Free Out of My League by Dirk Hayhurst Page B

face. “Should I get on this plane?”
    “You’re doing the right thing. This is your big chance and you’re going for it.”
    “It feels different this time.”
    “I wouldn’t know. This is my first time sending you off to baseball.”
    “You’re not going to cry, are you? You’re allowed to, but I’ll just feel bad.”
    “I’m not a crier,” said Bonnie. “If I do, it will be when I’m back in my car.” Then, as if on cue, she started to cry anyway.
    There was no way around it: the next few months were going to be rough. I had prepped, coached, and encouraged Bonnie as much as I could. I helped narrow down dates and ticket prices to overlapping rendezvous cities for all the possible team schedules I had the chance to play on. I even upgraded my text-message plan so I could spam Bonnie with “I love you”s at all hours of the day. Yet, even with the combined force of all that preparation, there was no way of taking the sting out of what was ahead of us. If it’s not the distance baseball creates between you and your lady, it’s the lack of resources it gives you to bridge the gap. We would see each other a grand total of twenty days this season, if that—circumstances that are hard to overcome for any new relationship, let alone one vowing marriage.
    Speaking of which, we still had a wedding to plan. Venues, caterers, décor, and all the other stuff that make a Big Day big. Bonnie and I split up responsibilities accordingly. All the accoutrements that would make the day one to remember were left in Bonnie’s capable hands. Meanwhile, I was left with the responsibility of earning ring money so I could make the engagement official by Western civilization’s standards, and asking her parents for their blessing.
    Like the proposal, things seemed to be functioning out of order. Whether it was the fact that Bonnie’s parents were powerless against their daughter’s enthusiasm, or that they were simply incredible at understanding the unorthodox circumstances of my baseball career, they told me that when I was ready to ask for their blessing, they’d be ready to give it and, in the meantime, they would reinforce our pocketbook “within reason” when it came to planning the Big Day. I told them I’d gladly take their money, but held off on the blessing since I figured I should at least have the ring first.
    While Bonnie’s parents were understanding, mine were not. My parents thought the entire occasion was a catastrophe waiting to happen. When I told my parents about Bonnie and me, my mom told me she’d heard this kind of talk out of my mouth before, and then, poof, I was single again. She told me I could talk myself into, or out of anything, and after a healthy, screaming Hayhurst debate on the subject, she told me she would believe it only when it happened. My dad, on the other hand, told me point-blank that Bonnie wasn’t the one.
    “She’s cute, as far as that goes, but she ain’t it,” he said.
    “How would you know?”
    “She just ain’t. I know you. She’s a distraction, but you’ll get tired of her. You did all the others.”
    “I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do,” I said, angrily.
    “Don’t I? I don’t think you know you, is more like it.”
    “How can you say that? The most you talk to me is when you’re yelling.”
    “You don’t know shit about marriage. You just met this girl. You’re just gonna piss all you’ve worked for away ’cause you got some girl waiting? That’s just stupid, Dirk.”
    “I’m not gonna piss it away.”
    “Well, I don’t see you pulling this off doing baseball.”
    “Then I’ll have to quit baseball.”
    “Ah, Jesus, you see, that’s what I ...” He threw his hands in the air. “Just stupid. Just fucking stupid. Whatever,” he said. “It’s your life. I don’t give a shit what you do.”
    It wasn’t the reception I was hoping for.
    My dad was right about one thing: it was my life and I would prove my parents