“You’ve convinced me. I’m parked in the lot at the corner,” he says. “We’ll take my car.”
“Your car?”
Confined in a vehicle with Mr. smell good for God knows how long? Yikes, I didn’t think this part through.
“You didn’t think we were going to take the train, did you?”
“Well–”
“While it still is a blow to my ego that you don’t have the faintest idea who I am, there are several thousand New Yorkers who do. I can’t take the train, Doc. I haven’t been able to do that since my rookie year.”
“Of course, I–” I reply, stumbling over my words. “I didn’t think it through.”
“It’s funny how I have that effect on people, Doc. And it’s good to know that you’re not immune.”
dak
My reactionto being back at the Citadel home stadium is unexpected. The team isn’t practicing here today, so all there are is me, Katrina, and assorted maintenance staff in the entire stadium.
I stop myself at the edge of the field. I’m hesitant to walk on the grass. It’s disconcerting. It’s not even the same field where I hit McCall, but it feels very similar.
The smell of the turf.
The eery silence.
I can feel Katrina watching me, and what she’s probably thinking can’t be good for the assessment she’s going to eventually have to make about me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I say to her.
“What do you think I’m thinking, Dak?”
“Nothing good.”
Suddenly Katrina takes off her sneakers and steps onto the grass in her bare feet and that slim fitting red skirt. I notice that her toenails are also painted red and randomly wonder if it’s her favorite color.
“Why are you in bare feet?” I grumble. “It’s cold out here.”
“Finally, a New Yorker who agrees with me that it’s freezing in this town,” she says with a grin. “There’s no such thing as Autumn in New York.”
“I love the city but I’m not a native New Yorker,” I tell her, stepping a few inches on the grass, but she continues to walk further onto the field.
“You’re not?”
“I bet you stunk at research papers in school.”
“No, I was actually very good at research papers,” she says while wiggling her toes in the grass. “They just had to be on topics I cared about.”
“Ooh!” I pretend to take a shot in the chest. “You don’t care about America’s favorite sport?”
“I thought that was baseball.”
“Ooh, another one!” I laugh and she laughs too. It’s a melodic laugh that shakes her entire body and makes her eyes shimmer in the sunlight. “I’m from Buffalo.”
“That’s in New York.”
“Upstate New York. We’re very different from our city brethren.”
“Have you always lived in the state?”
