Hurricane Heat

by Steven Barwin

  “Hold on,” was all Coach Robert said to me. He called for a player named Wilson, who grabbed a bat and stood in front of Ethan.

  I waited, giving him a couple of rehearsal swings, and then released the same pitch. Wilson went down swinging.

  The coach from the other team approached. “Hey, Robert, if you’re gonna pass, we’ll take him!”

  “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks, Paul.” Coach Robert guided me toward the Hurricanes bench as the Surf City Buckeyes started their warm-up. He held out a jersey. “Job’s yours, if you want it.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Good answer. I need a closer. Get the waiver signed, and make the payment before next Tuesday’s game. Welcome to the Hurricanes.”

  Ethan was the first and only player to welcome me to the team.

  Tuesday morning I arrived at the bench dressed in my Hurricanes uniform. Coach Robert was in the middle of a pep talk. “In addition to league games, our ball club will be competing in some high-level tournaments. But for now, we have a game to win. Let’s start this season off with a win today.”

  An hour and a half later, I was still sitting on the edge of the bench in the same spot as when the game started. In front of me, I had the paper Ethan had given me at the last game. It was a cheat sheet for catcher-to-pitcher call signals. When I wasn’t watching the game, I tried to memorize them.

  With us leading 6 to 5 in the bottom of the seventh and last inning, the Buckeyes had a runner on third and two outs. Coach Robert dashed onto the field to talk to the pitcher with Ethan. The coach looked over at the bench and tapped his left hand. That was his silent call for me. I grabbed my glove and trotted to the mound.

  Coach adjusted his baseball hat. “Tying run’s on third, and the go-ahead’s up to bat. He’s a lefty, so take him outside.”

  I nodded. As a left-handed pitcher, I had the advantage over a lefty hitter, especially if I could place a breaking ball down and away from him.

  Coach dropped the baseball in my glove. The batter kept his distance while I took a couple of warm-up pitches. Alone on the mound, I stared at the baseball until the umpire called, “Game on.” The batter stepped into the box. It was crunch time. Ethan showed one finger. It was the signal for a curveball. He then showed four fingers, which meant he wanted the pitch to break away from the batter.

  I placed my middle finger along the bottom seam of the ball and my thumb on the back seam. I released the ball. It started high toward the outside of the strike zone and kept on going. The pitch ran wide and dinged off the fence. I ran to cover home base as Ethan hustled to retrieve the ball. But the runner on third stayed put.

  Back on the mound, I tried to put the embarrassing moment out of my mind. Ethan flipped the same sign and same location. I pitched, trying to follow his directions. The ball started nice and high, and it began to drop as if on cue. Problem was, it didn’t stop dropping. It pummeled into the dirt, and Ethan struggled to contain it. Two and oh, and I was in trouble.

  Ethan lifted his mask and approached me on the mound. “You okay?”

  I didn’t respond, thinking the answer was obvious.

  “It’s just me and you out here. Block everything else out.” He covered his mouth with his glove. “What do you want to throw?”

  I did the same with my glove. “Fastball.”

  He nodded and went back to his place behind home plate.

  With two fingers on the seams of the baseball, I released it, catching the batter off guard.

  The umpire yelled, “Strike!”

  Relief. I sent another toward the batter. He swung for the ball, but it broke away and down. The count was two and two.

  Ethan tossed the ball back with a big smile. He exchanged a few signals with the coach, and then he asked for a fastball, inside but center. I checked the runner on third before starting the pitch. The fastball sped out of my hand, and the batter leaned into the pitch. He swung hard, and I think he was as surprised as me to see the ball in Ethan’s glove.

  The Hurricanes swarmed off the bench and surrounded me. Somewhere in the celebration huddle, Ethan found me. Coach Robert had to remind us to shake hands with the other team. After a long procession of high-fives and good-game handshakes with the Buckeyes, I reached our bench and heard my cell phone ring.

  I picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Travis, it’s me.”

  “Jessie?”

  “I think I found your sister. Meet me at the Pineapple Hut in ten minutes.”

  chapter four

  My baseball cleats clicked across the street to the Pineapple Hut. I found Jessie with a supersized smoothie.

  She unraveled her straw from its wrapper with her teeth and plunged it into her drink. “I didn’t know you played baseball.”

  “I was kind of talked into it.”

  “Okay. So I was telling my sister about you, and she said she knew an Amanda in her class, but they weren’t friends or anything. Then I thought of this.” She unzipped her backpack, then stopped and offered a disclaimer, the way a lawyer would. “If this isn’t her, I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She handed me the yearbook. “It’s from last year.”

  I noticed a dog-eared page and went right to it. Scrolling through the sea of faces, I searched for Amanda. I paused at a girl with dark-brown hair, outnumbered by all the blonds, but it wasn’t her. Then another dark-haired girl caught my attention. When I saw her eyes, I didn’t have to check the name to know it was Amanda.

  “Is that her?”

  I had forgotten that Jessie was across from me. “Yes.”

  “Oh my god, you found her! Aren’t you stoked?”

  I was overwhelmed. In the photo, Amanda looked amazing. Happy. I thanked Jessie over and over again, and then she pointed at the name. Amanda Miller. I hadn’t even noticed. She must have been adopted and changed her name.

  A loud voice interrupted us. “There you are!”

  I looked up to see Ethan, dressed in uniform.

  “What’s going on?” There was a noticeable edge to his voice. “Everyone on the team is wondering if you quit.”

  “Something important came up,” I said.

  Ethan eyed Jessie. “I can see.”

  “No, not her—”

  “Then what?”

  I forced him to sit down and told him about my search for Amanda.

  “You’re an idiot,” he said.

  Jessie responded before I could. “Excuse me?”

  Ethan smiled. “You should have said something. I think I can help.”

  With the Jeep’s roof off, the battering wind filled Ethan’s white Wrangler. In the back, Jessie’s hair thrashed madly in every direction. The blue of the Pacific seemed even more mesmerizing as I rode along the highway with Jessie and Ethan.

  Jessie asked how long we’d known each other.

  Ethan looked at her through the rearview mirror. “A couple of weeks.”

  “And you got him on the baseball team?”

  “I really didn’t give him an option to refuse. You have to see this guy pitch. He’s incredible.”

  “He’s exaggerating,” I said.

  Ethan turned to me. “You kidding me? I had to ice my hand after this morning’s game!”

  I looked back at Jessie. “See what I mean?”

  “Maybe I need to come and see this for myself.”

  “Any time,” Ethan said.

  “So, Travis, were you adopted, like your sister?” Jessie asked.

  An image popped into my brain of an eleven-year-old me sitting at the dinner table, head so low it was almost swimming in my cereal. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my foster parents, the Wilsons. It was just that they weren’t my real parents. They were nice people who cared about me and were doing the state of Arizona a favor until I turned eighteen. “No, I was never adopted.”

  Ethan pulled the Jeep into a one-story strip plaza painted bright yellow. I scanned the stores and didn’t see anything that stoo
d out. He pulled into a parking spot, and we all got out.

  Ethan leaned against his Jeep. “In the corner, there’s a foster family agency.”

  I asked him how he knew about this place, and he pointed to a Korean barbecue restaurant next door and said it was the best around.

  Memories of Amanda invaded my thoughts as I took a step toward the agency. After Amanda and I were separated, a woman at the foster family agency in Phoenix had gotten Amanda and me together for visits in a place like this. The agency had tried hard to keep a relationship between us going, so I could never figure out why they had let Amanda move to California.

  “Hey, Jess. I know the answer to finding my sister might be through those doors, but I can’t go in.”

  chapter five

  Jessie opened the door to the agency and tapped me on my back. It felt less like a nudge and more like a push. I had to try and get contact information on Amanda. A woman with half-rimmed glasses and a polka-dot shirt greeted us from behind a desk. She looked up from her computer and offered a half smile, as if distrust was already brewing. Jessie gave me another push, strong enough to launch me forward.

  “My name’s Travis. I was wondering…if I needed to…” I didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

  “He’s trying to find his sister,” Jessie said.

  The woman picked up the phone.

  Was she ignoring me?

  After a few whispered exchanges followed by some uh-huhs, she directed us to have a seat. I took it as a good sign.

  Jessie turned to me. “I feel like I’m waiting to see the doctor.”

  “More like the dentist,” I said.

  Eventually, the receptionist led us through a doorway. There were some offices and a carpeted area with books and toys and a mural of a boy reading a book under a tree on a grassy field. Part of the tree was cut off by light switches. The carpeted area was the kind of space my visits with Amanda had been held in.

  An office door opened, and Jessie and I were sat in front of a tall woman in a green suit.

  “My name’s Beverly. How can I help you?”

  “My name is Travis Barkley. My younger sister is Amanda Miller. We’re from Phoenix and were put in different foster families. Amanda’s family adopted her, and they moved out here. I’m trying to find her.”

  “And you are?”

  “Jessie. Friend.”

  “As much as I’d like to help you, I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I’m not legally allowed to give out information on a minor.”

  “I really need to find her,” I said. “Is there any—”

  “Plus, I can’t give out information on a minor without permission from the adoptive family.”

  “So I have to get permission from the people I can’t find?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” said Beverly.

  I shook my head. Beverly wished me good luck on my journey, which meant, “time to go.” I followed Jessie out, but it didn’t feel right to be giving up that easily. If Beverly could help in any way at all, no matter how small, it would be worth it. I let Jessie get a few strides ahead, then spun around and caught Beverly off guard. “There has to be something you can do to help me find Amanda.”

  “Sorry, but you need to leave,” said Beverly.

  “I can’t give up.” “It’s not about giving up,” Beverly said.

  “It’s about working within the system like everyone else.”

  “Please. I’m begging you to help me.”

  “Look, part of your problem is that you’re a minor. To access information about your sister, you need to be eighteen. The age of majority.”

  chapter six

  There were three of us in the car, but from the silence, you wouldn’t have known it. I was deflated. Amanda was out there somewhere. It was getting harder to believe that I was going to locate her. I didn’t want to feel down on myself, but it was clear the odds were not in my favor.

  Ethan broke the silence. “I feel horrible.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said.

  “That lady could’ve helped us,” Jessie said.

  I shifted lower in my seat to avoid the blinding sun. “No, she was just doing her job. Everyone’s just been trying to do their job the entire time I’ve been living with the Wilsons. As Beverly said, you can’t blame anyone—it’s the system.”

  “But the system,” Jessie said, “is the people.”

  I didn’t have an answer for her. For the first time since coming to the west coast, I wondered if my foster parents were right. They had never said I shouldn’t search for Amanda. It was more the looks they shared when we talked about it. It was as if they thought I was chasing a ghost. Each day of the summer that slipped away was one less day to find Amanda and one more day toward returning to my last year of high school empty-handed.

  Ethan made a right turn out of the traffic. “So, I screwed up that time. You have to let me make it up to you. I know a great place for dinner.”

  I nodded.

  “You in, Jessie?” Ethan said to her.

  “If you’re buying” she said.

  “Sure, why not?”

  She smiled. “I’m in.”

  We pulled up to a place called the Deep Fryer. It was a red shack with white paneling and was no bigger than a trailer-park home. A colorful canopy with the words Great American Food stretched over two slider windows. A blue, red and white World Series-style pennant hung from the counter.

  Ethan assured Jessie and me that the Deep Fryer served the best cheeseburgers around.

  “Manny,” Ethan said, “these are my friends, Jessie and Travis.”

  Manny, who looked forty-five and Hispanic, smiled at us and said, “You have got a good friend here.”

  “Yes, and he’s paying too,” Jessie said.

  Manny laughed. “See what I mean?”

  “So, Manny, how are your milkshakes?” Jessie asked.

  “Best in town.”

  “I’ll take one.” She looked at me. “Make that two.”

  Ethan rolled his eyes and reached for his wallet.

  Manny busied himself over the grill. “You guys going to the cages too?”

  “Cages?” Jessie asked.

  “Batting cages. They’re in the back,” said Ethan.

  “You know,” Jessie said, “I’m more of a surf and yoga girl. But—”

  “Let me guess,” Ethan said. “Because I’m paying, you’d like to try it.”

  She aimed at him as if her fingers were a gun and pulled the trigger.

  When the burgers came out, they were the size of my face. Now I understood why Ethan loved this place. The onion rings were so big, I could have worn them around my wrists. After doing some serious damage to our burgers, Ethan and I watched Jessie losing the battle to hers.

  Ethan handed Jessie and me a couple of tokens, and we each took a bat. It was obvious when we got to the cages that Manny loved baseball. The batting cages were in excellent condition. I found a Louisville that was the right weight—a little heavy. Then I entered a cage with Jessie and Ethan to my right. At the far end of the cage, a pitching machine was aimed at me, a long line of baseballs ready to be launched. Jessie asked if we were ready. I inserted my token and took my position in the bright blue rectangular box to the right of home plate. I heard my machine sputter to life, and I braced myself for the first pitch. It had been a long time since I had been to a cage. The machine lobbed its first yellow ball toward me. I swung and missed. I made sure to connect with the next one, pelting it high into the meshed ceiling. It dropped to the ground and slowly rolled down a short incline and into a hole in the cement floor. The sound of a perfect ping echoed from Ethan’s cage, and I looked over. “Nice one.”

  “Thanks. I got that one in the sweet spot.”

  I prepped for my next pitch and sent it in the same direction as before. Maybe I was too frustrated tonight to really get behind the ball. Jessie let out a small scream as she missed her ball.
I swung with everything I had on my next pitch, batting a line drive toward my pitching machine that almost went back inside. “Did you see that? Almost got a hole in one!”

  After finishing our sets, the three of us gathered behind the cages.

  “Jessie, what you have to do is bend your knees and get behind the ball.” Ethan demonstrated with his bat.

  I jumped in. “Yeah, but you also have to keep your head up and not swing too early.”

  Jessie stepped back. “Guys. I just missed a couple. I’m not that bad, considering I’m not pros like you.”

  Ethan shrugged. “Hey, I was just trying to help out.”

  “So, then, why don’t we make the next round a little more fun?” Jessie smiled.

  “You talking about a competition?” I asked.

  “I’m in,” Ethan said. “What does the winner get?”

  “I don’t know. How about, it’s not what the winner gets, but what the loser has to do,” I said.

  “Done!” Ethan said. “Whatever it is, we’re talking clothes off, right?”

  Jessie laughed. “Then how about the loser becomes target practice?”

  “Okay,” said Ethan, “but I’m now wishing I never brought it up.”

  “How about just bragging rights?” I said.

  “Deal,” Jessie said. “Two out of three means Ethan’s outvoted.”

  Ethan sighed. “Whatever. Let’s just set up the rules and do it.”

  Jessie smiled at me. We couldn’t believe how competitive he was.

  He pointed. “There are numbers, one to four, along the sides. You hit it, you get the point. The ground and up high are zero.”

  I returned to my cage. If I had totaled my last round, I probably wouldn’t have had more than ten points. With the tokens in and the first ball heading my way, Ethan yelled out, “Four,” and I missed my ball. Ethan smiled. If he wanted to play that kind of game, I had to up mine. With the next pitch, I loosened my grip and stepped into the ball. I yelled out “Three” at the same time as Jessie. The next five pitches moved my score up to eighteen. I would have to hit my fours to beat Ethan. Whether I won or lost, at least my mind was off Amanda for a while.