Page 58 of The Fall Classic

Georgie

I’m cheering you on, 49! And yes, that’s an exclamation point, because I contain multitudes. ;)

She has no idea the effect her selfie or text or exclamation point have on me. I pitch the best I have in months, and the whole time, I’m thinking about a girl in a coffee truck in Sugar Maple, South Carolina.

It’s not part of my strategy, but it works as well as any technique ever has. My knuckleball is so good today that I have batters blinking instead of cursing, like they’re too busy being confused to be mad. My catcher settles into his crouch with more confidence than I’ve seen from him before.

Makes sense. Knuckleballers almost always come with a catcher who can actually find the ball, so if I get called up, it’s all but a guarantee Rojas is coming with me.

Fletch pulls me partway through the sixth, and Rojas drops next to me in the dugout, sweaty, dusty, and smiling.

“That was fun.”

I chuckle. “Yeah. It was.”

“Let’s do it again. Maybe in Chicago.” He holds up a fist and I bump it, and we watch the rest of the game next to each other.

I miss my brother. I always miss my brother.

But Rojas is a good dude, and I have Georgie cheering me on back in South Carolina.

I’m doing okay.

***

Fletch finds me in the tunnel after the game. “Fischer, hold up,” he says, and I wait for him to reach me, and then we walk toward the locker room together.

“Good outing.”

“Thanks.”

“What were you thinking about out there?”

I could answer this a dozen different ways, but Fletch’s BS meter is strong.

“Not pitching.”

He nods slowly. “It showed.”

“In a good way?”

“You struck out nine guys with three walks and two earned runs. Yes, Fischer, in a good way.” He inhales, nodding. “Listen, you know you pitched well. Make sure what you’ve got out there is coming from you, not from her. Because she can’t be in the stands every time.”

“She wasn’t in the stands this time.”

Then he snorts—the jerk. “I knew it was a girl.” He walks toward his office at the far end of the locker room. “But I mean it, Fisch. Make sure it’s coming from you.”

He doesn’t wait for a response. He’s already gone, and I’m left standing in front of my locker while my anxiety makes a half-hearted effort to find a seam—something to tug on, a weak spot to unravel. But nothing’s giving. Not right now.

I look at my phone and see four missed texts from Georgie. Excitement, more excitement, exclamation points, and a congratulations.

I don’t let myself smile until I’m alone.

***

I didn’t anticipate Georgie fitting into my schedule on a road trip so effortlessly. In fact, she doesn’t just fit; she recharges something in me. I come back to the hotel after games restless and wound up, and then her name appears on my screen and all that tightness unwinds.

I wish I were doing the same for her.