Page 3 of Sure Shot
The baby goes into spasms of joy at the sight of his face.
“Look who’s Mr. Popular.” Alex snorts. She unclips her daughter from the car seat.
“He’s not that popular with me,” I complain, even as I take Eric’s hand and let him help me onto the sidewalk.
“You fell for it, didn’t you?” His chuckle is gleeful.
“It’s entrapment,” I complain.
He laughs and then takes the baby from Alex and hoists her into the air, where she gives him a big, chubby grin.
“Oh, sure,” Alex says. “You’re all smiles for him.”
And I’m a puddle of goo. Watching Eric play with his baby always knocks me flat. It’s the same with my brother and my niece. I’ve never been a crier, but when Rosie smiles at Eric, or when Nicole smiles at Dave, I just about lose it, every time.
Getting old makes you more emotional, I guess. Yay.
“Let me take her,” Alex offers. “You two have some catching up to do. I’ll find Nate and say hello.”
Eric kisses his girlfriend. Then he kisses the baby. And then he turns to me. “Welcome home, Bessie. You look great by the way. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Why? Because I don’t have my phone stuck to my face? Hand it over, by the way.”
“No, because you’re wearing adress. Wowzers.”
“Oh, stop it.” I feel heat on my cheeks as I involuntarily glance down at the blue batik sundress. Zara had made me try it on when we’d gone shopping last week in Montreal. “Stop buying dresses for your two-year-old niece and buy one for yourself,” she’d said. “My kid has enough clothes to meet the queen. But you wear the same Red Wing’s T-shirt everywhere.”
She wasn’t wrong. But now I feel self-conscious.
“It’s a good look,” Eric says. “And congratulations on making it ten days away from the office. Are you sure you don’t want to go for eleven? Except for that little slip-up just now, you’ve turned yourself into a woman of leisure.”
“There was no slip-up! That was just you being a weenie. Now hurry up and give me my phone back. And fill me in on what I missed. Is it possible that none of my players got traded, injured, or arrested while I was gone?”
He laughs. “You think I’d hide something like that from you?”
“No. But it’s kind of wild how quiet everything was.” On any given week, someone has a major upset or a nervous breakdown. It’s as if I have thirty-five high-strung children in my care. Somebody is always breaking something.
“Nobody got arrested. But Nifty Silva had a tiny run-in with the town of Buckhead, Georgia.”
I stop in my tracks. “Omigod. What did he do? Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I handled it.” Eric laughs. “And I enjoyed every minute of it. Nifty had outstanding library fines of eighteen hundred bucks. Ask me why.”
“Why?” I gasp. “That man makes five million dollars a year.”
Eric chuckles. “Five years ago he took a copy ofField of Dreamsout of the library. Apparently the nice librarians of Buckhead fine you a dollar a day on DVDs.”
“And he was too busy setting records to return a fucking movie?” I swear to God this job is like teaching kindergarten but with a better paycheck.
“Not exactly. Right after watching the film, he threw his first no-hitter. So he didn’t—”
“—return it. I get it. He’s a superstitious crazy man. So how do we smooth this over? Did it hit the press?”
“It was going to. He called the office in a panic. But I handled it, Bess. I had a nice chat with the librarians. I told them that Nifty would donate ten bucks for every dollar he owed, but I suggested she let the fines keep running.”
“Oh, Eric!” I burst out laughing. “That’s perfect. That’s exactly what I would have done.”
He hip-checks me on the sidewalk. “I know, boss. And I had a blast talking to that librarian with her adorable southern accent. It’s all good.”
