Chapter 8: The Day Tamara Found Out
Tamara Price was in the middle of her fourth office of the night — third floor of the Meridian Insurance building, vacuuming the long corridor between the conference rooms — when her phone rang.
She did not recognize the number.
She let it ring.
She could not afford to lose time on a Thursday night shift.
It rang again twenty minutes later.
Same number.
She stopped the vacuum.
"Hello."
"Mrs.
Price.
My name is Gerald Sutton.
I'm the director of player development for the River City Falcons."
She stood very still in the corridor.
"Is Jordan all right?"
"Your son is fine," Gerald said.
"Better than fine.
I want to talk to you about his future.
If you have a few minutes."
"I'm at work."
"I know.
I'm sorry to call late.
I can call back—"
"Say what you need to say," Tamara said.
"I'm listening."
Gerald told her.
All of it.
The formal evaluation results, Dennis's recommendation, the proposed full development program, what he had seen on the field that afternoon.
He spoke carefully and did not oversell and he did not use language designed to make her feel grateful.
He spoke to her the way he would speak to anyone whose time and intelligence he respected.
She listened without interrupting.
When he was finished, she was quiet for a long moment.
"This is real?" she said.
"It is."
"Not something that disappears in a month?"
"I won't lie to you and say there are no risks," Gerald said.
"Development programs can change.
Organizations change.
But Dennis Ward has been here longer than I have and he does not make recommendations like this one casually.
In twenty-three years I have not seen him ask for a full program for a player who wasn't ready for one."
Another silence.
"My husband—" She stopped.
Started again.
"Jordan's father gave everything he had to this organization.
And this organization did not give him the same back."
"I know," Gerald said.
"I was part of that.
I want to be honest with you about it and I want to do something about it now in the way I'm still able to."
Tamara was quiet again for so long that Gerald checked to make sure the call had not dropped.
"I'll bring Jordan on Saturday morning," she said finally.
"To meet you properly.
To see the program in writing.
And I will ask every question I have, and there will be many of them, and I want honest answers."
"Saturday morning," Gerald said.
"I'll have everything ready."
She ended the call.
She stood in the corridor for a moment.
The vacuum was still running behind her, handle leaning against the wall.
The corridor stretched out long and quiet and empty in both directions.
She pressed her hand flat against the wall.
"Marcus," she said softly.
Not to anyone.
Just to the air.
"Look at your boy."
She picked up the vacuum handle and finished the corridor and the three rooms after it and the kitchen at the end of the hall.
She was still there at midnight.
She was still thinking about it.
On Saturday morning she arrived at Falcon Park with Jordan at five minutes before nine.
She was wearing her good coat.
Jordan was wearing his old cleats.
Dennis met them at the entrance.
He looked at the shoes.
He said nothing about them.
He shook Tamara's hand and led them inside.
Gerald Sutton was waiting in the conference room with a printed proposal, a folder of program details, and two cups of coffee already poured.
He stood when they entered.
Tamara sat down.
Opened the folder.
Started reading.
She read for eleven minutes without speaking.
Then she looked up.
"Page four," she said.
"Travel costs.
Who covers those?"
"The organization," Gerald said.
"In writing?"
Gerald turned to page four and pointed to the line.
She read it.
Nodded.
Turned the page.
Jordan sat beside her and watched his mother work through that document the way she worked through everything — carefully, without rushing, without being impressed by anything that hadn't earned her trust yet.
He thought about all the nights she had come home at one in the morning and made him a sandwich because she knew he would be awake studying.
He thought about her reading the electric bill at the kitchen table with her finger tracking each line.
He thought about how she had never once told him they couldn't make it.
Gerald finished answering her fifteenth question.
Tamara set the folder down.
Looked at her son.
"What do you want, Jordan?"
He looked back at her.
"I want to be good enough that it means something," he said.
"For him.
And for you."
Tamara Price picked up the pen from the center of the table.
She signed the program agreement on the last page.
Then she capped the pen and set it down and looked at Gerald Sutton across the table.
"If this organization fails my son the way it failed his father," she said, "I will not be quiet about it.
I want you to understand that."
Gerald held her eyes.
"I understand," he said.
"And I wouldn't expect anything less."
She nodded.
Outside the conference room window, the practice field sat empty in the morning light.
The infield dirt was freshly dragged.
The bases were white and clean.
Jordan looked out at second base.
Somewhere in that dirt, pressed down and invisible now, were the marks from that first afternoon.
The fingerprints and the slide line and the footprints from the moment it all began.
He thought about his father's stopwatch.
About the library book.
About thirty-one stolen bases in thirty-three attempts.
May you like
He thought about what number thirty-four would have felt like.
He was going to find out for himself.
