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“Hey, Riley. It’s good. Good. Really good.”
“Sure, yeah. But is it good?” He winked at her, big blue eyes flashing.
Emmy smiled. “How you been?”
“Good.” He laughed, and she couldn’t help but follow suit. It was nice to know some things didn’t change, even though she was now banned from the inner circle of the Sox. She’d made her choice, and it was for the best. She had to remind herself of that.
“How’s the new me?”
“Jason?” Riley shrugged. “He’s not as good as you were. And some days I think Mitch might strangle him for missing the obvious stuff. But that’s life. You know how Mitchy is about change.” He rested a hand on the towel, absently tightening it around his waist. “Anyway, speaking of the old man, he needs me to have my knee looked at.”
“Still taking nasty slides?”
“You know me.”
Emmy smiled and considered giving him a hug, but given his state of undress it might be unwise. “Good to see you, Riley.”
“Hey,” he said, halfway down the hall. “Nice piece in the Sun-Times today.” He gave her a thumbs-up and almost lost his towel in the process.
What piece in the Sun-Times?
Emmy waited until Riley was gone before turning and ducking back into the visitor’s clubhouse. Amongst the copies of Sports Illustrated and Baseball Digest was that morning’s copy of the Chicago Sun-Times. She discarded the world news and local interest, dumped arts and entertainment on the floor and went right to sports like her father every Sunday.
Her own face was looking back at her, the smiling first-day photo she’d had taken for her Felons press release. There was a second inset photo of her, a candid snapshot from her days as the Sox assistant A.T., laughing at something one of the players was saying.
She was too dumbfounded by seeing her picture in the paper to absorb the headline at first. Breaking the Big League Glass Ceiling.
Simon Howell’s byline was beneath it, and a lump formed in her throat.
Her vision blurred, and she couldn’t properly focus on the entire content of the article, but the best she could tell was Simon was singing her praises as a new feminist icon in the sports industry. The first female head athletic trainer of any major league sports team, he pointed out, and an icon for young women everywhere.
It should have been sweet. It should have been flattering. She should have felt something other than a blinding white rage that overcame her.
He wrote an entire article about her without telling her.
The whole goddamn thing was about her, and there were no quotes from her. There were, however, an awful lot from Cassandra Dano at ESPN. She’d met Cassandra a handful of times at different sports dinners, but they weren’t exactly pals. The leggy reporter sounded like a big fan, telling Simon about how Emmy was changing the world one elbow sling at a time.
The fuck?
There were quotes from players on the Sox she’d worked with. Quotes from coaches and managers. And there it was, near the bottom, a quote from goddamn Tucker Lloyd.
We like her, the quote said. I like her. Do I think she’s different because she’s a woman? No. Do I think she’s good for the team? Yes. She’s good for us.
Good for us.
I like her.
More importantly, though…what the hell was Tucker doing talking to Simon about her?
She lowered the paper and looked around the room, hoping something there might offer her a little insight. All she saw was Tucker’s duffel bag and a pair of street shoes tucked into his locker.
Emmy clutched the paper to her chest and marched out of the clubhouse, up through the dugout and into the open air. It wasn’t until she hit the field that she realized it was still
cool outside and she was only wearing her uniform polo. When she crossed her arms, the paper crinkled under her armpit, and she jogged across the field towards the visitor’s bullpen.
The steady whap sound grew louder as she approached, first silence, then the smacking sound of a hard-thrown ball hitting something that wasn’t a glove. The ball-in-glove sound had its own specific, lovely cadence. This was something different.
She got to the gate leading into the bullpen and stopped.
