Sitting in the car on the way home, not a word was spoken. None from me and Dad. He was still raving mad, snapping at the passing cars and stepping on the gears.
We drove past a Russian restaurant, where tables and people spilled out the doors onto the sidewalk. There were boisterous noises from the laughing patrons as they plunked down plates of pasta, silver dishes piles with pelmeni and vareniki, on the tables with red-checked cloths.
The light turned yellow, and I was amazed that Dad didn't curse as he slowed down at the crossing. A long stream of pedestrians strolled across the road. Next to the crossing was Matryoshka Restaurant.
There was a chunky man in a chef hat and clothes standing outside the Matryoshka. He was jabbering with two other men. One was a beefy Mafia-looking man with a sleek ponytail and the other was immaculately dressed like a male soprano. I knew they were Russians because I could hear them speaking in a mixture of English and Russian to each other from there.
These three were using a little kid's plastic baseball bat to demonstrate a move. They pretended to wrestle for possession, laughing and giving each other heaps. The little kid who owned the bat was sitting on a chair giggling at them with his mother.
I smiled as I watched these grown-up men fool around. I'd been feeling so useless and now here I was with a big dopey grin on my face. I turned to check if Dad was watching too. He wasn't.
Then he jerked the car forward and started to drive on. I could see his jaw clench. I felt my smile fade away and slid off my face like slime.
When we got home, the first thing Mom always did was hugging me. She always came home from work and started her cleaning ritual and cooking. She would turn on really loud music and dance around while she cooked. She would stir and chop in time with the beats and skate from the stove to the sink on her slippery pantyhosed feet.
"Welcome home, big boy and girl!" she said. "How was the..."
Mom saw the looks on our faces and stopped short. She sighed like all the energy had been drained out of her.
"What's wrong?" she asked, knowing Dad and I must've had another fight.
I couldn't handle listening to them argue about me, so I headed up the hall to my room. Behind me, I heard Dad say to Mom, "I called her bluff at the tryout today. I'm not going to play stupid games with her anymore."
I slammed my bedroom door so hard that the wall shuddered and the chandelier in the living room jiggled.
"Look at that attitude!" Dad bellowed from downstairs.
"Honey, calm down," Mom tried to console him. But Dad began to list down all the bad things about me to her, and when she tried to defend me, he turned on her as well.
A little while later, after they'd finished arguing, Mom knocked on my door and asked to come in.
She sat on the floor where I was with my knees hunched up, and we didn't say anything for a long moment. She used to sit in that exact spot on my floor sometimes and we'd talk about stuff.
"Got any brilliant ideas about how to handle this?" she said at last.
"That's my line," I said. "You're the mother."
"Yeah," she chuckled and nodded, but shaky like she forgot who she was. "You know your father's got a lot on his plate right now. Problems with work and..."
"Under a lot of pressure," I mumbled sarcastically. "Isn't everyone?"
"Yes, well, you might be sick of hearing it but he is. It's pretty hard for him because..." Mom stopped herself suddenly, trying not to say more than she was supposed to. "You're going to have to put up with him a bit more."
She reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Sometimes when you know a person loves you and wants to help, you can't even look at them or you'll end up blubbering in tears.
Mom left, closing the door gently behind her. I climbed onto my bed and stared at the shelf Dad had made to display my trophies. Some had their baseball figurines on top -tiny, shiny players. Signed pictures of woman leagues and professional teams from the past until now were framed on the walls. They looked so perky, so confident, so sure about what they were doing. I wished I felt like that.
My brain strewed about everything that had happened. Dad, Olive, Stefanie Jenkins, Margaret. Somehow I'd ended up a rejected player.
~*~
I went to the next training session. Being in the Rejects was a bad idea and I should probably call it quit completely. then again, baseball used to be my passion. If I ditched it, maybe there was nothing I could love anymore.
I was glad to find Olive waiting by the shed. Olive was a prize nosy self-proclaimed detective. She loves to work out what's going and who is who.
"See that girl?" said Olive, pointing to a pitcher called Susan. "She's in our team too."
Susan was built like a fridge with ahead, and she was not happy. She growled to herself, thumping her fist into her leather glove, making annoying punching sounds.
"Maybe someone should stop her doing that," I said.
"Do you want to ask her to stop, Darci?" asked Olive.
"Well, never mind," I said. Then something else caught Olive's attention.
"What's she doing here?" she said.
A girl was striding across the ground with a camera bag dangling over her shoulder. She had thick pale blonde hair that was nicely curled down her shoulders and a gorgeous face I recognized from school. Her name was Charlotte Grace.
"Hi there," she said as she walked towards us, but more bored than friendly.
I gave an awkward smile since I didn't know which one of us she was addressing.
"You know her?" Olive whispered.
"Not personally," I said.
Charlotte crouched on the ground sorting out the camera's gears.
"What are those for?" asked Olive, having a nosy look at her bag.
"Media studies," Charlotte grunted, shoving the mini-tripod and lens around impatiently. "I'm being forced against my will and for no possible educational value to make a documentary about an all-girl baseball team. Even though I happen to think all of the sports are a boring ridiculous excuse for some attention and ego-stroking."
"Hey!" I said.
Charlotte finally looked up and glanced at my baseball outfit.
"Oh, you're a ballplayer," she said as if she'd just realized. "Sorry, just got carried away by the bad mood."
She tugged a strand of her blonde lock behind her ear, showing off her angular face that glittered under the sunlight.
"'s okay," I stammered. "I'm thinking of giving up anyway."
"For real?" gasped Olive. I nodded.
"No big deal. It's just a game."
"Baseball? Just a game?" blurted Olive, choking with disbelief.
"I'm looking for a girl team Under 18s. That's the First Class coach over there, yeah?" asked Charlotte, pointing to my Dad.
"Yeah," I said. I was desperate that she wouldn't think I was some loser who'd never make it into a team. But the words came out sounding a bit too desperate. "I've always played on the team. I mean, I could have this season too, but you know..."
"Sure," Charlotte said vaguely. She couldn't care less if I played in a National team or a World Champion. When she walked off towards the coach, I whacked my head back against the wall.
Fantastic. I'd managed to sound up-myself and a pathetic loser at the same time.
"You've got the hots for her," said Olive.
"What? I hardly know her!" I protested.
"I see these things," she explained. "It's like an extra sense I've got."
I scrawled at her. Then I looked back at Charlotte, who was now talking to the coach. We sat in silence for a while, watching her body language.
"I wonder how she did it," I said out of curiosity.
"Did what?"
"That donut-glaze look," I said.
"Oh Darci..." said Olive, looking at me and shaking her head gravely.
No sane person could describe the Rejects as a 'team'. Susan, the fridge with a head, was a pretty good player, except she kept growling and thumping everyone on the field. Even players on her own team.Someone would bump her accidentally and she'd raise her fist. "Do want me to beat the stuffing out of you? Do you? I'll beat the stuffing out of you!" she'd roar. And you had no trouble believing her.Rosie received quite a few threats from Susan. Something about her particularly riled Susan up. Rosie would just dance off and laugh. She went to my school, so I already knew she wasn't on the same planet as other people. For a start, she was always muttering or singing to herself. In the middle of a baseball game, she'd lose interest, wander off or balance her bat on her forehead back and forth. Rosie made me laugh and she was never nasty.
The door of the Bentley opened. Then out came the man I had seen goofing around with the plastic bat outside Matryoshka Restaurant. He looked like his car - I mean he was short, neat, wearing nice clothes, hair combed back with care and he was all smile.I also recognized the other taller man, who looked like his car too. He was bulky with massive shoulders and thighs like the sides of meat you see hanging in the butcher's shop. His long hair pulled back in a ponytail, was black and glossy like the Bentley. Black leather-gloved hand adjusted his black shiny sunglasses as he looked our way. When he turned his head to smile at the smaller guy, there was a flash of studs he wore in each ear.As the two of them walked towards us, it really was a weird sight. The big man took his time, taking slow but powerful steps. And the smaller guy was
After that horrible game, we all wanted to forget about it and that we'd never laid eyes on each other.The next training, I was thinking that no way the two Russian men would show up and want to coach a pathetic bunch of girls like us.But the next thing we knew, Felik and Grigor marched towards us."Gather around us, gals," said Felik, waving his arms at us until we formed a ring. "Don't worry about the last game. It was only a pre-season practice game. Me and Grigor, we're going to start from scratch with this team.""What?" gasped Rosie, amazed."You mean, you're volunteering to coach us?" said Nora."After what you saw?" added
The next week, the practice started with Stefanie and Nora having a screaming contest. As usual, Stefanie was being a rude, big-mouth snob. As usual, Nora was calling her out.Grigor called from the sideline."Nora. Over here."We stood frozen as we didn't expect Nora to be in trouble. WeexpectedStefanie.Nora marched across to Grigor with her chin jutting forward, defiant. She didn't like being bossed around by anyone."Why are you calling me?" Nora said defensively."Because you're a talented baseball player," Grigor said, which surprised her."Huh?"
It took a bit of persuasion to get April to play with us. Poor April. Once Felik and Grigor chose you, you didn't have much chance to refuse. Her mom didn't mind her taking sometimes for sport activity. In fact, she encouraged it because she didn't want April to spend all her free time working at the cafeteria. Besides Felik and Grigor had made the schedule easy for her to get her training, just five hours a week.April, me, Olive and the two coaches went straight from the baseball field to the Matryoskha Restaurant.We stepped out of their shiny Bentley and wondered why they brought us to this place. Felik greeted everyone as he swept us through the restaurant into the kitchen."Mitko!" he called out.I recognized the guy at the stov
Felik paced up and down the sideline. Grigor stood stock still, legs astride, arms folded, only saying a few quiet words to his boyfriend, who would then sign to us. Tip hat, touch shoulders and rub the nose. That means you should hit the ball. Scratch ear, rub hands and tip hat. It means don't hit.Each of us had memorized the signs, but I wondered if any of us remembered those codes under pressure. The pack of Russian supporters was incredibly noisy, doing a commentary all through the game in a weird mixture of Russian and English. Every time, the Rejects looked like they were doing something decent, Mitko and his friends went bananas.The parents, huddled on the sidelines, were confused, who were these crazy Russian people who didn't even have kids in the team? Why were they here cheering their heads off for players they didn't even
A wall of bodies crashed on me. Then I found myself in the air, carried by the otherslike I was a war hero. Our fans were going nuts at the sideline, chantingDarci! Darci! Darci!"Oh yes! We did it!" cheered Felik. "I knew you were gonna make us proud!"I blushed and giggled. After my teammates put me down, I saw my mom go up to Grigor."Excuse me," she said shyly to the big man. "I'm Darci's mom. I just wanted..."Grigor surprised her by grabbing her hand in his and shook it firmly with gratitude. Felik joined him."Did you see your daughter out there?" he said. "What a wonderful baseball player she is!"The mo
There was a lot of truth in Olive's words. I turned to Charlotte who was fussing over her camera. She was right there -only a few feet away, but she might as well have been on the other side of the moon and all I could do was look."I guess we just don't have it, Olive," I said to her."Well, unlike you, I have tried talking to Nora," she said and tossed the ball to me. "She handles herself so cool. And I'm there sweating like a pig, screaming panic in my head, some idiotic blah blah coming out of my mouth. You have a better chance than me, Darci."I was just as a romantic hopeless as she was, and I didn't know why she had so much faith in me."Hey! You girls are here, too?"We turne