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“Hey, Katie, it’s Trish,” the voice said, also shouting, like she was in a noisy environment, as well. “Where are you?”
“We just got off the train at the stadium. I guess Sam called you.”
“Yeah, I’m already here, near the front gate. I’ve got tickets.”
That solved that problem—or did it? “How many?” I asked.
“How many do we need?”
“Well, my friends are with me. We may need the help.”
“I’ve got a stack. Apparently, we have some sort of corporate account. Who knew?”
“We’ll meet you in a second.”
I ended the call and said, “We need to get to the front gate. My coworker Trish has tickets for us.” I attempted a grin. “And if we’re wrong and nothing ends up happening, hey, we get to go to a baseball game.”
“A Yankees game was on my New York wish list,” Nita said.
“And you get to crash your fiancé’s bachelor party,” Gemma said.
“It’s not like we’re going to catch them doing anything too crazy,” Marcia said. “We are talking about Owen here.”
I spotted Trish standing near the nearest stadium gate. When we reached her, I made quick introductions, adding, “All of them are in on the secret and know what’s going on, so we can talk freely. Well, as freely as we can in this kind of crowd. I take it this is an all-hands situation.”
“From what I could tell. Fortunately, I live on this end of town, so I got here pretty quickly. Sam and his people flew in, and I think he called in the other big guns.”
I checked my phone to make sure no messages from while I was in the subway had popped up, then tried calling Owen again. No answer. I got the same result when calling Rod. “Now I’m getting worried,” I said. “They’re not picking up, which means I can’t warn them.”
“Let’s get inside, then,” Trish said. “Do you know where they’re sitting?”
“No idea.”
“They might be in the same block of corporate tickets.”
“I think Rod said something about getting tickets from work when he was planning this,” Marcia said.
“Then let’s start by heading to our seats, in case that’s where they are,” I said. This would have been a great time for Owen’s precognition and strange awareness of what was going on with me to kick in, I thought as we showed our tickets and got through the turnstiles. I concentrated on a sense of alarm and hoped he’d pick up on it. Maybe if he got worried about me, he’d check his phone or call me.
We’d reached the passage to our section when I heard a voice calling my name—my full name. I resisted the urge to groan when I saw Carmen. She wasn’t in full reporter mode, but she looked like she could go on the air at any moment, if called upon. She didn’t have a cameraman with her, but I was fairly certain her station already had a sports crew covering the game. “What’s going on here?” she asked, looking almost as eager as Nita.
“We don’t know yet,” I said. “With any luck, nothing will go on, not that most people will notice.”
“I’ll notice, though, right?”
“It depends on how observant you are.”
“You told her?” Trish asked. She only sounded mildly surprised, not shocked and horrified, which I found reassuring.
“We need all the help we can get, and she helped me figure out what was happening,” I said. To the rest of my friends, I explained, “Carmen is like me, a magical immune.” Turning back to Carmen, I added, “And you might as well join us.” I made quick introductions all around before we continued our search for our seats—and, I hoped, the guys.
When we made it close to the row listed on our tickets, I sighed with relief to see the backs of some familiar heads. There was tall, fair-haired Philip, slouched in his seat and looking bored. Next to him was Jake, bopping his head to some inner music (or possibly tiny headphones). Owen was next to him, watching the game intently, and Rod sat beside him. I allowed myself a tiny sigh of relief that at least one thing had gone easily for us. I hoped that was a good sign for the way the rest of the day would go. The guys were caught up enough in the game, which seemed to have just started, not to notice us. Philip, who had little interest in modern baseball, was the first to spot us standing in the aisle beside them. He reached around Jake to nudge Owen, who turned to see us. “Katie? What are you doing here?”
Rod turned and said, “Hey, don’t you know that the bride crashing the bachelor party is bad luck?”
“I never heard that,” I said.
“Well, it’s not cool. You’re cramping our style.”
