vernacular means.” He winked. “I went to college.”
“Of course you did.” She propped her chin on her hand. “You probably had more of a traditional education than me. I got a master’s in fine arts.”
“Hold on, there. I didn’t say I graduated.” He paused while their table was cleared. “After two years of college baseball, a minor-league scout got hold of me and said I’d be better off putting in the time on a pro team. I spent the next six years knocking around the bush leagues before finally getting called up to The Show.” Brooke looked somewhat dazed, so he added, “You know, the major leagues.”
“I know.” Her grin spread like molasses. “I saw Bull Durham.”
“Touché.”
“I’m impressed, even if it took you six years.”
“Yeah, well, I was never what you’d call a star. Too slow, only so-so with the glove, but at least I could hit. I played second-string for the Milwaukee Brewers for a couple of years before being traded to the Sox, where I earned a permanent spot on the bench. Coach threatened to carve my name on it.”
“Until the World Series.”
“That’s right.” He was talking too much, and he couldn’t even blame the wine because Brooke had stolen his glass after he’d emptied the first one. Her concern was sweet. He wasn’t used to sweet.
“What was that like?” she asked. “Playing in the World Series?”
“Crazy.”
“Come on, you have to tell me more than that. I’ll never have dinner again with a man who came up to bat with two outs in the ninth inning of the seventh game and hit a home run that won the Series for the Sox.”
David opened his hands in a shrug. He’d given a lot of interviews in the weeks afterward, and lived to regret it when Bobby Cook had started sniffing around to find the “real” David Carerra story, hoping to uncover a scandal that would make his name as a reporter. “Honestly, I can hardly remember. It was an out-of-body experience.”
Brooke tilted toward him, still smiling, and he could see tiny, deep dimples cut into the very corners of her mouth. “You must remember something. Tell me.”
He shut his eyes. “The crowd in the stadium was roaring, so loud I could feel the vibrations in my bones. Except I was numb on the surface. I couldn’t feel my hands on the bat as I warmed up. None of it seemed real. But I was there, doing it.” He looked at her over steepled fingers. “The relief pitcher was a fireballer. I swung hard and missed. I felt that, all right, when my body corkscrewed around so tight my cleats got stuck in the ground.”
“You missed twice,” she said. “You had two strikes.”
“That’s right. Were you at the game?”
She shook her head. “My sister Joey went, the lucky duck. She got tickets through her law firm. My mother was already sick then, so the rest of us watched at home. Mom’s friend, Reba, almost passed out when you got the hit, but that might have been because of the Boilermakers she was drinking.” Brooke laced her fingers around his. “You must have felt it when you hit the home run. The crack of the bat was loud.”
“Yeah. I felt it.” The jolt had juddered right up his arms, into his shoulders.
“And then?”
“That’s when I go blank.” He stroked the veins that traced her fragile wrist. “I never saw the ball go out of the park, but I knew immediately that it was a home run. And I’ve seen the replay since then, so I know I ran the bases, but I don’t really remember any of it until my teammates attacked me at the plate.”
Brooke squeezed his hand. “You were in the dirt at the bottom of the pile. I remember how cute you looked afterward, giving interviews with a smudged face.”
David felt good inside, for once getting to reminisce without thinking too hard about the taint of later events. “Like I said, it was crazy.”
“We were jumping and laughing and yelling at home, too, making more noise in the house than we had in years. Reba, Katie and I danced around the coffee table until our aunt said we’d fall on Mom if we didn’t quit.” Brooke’s smile faded as she became more contemplative. “We’d only recently learned how sick she was. Having the playoffs to get excited about was no little thing. You gave my mom a real thrill. So, you know…thank you.”
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