“Are you on this team, or are you on the Deer Drop team?” I reply.
Her eyes go fake big. “Oh mygah, right. Don’t distract our team. Right.”
Is she honestly this ditzy? Or is this part of the act because someone else is getting attention?
I don’t know.
Not that it matters, because Teague’s pitching, and that batter has murder in his eyes, and it’s the sixth inning.
If I’m going to do what I need to do, I need to do itfast.
I focus on the batter and send a few wishes out into the universe.
Let this be my chance.
Let me follow through with it.
Let everyone forgive me for what I have to do.
Truth?
I like snowshoe baseball.
Allof it. Even when I’m falling in the sawdust.
It makes me feel like a kid. Not a beauty pageant kid but a strong, athletic kid who fits in somewhere, who knows how to have fun for fun’s sake, who’s part of a team.
I can honestly say I’ll miss this when I’m in Costa Rica.
Not that I’ll ever play snowshoe baseball again anyway, even if I lived out Gigi’s full sentence here. Our mandated year will be over before snowshoe baseball season starts again next year.
That gives me a pang in my heart that I wasn’t expecting, and the thought almost distracts me from the whomp of the bat.
I jerk to attention as the ball goes streaking up the center—I mean, as fast as a ball that sizecanstreak over a field of sawdust—and my pulse leaps as I remind myself I’m in snowshoes and move toward Lola’s side of second base.
Teague dives for the oversize softball, miscalculates, and face-plants in the sawdust, much to the delight of the entire crowd.
This is it.
This is my chance.
It is now or never, and if it’s never, then I’m screwing myself and Naomi and the farm over forever.
If I don’t do this now, then I’m a self-sabotaging idiot who doesn’t deserve my cacao farm.
I pump my knees higher.
I’ve played this gamesix timesthis summer. Totally getting the hang of these snowshoes now.
“I’ve got it!” I call as the batter also expertly demonstrates just how good he, too, is in his snowshoes as he huffs down the line toward first. “I’ve got it!”
“Oh, I can get it,” Lola says.
By all rights, she should have it.
But who’s going to question that I’d have a competitive streak and not trust Lola to do what needs to be done?“No!”I yell. “I’ve got it!”
I’m almost there, and that ball’s slowing down, and I can get it.
