Page 27 of Out of Left Field

He quit a promising baseball career to…be a ranger at a park sanctuary? “Was he hurt?”

“If he was, no one ever knew about it. But he became a father that year and the rumor is that it had something to do with that.”

It had to be more than that. He would have made millions with a career that promising. I shook myself out of my spiraling thoughts. “So Eli Stirling is essentially carving the heart out of the team?”

“Yep.” Eve stabbed at the lettuce in her bowl. “Everyone’s mad. We should be celebrating! I should be excited to see all the fans back in the stadium next month. Instead I’m pulling out my hair dealing with season ticket holders who’ve been with us for ages, celebrities that see us as toxic, and fans not buying tickets.”

“If I convince Eli to extend a contract to Rhett and Erik, will your problems go away?”

“Mostly. There’s still damage control, but the fans will get excited if they know their favorite players are coming back for more than one season. I can’t be a one-year deal.”

The body can’t survive without a heart. A transplant simply wouldn’t do. There was only one solution. “Thanks for talking with me, Eve.”

Her eyes flashed as she set down her tea. “I’ll do anything to get these guys back together. Besides, I have a feeling we could be good friends.”

I had the very same feeling.

Eve hurried back to work while I wandered for a while, popping in and out of shops, strolling down the pier, and staring at the water. I needed to let my thoughts run free. If I tried too hard to control them I would just get frustrated.

I loved the water and the beach. Mei and Jeri’s pleas to get to me to move closer to them almost worked a number of times. But the convenience of my apartment always won out. That, and it was a shorter drive to visit my sister. It always seemed so logical until I was near the water again.

When Allie and I were little it was usually just the two of us and Mom. Dad loved us, I had no doubts about that, but he was always on the road chasing a music career that never quite took off. That meant a lot of my childhood memories were of my mom and not my dad. One of her favorite places was the beach. It became a weekend ritual to wake up, load up the car with a cooler full of food and drinks, beach toys, towels, and chairs, and head off. We spent all day swimming in the water and building sandcastles. By the time we got home I was exhausted and full of joy.

Maybe that’s what always drew me to the water when I needed to think.

I dug out my phone and called Mei. “Is this a bad time?”

She sighed. “No. I’m trapped at my desk staring at a drawing an intern made that is so bad I can’t even. I’m trying to cool down and order my thoughts so I don’t yell at them for being stupid.”

“Well that’s exactly why I’m calling. We’re in similar predicaments.” Mei and I had been friends since elementary school. Her family had more money than mine and moved to the house Jeri lived in now during high school, but before that, we both lived further inland. Sometimes she’d tag along to the beach with us.

“Oh? This Eli Stirling forgetting basic rules of gravity, too?”

Gravity? No. Logic? Absolutely. “I have never—and I do mean never—met anyone who wanted things done his specific way but also in a completely different way, and just keep demanding that everyone around him make it work. Every time I think I’ve gotten through to him, it’s like he gets amnesia.”

“Sometimes people can’t change their frame of reference no matter how many times you show them another,” Mei grumbled. “Or even follow a basic checklist.” Her voice got louder again and then dropped to a whisper. “Do not yell at the interns. Do not yell at the interns.”

“What if I can’t get him to change?” I wasn’t ready to give up, but my options were dwindling quickly.

“Hope for a miracle?”

I couldn’t plan on that. But…maybe I could find someone to help shift his perspective in a way that I couldn’t. If our meeting today wasn’t productive then I’d reach out to Max for ideas. “I just had lunch with the Director of Fan Experience and she gave some insight I think will help. I like her. I think we could be friends.”

“You can’t be friends with Eve Spencer.”

How did Mei know who the Director of Fan Experience was? Mei liked baseball but it was casual. She went to a game here and there because someone else wanted to go. If the game was on in the bar she’d watch it. But nothing deeper than that. Certainly not deep enough to know the names of front office executives. “Why not?”

She sighed dramatically. “Because my best friend cannot be friends with my boss’s wife. That’s too awkward, even for me.”

I sat in silence while I tried to piece this new information together. Finally I landed on the eloquent, “Huh?”

Mei sighed again. “Eve Spencer. Spencer, Hamilton, and Associates. Jake Spencer is one of our two founders—Hamilton and Spencer—and he’s married to Eve Daniels Spencer, baseball royalty of the bay. It’s, like, an epic love story. How do you not know this?”

Because I’ve had my head buried in work for years and years and years? “I’m beginning to realize I’m very ignorant of the baseball world.”

Mei snorted. “Yeah, I’d say flirting with the new manager of the Mantas without knowing he was Isaac Anson definitely falls into that category.”

“Did you know who he was that night?”