“What in theactual fuckisthis?” Timothy’s arms were crossed, his face a scowl. He stepped forward and slapped a hand against one of Julian’s photos of the fire aftermath, then squinted at theMacon Telegrapharticle before he fished out his reading glasses to get a better look. “Is this why you have been so distracted?”
“I haven’t been distracted,” Zeke said. “Barring a couple of days at Christmas and about thirty-six hours last week—”
“Two full days,” Timothy interrupted. “You went off the grid. And to my understanding it was toGeorgia?”
“Whatever, I don’t owe you my itinerary. Do you want to know how many shits a day I take? Barring that, I haven’t missed a single workout, a singlesecondof my rehab.”
“Not missing a single second and being singularly focused are two different things.” His pointer finger jabbed the evidence wall. “Also, youdoowe me your itinerary because you owe it to the team. I’m sure they’d be happy to monitor your shits too. So seriously, do you want to explain what in the fuck this is?”
“Not really,” Zeke said. Because he didn’t.
Timothy had stopped by unannounced while Sybil was out meeting Caleb, an invitation Zeke had shrugged off. He didn’t tell Sybil that his arm was still smarting and that his trainer today had been snappish with him when he couldn’t complete all of his reps. It wasn’t that Zeke blamed Sybil for distracting him—he wanted to find Betty too. But it wasn’t that he didn’t blame her either. If she hadn’t been so doggedly insistent that Betty was in trouble, Zeke honestly could have carried on with his life, with his physical therapy, with his team’s charted course for his return.
Timothy sighed, stuffed his hands in his pockets, which Zeke knew meant he was about to get serious. He wished he hadn’t told his doorman to send Timothy up; he wished he hadn’t opened the door to greet him; he wished that he had stepped out of the way of that fucking line drive. Then he would sleep like a newborn; then the complications in Betty’s life wouldn’t be his problem. He wished that he weren’t the sort of person who was so singular in his focus that he thought of Betty as a problem. He wished a lot of things, none of which he could do anything about now.
“Management is concerned,” Timothy said. “They need you ready in eight weeks. And no one in the training room thinks, as of now, you will be ready in eight weeks.”
“Dude, I don’t know what they want from me. I already told you, I’m doing the fucking work.”
“For how much they pay you, youbetterknow what they want from you.” The temperature in Timothy’s tone had dipped considerably. “And forgive me, but this”—he pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the photographs, the printouts—“does not give me reassurance that you aren’t filling your time with other bullshit.”
“What I do in my off time really isn’t your concern,” Zeke said, which he knew was preposterous as soon as he said it. He was a brand, and as Timothy had noted, an extremely expensive one. In an alternate version of his life, he would have been consumed with his recovery. But that ignored the entire problem in the first place. All the analysts, all the sports writers, surely the entire MLB management, had watched the replay over and over again, slo-mo, slower-mo, freeze-framed, and they’d all concluded that Zeke simply got unlucky. Didn’t move fast enough. But Zeke knew the truth: that he didn’t move at all. How do you dig into a recovery when you aren’t sure that you want to be healed?
“We want to bring you to Arizona,” Timothy said. “Full rehab center on-site there, work around the clock to get you up for spring training.”
“No,” Zeke said.
“I don’t think I phrased this as a question.”
“I have some shit going on here, Timothy, and I’m not willing to just leave it next week or whatever.”
“I didn’t say next week. They want you out there sooner.”
“So you’re here to escort me down to the team plane?” Zeke scoffed, but Timothy just crossed his arms over his chest. He was actually here to escort him down to the team plane. “Well, I’m not doing it.”
“Because ofthis?” Now Timothy spun around and grabbed a postcard, one from Niagara Falls, then tore down three more. He flipped through them, tossing each one on the ground after examining them. “Because you have some weird fetish thing going on?”
“Fuck off, Timothy,” Zeke said, just as he heard the front door open, then close.
Sybil appeared in the kitchen doorway, still bundled in herparka, scarf, hat and Uggs. Her nose was ruby red, her mascara pooling under her lashes.
“Holy shit, it is like the Arctic tundra out there,” she said. Then, to Timothy: “Hi, I’m Sybil.”
“My agent,” Zeke said.
“Nice to meet you,” Timothy replied, because he was nothing if not superficial, extremely excellent at playing both good cop and bad. “I was just heading out. I tried to get Zeke to tell me all these secrets”—he pointed to the evidence wall—“but that bastard was tight-lipped as usual.”
“Oh.” Sybil glanced at Zeke and unwound her scarf. “Well—” She noticed the postcards on the planks on the kitchen floor, inhaled sharply, then stooped to grab them as if they were precious.
Zeke rushed Timothy to the entry. He didn’t need Sybil to explain anything to Timothy, lest he appear even more distracted than his agent already believed him to be. A hodgepodge wall of a paper trail, a flimsy excuse for a couple days off in Georgia, a different woman with a key to his apartment than the one whom Timothy met last time.
“Plane will be wheels up tomorrow at sevena.m.,” Timothy said, and Zeke wanted to slug him across his perfect fucking veneered teeth. “This wasn’t really an optional RSVP, Zeke.”
“I’m an independent adult,” Zeke said.
“Okay, however you want to think about it,” Timothy said, his hand on the front doorknob. “But you’re an independent adult who is under contract.”
“What was that about?” Sybil said once the door had shut behind him.
