Angels Walking

by Karen Kingsbury

  Tyler blinked and stared at home plate. The first Blue Wahoos batter was up. Tyler worked the muscles in his hand, making a fist and releasing it. His team was at the top of the lineup. Plenty of time. Tyler squinted at the distant lights, the sponsor signs on the outfield walls. Like a grainy YouTube clip, the seasons ran together in his mind. Star of the 2002 Little League World Series. In high school, California’s Mr. Baseball. Most recruited pitcher in the history of UCLA.

  How had it all gone so wrong?

  The fallout with his parents, his back injury, the public drunkenness charges, the girls. He had fallen out of grace with his fans and everyone he loved.

  Sami Dawson most of all. Her name made his heart hurt. Sami, girl . . . where are you? What happened to us? He closed his eyes again. He had loved her more than life. But that was a hundred years ago.

  Cheers interrupted his personal highlight reel. He opened his eyes and watched their centerfielder hit a triple. Blue Wahoos up, 3–0. He massaged his right arm. It was sore, but a whole lot better than usual. He had three more innings in him. Definitely.

  A picture filled his mind. He and Sami, both of them seventeen, sitting together on her grandparents’ roof. Aww, Sami. We thought we had forever back then. The stars had looked brighter that night, the silhouette of the trees like something from a dream. No one had believed in him more than Sami Dawson.

  What was I thinking? How could I let you go?

  Tyler gritted his teeth. Tonight was where it would all turn around. He would Google his own name tomorrow and see something different. Tyler Ames: Perfect. Story after story would say the same thing. He’d made it. Finally found his way. He would be perfect and everyone would know. Maybe even Sami.

  Buried would be all the headlines still there at the moment.

  Tyler Ames: The Kid Who Didn’t Live Up to His Potential.

  Minor League Purgatory: The Story of Tyler Ames.

  The Sad Life of Tyler Ames: Mr. Baseball, Mr. Joke.

  Tyler exhaled. The pain of his past was as close as the nearest computer. Any kid with a cell phone could read about the hero he’d been.

  And the failure he’d become.

  Every game, every inning of the past few years was like an act of penance now, a way to absolve himself for the sins of his past. And every single pitch had led to this.

  The chance to be perfect. No hits, no walks, no one on base. Perfect.

  For the first time.

  What would his parents say after tonight? His father’s face flashed in his mind. Funny. Whenever he thought of his dad, he thought of him angry. Correcting his pitching form, scrutinizing his weight training, questioning him.

  Another run scored and the Blue Wahoos were back in the outfield. Tyler felt warm and focused. More ready than ever. Jep Black’s words from earlier that day ran through his head: “Tonight’s your night, Ames. Go out there and prove me right.”

  Indeed.

  Jep had been talking to scouts from the Reds ever since the season started. Tonight, finally, the scouts were here. They actually wanted him. That’s what Jep said. The Reds’ director of player personnel knew his name and his numbers. Every wonderful statistic from this season. Tyler was just what they were looking for. They even knew about his past.

  And they still wanted him.

  Tyler set his jacket on the bench and jogged out to the mound. On the way he stopped and talked to his catcher. “More of the same.” He brushed his glove against William’s shoulder. “Talk to me, Trap. Keep me perfect.”

  “You got it.”

  He reached the mound and glanced up. When was the last time a guy in the AA minor leagues threw a perfect game? The Pensacola faithful were on their feet. Tyler Ames was about to make history. They could feel it. This was their night as much as it was his.

  The beautiful oceanfront stadium had opened two years ago, and already it topped the list of places to see, things to do on the Florida Panhandle. The fans had bought into the Blue Wahoos, the team more than any individual player.

  But tonight was different. Tonight the Blue Wahoo fans loved Tyler Ames. They knew his name. He could hear them.

  Bottom of the lineup for the team from South Carolina. Easy as the waves in the bay, he thought. If only his parents could have been here tonight. If Sami could see how he’d made good after all. He was going to be moved up to the big show. It was actually going to happen. Breathe, Ames . . . just breathe. He focused on William’s glove. The batter was a washed-up second baseman from the Bigs who had been sent down to the AA leagues after an injury. He couldn’t swing a bat the way he once had.

  Williams flashed him a signal. Tyler nodded. Yes, a fastball. That’s exactly what he wanted. He lifted his knee and wound up the way he had ten thousand times. In a burst of motion he fired the ball over the plate. The batter didn’t swing, didn’t even have time to blink.

  “Steee-rike!” The umpire was getting excited, too.

  Tyler kept a straight face, but all around him it was happening. His teammates were behind him. He could feel the focus of his infield, feel the gloves of the outfield ready to react. He threw a slider and the batter connected. At the crack of the bat, Tyler’s heart skipped a beat. He watched the trajectory overhead. Get it, he thought. Please get it. His teammate at centerfield responded. Fly out.

  One down. Still perfect.

  A grounder to first took care of the next batter. Tyler felt stronger now than he had at the beginning of the game. He settled himself on the mound and stared at the catcher. Change-up to start the batter. Tyler liked it. He wound up and caught the guy watching. Strike one. The second pitch was outside, same with the third.

  The fans at Bayfront Stadium fell to a hush. He couldn’t throw another ball or the batter would walk. Breathe, Ames. He could be perfect. It would happen. He stared at William. His catcher signaled for a fastball. Tyler shook his head. Not for this batter. The guy had hit four home runs this month.

  Next he called for a curveball. Atta boy, William. Perfect pitch. Tyler gave the slightest nod. This was it. A curveball would sail straight toward the plate and break hard to the inside. By then the batter would bite, and the swing would be a strike.

  Another notch closer to perfection.

  Tyler settled back on his heels, glove up, ball in his hand. The windup was everything it needed to be. He uncoiled himself and released the ball just as he planned, like he’d done all his life. But this time he heard something snap. Instantly fire ripped through his arm and down his torso, the sort of pain Tyler had never known before.

  “Steee-rike!” The umpire made the call.

  Tyler was already on the ground, writhing beneath the searing pain. The noise from the stadium dimmed and the only sounds were his racing heart and his own terrible groaning. People were running to him, but he couldn’t hear them, couldn’t make out their faces. He felt like demons were ripping his arm from his body. The world around him faded, every voice and face.

  The first uniformed medic reached him, a man Tyler had never seen before. He dropped to his knees and put his hand on Tyler’s good shoulder. The guy looked like a linebacker. “You’re going to be okay.”

  No! Tyler wanted to shout at him. But the pain was too great. I’ll never be okay again. The man was staring at him, his eyes bright with something Tyler didn’t recognize. Peace, maybe. Something otherworldly.

  “This isn’t the end, Tyler.” The medic’s hand felt warm. “It’s the beginning.”

  Tyler shook his head. Angry tears filled his eyes. Of course it’s the end. The name on the medic’s uniform caught his attention. A name he’d never heard before.

  Beck.

  Figures. Brand-new medic. What would he know? “My . . . shoulder!” The pain was killing him. Sweat dripped down his forehead and he could feel his body shaking, going into shock. Tyler lifted his eyes to the stadium lights. A strange darkness shrouded them and then gradually, everything else began to fade.

  Sami would never want him now. She would
blame him for making the wrong choices all those years ago. I’m sorry, Sami. I still love you. If you only knew how much. Two more medics with a stretcher rushed toward him, and the rest of the team gathered at a distance, silent, shocked. Tyler had one final thought before he blacked out.

  He wasn’t perfect.

  And after tonight he never would be.

  2

  THERE WERE TWO THINGS Sami Dawson loved most about her job as an assistant for the prestigious Finkel and Schmidt Marketing Firm in Santa Monica, California: the independence it gave her from her grandparents, and her office’s breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean.

  She had another hour of work before she would meet up with Arnie for dinner at Trastevere on Third Street—their Monday night routine. Three years dating and their traditions were pretty well locked in. After dinner they would walk along the Promenade, and after an hour he would drive her home. Sometimes they would play Scrabble or watch The Office at her apartment. Arnie had bought her the complete DVD series two birthdays ago. Other nights they tuned in to whatever was on TV—baseball and I Love Lucy reruns being the exceptions. Sami didn’t like baseball and Arnie couldn’t stand Lucy. Too much silliness.

  Arnie left Sami’s apartment by nine—weekday or not. Every time. They were early risers, both of them. Routines were rungs on the ladder to success. Her grandparents had taught her that. Arnie agreed.

  “No one ever got ahead by keeping late nights,” he would say. He was right. Studies showed sleep was good for the immune system—eight hours a night.

  Sami’s immune system was rock solid.

  Her current work account was the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas and Dubai. Paradise Island’s think tank was located in Pensacola, with business offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Sami had worked three months to get last year’s Fifteen Minutes winner Zoey Davis to sing at the Bahamas resort. Zoey had straightened up her act in recent months and agreed to the gig last night. Today Sami expected to see news of the decision online somewhere.

  Proof that Sami was doing her job.

  Before she could search People.com, something on her Google feed caught her eye. A name from the past. It caught her off guard and made her heart skip a beat. Sami read the headline again and sat back in her chair. Her heart beat faster than before.

  Tyler Ames Suffers Season-Ending Injury.

  She leaned in closer to the screen, seeing him again, the freckle-faced boy with blue eyes who had captured her heart the summer before her senior year in high school. She saw him where she would always see him: on a pitcher’s mound, ball in his glove, hat low over his pretty eyes.

  Baseball was everything to Tyler. He had traded her for the game, after all.

  She read the headline again. Her heart was breaking for him even before she clicked the link. A new page opened and there he was. The boy from another lifetime. A smaller headline gave her more details.

  One-Time Pitching Sensation Was Almost Perfect.

  Almost perfect.

  Sami let the sad words play through her mind. She could still hear him saying good-bye the night before he set off to play for the Reds’ rookie league. I’ll make it, Sami. I will. Then I’ll come find you and we can talk about forever.

  Her eyes found the beginning of the article.

  Midway through what would’ve been his first perfect game since being drafted six years ago, one-time pitching sensation Tyler Ames suffered a season-ending injury Saturday night early in the seventh inning. Ames, 24, pitching for the Reds’ Blue Wahoos at Pensacola’s Bayfront Stadium, collapsed after the pitch. He was taken by ambulance to nearby West Florida Hospital. Team officials have said the injury will effectively end Ames’ season.

  With each word, Sami felt her heart sink. Tyler needed baseball the way he needed air. Now he was out for the season in some hospital in Pensacola, Florida. She kept reading.

  Ames gained national fame when he won the 2002 Little League World Series for the Simi Valley Royals by striking out the side in the last inning against Japan. He went on to rack up one of the most successful prep pitching careers at baseball powerhouse Jackson High School in Simi Valley. His senior year Ames was named California’s Mr. Baseball, and after graduation he was drafted in the twelfth round by the Cincinnati Reds. He turned down a UCLA scholarship for a spot in the Reds farm system.

  Sami realized she was holding her breath. She slid her chair closer to the computer and exhaled. Again she looked at his photograph. The list of facts about Tyler’s life did not tell the world who he had been back then. Not at all. Not the way Sami knew him. She looked intently into his eyes.

  She could still hear his laugh.

  The rest of the story described the part of Tyler’s life that had happened since he was drafted. The quick trip from the Rookie League to the Reds’ A team in Dayton, Ohio. Sami kept reading.

  Ames fell from grace with his fans when he was arrested a number of times for public drunkenness after playing in games for the Dayton Dragons. One fan pressed charges against him for harassing her in a bar, and when the story ran another female fan came forward with a similar story.

  This many years later the truth still hurt. Sami blinked a few times and looked out the window of her office. Ames fell from grace. Something her grandparents would say. Sami stared at the horizon. The ocean breathed peace into her soul. The vast sea of blue and the unchanging tide reminded her that God was in control. Even if she no longer really knew what that meant.

  Once more she turned her eyes to the computer.

  In 2012, things seemed to turn around for Ames. He began pitching the way he had as a kid, throwing nothing but strikes. The Reds moved him up to the Blue Wahoos, where he continued to improve. Several scouts were in attendance at Saturday’s game. According to a spokesperson for the Blue Wahoos, Ames was on the brink of a move to the majors—maybe even in the next week or so.

  Sami studied his face a moment longer. We had our chance, didn’t we? She felt no ill will for Tyler Ames. He had made his choice. They both had. But Tyler hadn’t tried to call her in three years. Besides, he wasn’t the same person he’d been back then.

  Anyone who had followed him over the last six years could see that.

  Sami exhaled slowly. Looking at him was like looking backward into a dream, as if that crazy wonderful year had never happened. She searched his eyes once more. She clicked back to People’s home page. She had to finish up and get to the restaurant.

  Arnie would be waiting for her.

  SAMI SENT THE email to the Atlantis executives, grabbed her purse, and hurried to the elevator. Their reservations were in ten minutes. She wouldn’t have been late if she hadn’t spent so much time on the Tyler Ames story. If she hadn’t gone back to the story several times.

  She didn’t miss him. Not the guy he was today. She didn’t even know him. Instead, she missed the girl she’d been when she was with him. That fearless girl who jumped off a rope swing into a mountain of red and yellow leaves one October night or the girl who held a conversation with a homeless man at the beach. A girl with no walls or limits or boundaries.

  The girl she no longer knew.

  Except for Tyler, Sami’s life over the past nineteen years had been as predictable as the tide. Grandma and Grandpa Dawson had raised her since her parents died in a motorcycle wreck when Sami was five. Her grandparents were in their seventies now, good God-fearing church people who had never passed up the offering plate on Sunday morning or the chance to correct Sami if she strayed off the straight and narrow. Her grandfather ran several businesses, and he prided himself on never having missed a day of work.

  Not ever.

  Sami leaned against the back of the elevator and stared into the past. With her grandparents, there was a right way to do things. Period. A right way to dress—skirts below the knee. A right way to talk—she was the only girl in Southern California who said “sir” and “ma’am.” There was a right way to walk—shoulders back—and a right way to visit with boys—bri
efly and at the Sunday afternoon dinner table. Growing up, Sami never had to wonder if she was perfect.

  She was. She had no choice.

  After high school, UCLA was the obvious next destination for Sami for three reasons. The school offered Sami a scholarship to write for the newspaper and of course, it took her away from her grandparents—at least during the school year. But the main reason was Tyler. He had planned to go to UCLA since he was twelve. That was his plan right up until the first week of June the year they both graduated.

  The day Tyler was drafted, ten rounds earlier than he expected.

  Sami stepped off the elevator and hurried to her car. But she couldn’t out-pace the memories chasing her. She breathed deep the sweet ocean air and squinted through the images of yesterday.

  Her first semester at UCLA, Sami’s roommates drank shots of vodka before an intramural kickball game. “Come on.” They passed the bottle to her. “We all have to do it!”

  An exhilarating sensation had rushed through Sami’s veins. She’d never so much as talked about drinking, not while living with her grandparents. Suddenly the idea of so much freedom made her feel ten feet off the ground. She was her own person, an adult. She could do what she wanted. Before she could change her mind, Sami grabbed the bottle and downed three shots.

  “Perfect!” one of the girls squealed. “Let’s go!”

  But as the alcohol rushed into her blood, Sami’s heart had begun to pound. She felt cold and clammy and her chest ached. “I . . . I don’t feel good.”

  “You’re fine.” Her roommate took her hand. “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

  Sami had pictured her grandparents, their hands on their hips, looking at her in disappointment. Her heartbeat doubled, pounding so hard she’d wondered if it would rip through her body and fall to the floor. She caught a glimpse in the mirror that hung on the girl’s dorm wall. A flaming red covered her cheeks and sweat beaded up on her forehead. She tried to draw a full breath, but she couldn’t.