I felt that melty feeling I’d felt in the Fatburger...

Butterscotch
by Erin Halfelven
40. Spectator

The game started right on time at 1:25 after the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. The Titans came to bat first and right away, I started itching for a program. Did they sell programs here? It was kind of a rinky-dink league but the stadium was nice. And being affiliated with several colleges, maybe they had student interns to put out a program.

I asked Andie. “Do they have programs here? I don’t know anyone on either team except Rory.” They did have an announcer but he didn’t say much, just the name of the batter as they entered the box and what position they played.

“Sure,” said Andie. “There’ll be a butcher coming by to sell them pretty soon.” By butcher she meant the guys who sold things in the stands, programs, peanuts, hot dogs, ices. I don’t know why they’re called butchers.

I didn’t see Rory coming to bat or in the on deck circle but I did spot his blond head on the visitor’s bench. I stared at him, willing him to turn around, but my telepathy wasn’t working. It was kind of silly, he was maybe ten feet away. “Rory,” I called out.

He looked around then stood up and turned to lean on the railing. He grinned at me, moving so he was right in front of where I was sitting. “Hey, babe,” he said. “Good seats, huh?”

I nodded, grinning and resisting a wave of giggles. He looked so good in his crisp baseball uniform. The tallest guy on the team, with muscles and blond hair and that smile. I felt that melty feeling I’d felt in the Fatburger. I stood up and leaned toward him but the wall separating us was wider than it looked. “Poo,” I said. “I wanna kiss!”

He laughed and made as if to kiss the air. Two of his teammates had stood and turned around to watch me, too. “Wow, Hollywood, you got another model girlfriend?” said one of the guys. “Hey, miss,” he said to me, “you come to see Hollywood play?”

“That’s my—uh—my nickname on the squad,” Rory admitted. “Uh, Kissy this is my teammates Crawdad and Lumpy. Guys, my girlfriend Kissy Parker.” Several of the other guys stood to get in on the introductions and a hubbub broke out until one of the coaches ordered them to sit back down.

“Girls, don’t encourage them, I want their heads in the game, not—,” he didn’t finish that thought but just winked at us when the boys did as he asked and sat back down.

“Poo,” I said again before sitting down myself. “I didn’t get a kiss or even a conversation.” The other girls laughed at me but not in a mean way.

Andie reminded me, “They are here to play baseball. And the coaches can fine them if they aren’t paying attention.”

“Really? They don’t get paid but they can be fined?” I shook my head. “That’s not fair.”

Two other girls had joined us in the box, sitting in the second row rather than crowding up front with the four of us who’d claimed seats early. Jordan was the tall black girl wearing cutoffs with her hair in blond cornrows and Micki was another blonde in shorts with red streaks dyed in her hair. I didn’t catch their last names.

The visitors went down in order and the home team the same but the game got interesting to me in the second inning when Rory would come up to bat. He was batting sixth and I didn’t understand the logic of that. The program I’d bought from the butcher showed his stats and his numbers made him look good for the 3 or 4 spot.

I mentioned it to Andie, “He’s got the best slugging percentage on the team, why is he so far down the batting order?” Weirdly, I felt almost personally offended at this.

Andie laughed. “Wow, Princess, don’t have a snit! Look at the columns for extra bases and doubles.”

I took Andie’s teasing to mean I had whined in my complaint but I looked at the numbers she indicated but they didn’t mean that much to me. I frowned at her, okay, I pouted. “I don’t get it,” I said.

“Your guy is slow on the basepaths, his slugging numbers are based on home runs. See? He’s batting sixth because the faster guys are batting before him. He’s a big guy and he runs like one.” She laughed again. “But they want someone on base if he hits a dinger.”

“Oh,” I said.

“It gets even more complicated because he’s a pitcher, too, and even if he’s playing right field today, they might call him up to pitch an inning. Then they might pull him for another pitcher and that might make a hole in the lineup at 3 or 4 with a weak batting pitcher. See?”

“Poo,” I said and Andie laughed again. Now I was going to worry about Rory’s poor base running skills if he got on base. I used the program to fan my face, then lifted my hat and fanned the back of my neck, too. It probably looked awkward but I’d had another of those flashes of heat.

The first Titan in the second inning went down swinging and the second hit a weak grounder direct to the second baseman and was thrown out easily. Rory winked at me as he left the on deck circle to take his place in the box and I made a Kissy face at him, what else?

The Wave Rider pitcher had been throwing nothing but heat and an out-of-zone change-up but it had been working for him. The first pitch came in sizzling, letter-high and maybe outside and Rory reached out with his long arms and put it over the fence with a fierce crack from his bat.

We all watched it go, me giggling like a fiend and bouncing up and down. The Titans had the first score. I poked Andie gently. “He doesn’t get much practice running the bases, but lots trotting them, huh?”

Andie grinned and nodded. “That’s why they call him Hollywood. Not for the street or the movies but for his trot. Watch him.”

I did. Rory jogged around the bases, hat in one hand and both arms above his shoulders. And right between the bases on all four sides, he did a little pirouette, like he wanted the fans in the cheap seats to see his face. But in this small park, there were no bleachers beyond the fence, it was pure showboating.

Andie remarked. “It’s a good thing he’s such a likable ham. Someone could hate him for that shit.” He did one more thing, just as he touched home plate, he looked toward the home team pitcher and gave a tiny respectful nod. And the pitcher nodded back, both of them solemn-faced.

Then Rory disappeared into the hand-slapping crowd of his teammates. He seemed to be heading directly toward me. I was already standing so I leaned as far over as I could, holding out my hand on top of the wall between me and the visitor’s bench. Rory took a running step onto the bench, stretched that long arm and gave me a handslap too, along with a big grin.

“That was one for the princess,” he said.

Andie had to help me back into my seat, I had another case of the giggles and almost couldn’t breathe.

The next Titans batter grounded out to third and the visitors headed out to the field, ahead 1-0. I sighed.

The game turned into a pitchers’ duel, boring if you’re not really with it, baseball strategy-wise. The girls and I chatted while the boys stood around in the sun looking bored, or hid out on their benches where they could eat sunflower seeds and be bored. The pitchers and catchers were working their butts off but no one really cared.

Andie was telling us how her last boyfriend had dumped her via YouTube. He sounded like a 24-karat asshole but the story was devastatingly funny. Bobbie’s tale of ultimate rejection involved her crashing the boyfriend’s mother’s car. Jordan told her story in a fake Jamaican accent that left me gasping for breath again.

It occurred to me that these girls were probably all ex-cheerleaders and student government and maybe even jocks in their own sports. The sort of girls that never gave poor Davey the time of day and here they were, treating me as one of them.

“How about you, Kissy?” Tommi asked after sharing her story of being a dumpee. “Have you got a sad tale to share?”

“Huh?” I said intelligently. After four years of high school, I’d had exactly one date. And of course, that had been with a girl. But there had been something of heartbreak from an earlier time. “Nothing so dramatic as getting abandoned in Avalon,” I said, nodding to Tommi. “But I did get a painful rejection back in middle school.”

“Oh, sure,” Andie teased. “Nobody dumps the Princess.”

“Oh, it was worse than getting dumped,” I said. “I wasn’t allowed to date back then, not until I was fifteen!” True. “But back in middle school, this group of us always brought our lunches so we didn’t have to waste time getting cafeteria food no one wanted to eat.”

I waited for the knowing giggles to subside. “So, Mommie always included a cupcake in my lunch, one of those mini-cupcakes that aren’t any bigger ‘round than a quarter but it was just a nice bite of sweet for her princess, me.” True enough for current values of true but phrasing it like that made me giggle.

“Anyway,” I went on, “this one boy liked me, so he kept stealing my cupcake.” Edgar Most liked me? At the time, I had thought he was just a bully and a thief but now I wasn’t so sure. The girls all nodded at this detail and Mikey rolled her eyes, evidently remembering something similar.

“I didn’t know what to do about it. I mean, I liked the little cupcakes at the end of lunch. And Edgar was kind of a creep.” Laughter. “Usually, he would just pop the cupcake in his mouth and eat it right in front of me. I always took two bites, cause I’m a delicate flower and who wants to open her mouth that wide?” More giggles and a knowing smirk from Jordan.

“But I knew the romance was over the day Edgar took my cupcake but didn’t eat it. Instead he just walked away with his buddies. The little shit.” I stuck that vulgarity in there for the shock value, but seriously, you should have heard what awful names those girls had for their exes. More laughs.

“But the final insult was that later I found my cupcake, actually made for me by my mommie, sitting on top of an anthill and covered with bugs!” That got a chorus of ewws and a few gagging noises.

“So what did you do? Did he keep stealing your cupcakes?” Tommi asked.

“Huh-uh. I did three things. Our group of friends started eating our lunches closer to where the teachers hung out, which was sort of chicken but what else could we do since Edgar and his gang kept bothering us.” Nods. “And I got this other boy from a grade ahead of us, Armand,” who hadn’t yet skipped his second full grade, “to eat with us.” More nods and grins.

“Armand was a much bigger boy than Edgar,” I said remembering.

“And the other thing you did?”

“Oh!” I said. “I told Mommie that I needed two cupcakes for lunch. One for me and one for Armand.” I grinned. “That’s how I got him to eat at our table. He liked the butterscotch ones best.”