And it was the same girl. The same unbelievable girl.
She walked over to me and shyly said, "Hi."
"Hi. And wow," was all I could come up with.
She giggled. "You like?"
"You’re beautiful."
She blushed but giggled. "Better than that dirty pitcher you rolled around in the outfield with, huh?" Ah. So her parents did know, as they were right there. But they were still smiling at her.
"No. She’s just as beautiful. Beauty is beauty, there’s just different ways to let it out. Thank you for showing me this one." I never thought of myself as all that eloquent. I just speak from the gut and the heart. Well, I saw the moisture in her eyes right then. I guess I’d said the right thing.
She beamed at me and sniffled. Then she ran her hands over my simple (but clean and pressed) blue oxford button-down and tan chinos and said, "You know, you clean up pretty well yourself. For a catcher." I just grinned at her.
She made a supreme effort to keep her composure-and then introduced me to her mom. We chatted a bit, and then it was time to go.
I let her in the passenger side, then swung around and started up the car. We drove for a minute in silence, then she said, "Thanks."
"You’re welcome. For what?"
She giggled, and then her voice got soft. "For what you said in there."
"I meant every word."
"I know you did." Sniffle. "Damn it, I can’t cry! My mascara will run!"
"Ah, fuck it. Let it run. We’ll just smudge it around your face and call it eyeblack." She looked at me, and roared with laughter. "Then again, though eyeblack suits you just fine, I don’t think it’d go all that well with that particular ensemble." She let out another snort of laughter, then got serious and turned to me.
"Is it OK? I mean, really OK? I know you’ve never seen me like this. I know Luciano’s is sort of casual, and I tried not to go overboard, but I wanted you to see me like this."
"Is it OK? I’m gobsmacked," I said. "You came down those stairs, and I couldn’t have made a fist if my life had depended on it. Look, you know me. You know how I reacted to that grubby pitcher in the outfield yesterday. And you know I meant it when I called you beautiful. What I see now is different. It’s a different kind of beauty." I took a breath. "I guess the best way I can say it is this: the Lily that stands on that mound glaring in at me builds a fire in my gut. The Lily that came down those stairs tonight took my breath away. Do you realize how beautiful that makes you, that you can do both those things?"
Her voice, when she answered, was low and hoarse. "Do you realize how beautiful it makes you, that you can recognize both those things?" There was a slight sob at the end of that, and then a tone of wonder. "You’re the first. The absolute first. Ever." She sniffled. "If I were to be asked, I’d say that the most beautiful thing about you, physically, is your eyes. They’re the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen on a guy." I could hear the grin in her voice. "In my diary, I called them ‘liquid pools of iridescent sapphire.’ That’s when I knew I had a thing for you, when I started waxing poetic." I cracked up laughing. She giggled a little, then her voice dropped again. "But now I know the truth. The true beauty in your eyes isn’t the way they look; though they are beautiful and I drown in them every time I look into them. The true beauty in your eyes is inside, what they see. You see things I didn’t think anyone would ever see."
"They weren’t looking hard enough."
"I don’t think you had to look hard at all," she replied.
"You’re right, I didn’t. It was there, it was all there. Every time I looked at you."
She sighed, and sniffled a bit. Then her voice got forceful. "Mike Kirkland, you had better be ready, because I am falling head over heels in love with you, and I am doing it good and fast. And I don’t do anything halfway."
I roared. Is this girl something, or what? I couldn’t stop laughing.
"What?" she said.
" Only you could tell me you’re falling in love with me and make it sound like you’re challenging me to a duel at ten paces."
"Oh, jeez, I did, didn’t I?"
"Hey, I’m the one that thinks that getting struck out is foreplay, who am I to argue? Besides which, I can hit that meatball out of the park. If you think you’re falling in love with me, Lily Woodard, you’d better catch up in a hurry, because I’m rounding third and headed for home."
"Good," she sighed, and snuggled up to me for the rest of the ride.
We got to Luciano’s and got a table right away. We looked at the menu, ordered, and then sat there, chatting.
"I’ve been meaning to ask you," I said, "Do you have any dreams about being the first woman in the majors? I mean, I caught a guy who got drafted last year, and you’re better than he is."
"Well, yeah, now I am," she replied. "But I won’t be. My body will break down eventually. Pitching-wise, I mean, and probably long before I’d be ready for the majors. We’ve talked about the whole women’s body not being meant for this thing. Well, it’s only gonna get worse. I’m only seventeen. That’s going to get harder to maintain."
"Yeah, but some of it won’t. I mean, your hips are your hips. They might get fatter, but you do a good job of keeping that in line. A lot of maintaining your body for pitching isn’t any different that maintaining your body for any other kind of sport-like soccer. A lot of the basic differences-in-physiology problems you have aren’t going to get any worse. Not any time soon."
"I see your point, and it is something to think about," she said. "What they tell me-doctors and such, I mean-is that, because I’m female, I have more of a chance of something going wrong. There’s more of a chance that I could snap a tendon in my hip. There’s more of a chance of arm problems. Hey, my arm bone is smaller than yours. I do a damn good job of building up the muscle and such around it, and I do a good job with exercises to keep it flexible. But it’s smaller. It could snap in half on my first pitch tomorrow. Hey, if it happens in high school? Oh well. If it happens after three years of mucking around the low minors? It’d be far more devastating."
"You’ve thought about this," I commented.
"Oh, yeah. Look-if I keep my stats the next two years the way they’ve been the first two years-well, if I were a guy, I would be drafted. We’d have to see if any organization would want to take a chance with a girl pitcher-knowing what I know, and just told you-but, yeah, it’s a possibility. I’d have to at least consider it. Especially if I were to get drafted by the Red Sox. Having the chance to make that kind of history with a Sox uniform on my back? In Fenway? I admit, that’s enticing. Frankly, chasing a slim-chance dream, being in the back of busses for years, doesn’t hold much appeal if that slim-chance would happen-if it ever does-in a Florida Marlins uniform, or something. But the Sox? Yeah, I’d have to at least consider it."
"What about college?"
"You mean, if I were offered a baseball scholarship? Oh, yeah, in a heartbeat. No question. Even if my arm falls off halfway through sophomore year, I’ll have my education. And, I’ll tell you, that is a milestone that I might be able to get to before my body goes south-first woman in the College World Series."
"What to you want to go to school for?" I asked her.
"Journalism," She grinned. "If I can’t play for the Sox, I’ll be their beat writer."
"I should’ve known, shouldn’t I have?" I laughed.
"Yes you should’ve. And you?"
"I want to go pro-however, I won’t be accepting any offers if I’m drafted out of High School. I am going to college first. If I’m drafted out of college, to the minors I go. In college, I plan to major in psychology. If the baseball thing doesn’t work out, I’m going to take after my mother."