“The Cheers have been tempted away from redemption by the attractions of the flesh,” Sammy insisted.
“Speak for yourself,” Sophie argued, citing as her exhibit A, a certain right-handed ace who hadn’t lost a game since they’d started dating.
Barry Weed chain-lit another cigarette. “You’re all making this about something it’s not really about. Sammy, the choice is simple. If you want to be a Cheer, get your ass back out on the field. If you don’t, go clean out your locker.”
The air was sticky with anticipation as we glanced nervously at each other, wondering which way the penny would fall. Then Sammy hurled his batting helmet at his locker. The reverberation shuddered in a domino effect along the row of metal doors. We watched in silence as he tossed his gear into a large navy blue duffel bag, and without so much as a nod or a handshake, our third baseman strode out of the locker room.
The rest of us remained rooted to the floor.
“Well, that settles that.” Barry exhaled a puff of acrid smoke.
“Truth be told, I didn’t think he’d do it,” Dusty said, lifting his baseball cap and scratching his head.
“The show must go on, kids,” I said to the managers. “We’ve got a game tonight against the Sound that we need to win, or everyone empties their lockers come 10:00 p.m. Not only that, it’s Death by Chocolate night, so we’re expecting a sellout.” Another revenue-increasing tack I’d begun to pursue was hosting themed games. We’d had the requisite ethnic heritage nights—Latino, Jewish, Asian, Polish, Irish, Italian—and the Thousand-and-One Arabian Nights truncated into just the one, after which we were accused of anti-Islamic bias.
I discovered that fans ate up the specialty-food-themed games, too, like Burrito and Beach Bag Day, and our popular Ice-Cream Sundays. Stealing a play from other minor league teams, the Cheers also hosted home games with a community awareness theme. In particular, B.S. night—the Britney Spears Baby Safety event, where fans took home a free DVD on the proper way to strap their tot into a car seat—had been a huge success.
“So, since the show must go on, what happens in the next act, boss?” It was the first time Barry Weed had acknowledged my executive status without an astringent tinge in his voice.
I looked at Sophie. “I’ll give you one more chance to prove your scouting prowess,” I told her, then turned back to address my GM. “Get me Gabriel Moses,” I said to Barry Weed. “By tonight.”
Marty deMarley fiddled with the buttons on his raspberry-colored baseball jersey. “I feel like such a fruit in this,” he muttered to no one in particular, seeing as how Linda had long stopped listening to this particular gripe. He scrutinized his image in the mirrored medicine chest, noting that since his cousin had taken full control of the Cheers, his hair had gotten quite a bit grayer. How depressing. Pink shirt, thinning hair more salt than pepper…he looked like a dentist who’d mistakenly wandered into a women’s hair salon. “Well, by the end of the evening, we’ll be able to account Venus’s tenure a failure or a success.” The last word in his sentence nearly choked him. He couldn’t bear to imagine his cousin getting the credit for taking his beloved ramshackle team into postseason play. Sure, the Cheers had been in the toilet for the past several years. Then Venus had plunged them even deeper down the drain. But lately, things had really been looking up. The team had come gasping up for air. Marty took out his anger on the toothpaste tube, squeezing it with such ferocity that the white goo exploded into a minty-fresh snake all over the bathroom mirror.
“Are you going to keep Mommy company tonight?” Linda cooed to Rosebud, as she struggled to force the Yorkie’s little limbs into a custom canine Cheers jersey, numbered with the dog’s age—seventy seven.
“For God’s sake, Linda, can’t you leave the dog home tonight?” Marty resented how much time he spent resenting his wife’s pet. It was evident to everyone that she preferred Rosebud to any human, especially to him, and he was sick of getting ribbed about it by his colleagues on the Street, and by the folks in the Cheers organization.
“It’s a big night for the team—their first real do-or-die night. I need her to calm my nerves,” insisted Linda, rubbing noses with Rosebud.
Observing this cozy tête-à-tête, Marty rolled his eyes. “One day I wish she’d bite yours off,” he muttered. Too busy playing kissy-face with her pooch, Linda couldn’t hear a word he said, but it made him feel better that he’d at least had the balls to express his thought.
Linda slipped into her Cheers jersey, a French-cut version that emphasized the gazellelike slimness of her torso. Glancing at herself in the full-length mirror, she decided that pink was her color after all. It took a few years off her age and brought a healthy glow to her cheeks. Maybe Venus wasn’t such a bimbo.
Upon learning of Sammy Santiago’s rather abrupt departure from the organization, the mood among the Cheers ranged from utter shock and disbelief to an attitude of laissez-faire to a vehement sense of good riddance. Yet no matter the reaction, the result was the same. The team seemed incapable of focusing on the task at hand—preparing for the evening’s game against the Long Island Sound. And I’d never realized just how lousy our second-string infielders were until Dusty sent them out to third base. Rodolfo Rasmussen got a fleck of dirt in his eye and claimed he’d been too blinded to continue to field the ball—let alone hit it. Googie Marcantonio developed such a case of hay fever within five minutes of suiting up for practice that he needed to dope himself up with antihistamines all afternoon. By 5:00 p.m, he was passed out and snoring on a bench in the bullpen.
And Gabriel Moses was nowhere in sight.
“Where the fuck is our white knight?” Dusty paced the dugout. He brought his hand to his eyes and looked out toward the bullpen, where Googie was still dozing. “I can’t send a groggy infielder out there tonight. Especially a third-rate one. This game’s too damn important. What?!” The manager turned around to see Barry Weed’s funereal expression.
“Gabriel Moses is stuck at the airport in Rochester. There’s a rain delay. No flights out until the weather pattern lifts.”
“You have no idea how unhappy I am to hear this,” Dusty groaned.
Sophie trotted over with the Moses jersey she’d just picked up from the garment center seamstress who’d stitched on his name. “Wassup, you guys?” Scanning our dismal faces, she added, “Hey, who died?”
“The Cheers’ postseason hopes, if we don’t get a third baseman within the next couple of hours.” I said glumly.
“Awesome!”
“Are you on drugs, sweetie?”
Sophie looked positively beatific. “None of the players know what Gabriel Moses looks like, right? I mean, I’m guessing, here, but what they don’t know won’t hurt ’em, right?”
“Where are you going with this?” Barry Weed wanted to know.
“The clubhouse,” Sophie responded ecstatically. “Anybody got any duct tape?”
Top of the Ninth
“You do realize that we could all get our butts canned for this kind of stunt,” I reminded Sophie. “It’s far beyond the level of the Kyle-Lyle Angel fake-out. That wasn’t much more than a prank, but this is probably actionable. If anyone finds out, we’ll be fined up the ying-yang, and possibly banned for life from the great sport of baseball.”
“Do we have a choice?” she replied emphatically. “Sammy’s history. Rasmussen as good as placed himself on the DL after getting a speck of dirt in his eye. And Googie’s in dreamland. If he wakes up in time to take the field, he’ll spend the entire game blowing his nose into his glove. In addition to which, for all we know, he’s so full of diphenhydromine hydrochloride, he’d probably test positive for illegal substances, in case anyone bothers to ask him for a urine sample.” She said it with such authority, that it didn’t occur to me to question whether diphen-whatever was banned from baseball. “Now help me with the tape.”
We’d locked the door to the ladies’ room. Barry and Dusty were sworn to secrecy—a no-brainer for them, since
their careers were at stake. “You realize this is going to hurt when you pull it off,” I reminded Sophie as I bound her breasts with the duct tape.
“It won’t hurt as much as forfeiting the game because your third baseman hasn’t arrived yet,” she said. “Oww—not so tight—I can’t breathe.”
I was the one who shed tears when she took a utility shears to her beautiful brown hair. I remembered how I’d taken her to get a good haircut before the Clarendon Clash’s Christmas party, and how delighted she’d been with the result. Now, she was hacking away at her locks. She’d have the ultimate bad hair day if I didn’t take over.
“Here, let Mommy finish.” I reached for the scissors.
“Your hands are shaking too much,” she protested impatiently, as I sobbed between snips. I finally succeeded in giving her a stylish—though boyish—cut, and she ducked into the stall to don the uniform. I really hoped it would fit her.
“Don’t forget the cup,” I said.
“This thing looks like a hockey mask,” she muttered. “Something Jason would wear in Friday the 13th.” I heard her fussing with the various components of her gear. “Ta-da!” she exclaimed, emerging from the stall. “How do I look?” Standing in front of the mirror, she gave the most girly twirl I’d ever seen.
“God help me for being an accessory to fraud,” I said anxiously, to which Sophie teased, “but you always tell me how important it is to accessorize!”
“Well?” she asked me.
“Oh, my baby,” I said, throwing my arms around her. “I think pink is your color! Now, go out there and act like a man.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll grab my crotch a lot.”
“Spit, too. They always spit. Even when they don’t seem to have anything in their mouths. Which reminds me—if I catch you shoving a chaw of tobacco into yours, I’ll disown you.”
“You deMarleys have a way of doing that.”
“Ouch.”
“You deserved it,” she said, giving me a playful shot in the arm.
I swatted her butt. “That’s enough backtalk out of you—Gabo. And speaking of talking—don’t. Try to keep your mouth shut as much as possible.”
“But what about the national anthem?”
“Lip-synch it.”
I hugged her tightly one more time. How strange it felt to embrace a girl tricked out to be built like a guy. “Now stay there,” I cautioned, while I poked my head out of the ladies’ room. “Okay! All clear!”
Sophie made a graceful exit, and headed for the dugout with a masculine swagger to her stride. As much as I adored her, I crossed my fingers and prayed to all I held holy that the real Gabriel Moses would show up before those unofficial final words of the “Star-Spangled Banner”: Play ball!
But he didn’t. Barry Weed received a follow-up phone call from the distraught and apologetic Moses at 7:04, just before the player’s plane left the gate in Rochester. No way he’d make it to the stadium for the 8:00 p.m. start against the Sound.
Barry cornered Dusty and me just before the game. “We’ve got three options,” he told us. “Figure out a way to delay the first pitch, forfeit the game, or cross our fingers and send Sophie out there.”
“Number two is definitely not an option,” I said. “And I’m all out of ideas for how to make option one work.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sophie limbering up on the sidelines, swinging two bats at once so that one of them would feel a lot lighter in her hands when she stepped up to the plate. “Do it,” I told the guys. “And don’t forget to call her Gabo.”
Meanwhile, the fans in the stands scarfed down their complimentary chocolate-raspberry Cheers bars and swarmed the food vendors for the specialties of the night—a chocoholic’s wet dream of blackout cakes and mocha shakes, mud pies, hand-dipped fruit, and chocolate-filled crepes. A local confectioner, who’d put herself on the map with themed candy molds, had supplied us with thousands of chocolate bats, balls, and mitts.
Apart from ostentatiously scratching her ass while standing on the bag at third, and adjusting her cup more times than I thought was absolutely necessary, the faux Moses began the game by acquitting herself quite admirably against the Long Island Sound, earning a high five from her teammates after drilling the ball into the gap for a base hit in the second inning. Linda deMarley mentioned how cute she thought the new player was. I couldn’t help but agree with her. And if the other Cheers realized what was going on—how could they not, I thought, unless they were utterly self-absorbed—they played mum and dumb, which wasn’t too taxing an assignment for a few of them. My heart was in my mouth every second of play, fearing we’d be outed at any moment, the consequences of which would have been far worse than all the legitimate outs the Cheers could ever have logged during a game.
And then…at the top of the fourth inning, Tiny Matthews, the Sound’s shortstop, hit a screaming line drive toward third off Pinky Melk—straight into Sophie’s glove for the out. Lunging to her right to step onto third base took care of the runner there. The man on second was in the process of madly charging for third, having assumed that Tiny’s hit would go into the gap. When he saw that Sophie had the ball, he tried to apply the brakes, but stumbled instead. Sophie strode over to him before he could get to his feet, then triumphantly touched the ball to his shoulder.
The crowd was on its feet. “And Gabriel Moses turns the Cheers’ first-ever unassisted triple play!” the announcer shouted into his mic. “Gabo Moses—who just joined the lineup this evening—he’s so new to deMarley Field I’d bet he can’t even find the men’s room—yessiree, bob, Moses’s magnificent defensive play may well lead his team to the promised land of the playoffs!” The fans were ecstatic. Not to mention the family.
“Oh my God! Oh my God,” shouted Linda deMarley, placing Rosebud’s carry bag on the cement landing in front of her seat and jumping up and down with such fervor I thought she’d break off a spiked heel. “Marty, if your uncle Augie could have seen this—he’d be dancing in the streets!” she said, grabbing her husband’s arm. “Think Pink! Think Pink! Think Pink!” she began to chant, and the fans beside her took up the rally cry.
When the cheering died down, she nestled back into her seat and bent down to retrieve her beloved Yorkie. “Rose—” she said, a note of panic creeping into her voice, when she noticed that the dog had jumped out of her carry bag. “Marty—have you seen Rosebud?”
“She’s where you left her,” he replied, his mouth full of chocolate cake. Linda turned away in revulsion at his crumb-coated teeth.
“Excuse me!” Linda sidled into the aisle. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she frantically repeated, as she tried to push her way up the stairs. “My dog got away—I have to find her. Excuse me! Excuse me!”
Barry Weed emerged from the locker room, and put his fingers in his mouth to taxi-whistle me down to the dugout. “He’s here,” Barry whispered in my ear. “He’s suiting up right now.”
“Tell him he’s got a pretty big jersey to fill,” I said, my eyes welling with salty tears—ever the proud mother.
Thankfully, most of the fans were still too busy rhapsodizing over the unassisted triple play, or on too much of a sugar high to notice the fourth-inning switcheroo, when the slightly disoriented, but very real, Gabriel Moses showed up in the dugout. The rest of the Cheers—good eggs, all—didn’t so much as bat an eye at the substitution. With a tremendous sigh of relief, I thought, they’ve made Mama Bear very, very happy.
“I only hope he’s very, very good,” I mumbled to myself. It saddened me that I couldn’t rush down and congratulate Sophie for such a spectacular performance, even if we hid out in the ladies’ room again to share a hug and a big high five. Who knows who might overhear us; it was too risky to chance it. We’d have to save our celebration until after the game. I wished that Glenn and Joy Ashe, as clueless as all the other spectators in the stands, had been able to know about their girl’s—my girl’s—our girl’s triumph. And it did kind of bug me that a guy who wasn’t even in
the stadium at the time would get the credit for a record-setting play he hadn’t made. I’d have to get to poor Gabo Moses and give him the scoop, swearing him to secrecy before he was swamped by the press!
For a moment, it seemed like everyone in the stands had a comment on the game. Linda deMarley’s lapdog suddenly appeared on the field, and began to slowly circle home plate. She was gnawing on something dark. Play was halted, while Linda and Dusty and I ran onto the field. Linda threw herself to the ground in hysterics, trying to pry the chocolate baseball from Rosebud’s clenched jaws. “Get a vet!” she shouted. “Is there a vet in the house?!”
But it was too late. There was no joy in chocolate mud pieville when the little Yorkie, in her candy-colored Cheers jersey, curled herself into a ball and expired at the foot of the home plate umpire.
Linda pointed a perfectly manicured finger at me, and released a shriek that was undoubtedly heard all the way in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “Assassin!” Her face was the color of her shirt.
“What? What did I do?” I asked her, confused and utterly shocked that she should blame me for her dog’s untimely demise.
“Your stupid, fakakta theme night! DEATH BY CHOCOLATE!” she wailed, as if her brittle heart had cracked into a thousand little pieces, each one no larger than a crumb of cookie crunch.
Bottom of the Ninth
Under the circumstances, I decided to cancel the Seventh-Inning Strut. The mood in the stands had gone from elation to pall in less than sixty seconds. Instead, after Kate Smith’s recording of “God Bless America” resounded through the stadium, the announcer called for a collective prayer for our men and women serving overseas and for the soul of the departed Rosebud, who was about to be given a public burial, in a jersey-draped footlocker that, until a few minutes earlier, had been a repository for sports equipment.
Choosing Sophie Page 22
