasn't sure whether I was going to burst into tears or throw up, but some kind of dramatic emotion was threatening to surface."Could I stay with you for a bit?" I asked."I would love to be your roommate again, Soph, but I'm headed to Toronto in two days for that film I told you about. Since I'll be gone for a while, I sublet the place to a family of four. You should see the baby. Cheeks for days. Anyway, you can crash until they arrive on Thursday, but after that, you'll have to figure something else out.""Okay, no problem. Two days is fine. It's great, actually. I'm sure I can figure out something. How hard could it be to find a new place and a new job, right? I mean, this is Boston, the land of opportunity."Astrid wrinkled her nose. "Especially now that you've been fired and charged with assault.""I don't think I was actually charged. It's all kind of a blur.""I think I know exactly what this situation calls for," Astrid said.I peeked up at her. "You do?""Yup, I do. I'm going to feed you and get you really drunk.""Seriously? I don't think that's the best idea.""Good thing I'm in charge now, because you need to drown your sorrows, and I do my most optimal thinking when I'm hammered."I opened my mouth to argue, but Astrid's legs were longer than mine, and she was already several steps ahead of me. "Let's go, Cannoli Kid," she called over her shoulder. "I promise you, by the time I leave for Toronto, we'll have this sortedout."Astrid’s ideas for sorting things out were generally questionable, even in the best of times. But lobster rolls from Neptune Oyster and unlimited Sam Adams Porch Rocker in Astrid’s rooftop garden with a view of the Charles River felt like an inspired choice, even if she’d claimed to have selected lobster rolls because they were soft, in case my temper flared again. It was a beautiful evening: we couldn’t see the stars, but the lights of our beloved city twinkled and the air turned cooler. The beer and the buttery lobster smoothed out the rough edges of my horrible day.Astrid leaned forward in her lounge chair. "What about another team?" she said. "The Lowell Spinners, maybe?"I shook my head. "The Spinners have Ricky Phillips as their trainer and he's fantastic. Besides, there's no point deluding myself; I'm tainted goods right now. A job in pro baseball isn't going to happen. At least not until everyone forgets about this-if they forget-or some kind of miracle takes place.""It's such bullshit," Astrid said, slamming her beer down. "You said if he pitched he probably would have blown out his elbow completely. You were just doing your job. It's not your fault Morano had a bad night. Did they fire him?""I see the point you're trying to make and I love you for it, but I'm sure Morano's getting his fair share of abuse right now. And it happens. The pressure he was under was immense. Everyone forgets that, at the end of the day, athletes are people too." I pulled at the label on my bottle."I know! Morano is definitely a person. A fine person. I enjoyed watching him wind up for every terrible pitch he threw last night," Astrid said, mischief twinkling in her gaze. "How about this? Maybe you could come to Toronto with me. I could be your sugar mommy."I squinted at Astrid and took a long draw from my beer. "You are an angel, but you're not really my type."She tossed her hair over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes. "I thought I was everyone's type.""You're too beautiful.""That's fair."We opened new bottles and clinked them together, then fell into the kind of comfortable silence that only longtime friends can have."Besides, I can't leave Dad without a visitor for that long. But I do think you're onto something. It might be nice to get out of the city for a bit," I said. "A girl can only be spit on so many times before she needs a change of scene . . . and a new bakery. And by so many, I mean one. Once was one time too many. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm banned from Vitales until the end of time. And the idea of running into Patrick at Trader Joe's is not appealing."Astrid grabbed another lobster roll and took a bite."I've got it," she said, her mouth still half-full. I waited for her to swallow. "Where's the perfect place to hide away and reinvent yourself?""Is that supposed to mean something to me?"Astrid narrowed her eyes.I held my hands up. "Okay. I don't know, Vegas?""That's ridiculous. Vegas is where you go to see a Britney Spears concert and somehow wake up married and broke. No. The place you go to hide is New Hampshire.""How many beers have you had?" I asked. "You go to New Hampshire to hike and buy stuff without sales tax. It's not exactly transformative.""Not true. And also, not enough beers. But that's beside the point." She pulled out another bottle and used the side of the farmhouse table to thwack the cap off in one smooth and slightly vicious motion. "Remember how I got into some trouble junior year?""Yeah?" How could I forget? Astrid's parents went through a brutal divorce when she was sixteen, and her coping strategy had been her mother's painkillers and a pretty bad shoplifting habit, culminating in an actual chase through Faneuil Hall, of all places. Her parents had shipped her off to boarding school in New Hampshire for the rest of high school. At the time, I'd been devastated and braced myself for what were sure to be the loneliest two years of my life. About a month after she'd left, Dad let me borrow his car to meet her in Concord at Bread & Chocolate, and sitting across from her, I could see that she was happier and more herself than she'd been in a long time. So I was thankful, and content to count down the days until we could be roommates at college together.While I'd been lost in memory, Astrid had fiddled with her phone. She thrust it in front of my face.I squinted at the bright screen until the words The Monadnock School and a mountain scene came into focus. "The boarding school you went to? I'm not following.""I donate a boatload of money every year to the theater department, so I get all the emails. I remember seeing one recently that said they had a position open for a trainer for the school year that's already underway."