Free Baseball Blues by Cecilia Tan Page A

another minute?"
    "Sure, take whatever you need,” I said. Did I mean that the way it sounded? Yeah, probably.
    "I know you're kind of busy tonight,” he said, that soft-spoken Texas voice again.
    "Don't you worry about it. It'll be slowing down around now.” Fortunately, it really was. “Can I bring you a club soda or something while you think about it?"
    Then he really did smile. “All right."
    I smiled right back and went straight to the bar.
* * * *
    "What do you mean, Donahue's sitting in there?” Charlie said.
    "I'm telling you it's him."
    "He's playing a game right now."
    "He's sitting in there waiting for a club soda."
    Charlie shook his head but thrust the gun into the tumbler and then slid it over to me on a napkin. He put a little sword through a lime wedge and dropped it in among the ice with a straw.
    When I put it down in front of Donny, he looked up with a cheerful mask on his face.
    "Do you have any questions about the menu?” I asked. “I mean, about ingredients or anything? Because I can always check with the chef, if you want. But I can answer most questions myself.” I was talking way too much, and I knew it. But come on, Mac Donahue! “Because I know you're careful about what you eat."
    I'd talked right through his mask and he now just looked kind of puzzled. “How'd you know that?"
    "Read it in the paper.” I fiddled with my pen. “Did you want to order?"
    He smiled but shaking his head as he looked down. “I haven't got much appetite tonight."
    I thought my heart was going to break. I knew something was wrong. I knew he must have left the game early for a reason, and that he didn't want to go home and be alone, which was why he was in a restaurant when he wasn't hungry and his team was still on the field. My first thought was that maybe his father had passed away—I'd read in the paper that he was ailing—but I didn't think it likely he'd leave the field for that. The papers were always full of stories of guys who went out and played their best game while their dad was on his deathbed and things like that.
    And let's face it, I was nosy. I had to know.
    I sat down in the chair across from him. “Honey, you gotta eat. No matter what it is that's bugging you, an empty stomach can't make it better.” He looked at me like he was trying to make sense of what I was saying. The track lights above him glinted off his eyelashes and the sun-lightened streaks in his hair. “I can get you a nice lean chicken breast with broccoli on the side, just a little polenta, low in carbohydrates and fat...?"
    He laughed in spite of himself. “All right. You're the boss.” He slid the menu across to me and I enjoyed sitting there an extra half-second before I hopped up to put his order in.
    At the kitchen I grilled the sous chef on the game and found out Donny had committed three serious errors and took himself out of the game. Now, if you're not a baseball fan, maybe you don't know what it means. You see basketball players miss jump shots all the time. Football is full of incomplete plays. But baseball, it ain't like that. Three errors in one game, especially three throwing errors, is kind of like a sprinter falling on his face three times during a race. Donny had been error-prone ever since he came to the city. He won a Gold Glove when he was a rookie, but since he'd come to town, it had been downright embarrassing at times.
    If I had to make a guess, I would have said his problem was all mental, all self-consciousness. But I wasn't about to tell him that when I brought him his chicken. By then, the place was emptying out, but I was out of things to say to him. The last thing I was going to say was something like, “Buck up” or “Everyone has their off nights.” I put the plate down in front of him and then found myself just standing there.
    I was thinking to myself, Anything else I can get for you, Mr. Donahue? and Would you like a refill on your club soda? but I couldn't seem to say anything. I