The Comeback Season

by Jennifer E. Smith

  Wrigleyville is just beginning to come to life. Storefronts are being opened, metal gates clanging up, vendors staking their corners. It’s a weekday, and still morning, but the bars are waking up too, the rows of silver beer kegs forming lines in the streets outside. The day promises to be hot for this late in the summer, and the air is already thick and heavy.

  Ryan and Nick join a few dozen other fans in line at the ticket windows, which are still shuttered and silent. The crowd sways restlessly at their backs until a man waving the team’s flag runs up and down the line, yelling about the wild-card race and holding a hand to his ear as he waits for a response. Nick reaches out to give him a high five as he passes by, then hops from foot to foot and rubs his hands together, looking delighted by the whole thing: the fans and the ticket line, the day unfolding before them.

  “The wild card,” he says, shaking his head as if he can’t quite believe it.

  But Ryan knows just what he means. The wild card spot is the greatest second chance in sports. For the teams that don’t win their divisions, there’s still hope for the postseason. Whichever team has the next-best record in each league, the wild card is their ticket to the playoffs.

  When they added it in 1995, the idea was met with some raised eyebrows. But the season before, the playoffs had been canceled by a strike, and this, to Ryan’s dad, represented all that was wrong with the sport. There’s a reason the Cubs don’t get involved with this kind of thing, he had said, referring to the postseason as if it were an invitation the Cubs politely declined year after year. But the wild card was just the opposite: a chance for underdogs, a prospect reachable by even the most frequent losers. It doesn’t matter if you started off the season ranked first place or last, if you began as a joke or a team to watch. It doesn’t matter if you’re the Yankees or the Cubs. Everyone has a chance, her dad used to say. And isn’t that all anyone ever wants?

  As the line to the ticket window begins to move, Ryan loops her arm through Nick’s and smiles. “After the way this season started, I can’t believe they’re actually in the running.”

  “They are,” he says, practically beaming. “And don’t you almost feel like it doesn’t matter what happens after it? If they could just get the wild card, it would already be so much more than anyone expected. And whatever else happens, they’d have that. No matter what.”

  “It’s like small ball,” she says. “One step at a time.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “It’s easier to think in smaller increments. It’s less of a leap.”

  Ahead of them, a cardboard sign appears in the booth, and Ryan squints to read it. “Bleachers sold out,” she says, and Nick tips his cap and shrugs, unfazed.

  “I bet we can still get standing room,” he says. “It’ll be cheaper anyhow.”

  When it’s their turn, they each pay twelve bucks for standing-room-only tickets, where they can jockey for a spot at the way-back section of the grandstand, keeping their toes behind a painted line and craning their necks to see the game. They leave the window clutching their tickets happily.

  “What should we do till game time?” Ryan asks, as they veer, almost automatically, toward Waveland Avenue and the familiar stretch of brownstones behind the stadium. When they pass the fire station at the corner, the hydrant is already spouting a thick jet of water, the neighborhood kids in their faded Cubs shirts darting in and out of the spray.

  “Let’s go in when the gates open,” Nick is saying, waving an arm toward the field. “We can watch warm-ups and do some scouting.”

  Ryan laughs. “Scouting?”

  “Don’t you know it’s critical to the success of the team that we’re there to scout the Brewers today?” Nick jokes. “Let’s grab some food and hang out till then.”

  They buy doughnuts and wander around, wiping the powder from their faces. Outside of Murphy’s Bleachers, they find an open seat and sit back, enjoying the sun, until game time draws nearer and the manager chases them out to make way for actual paying customers.

  Nick looks at his watch and announces it’s time to go inside. “We don’t want to miss batting practice.”

  “Right,” Ryan teases him. “It would be a huge disadvantage for the Cubs if we weren’t there.”

  They circle around the field, keeping an eye out for their gate. The sidewalks are now crowded with blue-clad fans looking to have a few beers before the game. Nick takes her hand, and as they hurry around the corner of Sheffield and Addison, Ryan stops short, very nearly running into Kate. The two stare at each other for a moment, and then Lucy and Sydney trot over too.

  “Hey,” Ryan says, unable to hide her surprise. She feels her face go warm and prickly, and she opens and closes her hands, trying to gather herself. Seeing them here outside of Wrigley feels like an intrusion of sorts, as if they’ve trespassed onto sacred ground. Standing there before her with their little Cubs tank tops and pink hats, Ryan feels somehow betrayed.

  There had been a time, long ago, when she would sometimes invite Sydney and Kate to the games. Her dad had been friendly with the guy who owned the two seats beside theirs, and when he couldn’t make it, he always offered the tickets to them first. Sometimes, Mom would agree to come, but most often, Dad let Ryan invite her friends.

  The three of them would follow him like ducklings through the crowds, holding hands and staring wide-eyed at their surroundings. He’d order three hot dogs, and they’d sit cross-legged in the sticky plastic seats while he explained to Ryan’s friends which players to cheer for loudest, the importance of a sacrifice bunt, what happens when the ball gets stuck in the ivy. At these games, Ryan was less her father’s daughter, more giggly and prone to discussing the fans sitting around them than anything actually happening on the field. But she always had an eye on the game too, and when the other team made an error or the Cubs managed a double play, she never missed a beat, turning away from the other girls to give her dad a high five.

  And so, seeing them here now feels, to Ryan, like being punched in the stomach, like stumbling across an unexpected foe on your home turf. And even before she makes the connection between their presence here and the conversation she’d overheard between Lucy and her father, Ryan is already glaring hard at Sydney and Kate.

  “Hey,” Sydney says, quietly, cautiously, clearly aware of the delicate mechanics of the situation. “We’re just—”

  “My dad got me these great seats,” Lucy cuts in. “And I thought a day at the ballpark might be fun for a change.”

  Kate shifts nervously, and then looks away.

  “We’re right behind home plate,” Lucy continues. “Where are you guys sitting?”

  Nick looks dubiously at the ticket in his hand, as though it might change if he were to stare at it hard enough. “Standing room,” he says. “Right field area.”

  Lucy raises an eyebrow. “Nice.”

  “Listen, we were going to have lunch before the game,” Kate says, her eyes on Ryan. “We’d love for you to come too.”

  Nick shakes his head. “I think we’re gonna head inside early,” he tells them. “But maybe we’ll run into you again later.”

  “Sure,” Sydney says, bobbing her head agreeably. “That would be great.”

  Ryan stays still as they walk away, watching their backs, the light swish of their skirts, the closeness of their three heads as they lean in to talk. Nick reaches out as if to put a hand on her arm, but then hesitates and instead asks if she’s ready to go. Ryan looks up at the stadium and nods.

  She’s ready.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  * * *

  DURING BATTING PRACTICE, THEY’RE ABLE TO WATCH from up close, standing right behind the field with a dozen or so other fans. Ryan leans forward against the railing, looking on as the Cubs players take turns at the plate. Seeing them so close is always a surprise, how large and muscled they look, when she’s used to watching them move across the television screen like figurines of themselves. A few of them swing weighted bats, while others stretch wit
h headphones on, oblivious to the crowd gathering behind them. Near the bullpen, the day’s pitcher tosses a rosin bag up and down in his hand while he confers with one of the coaches.

  The batter at the plate pops a foul ball out into the left field stands, and Nick nudges her with his elbow. “See?” he says. “See how he dropped his arm there?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan says. “It’s screwing up his swing. He needs to keep his elbow higher.”

  Nick, momentarily speechless, begins to laugh.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, what?”

  “It’s just that I’ve always been able to impress girls with this stuff,” he says. “With little facts about the game. But you know as much as I do.”

  Ryan raises her eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I know more than you, actually.”

  Nick laughs again. “Then I guess I have to work a lot harder to impress you.”

  When the stadium starts to fill up, they make their way back out into the airy system of ramps and walkways that forms a shell around the field. The designated areas for standing are marked with white paint, tucked behind the grandstand seating so that you have to crouch to follow the high pop flies beneath the overhang of the upper decks. Ryan and Nick shoulder in among the other fans, leaning back against the rails and shuffling their feet while they wait for the national anthem to end and the first pitch to be thrown. Around them, the vendors hurry past, flitting from one person to the next, their voices hoarse, their backs stooped against the weight of their merchandise.

  By the fourth inning, the Cubs are ahead by two and playing well, but each time Ryan claps, each time she cups her hands around her mouth to yell, to cheer, to cry out for her team, she remembers. It’s okay if the Cubs never win, she had said. And so hedging her bets, preparing for the unknown, worrying over the unseen, she lowers her hands and clamps her mouth shut. Just in case they do win. Just in case the flip side of the bargain has consequences, too.

  When the catcher for the Cubs hits a home run that lands in a mob of bleacher bums, Ryan’s heart bobbles around in her chest. She presses her lips together, and Nick looks at her sideways.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

  “What?” he tries again. “Are you hot? Thirsty? Hungry? What?”

  “Nothing,” Ryan insists. “I’m fine.”

  “Then why aren’t you more excited?”

  She starts to shrug it away, but sees on his face a look of hurt, having apparently offended him with her lack of enthusiasm. “Sorry,” she says quickly. “I must have dazed off for a second and missed the play.”

  “Look alive, Walsh,” he says, smiling once again. He gives her shoulder a squeeze, then raises both arms to cheer as the catcher rounds home plate.

  During the bottom of the sixth, Ryan isn’t entirely surprised to see Lucy, Sydney, and Kate winding their way toward them, their eyes combing the crowd. She sinks back wearily against the railing and waits for their inevitable arrival.

  “Hey,” Lucy says brightly, wedging her way in beside Nick, forcing the entire row of people to scoot down. Sydney and Kate press themselves out of the flow of traffic too, and the five of them stand in an awkward cluster.

  “How come you’re not down by home plate?” Nick asks. “Because if you don’t want those seats …”

  Lucy waves a hand in the air and adjusts her sunglasses, which are perched on top of her head. “We just thought we’d come say hello, since not much is happening.”

  Ryan and Nick exchange a look. In fact, a lot has been happening. Being so close to the wild card spot means that every pitch, every error, every single play counts. It’s small ball at its best as the team fights for a chance in the postseason.

  At the sharp cracking sound of a bat, the five of them turn back to the game. A player for the Cubs has hit a long ball into right field, where it lands deep in a pocket. Another runner, standing halfway between two bases, dashes back to second before making a break for third, where the coach on the sidelines signals him to stop.

  “How come he ran back first?” Kate asks.

  “It’s called tagging up,” Ryan says. “He was cheating forward a little bit, to try to get to third faster if there’d been a ground ball.”

  “But if the Brewers had caught that ball,” Nick continues, “he would have had to run back to second in order to be safe.”

  Lucy sighs loudly enough for them all to hear. “Too many rules,” she says. “I don’t know how you find this stuff so interesting.”

  Kate ignores her, and Sydney looks back to Ryan and Nick with genuine interest. “So that’s not stealing?”

  “Nope,” Nick says. “Fair play.”

  They all turn their attention back to the field, where another batter steps up to the box. A breeze from the lake threads its way between decks to where they’re standing. When the hitter connects with the second pitch and safely overruns first base, Ryan almost laughs to see Sydney hop up and down excitedly, her pink Cubs hat slipping on her forehead.

  At the top of the seventh, the Brewers hit a home run, and someone in the bleachers tosses the ball back out on the field, where it rolls to a stop on the grass and a ball boy skips out to retrieve it. Sydney spins around, but before she can even ask, Ryan says, “Because it’s the visiting team’s hit. No true Cubs fan would keep that ball.”

  “It’s not considered bad sportsmanship?”

  “Nah,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s all part of the game.”

  Lucy snorts, and they all turn to her.

  “What?” Ryan asks coolly.

  “Nothing,” she says. “You’re just so knowledgeable.” The way she says it, the word sounds like something distasteful. Even Nick bristles slightly. Lucy drapes an arm casually over the rail and tilts her head. “I guess I wouldn’t have thought you’d still be so into sports.”

  Ryan’s face darkens. “Still?”

  Sydney and Kate both look trapped, as if helpless to prevent what they all know is about to come. The fans around them are whooping and clapping over a play going on just below on the diamond, but the little group stands absolutely still, bracing themselves, ready or not.

  Though she looks slightly less certain, Lucy presses on. “Well, now that your dad’s not around anymore.”

  “Lucy,” Sydney says in a low voice, a warning to her tone. But Lucy’s still watching Ryan, their eyes locked in an even stare.

  “Not around?” Ryan says it very slowly. Nick opens his mouth, then changes his mind and closes it again. Kate looks intently at her feet.

  “I—” Lucy begins, but Ryan cuts her off.

  “He’s not around,” she says, “because he died.”

  There’s a long pause. Even Lucy, for once, has been cowed into silence. But Ryan—wounded and hurting—isn’t quite finished. She can’t look at Sydney or Kate, and she especially can’t look at Nick, so it is Lucy alone who she zeroes in on: the target, perhaps fairly or perhaps not, of all Ryan’s frustration, all her outrage, all her anger at the burden she wishes to foist on someone else, someone possibly more deserving of the hand she’s been dealt.

  “At least when he was around,” she says, hating the way her voice sounds—petulant and hard, so unlike her in every way—“at least my dad didn’t mind spending time with me.”

  And more than anything else, it’s this that makes Ryan take two steps backward. More than Lucy’s horrible insults, it’s her own words that unexpectedly have the biggest effect, that are followed by the longest silence. It is this—this awful, petty comment, this unlikely departure from her character—that makes Ryan turn and hurry blindly away from the group. And it is this, above all, that makes her feel very small and very mean and very much alone.

  During the seventh-inning stretch, the song—warbling and slightly hokey—brings tens of thousands of people to their feet. There is nothing so unifying, nothing so stirring as the first notes of the organ, the
first blaring words of the tune. All those voices braided together, a sea of people with faces lifted, as reverent and humbled as churchgoers.

  Ryan has never been much of a singer, self-conscious about the thinness of her voice when set to music, not one to let herself go even in the shower or the car. But at the ballpark, she used to plant her sneakers firmly on the folding seat and rest a hand on Dad’s shoulder to sing, loud and unabashedly, reveling in the words, waiting, steadying, building toward that moment when she could cry out—root, root, root for the Cubbies!—as if her whole life had been preparation for this alone.

  Now the song drifts high up into the rafters as she stumbles out behind the grandstand, her hand skidding along the railing that winds down past the hot dog vendors and soft ice cream carts, the corkboards filled with caps of all colors. She bumps into a man in a Brewers jersey, who asks if she’s okay, and, realizing that she’s crying, she nods her head yes even as she wants so desperately to say no.

  In a moment, Nick is beside her. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” she sobs, her face messy with tears, her words watery. “I never cry. And I didn’t mean to say that to her. I don’t even know anything about her family.”

  The song ends, and now her voice sounds high and bright on the cool gray ramp, the walkways and hallways like a web all around them. Nick stands with his arms folded, eyeing her as if not quite sure what to say. He sways a little, his hands shoved in his pockets, and then quickly, and with some measure of uncertainty, lowers his face to hers.