That made me laugh. I had deliberately not gone too far with Phil, Roc, and Yuri; instead, I’d just tried to make them more presentable. I’d remembered how worried I’d been when my freshman-year ‘sex tutor,’ Cindy, had changed my appearance. Even worse was when Ford Models had let their ‘artist’ loose on me. I’d had to remind the agency that if I wore makeup at school, I would get my butt kicked. I knew exactly what these three were worried about. It had taken all this time for me to be sufficiently comfortable to wear the clothes I currently had on in public.
“Do you think they look like that?” I prodded.
“No, but I know you well enough that I could see you making me look goofy just for the fun of it,” Allard admitted.
The other two watched at me suspiciously.
“He has a point,” Daz said.
“What you’re all looking for is a cleaned-up version of yourself that attracts women and makes you appear a little older,” I guessed.
“That would be perfect,” Austin said.
“You also know I live in Arkansas. I can’t be citified,” Allard said with concern.
“So, no eyeliner,” I said with a straight face.
“What? You have eyeliner on?” Daz asked. I looked over, and his eyebrows had disappeared into his bangs.
“Doesn’t it make my eyes pop?” I teased.
“This was a mistake,” Austin said, backing up.
“I’m only teasing. You’re my teammates. Do you really think I would make you look foolish?”
Okay, that was probably the wrong question, but they finally calmed down. I told them to ask around and see who else wanted some help. I made it clear that it might cost them some money because a good haircut wasn’t cheap. It looked like most of them went to Cheap Cuts and got their Wednesday special when the barber school came in for practice.
◊◊◊
Once everyone was downstairs, it was off to Mexico. When we got off the plane, I was happy to see Fritz and Paul in the airport debarkation area. They’d gone down a day early to prepare for everyone else’s arrival. I was glad they were there when we cleared customs and got to the section of the airport where the press could get in.
I was standing next to Coach Kingwood when we saw the paparazzi waiting.
“Let me go first and draw them off. I’ll talk to them until you text me that you have everyone on the bus, and then we’ll join you,” I planned.
I quickly found my security team around me. Poor Chuck looked a little green; he’d never experienced anything like this before. I’d dealt with it in LA, and it was simply crazy in Japan. I soon found out that Mexico loved baseball. Of course, I was American, which made them want to hate me. But I was also in movies. I found that the two conflicting feelings sort of canceled each other out. I think I won some of them over when I could do my interviews in broken Spanish.
The airport police showed up and made us move out through the exit. That was a mistake because there was a large crowd of fans waiting outside.
“What should we do?” I asked Fritz.
We could see the team’s bus was at the far side of the pickup lane, and my teammates were getting on.
“I think it would be safer to just push through and get you on the bus,” Fritz decided.
I was happy when the police helped us navigate through the crowd so I could escape. When I was finally on board, I looked toward the back of the bus and was met with stunned silence.
“That was special,” I announced.
Phil had saved me a seat.
“That totally sucked,” he observed.
“It’s all part of it. This was a little out of control, and you never really get used to it, but it’s the price you have to pay,” I explained.
◊◊◊
Thankfully, there were no crowds at the hotel. I did see Jeff, my favorite reporter, with his camera crew. I had Paul take my bags up to my room so I could talk to Jeff.
“You missed the circus at the airport.”
“No, we caught it. We just decided to stand back and film the craziness. Do you have time for an interview?”
“Sure. I need to get used to you following me around.”
“When you say it that way, it sounds a little creepy,” Jeff said with hooded eyes that made me wonder about him.
USA Baseball had a room for interviews in the hotel. I found a man sitting there that I didn’t recognize.
“Jonathan Stoddard, Major League Baseball dot com,” he said as he shook my hand.
“David Dawson. This is Jeff Delahey and his film crew. You mind if they record this? They’re following me around, doing a documentary.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’ve never had someone film me like this,” Jonathan admitted.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
“I’m down here to put together a story on potential prep draftees that are here for the COPABE Pan Am ‘AAA’ Championships. My idea is to do one story on the prospects from the US and then another on the international players.”
“Why do you want to talk to me? I plan on going to college and skipping the draft.”
“As the captain of Team USA, you have a lot of potential as a draft pick. Once we get closer to the draft, I’d like to do another story on just you regardless of whether you enter the draft,” Jonathan said.
“I’d love to,” I said with a smile.
