“Really? How will I work my magic if she doesn’t see my impressive package on the big screen?”
“You mean your big butt,” Halle corrected.
If Mr. Quiroz hadn’t been droning on about income statements, she might have been in trouble.
“Okay, wise one, what should I do?” I asked.
“Thank you. I was afraid you might mess this up. Dinner’s a nice idea, but you need to do something where you two can talk. Sitting in a movie won’t accomplish that,” Halle said.
“I could do what I did on our last date. I liked how that went,” I suggested.
How is it that girls can ignore what you say if they don’t like it?
“You could take her to church,” Halle suggested, just to be mean.
“Why don’t I just ask her?” I asked.
“I was only getting started,” Halle said, and then gave me a look. “When is
“You could come over tonight, and we could practice our lines,” I suggested.
“I accept, but I want a real date.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and I’ll plan it. It’s obvious you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I suppose I’ll have to take Brook out as well,” I said, trying to think things through.
“No. I don’t think Brook would want a date,” Halle said as she bit her bottom lip, obviously fibbing.
I just rolled my eyes. Halle wouldn’t be my go-to person to plan any of the other girls’ dates. I was smart enough to figure that one out.
◊◊◊
I was now skipping
I was lucky we had the Field House. It saved me from the drive to State to practice indoors in bad weather, and the weather at the end of February was hit-or-miss at best. The best part about it for me, though, was it made it easier to keep my focus on baseball. That was important when I found myself in the middle of an increasingly crazy schedule of other things people were piling on me. The Field House was becoming something of a sanctuary for me.
Well, maybe I was helping other people keep the schedule crazy. I thought if it got to be too much, and all else failed, I’d hide in Duke’s cage with him.
I was glad I’d talked to Moose early on. He had found a modification to the pitching machine that would allow it to hold a hundred balls now. It saved a lot of time reloading every couple of minutes. When I wasn’t batting, Moose spent his time showing me how to play the outfield. Center fielders tended to be smaller, fast guys. I was unique in that I had the size you’d expect your right fielder to have. Typically, your right fielder was a guy my size who was just in the lineup for his bat.
Moose wanted me to play a more shallow center field because he knew I could get on my horse and chase down longer fly balls. The advantage of playing a shallower center field was my arm strength. I could, in essence, support the infield up the middle.
The disadvantage was I had to react quickly. A line shot in the gap might get past me and turn into extra bases. Moose didn’t plan to have me play in this unusual position every time, but he wanted it to be in his bag of tricks if it were needed. There were specific situations, like less than two outs with a runner at third, where your infield tightened up to prevent the runner from scoring. He would then shift me up to help cover the ball up the middle. From shallow center field, I had the arm to gun down someone trying to take home.
The other thing Moose had me work on was stealing bases. I worked with the pitchers to get my timing down.
Moose was excited about the coming year. He couldn’t wait to be able to actively coach us. What he was doing now was like open gym. Of course, if you wandered over and talked some baseball, that was okay.
◊◊◊
Fritz picked up Halle, Brook, Cassidy, and me and took us to the dojo. He usually drove Halle to and from school. She and I had been riding together while Fritz did what he needed to my car. So far, he’d had them remove the storage area for the center console and had a gun safe installed in its place. It was both code- and fingerprint-activated. His people didn’t have concealed-carry permits for our state yet. Fritz explained that this way, if things went south, I could get to a gun if needed. I really didn’t want to think that scenario through.
The next step was the electronics, which comprised built-in cameras for both external and internal monitoring purposes, and tracking devices. In the back seat, there was to be a tablet mounted that would allow the backseat occupants to see each camera angle and determine if it was safe to exit. It would double as an entertainment and Internet access device. How I wish I’d had one of these for long trips when I was a kid. I told Fritz to install them in the seatback of each front seat like they had in the Charger, and in the backs of the second-row seats as well. My son was going to be spoiled.
