Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
COOPER
I step outside to the balcony and rest my arms on the railing. I have a perfect view of the well-lit golf course from up here, and if it weren’t so dark, I could see Pinnacle Peak in the distance.
It’s weird to be in a place I used to call home and yet to not feel at home. My mom’s call doesn’t help.
I love my parents. They tried as hard as any two people could. My dad could have won every Father of the Year trophy since the day I was born. My mom did her very best, and I’d give her all the awards I could, too … if only she could show up to the ceremony.
My mom developed agoraphobia when I was in elementary school. At first, it manifested with her not wanting to be out in big places—malls and movie theaters. But slowly, her world got smaller and smaller. When her condition got to the point that she couldn’t leave the house, dad quit his job as a long haul trucker to take something close to home.
The first year of her being shut in was brutal. I felt rejected and hurt and totally alone, even though my dad was around more than ever. In my little kid brain, I couldn’t understand why I had to live my life on Mom’s terms for her to be involved. I didn’t understand why she only loved me at home but not enough to leave it. Such intense anxiety was completely foreign to me, but my sadness was obvious to my parents.
My dad and I would go on walks to the green space near our apartment complex and he’d let me talk. He tried to give me perspective about what my mom was going through, but I couldn’t connect with her.
Dad became everything to me that first year after Mom’s diagnosis. He signed me up for any sport I wanted and found ways to coach most of them. I was good at all of them the way naturally athletic kids are when they’re young. But it wasn’t until he put me in baseball that everything changed.
I hit a home run in my very first game. And I’m not talking about one of those home runs where a kid pops up and the other kids scramble and fall all over themselves trying to catch it. I hit it over the rec league’s fence.
Our team went wild, and the stadium erupted. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. It was the most seen I’d ever felt. And when I got home that night, I was too excited to be hurt that my mom hadn’t come to the game. I told her every detail about my home run, including the two pitches before, the way the other team crowded the infield, all of it.
Mom laughed and cheered every second. “Tell me again!” she begged, so I did. And when she started crying the second time I told it, I felt how much she loved me. I’d always “known” she cared, but in the months leading up to her diagnosis and the months since, I’d felt overlooked and unimportant to her.
But here she was, crying because she was so happy. She was so happy!
After that, we recorded the games and watched them together when Dad and I got home. But the videos were never enough for her.
“I don’t want to just see it,” she’d say. “I want to feel it! Tell me how it felt!”
So I started giving her play-by-plays of every catch and hit. The showier, the better. She ate it up with a spoon.
Soon, she had balloons and streamers waiting for me when I got home from a tournament. She would make posters and a cake and decorate the house. She would go all out to make me know how much she loved me, how much she celebrated me.
But it wasn’t only the big moments where she made this effort. It was like her success in celebrating my achievements on the field made her realize how special she could make our home life. Homemade breakfast every day. Family game nights and movie nights.
It became clear how much she cared about the minutiae of every moment of my life, inside or outside our house. And that filled me with a need to bring my life to her. To make her feel like she wasn’t missing anything by not going out into the world.
Liesel loves baseball, and I know there’s something going on with that whole Christmas Adam thing that she isn’t talking about. Maybe if I open up, she will.
But then I’d have to open up about something I don’t talk about to anyone who doesn’t already know.
The glass door slides open, and I hear Liesel make her way out to join me.
“Finally come to finish the job, huh?” I ask, gesturing to the ground below us.
“I don’t think I could throw you over if I tried, and I don’t like failing at things, so I’ll let you live.”
I sniff a laugh. She’s funny. I’ve seen that a handful of times tonight. She’s quick on her feet, too, and she can hang in an argument, no question. What’s odd is that I’m not normally a disagreeable person. I’m showy, but I’m not typically a button pusher. But Liesel makes me want to become one. She’s a shiny, bright red button that I want to push and push and push …
I’m an adult.
“It’s 2 a.m.,” Liesel says, “and we need to make some decisions. Are you … okay?”
“Fine.” It’s a brisk night for Arizona. I’m chilly, but Liesel doesn’t seem fazed.
“We’re down to my brothers or Colt and … Betancourt or Jessup. I don’t care. But we need to come to a consensus. So can you tell me the real reason why you don’t want Colt? If we signed him to a big enough deal, you two could play together for a long time.”
I huff. I’m too tired to filter myself like I should. “He reminds me of all the rich kids I faced growing up in club sports.”
“So? You played on those same teams. You were clearly one of them.”
“I was not one of those kids.” My throat hurts when I swallow. “I was a scholarship kid.”
“A lot of players in the majors were.”
“Not as many as there should be. You want to talk about everything that’s wrong about baseball? Club and travel teams take the cake. My dad worked his butt off, but club sports have ruined meritocracy. The most talented kids don’t always get the chance to play anymore because their parents aren’t rich enough.”
“That’s true,” she says, much to my relief. Her dad’s a huge deal in the league. He definitely did well enough for them.
“The Colton Spencers of the world have never liked me. I was the kid who took their less-talented friend’s place on the team and all because I was ‘poor,’ as they saw it. So much of baseball is about community, but on those teams, it was cutthroat. I was allowed to play with them, but they made sure I knew I couldn’t sit with them.”
“Cooper—“
“Spare me the pity,” I say. I’m torn between feeling frustrated about my admission and guilt for snapping at her. I never talk about this stuff, and here I am, spilling the tea to the last woman who wants to talk to me . “I don’t need it. You worked down in Costa Rica where the kids would have killed for a sob story like mine.”
“That’s true.”
“Exactly. And it’s not even really a sob story. Kids from America don’t know hardship like kids from Third World countries. I’m being soft.”
“You think because bad things happen to other people in the world, you’re not allowed to feel the bad things that have happened to you?”
The lump in my throat started as a marble and has swelled to a softball. “Guys like Colt are subtle. They know how to say the right things in public so they can get away with saying all the wrong things in private. No one would believe Colt's poisonous because he carries himself right.”
She tilts her head. “I haven’t seen that.”
“You mean you haven’t watched for it.” I pull up my phone and find the clip of the interview he had after I hit the home run and blew him a kiss. And backflipped onto home plate. The video of Colt's response has nearly as many views as the video of the incident itself.
I skip to Colt's answer.
“I don’t want to talk about whether or not Coop was being disrespectful. I want to focus on winning the next game.”
“It was a classy response. I don’t see the problem,” Liesel says.
“Classy? Now watch this.” I rewind to the question the journalist actually asked.
“Colt, you said last week that Cooper would be too busy doing backflips to get a hit off you, but he was three for four tonight, including that famous homer where he celebrated in exactly the way you accused. How does that feel?”
“I don’t want to talk about whether or not Coop was being disrespectful to me and to the game. I want to focus on winning the next game.”
Liesel’s mouth falls open. “Whoa. They didn’t ask about you , they asked how he felt about being put in his place. No one even mentioned that you were disrespectful until Colt said it.”
“Exactly!” Months of irritation rise off of me like steam from a hot tub. “That’s what I’ve been saying!”
She rewinds the video and watches it again, and this time, I see the annoyance on her face. And it makes my eyes sting. “What a jerk move! How did I miss that?”
“He knows how to make a soundbite.”
She gives me a flat look, but it can’t erase the softness in her eyes. “So do you.”
“Not like that. I don’t know how to twist my words. I know how to get attention. I know how to put on a show.”
“And you do it better than anyone.”
I chuckle beneath my breath. She’s right, and I’m not ashamed of the fact.
“Is this enough to take him off the table?” she asks.
“I can’t recommend the guy when I know half his team hates him.”
“What about the other half?”
“They haven’t met him.”
“So are you saying you can’t work with him?” she asks.
“We hate each other’s guts.”
“Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippin didn’t get along.”
“That’s basketball.”
“Okay, Jonathan Papelbon choked Bryce Harper, and they worked it out.”
I laugh weakly. “Can I be the one to choke him?”
“Ha. Would you prefer my brothers?”
I bump my head on the railing. “What do the stats say?”
“Colt Spencer and Jessup, that’s what.”
I groan.
“Tell me about it,” she says. “This would break my mother’s heart.”
I lift my head up and look at Liesel. The lights from her suite are bright enough that I can make out the frown on her face. “Would?”
She puts her elbows on the railing beside me. “My mom had Lou Gehrig’s Disease—ALS—for a long time. She lived just long enough to see my brothers get drafted together for the same team.” Her eyes well with tears. “It was one of the happiest days of her life and the last good day she had.”
“Shoot,” I say, wishing I could take back half of my words and all of my attitude from earlier. “I’m sorry, Liesel. Now I feel like a jerk for saying you weren’t being rational.”
“You were a jerk,” she says. “But you weren’t wrong.”
Our shoulders and arms are only a few inches apart, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her. “I get why you want to look out for them. Regardless of what happens this week, they’re going to be okay. You’re right that they’re strong prospects, and they’re part of our organization. Besides, we still have the extended roster.”
Her eyes widen. “That’s right. We do. That’s enough, isn’t it? They’re good enough for that?”
“They are. No question. They’ll be in the majors in no time.”
This should comfort her, shouldn’t it? But she buries her face in her hands, and I tug them down. Her skin is soft and warm enough that I wish I’d brought a jacket.
“Hey, don’t worry. They don’t know about any of these discussions. They’re not missing out on anything. And—” I inhale sharply. I can’t believe I’m about to say what I’m about to say, but making a woman cry wasn’t on my Christmas list. “Your forecasts are compelling. I think we should recommend your brothers for the extended roster and sign Colt.”
“Really?” She throws her arms around me, squeezing me like a boa constrictor. “Thank you, Coop! Kathy’s going to be so relieved that we have a good solution.”
I pat her shoulder, noticing that the muscles in her arms extend to her back. I like a girl who works out.
Not this girl, specifically. A girl.
She releases me quickly, and I’m only disappointed because I’m cold and she’s somehow retained more warmth than I have.
Also, she smells like cotton candy.
“But we need to put together a customized training program for your bros and convince them to listen . You’re a geek in the spreadsheets, right?”
She laughs nervously. “Yeah. We can do that.”
“And then when the call comes—and it always comes—the Fischer twins will be ready.”
“They’re triplets,” she says.
“Unless you’re planning to suit up, I think you’re going to have to get used to them being called the wrong name.”
“Right, because a whole lifetime of experience hasn’t prepared me for that.”
I tap her forehead. “Hey, you’re a big deal in the Firebirds’ front office. You’re important enough to make recommendations directly to the GM. Your brothers might be a big deal. They’ll probably be a big deal. But right now, they’re Liesel Fischer’s brothers. The thought of you giving that up has to suck at least a little.”
She gives me a look. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
I look back over the golf course. The lights are bright enough that a few people are even playing. My elbow hurts just thinking of trying to swing a club. “I could be wrong.”
“You’re not wrong.” She inhales and exhales slowly. “I’ve never had anything that’s my own. I’ve been looking out for my brothers since my mom got sick when we were thirteen. Working for the Firebirds is the only thing that’s ever really felt like it was mine . Sometimes … sometimes I wish they didn’t play for our affiliate. I can’t fail them if they play for someone else.”
“You don’t seem like you’re capable of failing anyone.”
She snorts. “We were in the same meeting with Kathy and Marty.”
I nudge her shoulder with mine. “You didn’t fail. You got into a heated work discussion with a cocky jerk.”
“When you put it that way …” she teases.
I breathe in the dry, cold air, and my teeth chatter together. My elbow is starting to throb. I rotate my arm slowly. “What you’re saying makes sense. It’s hard when you’re constantly having to keep it together for someone else. When it feels like their happiness rests solely on your shoulders.”
“Yup.”
“It’s not true, though. We can’t be the only part of the equation.”
“We?”
I shake my head. That was a slip worthy of Freud. “In the broadest sense,” I say. “At some point, we have to accept people for who they are and where they are. And they have to own their own happiness.”
“That sounds easy,” she says sarcastically.
“Oh, yeah. Simple.”
She gives me a half smile, and I shiver again.
“It’s 55 degrees,” she says. “How are you so cold?”
“Because it’s 55 degrees,” I say. “This is winter.”
She laughs. “This is not winter. This is barely fall weather. Do you need a blanket?”
“How do you not?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“You Midwesterners have ice in your veins.”
“You Southwesterners are soft.”
“Say that again when you’re burning to a crisp in 122 degrees.”
“It’s a dry heat.”
“So is a forest fire.”
She laughs. “If you’re so cold, why have you stayed in Chicago this winter? Why not go home?”
I don’t like where this question is headed. “Because my doctor and rehab is all in Chicago. The more I travel, the more I risk messing something up,” I say.
“I bet you miss your parents.”
“All the time,” I say honestly.
I will never, ever resent my mom for her illness. It’s hard, and it’s left a mark on me, but I wouldn’t resent her if she had cancer, and I won’t resent her for mental illness, either.
But it is hard.
On all of us. But especially on her.
She’s missed so much. And if it were up to me, she’d never miss out on anything again. But afteralmost twenty years of watching her struggle with it, I’m past trying to fix her. My only job is to love her.
Even if the only thing I’ve ever wished is for her to come to one of my games. Or even to my house for Christmas.
“You know,” I say, hiding behind a yawn. “The one thing Chicago has over Arizona is that it’s way more Christmasy.”
She groans, yawning, too. “Oh no. You’re a Christmas fanatic, aren’t you?”
“I have a Santa cowboy hat. Is that even a question?”
“Bah humbug,” she says. She stretches out her arms. “Should we get back to work?”
“Lead the way.”
She does, and I follow. And for the first time tonight, I don’t mind.