Mrs. Milligan said that she and Mr. Milligan had driven to their home, which was only about six blocks from Highland Park. But she said they’d come pick Sarah up in a few minutes.
Cassie said there was no rush, because she and Sarah were headed for Cold Stone.
“We’re going to Cold Stone?” Sarah said after Cassie had stuck her phone into her back pocket.
“Ice cream fixes almost everything,” Cassie said.
Well, maybe not everything, she thought.
But it couldn’t hurt.
• • •
Cassie thought there might be another melt when Sarah said she just wanted a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream.
“But this is Cold Stone,” Cassie said. “Don’t you want lots of cool gooey stuff on it?”
“I like vanilla,” Sarah said.
Cassie told the boy behind the counter, and he said, “Really?”
“Really,” Cassie said, and then ordered Oreo Overload, one of her favorites, for herself.
Cassie paid, having remembered she still had a ten-dollar bill in the back pocket, because she and Jack and the guys had planned to go for ice cream themselves after the game. Then she and Sarah took their bowls and sat at a table by the front window.
Sarah didn’t say anything, or even look up, until she’d eaten all of her ice cream, looking as intensely focused on eating ice cream as she did everything else.
When Sarah was finished, Cassie said, “We can get past what happened today.”
“No . . . we . . . can’t.”
Cassie didn’t want to argue with her. So all she said was, “It’s just the first game.”
“I don’t care,” Sarah said. “Basketball was fun. This isn’t.”
“It wasn’t fun today,” Cassie said. “But losing is never fun.”
Sarah looked down at Cassie’s bowl. “You’re not eating your ice cream.”
“I’d rather talk to you.”
“She lied,” Sarah said.
“Yeah,” Cassie said, “she probably did.”
Sarah looked so hard at Cassie that she felt as if she were getting shoved again.
“Not probably. She did.”
Cassie nodded, and just pushed her ice cream around with her spoon. “She made a mistake in the game and then felt like she had to try to cover it when the game was over. That’s what I think happened.”
“But . . . but that’s wrong.”
“I know it is.”
“Nobody stopped her.”
“Nobody got the chance,” Cassie said. “And even if I believe you, which I do, Sarah, it’s still your word against hers.”
“And the others will take her word.”
“Not all of them.”
“A lot of them,” Sarah said. She paused and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Cassie had placed her phone on the table in front of her, and kept waiting for it to vibrate, and see that Mrs. Milligan was calling. She didn’t know how long she had before Sarah’s parents got here. But she was going to make the most out of the time she had.
“You’re too good to quit,” Cassie said. “Not only are you too good, you’re only going to get better.”
“If it’s not fun, I don’t want to play.”
“Everybody feels like that from time to time. But things will get better.”
“You don’t know that.”
Cassie felt a smile come all the way up from inside her. She couldn’t help it, or stop it.
“Because they can’t get any worse!” Cassie said.
About a minute later Cassie’s phone did vibrate, and she saw it was a text message from Mrs. Milligan:
Parked in front of bookstore.
“Your mom’s here,” Cassie said.
Sarah started to get up. Cassie gently placed a hand on her arm. Sarah stared down at it. But sat back down.
“Just show up for our next game against Moran,” Cassie said.
“Why, because you think you can make things all better?”
“No,” Cassie said. “But my dad will. You can trust him even if you’re not ready to trust me.”
“How can he fix things?”
“It’s a coach thing,” Cassie said. “Okay?”
She reached across the table with a closed fist. For a moment she thought Sarah might leave her hanging.
But she didn’t.
When Sarah touched Cassie’s fist with her own, she did it so lightly, it was like she was afraid she’d break Cassie’s hand if she hit it any harder.
“Okay,” Sarah said.
Cassie didn’t say what was in her head. She just thought it.
Okay, Dad.
You’re up.
ELEVEN
The next day Cassie went to watch the next-to-last practice for the Cubs before their season started.
She thought that if she could just sit in the stands and watch her friends play ball, it would take her mind off all the drama with her own team. It did.
Just not for the reasons she thought it would.
As little fun as Sarah Milligan said she was having on the Red Sox, the guys on the Cubs seemed to be having even less. Jack and the guys had told her what the new coach was like. But he was even worse than Cassie had imagined.
And was starting to make Cassie be the one who was afraid of loud noises.
Mr. Anthony somehow managed to keep a smile on his face even when he was chewing somebody out for not taking an extra base, or for throwing to the wrong base, or missing a sign, or even forgetting to take a strike. It was apparently a new rule on the Cubs that every hitter had to take a strike every single time up.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not a hitter until you take a strike?” Ken Anthony yelled at Teddy at one point, even though Teddy, obviously having forgotten the rule, had just ripped a vicious foul ball just wide of third base.
“Sorry, Coach,” Teddy said.
Cassie was watching Teddy’s face, and could see that he wanted to say something more, but she was hoping he wouldn’t. And he didn’t.
Mr. Anthony was doing the pitching. When Teddy ripped the next strike he saw from him into right field for a clean hit, Mr. Anthony pointed at him and yelled, “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Cassie had no idea what he was actually talking about. She just had this growing sense that this guy thought he had invented baseball, and that everything on the team somehow revolved
