Page 11 of View With Your Heart

I definitely want to run the bases with her again.

Summer goal—get to know Britton McKay again.

Take 5

Scene: The Baseball Field (continued)

[Britton]

My brain is muddled. I’m still trying to get over the fact Gavin Scott is actually standing before me. My heart flutters faster than a jump sequence in ballet, and a spot on my body long neglected is thumping in rhythm with my rapid pulse.

“We’re gonna play,” Gavin replies to Gee while looking at me, and I wonder if he has any recall of saying those words to me once upon a time.

It was the summer we first met. By the time Gavin found me at a party hosted by my cousin, I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie date, as he called it, where we shared a cool theater on a hot summer day. It wasn’t so much the movie I wanted to see but the heat relief and the sweet popcorn. I was spending the summer with my great-uncle Leo, and his small cottage did not have air conditioning.

“What do I need air-conditioning for? We have the lake to cool us off.” His quaint home on a point jutting into Elk Lake was cool and comfortable most days, but that day, it had been incredibly warm. Or maybe it was just my reaction to Gavin. He was smooth, confident, and funny. His running commentary throughout the scary movie had me laughing instead of screaming. When the movie ended, I didn’t know how to play it with a boy who looked like a man already. I was a quiet girl who loved girlie things. Ballet. Pink tulle. Pretty shoes. I didn’t date. I practiced night and day, praying I could perfect every move.

My downfall was . . . popcorn.

I needed to stay thin, but I struggled. In the world of ballerinas, anything over one-hundred ten pounds was too heavy, and my sights were set on the theater stage. Those were big dreams for sixteen. A time when one thinks all things are possible, like falling in love with a boy on a summer vacation and hoping you can last when the seasons change.

“Mom, move,” Gee commands, breaking into my thoughts.

“Uhm . . .” I look from Gee to Gavin. My heart continues to hammer in my chest.

“I’ve got a few minutes,” Gavin remarks, and the comment strikes hard. A few minutes. Not much time. Only temporary. Gavin isn’t staying in this town. He’s passing through like he once did, and this moment will be a blip in his memory, like the summer we once shared and the weekend I once had with him.

“You aren’t exactly dressed to play ball,” I state, taking note of his jeans, dress shirt rolled to his elbows, and slick shoes—shoes not made for a mound of sand, let alone a beachfront ballpark, or even this small town. The leather and hard soles made a statement. He’s no longer from these parts, and he’ll walk away as soon as he can.

“I’ll manage,” he says, breaking into a cool, confident smile, so similar to when we were young.

Gavin and I dated the summer I was sixteen, racing the clock to a finish line marked by my return to my hometown and his move across the country for college. His summer was filled with physical training and baseball practice to stay in shape before his move. Mine was meant to be a getaway from my divorcing parents. Gavin was leaving in August, cutting his summer short, but we had time, he told me, to learn about one another, and we certainly did discover each other, especially our bodies.

Blindly, I place a ball in his outstretched hand and walk to the edge of the field. Standing behind the backstop while Gavin takes the mound, I marvel at his current physique, more solid than his late-teen frame. He still has that wave to his dark brown hair, and the added beard on his jaw enhances his aging good looks. His shoulders are broad like a laborer and his hands large, which he informed me helped him in baseball.

First base. I hear the whisper of our youth in my head. Gavin is kissing me in my memories as we fall onto a hotel bed.

I’m curious how he ended up in film. The last time I saw him, he was about to make commercials as a rising baseball player. Admittedly, I didn’t follow sports much. My focus was on ballet. When I saw him that fateful weekend, I’d just completed my first year with Dance Midwest, a professional dance company in Grand Rapids. I hadn’t made the cut for the ballet company I’d dreamed of since I was a child. Still, it was a job dancing daily, which was a dream in and of itself.

Second base. My eyes are glued to the curl of Gavin’s hand around the baseball, recalling how he cupped my breasts with those palms. Squeezing. Kneading. Tugging at me until I couldn’t take it anymore.

My fingers grip the metal fencing to steady myself as I watch Gavin pitch. My heart skips a beat at the attention he’s giving my boy.

Does he notice anything about Gee? Does he question why he likes baseball?

These are ridiculous questions. Thousands of kids love baseball, and just as many have light brown hair and deep, dark eyes. Gavin doesn’t know what he’s looking at—or rather who—and it doesn’t matter. His radio silence thirteen years ago had put things in perspective. He didn’t want me. He rejected me.

His current presence brings a new concern. I need to get Gee out of here.

“One more, buddy, and then it’s time to go.”

“Aw, Mom, just a few more minutes,” Gee whines. He’s become more argumentative this summer. I’d attribute it to Theo, but I know better. Gee misses Patrick, especially with the invite to Cooperstown, where the Baseball Hall of Fame exists. In a few weeks, Gee’s team of twelve-year-olds will play in the Upstate New York competition. Through some extra penny pitching and generous fundraising, I was able to secure a spot for both of us to attend. I don’t want to miss a moment of his fun. Patrick would have loved it.

Saddened by the reminder that my husband will not see Gee play, I call back to him.

“Five more minutes,” I warn as every mother does. If he gets his way, it will be more like ten. I want it to be less because Gavin needs to go. On repeat, I remind myself that it’s a fluke he’d pulled into this lot, on this lake, at this time. I was not meant to see Gavin again, and I’ve believed that for thirteen long years.

“Okay, buddy,” I call out.