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The text rolls in from Kelsie on their day off, right after she’s gotten out of the shower.
Whitmore: Conference room. First floor. 5:00.
It’s five minutes ’til five. Alli has no idea what could possibly be so urgent, but she’s used to moving quickly under pressure. She stays calm, breathing intentionally through the adrenaline spike, and then jumps into motion, throwing on whichever clothes are closest. She tosses her hair up haphazardly; her deodorant goes on in a few quick motions as she slides her feet into her shoes. She ties them with the same efficiency she uses on her boots when she goes to fight a fire, feeling strangely as though she’s gearing up for one now. She pauses in front of the nightstand to react to Kelsie’s text with a ?, then slips her key card into her left back pocket and her wallet into the right. She foregoes a jacket for time’s sake, hoofing it out the door with three minutes to spare.
The elevator always takes longer than she’d like to reach the sixth floor, so she hits the stairwell, skipping two steps at a time. Her breathing falls into the same cadence it does when she’s training cardio: in for three heartbeats, out for four. She tries and fails not to fear the worst. It’s unlike Kelsie to text her so brusquely—it’s unlike Kelsie to text her at all, actually. As captains, they’ve exchanged numbers, but they’re not friends. Alli isn’t really interested in the social aspect of the season; she’s here for the sport. If she’s hanging out with somebody, it’s almost always the Hunters.
She reaches the first floor in record time and shoulders the door open. The hallway is dramatically colder than the stairwell; she shivers as it raises gooseflesh on her arms. One minute to go. She does her best to look like she knows where she’s going, ducking around corners at random.
The door to the conference room, when she arrives, is closed. She pauses in front of it and takes a deep breath to compose herself. She tugs at the hem of her shirt, then raises her hand to knock. The door swings open.
“Get in, girl,” Ashton Lansdell says, “it’s fucking freezing out there.”
Ashton is in an ill-fitting blazer and pearls, hair slicked back. “What?” Alli asks as she’s ushered to a seat. The door swings closed behind her.
“Glad you could join us,” Denae says from the front of the room, smirk in place. She’s in a bathrobe and boxers. Alli blinks.
Kelsie, wearing the same tanktop and cargo pants Alli’s seen her in six times in the last two weeks, clears her throat. She is, Alli notices, standing to the side of a projector screen. One Denae waits at the other end of. Worrisome. “Welcome. Please, take a seat.”
Alli isn’t sure whether to point out that she’s already seated. She settles for shifting her weight in the uncomfortable conference chair, watching Ashton heelie her way up to join the other captains at the front.
Kelsie clears her throat again. Alli wonders if she should offer her some water. “Welcome.” She’s said that already. “We are gathered here today to promote inter-league solidarity—“ She sounds like she’s being forced to read a script at gunpoint. “—and defeat the forces of evil which would otherwise work to permanently disband the Women’s Professional Baseball League once and for all.”
Behind her, the projector screen comes to life.
“Guys, what?” Alli finds her voice. “Like, my jersey number?”
“Shh, we’re not there yet,” Ashton says. “Hold on a minute.”
Denae advances to the next slide and takes over speaking. Kelsie just looks relieved to be off the hook.
“Listen, we all know twin is number one, okay? That’s my girl.”
Alli watches, speechless, as the slide transitions take place.
“And that’s ‘cause she’s on top,” Denae says, slinging her arm around the padded shoulders of Ashton’s suit jacket.
“But,” Ashton jumps in, “I couldn’t be number one without my number two guy.”
Alli fights to find the words. Maybe something like I think I got it after the first arrow, or 222 and 2 are two entirely different numbers, actually, guys, or even what are these transitions? But her jaw stays slack, mouth dropped open, and Denae keeps clicking the space bar like a woman possessed.
“And we couldn’t be one and two without our…”
There’s a long pause. Ashton raises both her brows. Denae coughs a little too loudly.
“Oh. Third,” Kelsie says, deadpan, around the time the ugliest smiley face Alli’s ever seen jitters its way through a little spin. The top half ends in a separate location from the bottom. Alli’s eyes start watering.
“Yeah,” she agrees, closing her eyelids for a moment of respite, then blinking them back open through an act of God. “That photo of you and Maybelle is pretty cute, actually.”
Kelsie’s face cracks and softens a little. She almost looks like she could smile. Kind of sweet.
“Heartwarming,” Ashton says, “but not what we’re here for. Nae, the next slide, please.”
The photo of her takes four seconds to fade in.
“Guys, c’mon, this is crazy,” she says.
“Shh,” Ashton shushes her. “It’s not done.”
“Listen, I get it—“ she starts, but Denae cuts her off.
“It’s just a bad look for us, man,” she says. “We’re tryna promote all this inter-team unity and stuff, present a united front for camera, get this league off the ground. And it’s starting to feel kinda like sabotage—”
“Sabotage?”
“—and so we’re just saying, you know, you could stand to get with the program. Help a captaincy out here.”
Alli grips her head with both hands and tries not to explode. “Kate Blunt is already number four on the Hunters.” If she clenches her jaw any harder, she thinks her teeth might fall out of her head.
“Don’t worry,” Kelsie says, “we’ve covered that.”
Denae hits the space bar.
“Proposed solutions,” Ashton starts to narrate. “First of all, you can’t be number 16 anymore. That just won’t fly.”
“Is that a—?”
“Yes, it’s a cricket bat; can you please focus up?”
Denae presses the space bar again.
Alli puts her face back in her hands.
“As I was saying,” Ashton continues, “with a little bit of duct tape and a trade or two we could make all those pesky problems go away.”
Denae looks apoplectic. “I told you guys not to include that bit about the Heights pitching! We’re pitching fucking great; have you seen Rami? Jaida? Check your own pitchers, bro, stop ragging on my team!”
Ashton bulldozes right over her. “But from there, we’ll need you to take a little initiative.”
Ukulele? Alli’s not sure whether to be more confused or outraged.
“Look, we’re not saying the apology has to be on TV, we’re just saying straight to camera somehow would be ideal. Like, me, I’d probably go for TikTok, you know?”
“We know,” Kelsie and Alli say at the same time. She feels a brief spark of kinship, hope blossoming in her chest. An ally?
“Personally, though, I’d prefer Instagram,” Kelsie continues. Alli makes a concerted effort not to put her face through the table.
“We also think a little bit of league-building is in order,” Denae takes over, face still red from her earlier outburst. “Remind them we’re all in this together. We talked about a movie night or something, but that’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“Make—? I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” Alli makes to push her chair back, and Ashton near-launches herself across the table to grab her wrist. Kelsie makes an aborted movement to block her chair.
“There are other ideas on the list!” Denae cries frantically, fingers scrabbling over the keys. “Look, cookout, that’s fun, huh? Fire up the ol’ grill?”
Alli wrests her arm free of Ashton’s grip. “Why is there a fire truck emoji? The hospital?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kelsie says. “That was for fun.”
“F—?”
“Hey, and speaking of, check this out! Disney? That’s the land of happiness, dude. Maximum bonding!”
Alli might start crying. “Why is it one word? Why would you make it all one word?”
Denae and Kelsie glance at Ashton. She’s still sprawled over the table and doesn’t seem to notice. The silence stretches for a second.
“Let’s just keep moving,” Denae says, like she’s not in charge of the damn presentation. She clicks through.
“We've come up with a few benefits for you to consider, and we think the evidence is pretty conclusive. You’d profit in basically every way. Look at that.”
“Improved game day conditions can’t possibly be true,” Alli says desperately. “That simply cannot be true.”
Kelsie shrugs. “Won’t know unless you try it,” she points out. It’s horrible how she manages to make it sound so reasonable. “Don’t you want to be the best you can be for your team?”
Denae switches slides before Alli can get up to try strangling her.
“We actually haven’t found a single con yet,” she says. “You just have to switch your number. There’s literally no reason not to.”
Alli starts counting them off on her fingers. “Number already taken, would be a pain to change the jerseys this late into the season—“
“We gave you solutions to both of those already,” Kelsie mutters.
“—and, most importantly, I don’t want to be number four! I don’t want to be fourth out of four captains; I’m already fighting to get the Hunters on the map. It’s not doing me any favors to be seen as your leftovers.”
The captains look pensive. Or, at least, Ashton presumably looks pensive. She’s still face-down. It’s difficult to tell.
“Isn’t fourth the one with the big pink dress?” Kelsie asks. Everybody turns to look at her with bewilderment. “In the rhyme,” she clarifies. “The 'first is the worst' one.”
“I am not the worst,” Ashton cries, jumping up to defend herself at the same time as Denae pumps her fist triumphantly.
“Yes!” she shouts. “This is why 2-2-2 is the best—“
“You did not need to inflate Denae’s ego any further,” Alli leans in to tell Kelsie.
“The Queens have been leading these games, okay; I have three home runs—“
“—angel number, I’m telling you—“
“Sorry.” Kelsie seems pretty unbothered. “It would’ve happened either way.”
Alli has to concede the point. “Do you even have a treasure chest?” she thinks to ask suddenly. What if Kelsie really does somewhere? Buried outside the hotel, maybe? In the pool?
Kelsie shakes her head, looking forlorn. Then she tilts it to the side. “We could ask Liz Gilder about the dress though,” she says.
“—and I do not need this kind of shit from you all right now—“
“—it’s never let me down, bro—“
Alli saw that video. That thing was ugly as sin. But maybe… “I’ll think about it,” she says. “If we make it to the championship.”
“Wearing the number four jersey?”
“—so you all can just fuck off,” Ashton finishes, voice trailing off.
Denae also falls silent, voice dying in her throat.
All three of them turn their eyes to Alli. She keeps her lips sealed. She refuses to feed them anything. They’ll never make her talk.
The pressure grows. Denae clicks the space bar a few times, letting the animations of the last two slides play out in the background.
It’s too much. “Obviously not in the number four jersey!” she bursts out as the stock images of confetti twirl on-screen. “Are you out of your minds?”
Denae slams the laptop shut, cutting the presentation off abruptly. “FUCK!” She breathes heavily, pacing back and forth. “SHIT!”
She winds up like she’s going to throw the computer straight into the middle of the conference table, but Ashton catches her by the forearms before she can get there. “Woah, Nae Nae! Hey, hey, it’s okay. No, shh, shh, shh. Deep breaths. It’s gonna be alright, okay, you just gotta breathe.” Jesus, Alli’s seen spooked horses talked to less fondly before.
Kelsie’s the one who leans in this time. “Do you wanna get out of here?” she asks.
Alli’s already halfway out the door. “Come if you’re coming,” she says.
The cold of the hallway feels like a blessing. Alli stares ahead with deadened eyes, letting her feet lead her where they will. Kelsie is a silent shadow to her left.
“How long did that presentation take you to make?” she asks, finally, when they’ve made their way out of the lobby and into the Springfield heat. In the late evening sun, she finally heaves in a breath that doesn’t make her want to scream.
Kelsie’s shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t know; I think Ashton did it last night. I kind of just showed up.”
Alli tilts her head back, eyes falling shut. For a minute, she doesn’t do anything but experience peace. Then, she turns her head to the side, eyes still closed. “You would think she would have more than one photo of herself in her jersey.” Kelsie snorts.
The sounds of Springfield spool out around them—cars on the highway, the slamming of a passenger door, distant conversation from the man on his phone taking a cigarette break. The song of at least one bird, but Alli doesn’t know which this far from home. She takes another deep breath.
“Do you think the league would really pay for us to go to Disney World?”
Kelsie nods, looking stoically over the parking lot. “They’d probably have to, yeah. If you were number four.”
Huh. Maybe Alli has some things to consider.
“Thanks,” she says. “For thinking of me.”
Kelsie wraps her in an awkward side-hug. “Hey. Any time.” There’s a second of silence. Then: “I’m gonna go now. I kind of stood Amanda up for this.”
Alli pats her arm. “Yeah, okay. Have a nice dinner.”
Kelsie waves her goodbye. The cold of the lobby touches the back of her neck as the doors slide open and it feels nice, but Alli wants another minute or two out here in the sun before she follows suit. She’s got a lot to think about. Captain number four, huh? Kinda has a ring to it.