I was about to give bad advice. I already wished I could take it back. Third-grade girls were relentless, and this lovely girl was already the butt of their attention because of her teeth, which were capped with stainless steel from a combination of bad diet and genetics. I didn’t want her to own it. I wanted to keep her in the library all day and teach her to read.
“It’s easier to say it was soda.”
“My mother says not to lie.”
Her mother was a rigid Catholic who often took Iris to clean offices at night because she couldn’t find child care after six. I’d have let her stay with me, but that Bible-sized rule book wasn’t a joke. Teachers didn’t babysit. End of. So I let her come into the library at recess and sleep by my desk.
And she wanted to take ownership of her incontinence. She was going to be a wonderful woman, and I felt a swell of pride as if I’d had a small part in the creation of something beautiful.
“All right,” I said. “Then if anyone asks, you say you peed and tough nuts if they don’t like it.”
“I give them the finger?”
“No!” I tried to be very serious, but I was laughing. “Just say, ‘Too bad if you don’t like it,’ okay?”
“Okay.”
“Give me a hug.”
She wrapped her arms around me. I nearly fell over from the velocity of her affection, but I caught my balance and squeezed her.
I hustled the third graders onto the field where tables and lines waited. It was a zoo but a contained one. My kids lined up in front of Jack Youder, the veteran second-baseman. Of the twenty-five-man roster, seven players had shown up, including the mysterious Dash Wallace, who never showed up to anything. He was the one of the five I needed. The rest were easy-peasy.
I let the kids go first, staying at the back of the line while Jim guided the kids with autographs to the back of Charlie Finnegan’s line. If the kids had nothing to sign, the player gave them a glossy stadium program. Three of my kids had brought hats. Iris had brought an old ball.
“And how old are you?” Youder asked when I got to him.
“Twenty-four.” I didn’t get the joke because I was pulling Diego from under the table.
“And what grade are you in?”
I smiled at Youder once Jim had control of the rambunctious child, and I handed Youder my dad’s birthday ball. He rolled it around, looking for a space.
“Just finished grad school, sir. Hoping to be a grown-up someday.”
He smiled at me. At forty, he was in his last years of play, and they’d been good to him.
“Me too.” He found a space and signed with a Dodger-blue Sharpie. “I hear it’s a drag though.” He blew on the signature so it wouldn’t smudge.
“You’re a free agent after this year,” I said. “Are you staying or going?”
“You’re really up to the minute, aren’t you?”
“Sorta.”
“Well, we’ll see. I don’t think anyone’s looking for maturity on the field right now.”
Youder was always a charming presence at press conferences, with a warm smile and ready wit, but he took half a beat before the word maturity, and he looked suddenly rueful. I felt stupid for asking. It was like asking a woman how much weight she’d lost.
“We love you,” I said. “You should stay.”
He handed me the ball with dry ink. “I’ll think about it.”
“Thanks!”
I had Finnegan, Flores, and Jackson already. I got Trudeau and Bonneface while constantly counting kids in yellow Hobart Elementary hoodies. As I was about to get in Wallace’s line, a whistle sounded.
A voice from a bullhorn followed. “Everybody to the tables for lunch!”
Suddenly the space in front of Dash Wallace’s table was a ghost town, and I stood there with my ball in my hands and my heart in my throat.
Here’s the thing about Dashiell Wallace: he was physically perfect. Six two and a half. Proportioned by DaVinci and sculpted by Michelangelo. In the middle of summer, he rolled up his sleeves, and the roped muscles of his tanned forearms twisted and tightened when he handled the ball. This perfection was apparent on the TV whether he was standing still or flying through the air. Nothing got past him. The space between second and third was his domain, and three Golden Gloves into his career, Dodger pitchers made it their business to make sure the batter pulled left, and the opposing batters tried to thread the first base line for all it was worth just to avoid him.
He was magical. And there he was. Right there. In uniform. Three feet from me, looking at me face to shoulders and breasts to hips with sky-blue eyes and black hair even more perfect than the TV could contain.
“?Se?ora Foster!” a child cried from behind me. “?Necesitamos su firma para que nos puedan dar el lunch”
Dammit. She wanted my signature. I was the sponsoring faculty, and I’d been the one to do the paperwork, so I was the one who had to release their hot lunches.
I held the ball out to Wallace. “Hi, this is for my dad, but I’m a huge fan.”
“You’re a teacher?” He looked me up and down again.
“School librarian. You’re the second-to-last one I have to get.”
He took the ball, turned it around, then locked his eyes on mine. “You have the whole roster on this thing?”