“Funny you should say that, she’s number nine,” I admitted.
“You better tell me your mom is number one, or there’ll be hell to pay,” Dad teased.
My eyes got big.
“I need to change that.”
He actually took a swipe at me! When Dad and I were done, I called Pam to get her up to speed. I then bit the bullet and called Ms. Dixon. I’m happy she’s on my side.
◊◊◊ Monday April 18
Stacy Clute was done penciling in the bulldog logo on my picnic table, and I’d brought my lunch today so I could do my painting during lunchtime. When I walked into the school’s shop area, where they were storing the tables, I found Halle and Stacy already painting it.
“Hey,” I complained.
“You know we’re better painters,” Halle said and stuck out her tongue.
“I thought …” Stacy started, looking confused.
“Never mind that,” Halle interrupted. “We didn’t need David messing up your work. The boy doesn’t seem to be able to paint within the lines, anyway.”
I just ignored the shots at my artistic ability and grabbed a paintbrush. I wasn’t worried about the help. More than anything, I just wanted to get this done and off my list of things to do. I was relegated to painting the white circle around the logo. Halle and Stacy did the bulldog. Instead of the graphic one we had for our helmets and jerseys, they made it more lifelike. What took them forty minutes would have taken me a week of lunch periods to produce. I knew I could have eventually done the same, but they had more practice.
When we were done, I stood back and smiled.
“I think he approves,” Halle said.
“Oh, yeah. You two did great,” I admitted.
I sent a text to Wolf for him to come check it out. He knew I was working on my table today, so he came right out.
“That looks good! All that’s missing is for the artist to sign his work,” Wolf said.
I smiled.
“Ladies,” I prompted.
They both smiled and signed their names at the bottom. I started to clean up.
“Aren’t you going to sign, also?” Stacy asked.
“Wolf didn’t sign, and he put the base coat of orange and blue down. I just painted the circle. You two did the actual art and should get the credit.”
“David’s right. You girls did a great job. I’ll let it dry for a couple of days, and then we’ll put a clear coat over it to protect it,” Wolf said.
“Who hosted tables at lunch today?” I asked to change the subject to the other junior project, Lunch Buddies.
“Tim, Brook, Zoe, and I did it. It was a lot of fun, more than I expected. I met some new people, and Ms. Jaroslav joined our table today. She wanted to observe how it was going so she could report the success of our class projects to her bosses,” Wolf filled me in.
Alan had come through with this one. I would have to make a point to tell him. While I didn’t feel as close to him anymore, it didn’t mean that I needed to act like an ass, either.
◊◊◊
During baseball practice, Moose and Coach Haskins had the outfielders working on fielding skills.
“The center fielder is in charge of fly balls. In our last game, we almost had a collision when David called you off, Milo,” Coach Haskins said.
Milo had been in right field when a ball had been hit in between us. I’d called him off, but instead of backing me up, he had just stopped. It might have been an easier catch for him, but I had the better angle to throw the ball after I caught it. The base runner had gone halfway to second, and when he saw it was going to be caught, he had just trotted back to first. I had planned to come up firing and double him up, but I ended having to dance around Milo, which threw off my momentum.
“If you hear David call out either ‘mine’ or a position, follow his directions. Sometimes it’ll be better for an infielder to get the ball,” Moose said.
“If you’re called off, back them up in case they drop it,” Coach Haskins said.
We practiced my making decisions on fly balls. If I didn’t say anything, it was theirs to catch. If I called them off, they moved back to give me room to catch it, but also to keep it from getting through. Letting one roll to the wall was a sure extra-base hit.
We then worked on backing up the infield. An errant throw that wasn’t backed up could mean extra bases. Coach Haskins hated to give up extra bases. He harped that each extra base was equivalent to the other team eventually scoring. That was why he wanted us to be aggressive on the base paths. It was much easier to score from second than it was from first. If you were on third, almost any base hit was an automatic run.
The final thing we worked on was deep fly balls.
“You have to be the eyes of your teammate. If he’s running back to the wall, you need to call it out before he hits the cinder track,” Moose said.
“Most high school fields don’t even have that,” Coach Haskins added.
At State and the better baseball fields, there was a cinder track along the outfield wall. This was in place for player protection. If you stepped off the grass and onto the cinders, you knew you were right there. The reason they wanted us to warn each other was that if you were going full out, the cinder track wasn’t enough warning. Hitting the wall was one of the quickest ways to get hurt.
It had been a good practice.
◊◊◊
On the way home, I fielded a call from my publicist, Frank Ingram.
“David, I’ve got a slightly unusual request for an interview for you. It’s a photojournalist from a women’s magazine, Elle, who wants to do a video interview. She asked if you’d fly out to New York to do it.”
“You know my schedule. No way can I do that,” I complained.
“I already told them that,” he chuckled. “She said she’d come there to interview you.”
“This doesn’t make sense to me, Frank. Why would a women’s fashion magazine want me for a story, even if it’s for their website?”
“I asked her that very question,” he responded. “The way she put it to me was that the demographic Elle serves, which is women aged twenty to forty, would have an interest in you and your story. Think of it as opening up a whole new demographic to your Q-Rating—the cougar set.”
I could just see Frank struggling mightily to hold in the laughter. Hmmm.
“Okay, but I’m not going to put myself out for it. If they want to do it that bad, the woman can interview me at the house.”
“I’ll let her know. We’ll see what happens,” he replied.
◊◊◊
When I finally got home, I found Coach Bail, the head coach of Ohio State’s baseball team, sitting in the living room. He was talking to my parents, Uncle John, and Grandma Dawson. Peggy had taken all the little ones, including Duke, to Pam’s condo. I hadn’t realized that my uncle and grandma would want to meet the coaches.
I recognized Coach Bail as one of the recruiters who’d been behind home plate for the State game.
“David, it’s good to finally meet you,” he said as he got up and shook my hand.
Coach Bail had been coaching baseball for 22 years. He had been the head coach at Western Illinois for eight years before he got the Ohio State job six years ago. He was one game under .500 his first year but had shown improvement since then. Each year after that, they’d consistently been over .500, but not by a lot. Coach Bail’s overall record was 402–325. At Ohio State, he was 159–125, or a little more than 5 games over .500 each year.
What I got out of the discussion was that he was a good hands-on coach. It would be a fine place to play, but I didn’t see any National or Big Ten Championships in their future. Last year, Ohio State advanced to the Big Ten Tournament for the fifth consecutive year, the only school in the conference to accomplish that feat. They’d posted a 35–20 overall record and 13–11 mark in Big Ten play.