Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
FLETCH
Idon’t fit in this car.
My head’s jammed against the roof, my knees are strangling the steering wheel, and if I take a deep breath, the airbag’s going to go off. I can’t even turn the wheel without elbowing the window, no matter how I contort myself.
“How am I supposed to fit?” I ask, pulling the lever beneath the seat and moving forward and back to no avail. I smack the steering wheel.
And Poppy watches me with an amused look on her face.
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I grunt. I pull the lever beneath the seat one last time and try—and fail—to jam the seat back any farther.
I ball my hands into fists and bite back a yell of frustration.
I’ve never been accused of being zen, but I haven’t felt an anger like this in years. Because it’s not just anger.
It’s futility.
Even if I didn’t have Granddad’s crushing disappointment to worry about, I’m the best man.
Evan needs me. It doesn’t matter that I think he’s tried too hard to pretend the accident that ruined his life was actually a blessing in disguise.
He loves Sloane. He’s my brother. And he’s counting on me to be there on the best day of his life. Me. What was he thinking?
“Hey,” Poppy says. And a moment later, her hand is on my upper arm. “I’m happy to drive.”
Her hand is warm through the sleeve of my hoodie, and for a second, that heat cuts through everything else—the frustration, the cramped space, the noise in my head. I nod. “That would probably be best.”
Poppy unbuckles. “You think?”
There’s no meanness to her teasing, which I have just enough presence of mind to appreciate.
We get out of the car and meet at the corner of the hood, both sidestepping in the same direction before she laughs and I gesture her past me. Her shoulder brushes my chest lightly, but it’s enough to cause a jolt.
Stupid static in the stupid dry air.
In the car, Poppy moves the seat all the way up, adjusts the mirrors, buckles, and plugs our destination into the GPS, smiling with each step.
“What are you so happy about?” I ask, clicking my own seat belt. My head’s still right at the roof, and my knees are hitting the dash, but it’s better than them hugging the steering wheel.
“People don’t need a reason to be happy.” She gives the rearview mirror one more nudge before putting the car into drive. “If anything, shouldn’t they need a reason not to be?”
“Yeah, well I haven’t seen you this happy yet.”
“Everyone’s allowed to be off now and again.” We get to the exit, and Poppy looks both ways before leaving the garage. “Besides, I flew out for a case in Georgia just to up and quit my job yesterday and then chop off all my hair, so I earned it.”
“Whoa,” I say, my eyes snapping from the GPS to her. A million questions flit to my mind, but I’m not the kind of guy who does follow-up questions or comments. Yet my mouth doesn’t seem to get the memo. “Your hair’s nice,” I hear myself saying.
YOUR HAIR’S NICE.
Those words came out of my mouth. To Poppy.
And now she’s smiling again.
Ugh.
The weather in Denver could be a lot worse. There’s some snow on the ground, but it’s not fresh. The mid-afternoon sky is dreary, though, with clouds hanging dull and heavy overhead, eclipsing the sun.
Poppy turns up the heater at the same time that the GPS dings, and the automated voice says, “Accident ahead on Interstate 76 East near Hudson. All lanes closed. Estimated delay: four hours.”
“Four hours?” I pull out my phone and look for another route. “Let’s take I-70.”
Poppy looks over her shoulder and changes lanes to get ahead of a semi-truck. “Everyone will take I-70. The bottleneck could add hours itself.”
I check my phone again. “You’re right.” I turn off her GPS. “Take the exit for E-470 South. We’ll cut down to … Highway 83, then pick up, uh, 86 East. We’ll meet I-70 once we’re past the worst of the traffic.”
Her smile grows.
“Seriously, what are you smiling at?”
She gives me a quick glance, her hazel eyes bright. “Adventure.”
“This isn’t adventure. This is necessity.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
A chuckle escapes me. It’s pained but not … painful.
“Take the next left for E-470 South,” I tell her.
“Can you just put the route into my phone?”
“I’ll plug my phone in,” I tell her, unhooking her phone from the console and plugging mine in. The map pops up a moment later.
I watch her eyes flit down to look at the map. “Can you hit ‘go’ on the map?”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”
Her cheeks are getting red, so I turn down the heat on the console.
She turns it right back up, her hand bumping mine. “Just press ‘go.’”
The air between us swings from cold to hot again.
“Why do you care?” I ask.
“Why do you care? I’m the driver!”
“It’s my rental car!”
“We co-rented it,” she argues, “and I don’t drive like this. I need the map to be functional to me, not functional to you so you can be functional to me.”
“I hate the voice,” I admit. “It’s so bossy and patronizing. And these things are useless in bad weather. They don’t know what roads have been plowed or if their alternative route is paved with black ice.”
Poppy makes a sound like she’s being strangled.
I finally tap “Go,” and that robotic voice speaks up: “In 1.2 miles, take exit 28 for E-470 South toward Colorado Springs.”
Poppy looks visibly relieved as she eases into the exit lane. “Was that so hard?”
The voice pings again—“Continue on E-470 South for 14 miles”—and I can already feel myself going crazy from the incessant updates.
My teeth grind. “You have no idea.”
For miles, I listen to that dumb voice give Poppy turn-by-turn instructions until it finally says, “In one mile, take exit 5 for CO-83 toward Parker/Franktown.”
“And to think,” she says in a voice stuck halfway between vexation and teasing, “that voice update could have been yours.”
“It’s not just the voice,” I tell her, because if we’re going to be stuck together for two full days, I’d rather her think I’m not, in fact, crazy.
“It’s that it doesn’t tell you anything beyond the next step.
I need to be able to see the road ahead so when something happens, I can adjust instead of hoping it can adjust for me. ”
“So it’s about control,” she says.
“No,” I say, irritated by the characterization. “It’s about information. When you only plan for one outcome, everything collapses when that scenario fails.”
She nods quietly, eyes back on the road. Fine snow starts to fall, flakes pattering the windshield.
The voice directs us off the exit ramp, and then it follows with, “Stay on CO-83 South for 8.2 miles, then turn left onto CO-86 East toward Kiowa.”
“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” Poppy says.
I shrug. I do that a lot, especially when I don’t want to talk about something or don’t know what to say. It’s a cliché for a reason: sometimes words fail. That’s where the shrug comes in.
“I was talking to a sweet old man in the airport, and when I got in line for our flight, he was talking to you. He called you ‘coach.’ Can I ask what you do?”
“I’m the manager—head coach—of a minor league baseball team in South Carolina.” I take off my light blue ball cap and gesture to the mullet fish … wearing a mullet. “The Mullet Ridge Mudflaps.”
She wrinkles that little nose and chuckles. “Isn’t a mudflap another name for a mullet?”
“Yup.”
“So you’re like the Mullet Mullets?”
“Mullet Ridge,” I correct her, though I know she’s joking. “Mullets are a type of fish.”
“Something tells me no one outside of Mullet Ridge actually knows that.”
“Believe me: half the people in Mullet Ridge don’t know that.”
Her chuckle turns into a laugh. “Are you from Rochester, or is that just where your brother lives?”
“I’m from there. My whole family is still there.”
“And you live in South Carolina? Do you miss your family being so far away?”
“Let’s just say there’s a reason I only come home for holidays.”
She nods, not just like she heard me. Like she gets me. And maybe it’s that glimpse of understanding that makes me continue.
“I love my family,” I add. “They’re just … different. Not weird, but different than they used to be.”
“What changed?” Poppy asks.
My thoughts turn bleak as I think about Evan. His attack.
The career-ending, life-altering TBI that changed everything.
“My brother. He was bound for Major League Baseball, just like me, but it got derailed. Baseball is literally the family business—Fletcher Baseball Academy. My grandpa almost played in the majors before the Vietnam War. My dad was pro material until he got injured. Then it was my turn.” I say with a huff.
“I was already playing Triple-A when Evan was … injured. I got called up when he was still doing rehab, and my whole family was losing it. Evan was too angry to talk, and his recovery took a long time. But my dad and granddad were calling daily, making sure I knew the whole future of the family was riding on me. The past, too. It was like if I could make it, it would heal our legacy.”
I rotate my left wrist, feeling it crack. “But I was too eager when I made the pros. Too stressed to prove myself. I crowded the plate and took a ball right off the wrist.”
“So the curse remains?” she asks.
I’m annoyed she’s harping on a single word choice. “I know it’s not an actual curse. But, yeah, pretty much.”
She’s shaking her head, like nothing I’m saying is computing. “But you did make it. You signed a contract. You played in the majors.”
“Not really,” I argue, but she holds up a hand.
“Yes, really,” she says. “If your whole thing is being good enough to play professionally but to never get to, then boom. You made it. Or is there more to it? Did your great-grandpa make a deal with the Baseball Gods that one of his ancestors would have to play for twelve seasons, or the curse would continue?”
It’s so absurd, I snort.
“You literally made it! How many major league teams are there?”
“Thirty.”
“And how many guys play on each team?”
“Forty-man rosters during the regular season.”
“So when you were called up, you were one of the 1200 best baseball players in the whole world. You were better than, what, 99.999 percent of the entire population? And what did the rental car agent say? You signed a two-million-dollar signing bonus? Were you a first round pick?”
I’m not sure I like where this is going. “Number twelve.”
She whistles. “I know football better than I know baseball. Are major league contracts guaranteed?”
I definitely don’t like where this is going. “Yup.”
Her laugh is made of pure disbelief. “So you have millions in the bank for playing that one game. I grew up on food stamps, so forgive me for being naive. How exactly is that a curse?”
Her words hit like a pitch to the ribs. I sink into my seat, the blood in my veins feeling cold and sluggish. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never looked at it that way. I’ve never once imagined that my situation—my humiliation—could be seen as something to be envied.
I can feel some tiny part of me trying to agree with her, some corner of my mind reframing hundreds of hours of Granddad’s hitting drills as the blessing that got me to that one fortune-changing game …
But that’s her map, not mine. My roads are full of dead ends, and unlike Poppy, I don’t trust the GPS.
I would argue, would explain that she doesn’t understand, but the way she said “I grew up on food stamps” stops me.
“You know I’ve never touched the money,” I say in a low voice. “Felt like ill-gotten gains. Like I didn’t deserve it.”
The sound coming from Poppy’s throat is like a tea-kettle boiling. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
I shake my head.
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Keep your eyes on the road for me. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Open your eyes.” I put my hand on the steering wheel, my finger brushing hers. “And don’t be sick!”
She opens them back up, but her head is shaking. “I know we just met, but I think I hate you.”
A laugh explodes from my mouth. “I didn’t see that coming, Elf on a Shelf.”
And now she’s laughing. “A height joke? You just admitted to having millions of dollars in a bank account; I told you I grew up dirt poor, and now you’re mocking me? You suck, Ollie Fletcher.”
I breathe out another laugh. “Sorry, Poppy … what’s your last name?”
“Lewis.”
“Sorry, Poppy Lewis.”
She shakes her head. “So what changed with your family?”
“Evan got a new lease on life about two years ago, when he met his fiancée. Now he thinks his accident was a blessing in disguise. And after years of ‘MLB or bust,’ my family suddenly changed their tune, at least with Evan. Everything Evan says or does gets a pass. Me, not so much.”
“So they’ve moved on with him, but they haven’t come to accept that coaching is just as good as playing?” she asks.
“It’s not,” I say. Poppy’s warning look screams “I will smash this car against the guardrails to teach you a lesson, so help me.”
“Yeah, maybe I have a good job, but every conversation with my granddad includes him listing my disappointments. And my dad parrots them half the time, too,” I say, because she may have a point, but it doesn’t erase how real, hard, and all too heavy my family pressure is.
“Do you like coaching? Managing?”
“I don’t dislike it.”
“You love it,” she says with a decisive nod. “That’s great. Your family needs to get a handle on their feelings and stop putting them on you.”
I shrug. Again. What is this, my tenth shrug of the day? “I’ll be sure to tell them you said that.”
She scoffs a laugh. We’re approaching the turnoff for the next highway, but Poppy’s eying a sign promising a roadside café. “We should probably stop for a meal, right?”
I’d rather keep going—we’re already burning daylight—but I’ve only eaten peanuts since breakfast, and I’m positive Poppy could say the same.
“Sure. Let’s stop.”
“That’s the first thing we’ve agreed on all day, Ollie Fletcher.”
She’s smiling when she says it, and for a second, the car feels even smaller.
“You can just call me Fletch or Ollie,” I tell her.
She gives me a sideways look as she stops at the light at the turn into the little Colorado town. “I’m really not sure I can,” she says.
“I believe in you, Lewis.”
“You definitely can’t call me Lewis,” she says, turning the wheel.
I watch her a beat too long. “That’s two things we agree on.”