Okay, he murmured, a little too celebratory, especially since the Little Extended Family is coming down on them for anti-robot bias.
“…They caught. They slid. They demonstrated some of the finest excitement of HG-inspired baseball.”
“And where the hell did the HGs get their shit from?” Mooshie rested her chin on her hands, looking over his shoulder. The white towel covered her head.
“I have to be polite.”
“Lucky we didn’t turn them all into can openers after the shit they pulled. Posing as humans. Made in whose image?” Her full lips curled. “Enough of that. What do you think of me?”
Mooshie grandly tugged off the towel. Gone were the thick, luscious black curls. Now chopped blonde hair hugged her scalp just above the small ears.
“You don’t look like yourself,” he stammered.
“Not a bad thing since I’m dead.”
“But you looked good.”
Her long grin made him blush. “Would you tell me if I didn’t?”
“Sure.” He knotted his forefinger and index finger toward his eyes, DV for always true.
She patted her heart. “Bet you had the picture.”
His blush deepened toward crimson.
“Come on, gorgeous.” Mooshie pouted huskily, draping her legs, bare to the knees, across his ankles. He nearly fainted. “Admit it.”
The Picture. Mooshie diving head-first into home, her powerful ass muscles reared up as if about to launch a missile strike into Allah Land. For most adolescent boys and girls in America, it was the original entry point into sexual fantasies. Estimates were about ninety-five percent of siblings under eighteen had that picture of Mooshie’s sacred naked ass, sans Yankees uniform. Maybe fifty percent over eighteen. For a while, rumors smoked that every third potential divorce mentioned the photo. A few captured Allahs had her rear in their backpacks. Few? Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Don’t kneel to Mecca, but toward Mooshie’s butt crack. Send Mooshie’s ass to the Grand Mufti and end the war, was a favorite bar slogan.
No one ever knew if it was a doctored photo or if Mooshie had snuck into the stadium and had a picture taken of her patented head-first slide with her uniform bottom around her knees.
“Yes, you did.” She tickled his chin.
“I didn’t,” he shouted as if fourteen. “I considered that sacrilege. Zelda had one.”
Mooshie raised an eyebrow. “Did she show it to you?”
“I wouldn’t look. Pablo did.”
“But not innocent little Puppy?”
“No,” he said adamantly, cheeks burning. “You’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“A ball.” She dumped crackers onto the coffee table. “How’d the old coots do?’
“Good.”
She tilted her head doubtfully and knotted her fingers by her eyes. Puppy described the worst-played baseball game in human history. At least no one got seriously hurt.
She sipped a beer. “What’re you going to do?”
“More practice. Lots more practice.”
“What if it doesn’t work? Your best players are about two hundred years old.”
He hesitated. “Not all of them.”
Off his long, pleading stare, Mooshie sighed deeply. “I can’t, hon.”
“Just play every few games. We need a pitcher.”
She moved into a chair. “Look at me. Even with this disgusting hair style, put me in a baseball uniform and I’m recognized.”
“That would cause some questions,” he conceded.
“Especially since they killed me, handsome.”
His mouth dropped. “I thought you…”
“Killed myself? Toppled over drunk? Nope. Figure as long as I’m back, I’ll find out who. But it was probably Grandma.”
“Grandma wouldn’t do that.”
Mooshie squeezed his wrist a little too hard. “A believer. Touching. I was a nuisance. Much better to discredit me and the Miners. No, kid. I don’t even want to see what Yankee, sorry, Amazon Stadium looks like. I pitched my last game that day. Dodging the bullets. The bodies. The screams.” Mooshie leaned forward, elbows on knees, seeming smaller in memory. She returned with a distant smile. “What other crap do you have to write tonight?”
“The kind that smells good.”
“My specialty.” Mooshie deleted “astonishing” from his report, then erased the entire paragraph. “How many errors today?”
He glanced at his notes. “Twelve.”
“Not bad for both teams.”
“That’s just the Falcons.”
She rolled her eyes and nudged him aside. Mooshie Lopez was writing his game report. He couldn’t believe it. He watched her beautifully molded face with those high cheekbones and thin lips work thoughtfully, laughing to herself, mouthing the words, frowning with mental edits as she two-fingered on the keyboard. At midnight, he cooked up a platter of Edison’s Crumpled Crackers.
Mooshie handed back the laptop.
“Game Three. April 25, 2098. We had real people today. Not greats like Mooshie Lopez, the best player in history, but solid local talent who tried their best to play the game like it hasn’t been played in a long time. They did their best. One of the better ones was Vernon Jackson the catcher who had two hits. The oldest guys…”
Mooshie, he murmured scoldingly. She shrugged, grinning.
“…were Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle whose ancestors once played well and whose talents maybe they haven’t entirely inherited. Mantle never hit the ball and Cobb got only one hit. He also pitched which he did okay considering the Falcons couldn’t hit the side of Grandma’s ass with a building…”
Mooshie! He shook his head, laughing.
“…but the game was sloppy overall and one-sided, not perfect like HGs. That’s what you get with humans. Maybe they’ll get better.”
He cleared his throat. “I’ll make a few edits.”
“Leave it,” Mooshie said sternly. “I don’t do tweaks.”
“Referring to Grandma’s butt…”
“You think she’ll read this?”
“Someone might.”
In all the fifteen years, no one had ever responded to any of his entries. More than two thousand and not even a complaint about a comma.
As he shut down the laptop, Mooshie yawned and kissed him on top of the head.
“Mooshie likes to sleep late so make sure the Two White Grampas don’t wake me up with their belching and farting.”
Shit. The two Grampas. Where were they?
“Nighty-poo, little boo.” Mooshie shuffled down the hallway with a tiny wave.
“Please lock the door if you go out again,” said Puppy.
She peered back around the corner, eyes narrow. “You spying on me?”
“You don’t have a Lifecard, Ms. Lopez.”
Mooshie’s expression eased.
