9

A wall of bodies crashed on me. Then I found myself in the air, carried by the others like I was a war hero. Our fans were going nuts at the sideline, chanting Darci! Darci! Darci!

"Oh yes! We did it!" cheered Felik. "I knew you were gonna make us proud!"

I blushed and giggled. After my teammates put me down, I saw my mom go up to Grigor.

"Excuse me," she said shyly to the big man. "I'm Darci's mom. I just wanted..."

Grigor surprised her by grabbing her hand in his and shook it firmly with gratitude. Felik joined him.

"Did you see your daughter out there?" he said. "What a wonderful baseball player she is!"

The mob of Russian supporters congratulated us.

My mom came to hug me.

"Oh my girl," she breathed. "I never knew you had such skills."

I shrugged. "Well, Dad obviously never told you about that."

"Oh honey, I'm sure he would be amazed if he saw the game," she said. "I was off my feet the entire time!"

I was just glad that my mom took the time to see me play, but a part of me wished my former coach saw what I did. But let's not get all carried away here. As a team, we still seriously sucked. In that game, the Red Stars scored equal runs until I did what I did. We still had a lot to work on.

~*~

In the old days, when I still loved baseball to death, I used to go everywhere with a ball. I'd always be tossing it from hand to hand, bouncing it against the wall and catching it back. I didn't anymore. I couldn't see the point.

But Olive had been pestering me to help her with some pitching and batting practice. So on Sunday after the first game, we headed down to the field.

We passed the Matryoshka restaurant. Olive was talking at jet-ski speed about baseball legends. She knew every league and dates of the games. She was a human CD-room.

Then there was a whoosh of noise on the footpath in front of us.

"Kapitan Dacri! And Olive! Hello ladies!" roared out Mitko.

He waved at us. We smiled and walked towards him.

"Don't worry about the scores," Mitko said. "Everyone enjoyed the game yesterday. You did amazing. All of you."

Then he turned to Olive.

"You know what you gotta do?" he said. "You gotta keep your center of gravity when you throw."

One of our Russian fans was peering out the window at us.

"Yes! It's them!" said the guys at the tables, beckoning their friends out. "From Grigor and Felik's team."

There were men and women smiling at us two and we didn't know how to handle the attention.

Mitko was still giving balance advice while I was having my hand shaken by the people there.

"You played very well, young lady," said an old woman. "She reminds me of Dottie in that baseball movie, doesn't she, Dimka?"

I was busy thanking them for all the compliments when a large brown bag was shoved into my hands by another woman from the next door deli.

"You girls like Khachapuri?" she asked with a bright smile.

"Oh...what...?" I mumbled.

"Your moms will, I bet," she said and proudly gave another one to Olive. "They're freshly baked in the oven."

I peeked into the warm bag. Thick, crusty bread shaped like a boat and filled with melted cheese. It smelled amazing.

"Oh I don't...have any money with me," I said, but the deli lady took a huge breath and bellowed loudly. "Zoya! Zoya!"

A young beautiful woman with red lipstick poked her head out of the door.

"You got some Morozhenoe for the Kapitan and her friend?" the deli lady asked. "They're from a baseball team our Felik and Grigor train."

Zoya smiled. "Ah! One second," she called as she ducked inside the bakery.

She came back with a cold ice cream box.

"Russian ice cream." Zoya smiled at us. "Creamier and richer than its American counterpart."

By the time Olive and I made it to the field, our bellies were stuffed with food and we carried a huge armload of bread, cakes, and pickled olives.

"Here you take the olive jar, Olive," I said with a grin.

"Funny, smarty pants." She nudged me with her shoulder.

We were walking as she was in a really hyper mood. She couldn't get the words out as fast as her brain was thinking.

Then to our surprise, someone familiar was walking towards us.

"Oh my, this must be our lucky day," Olive said and tossed her chin at Charlotte Grace. "Your girl, Darci."

I shot my best friend a look. Charlotte was waving at us and smiling.

"Wow, do you need help?" she asked, eyeing our gifts. I was shaking my head, but Olive spoke up.

"Yes thanks, I could use an extra hand." She dumped half of the stuff that our fans gave us on Charlotte's hands.

"Oh, these smell great," Charlotte said. "Are you going for a picnic or something?"

"No, we're going to practice, and the patrons around the corner of the street stopped us with these," Olive said then looked at me. "Darci is quite famous now."

If my hands weren't full, I would whoop Olive's butt on the spot.

"I think they're our coaches' friends, that's all," I said.

"You want to come to the practice with us?" Olive said. "We can share the food."

I knew what Olive was doing, and I made a mental note to whoop her's butt afterward.

"Would never say no to food," Charlotte laughed. "I also want to write up something for my report. I hope you girls can clear some questions for me."

Then we started to walk again.

"You can ask us anything, I'm actually a baseball savant," Olive declared as if it was obvious to anyone what that meant.

"Come again?" Charlotte said, and I noticed that I liked the way she tilted her head to the side. Her pale blonde hair fell in waves and her arched brows furrowed like the wings of an eagle. I wanted to be someone she would ask anything.

"Just think of Olive as an encyclopedia about baseball," I told her.

Charlotte breathed and nodded in understanding. Then she smiled at me. I noticed that I liked the way she smiled the most.

At the diamond field, my mind was distracted by the girl sitting in the shade, looking at us.

"Why did you bring her with us, Olive?" I muttered under my breath as we were putting out our gears. She shrugged.

"I thought I was doing you a favor," she said. "You like her, don't you?"

"One of these days, I'll put you in a jar and pickle you along with the rest of the olives," I said, but she just grinned. Olive glanced back at Charlotte, who was taking out her camera from her bag.

"I bet she has feelings for you, Darci," she said. I rolled my eyes.

"Are we here to practice or talk about straight girls?" I said.

"How do you know she's straight?"

"Hello, look at her!" I said.

"Come on, you're attractive too, and you're as gay as a glittery rainbow," she argued.

"No, I'm not," I said. "Besides, she might already have a boyfriend."

Olive frowned as if she hadn't thought of such an obvious thing.

"Did you ask her that?"

"No, but I'm 99.9% sure she already has," I said. "And why should I? It's not like I have any chance."

Olive groaned.

"Darci, you play yourself down," she said. "If I were you, I would take the chance."

"Well, why don't you do that with Nora?" I snapped back. "I saw you look at her with that creepy observant eyes of yours. Nora's a good player, isn't she?"

"Darci, you're decent at baseball," Olive said. "But you're poor in the wordsmith department. Nora isn't good. She's sublime, incomparable, breathtaking, and graceful. Any woman who can play baseball like Nora is, in my opinion, a goddess."

I cringed.

"You seriously have a mega crush on her," I said with a smile.

"Of gargantuan proportions."

"Talk to her then."

This time Olive sighed. She picked up a ball and held it in front of her eyes like it was a work of art.

"Some girls," she said, "they're right there in front of us, perfect and gorgeous, but so far out of our league, it's just tragic, Darci."

"Looks like someone finally understands how I feel for once," I said.