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The waitress is in her mid-fifties, wearing glasses, short brown, shoulder-length hair, looking to be a veteran of the waitressing game.
“Hey, dear,” she says to me. “You alone tonight.”
“People are overrated,” I say.
“Amen to that,” she says. “Say, do I know you from somewhere?”
“Were you the one from Phoenix ten years ago?” I ask with a grin.
The waitress smiles. “Oh, dear, I haven’t left Morgalen in two decades.”
“Sounds like you need a vacation.”
“How much do you tip?”
“How far away do you need to go?” I ask.
The waitress touches my left shoulder. “Dear, there’s not enough pizza in this place to warrant the kind of tip I need for how far I need to go.”
“I feel that,” I say. “So I guess we’ll both settle for a soda and a large, plain pizza?”
“If you say so. I’m Bethany. You need anything, just yell my name.” She turns and then stops. She turns back. “I know where I saw you. You were on TV a little bit ago.”
I put my pointer finger to my mouth.
“Oh, secrecy, huh? You’re hiding out here.”
“The less you know, the safer you are,” I say.
Bethany laughs and walks away.
From where I’m seated I cannot see Piper.
That’s a good thing. And a bad thing.
Bethany brings me a soda and tells me they’re already working on my pizza.
I take two sips of soda and I feel my phone dancing in my pocket.
I’ve been waiting for PJ to text me about the game. I’m sure he’s on a tear right now. Pitching a mostly flawless game like that. Giving up two base runners and then getting pulled. Only to have Jakey give up the game.
That’s a brutal way to lose.
I wrestle my phone out of my pocket to discover PJ hasn’t text me.
It’s from another unknown number.
It’s a text message of my current contract. The full details of the contract. Yearly salary, bonuses, all that stuff. Now to be fair here, every contract is easily found online. This isn’t some secret news to me or to anyone who cares enough to wonder what a baseball player makes.
It’s the second text that comes through…
Man, that’s a hell of a contract, Cutter! Lots of zeroes, right? I’ve been sitting here, figuring it all out. How much you make per month, per week. Per game. Per at bat. How much you make per second. There’s nothing better than blackmailing someone who actually has money to give! Be in touch again soon!
Again, my heart doesn’t sink. It doesn’t race.
But damn do I get angry.
I feel my feet pressing to the floor. I’m ready to stand up and flip the table.
