“What about me? Can I come visit anytime?” Melissa cocked her head to the side and Cassie rolled her eyes.
“No,” she said before laughing. “Of course, dummy. Actually, you and Dean should visit together sometime.”
She winked and I seconded the suggestion. “You two should definitely come out together.” Dean’s shoulders tensed noticeably as a grunt escaped his lips.
Despite how much I razzed him, I wanted to help my brother get the girl. Yesterday I had caught them hooking up before our wedding, and if I could do anything to get them together once and for all, I’d do it. The boy deserved to be happy.
Gran changed the subject before I could ask any more questions. “Speaking of Dean and traveling,” she said, “when do you start at the agency?”
“Yeah, bro,” I asked as I kicked Dean under the table. “What’s up with you and my agents?” My agents, Ryan and Marc, had offered Dean a job at their sports management company as soon as he graduated.
“It’s part-time now, but I start full-time at the end of May,” he said with a smile.
“What will you be doing exactly?”
“I’ll be a junior agent. They’re going to teach me the ropes when it comes to dealing with guys like you.” He gave a slight head nod in my general direction.
“Good luck with that,” Cassie said with a snicker.
“But I’ll mostly be researching at first. I’ll be looking at new talent for the guys to check out. It’s going to be a lot of computer work and apparently I’ll be the local contact for any of the players or their families.”
“For everything, or just certain things?” Cassie asked.
Dean shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I’m sure there will be questions I can’t answer, so maybe just helping facilitate their moves if they get traded, or talk about the trade deadlines and stuff.”
Warming up to the subject, Cassie asked, “Do the families call a lot?”
“You have no idea,” he said, shaking his head. “Not everyone understands the business side of things, so sometimes they get really frustrated. I have to literally explain every single thing to them that they don’t quite grasp.”
Cassie’s eyes grew wide as she inhaled audibly. “I bet those are some fun and long calls.”
Dean nodded. “I was on the phone for over two hours the other day with the wife of one of your ex-teammates.”
“Who?” I asked.
“One of the outfielders for the D-backs. She was concerned about him not getting a long-term extension after last season and wanted to know how that would affect his playing time and reaching the full pension package. I had to explain the entire business side of things to her and I think she was still confused. She’s obsessed with the pension.”
Gramps dropped his fork and it clanged against the table. “Sorry,” he said as he picked it up with a funny look on his face. “How many seasons do you have to play before you get the pension?”
“To get full pension benefits, you have to play for ten full seasons.”
“What happens if you get hurt before then, or if you can’t play all ten?”
Dean sucked in a breath. “Then you only get a partial pension, but it’s way more complicated than that. Your contract terms, the number of years you signed for, it all comes into play.”
“Oh, enough of this talk. Let’s let the kids have some time together before they leave.” Gran pushed back from her chair and started collecting her dishes and the plates closest to her.
“Let me help, please?” Cassie asked and Gran swatted at her hand.
“No, dear. You’re a newlywed. Go spend your honeymoon with your friends,” she said with a wry laugh as we filed out into the living room.
The rest of the afternoon flew by as we hung out with Dean and Melissa. Before I knew it, Cassie was reminding me we needed to pack our things and say our good-byes. I hated leaving, but at least I wouldn’t be alone. I’d never be alone again.
Breaking Bones
Three Months Later …
Engrossed in my work, I fiddled with the key that hung from a chain around my neck, my fingers running across the letters that spelled out STRENGTH across the top. Melissa had given it to me after all the drama with the tabloids and mean fans during Jack’s first season. The rule of the necklace, she told me, was that I should keep it until I saw someone else who needed the message on the key more than I did. I hated the thought of ever giving that special gift away, but had to admit it was a really clever idea.
Sitting in my cubicle, I pored over photos I had recently shot during my last assignment. Nora, my boss, wanted to submit one picture for a highly respected photography award. But as I looked at them, I realized that I couldn’t pick the one.
As usual, I’d become emotionally involved on my assignment, and could no longer see the photo for just what it portrayed. I saw the emotions behind it, the meanings that weren’t necessarily captured through my lens.
When I looked at the photograph of the elderly man desperately clutching a child covered in dirt and blood, I saw the hundreds of other people in the background just as desperate and dirty who didn’t make it into my picture. Just out of view sat houses demolished into piles of debris, and their owners, faces filled with disbelief, digging through the rubble in vain. Several square miles of land that had once held schools, businesses, and homes, were now completely leveled into what could only be described as a war zone. It sounded so cliché, but that description was the most accurate. Mother Nature sometimes brought hell to Earth. And I captured it with my camera.