Page 24 of The Virgin Game Plan (Rules of Love 2)
That bright spot, though, is marred by a post-season interview that goes sideways.
8
Holden
The day after my sophomore season ends, a reporter from a Seattle paper asks the team’s publicist about interviewing me for a profile piece—a local-boy-makes-good kind of thing. I agree to meet the guy at Doctor Insomnia’s Tea and Coffee Emporium in Capitol Hill while I’m visiting my parents in Washington.
Carlotta can’t make it to the interview, since she’s in Los Angeles, but we review talking points in advance—focus on the season, goals for next year, and all the things I love about the city.
“It’ll be a puff piece,” she says. “Just go on and on about the Space Needle.”
I groan. “I hate the Space Needle. No one from Seattle likes it.”
“Don’t say that to Vince,” she says. “How about the Gum Wall? Everyone Instagrams that.”
“Chewed gum pasted on a wall is nasty. No self-described Seattleite likes it.”
“Don’t mention that either, then. What do you like in your hometown?”
“Lots of stuff. The Ballard Locks. They help salmon swim upstream. Also, coffee. And walking around the city with my parents.”
“Perfect. Talk about fish, caffeine, and family.”
“Easy enough.”
Famous last words.
The day of the interview, I head into the coffee shop, looking for a bearded guy with glasses, someone who matches the headshot that runs with his articles. I spot him in the corner, laptop open, watching the door. As I make my way over, he rises, flashes a grin, and says hello. “Cortado for you, Holden? That’s your favorite, right?”
He must have listened to Reese’s podcast. That was the first time anyone asked me about my drink of choice. Suddenly, I’m picturing her face, her lips, her smile.
“It is. And that’d be great.”
He heads to the counter while I trip back in time, to that one perfect day.
The honesty and the connection, the banter and the real talk.
And the sparks that flew like an electrical wire.
What is she up to in South America? What is she doing? Does she still wear a lot of red? Does she keep in touch with her friends? Does she dig teaching kids about media and podcasting?
A smile tips my lips as I remember my what-if woman.
I haven’t googled her in ages. I did at first, right after I met her. I found exactly what I thought I would—pics of her with her friends on her Instagram and her podcast website.
Last time I checked her feed, she’d posted a shot of a pair of teenage girls in Bogotá who’d started a podcast about art heists, with a caption that said, Proud of these two!
That was it.
I haven’t checked since then. There’s no point.
A few minutes later, Vince returns with my drink—espresso and a bit of warm milk—along with a soy latte for himself.
“Knew about the cortado from the college interview. The one with the podcaster. Good stuff there,” he says, and I try to give nothing away, to keep the smile spreading inside me from showing too much. “Helped me a lot with background info.”
“We had a good chat,” I say, keeping things friendly but kind of generic, like Carlotta said.
“Thanks for doing this interview. I always like talking to local personalities. Getting to know them. Seeing why they love the city.”
“Can’t beat the rain. Well, as long as there are retractable roofs for playing ball.” Not a bad platitude. This is going to be easier than I thought.
He smiles then dives into the meat of the interview, asking standard questions about the game, why I love it, what I want for next season.
Then he peppers me with questions about growing up here. I keep it vague but positive, giving him some nuggets about the Ballard Locks and my favorite coffee haunts for color, but keeping my life and family close to the vest. Because family is private.
Except when it’s not.
When the piece runs the next week, it’s a dissection of my parents—how they met, where they teach, where they live. It might as well include a picture of their house and the route my brothers take to school.
Oh, because that’s in there too. “When Kingsley was called up to the major leagues,” Vince writes, “the first thing he did was yank his younger brothers from public school, putting them in one of the city’s swank and high-priced private high schools. He believes those are better than the public schools he attended, citing woeful inadequacy in public education.”
I see red.
I call Carlotta. “I said none of this. He must have dug up all this info on my parents and then made up this shit about my brothers. I said nothing of the sort.”
“I’ll talk to Vince.”
But the damage is done.
This article makes me look like a bougie prick in my hometown. My brothers don’t say much, but Mom lets it slip that they got hassled at school for being little chess pieces in my life.
