Yep, I’m the sucker who signed up forthatin a moment of uncharacteristic idiocy.
“Want me to show you the way back down to your office, Doctor Matthews? Or do you remember?”
“No, I’m good. I remember, thank you. And I have the map.” I tapped the folder I was carefully holding.
The guy asking was Mike, the head of facilities and security for the New York Lions. He’d handed me the folder like it contained nuclear launch codes, when really the only code I’d been given was the one to my office, along with a list of essential contact details, and a map of the eleven-acre New York Lions site.
He’d also peppered me with information, only twenty percent of which I’d retained – including, luckily, where my office was.
“Good. Make sure you always have your security pass on you. You won’t be able to get through any door without it. Dial one from the phone on your desk and it comes straight to me or my office. You have a few days to settle in; most of the staff in your department tends to travel with the team so it won’t be too busy down there this week. Not until the boys get back anyway.”
I smiled and nodded. There was no way he could know quite how reassuring that news was.
It had only been two days since I’d arrived in New York; my home for the foreseeable future. And those two days had been spent ricocheting between varying degrees of annoyance, anger, anxiety, denial, dread, and excitement; although the excitement element was negligible compared to the rest of the emotions bouncing around my brain and my belly.
It wasn’t until I remembered that the New York Lions team was on an away stretch this week, and therefore I wouldn’t be running into anyone I didn’t want to see, that I finally relaxed enough to take a full breath. Unfortunately for me that hadn’t been until this morning, while on my way to The Lions Stadium.
I knew, however, that I only had this week to acclimate myself, because I would be on the next away stretch.
And all the stretches until the end of the season.
The end couldn’t come soon enough.
I waved goodbye and took off down the corridor toward the conditioning suites where my new office was based. Mike was right about it being quiet; I hadn’t seen a single person beyond the security at the entrance and grounds-men tidying up the outside, tending to the enormous lion shaped flower beds, and power-hosing the walkways.
It was still early, but I was used to the bustle of the Johnson Space Centre where there was always someone rushing off somewhere, no matter what the time was. In fact, in the seven years I’d worked there since graduating from M.I.T., I’d never been able to get a closer parking spot than the ones in Lot M, a quarter of a mile away from the main doors.
Spying the huge Lions logo on the curved wall at the end, I turned left and took the flight of stairs down two floors, where I was now on the same level as the field. The smell of dry wall and fresh paint was stronger down here.
On the brief tour I’d had this morning, Mike had told me that since Penn Shepherd took ownership of The New York Lions, the entire stadium had been renovated, and it was looking good; clean, polished, and shiny – ‘slick as a space rocket’, my old boss would have said.
Ugh.
Unease gripped my insides again, and I stopped walking until it passed so I didn’t have a full-on meltdown my very first day.
Jesus, Marnie. Pull yourself together.
A small shiver zipped along my spine, but that was more due to the fact I’d left the seventy-eight degree Houston heat for New York’s significantly lower temperature, and wrapped my sweater and jacket tighter round myself.
The weather – another reason I didn’t want to be here.
Two minutes later and I reached the one space I was about to call mine, punched in the entry code, stepped inside and looked around for the second time this morning. When I’d briefly peered in earlier, I hadn’t noticed much more than the size of the space – easily four times that of my last office – with an enormous desk at one end, and a blank white wall at the other, in front of which were two stainless steel tables. But on this second glance, I could see it also contained all the equipment I’d requested over the last six months, since Penn Shepherd had caught me at a weak moment and coerced me into joining his mission.
The mission being to turn his new baseball club into a winning team.
I remembered it as vividly as if it were yesterday.
That day had started with me filing for divorce. The day had ended with me accepting a job offer and a million-dollar salary to leave my role at N.A.S.A., and build a program that got the worst team in the MLB winning.
And how was I going to do that exactly? Astrodynamics and baseball are not the same thing.
Your guess is as good as mine.
So why did I agree?
The first reason we’ve already ascertained: I’m an idiot. The second… I didn’t want to think about.
I closed my eyes and stood there in silence. I stood there so long concentrating on the stillness that I almost fell asleep to the muffled whirr of the lawnmowers on the baseball field the other side of the huge window at the end of the room. I startled myself back to the present when I nearly toppled over.
