Home Run: A Novel by Travis Thrasher Page B

thoughts, and judging by their expressions, they were doing the whole good-commentator/bad-commentator routine. Several pictures came up showing Cory; first his official team picture, then a few other at bats for the year. Cory laughed and looked back at his empty glass, thankful to see the skinny little thing walking up to refill it.
    “Another?”
    The young woman didn’t smile like the ladies usually did. That was because she was oblivious to who was sitting there. And that was fine with him. The last thing he needed was to cause a commotion and have people start asking for autographs or pictures.
    It wouldn’t be good to be seen drinking in a bar at the airport.
    But he was inside and facing the back so that he couldn’t be seen. To the waitress, Cory was just another businessman traveling for his job and worried about the wife and kiddies at home.
    “Give me a double,” Cory said, knowing the flight would be taking off soon.
    He’d spent enough time “catching up” with Clay and making sweet chitchat. He could already see his brother’s mind working. Clay had seemed glad that Cory had to go back home, even if it was for a brief visit. Now Cory could get to know Carlos a little more and try to make amends with some of those he’d lost touch with. In particular, with Emma.
    That was why Cory was sitting in this place, in the muted light and the soft hum of conversation. He needed some peace of mind. Some time to not have to think about all that twelve-step nonsense.
    Missing one step to tag third base shouldn’t mean I have to enter a freaking twelve-step program.
    Helene didn’t care what it meant or what he thought. She didn’t care whether he actually believed in the recovery program. She just knew he needed to get his rear out there in the spotlight to show he was doing something about his “problem.” He had to go through it so he could get back on the field and start producing. Already he’d made her job more difficult in terms of negotiating a new contract. But the idea of talking about a new contract now made him think of NFL coach Jim Mora answering a reporter’s question about the play-offs—“Play-offs? Don’t talk about play-offs!”
    Cory couldn’t help laughing a bit. The waitress brought him back a drink, and he gave her a few twenties to cover the tab, telling her to keep the change. He took a sip and stopped thinking of Helene and the team and Clay and all the other stuff. It was just one downward spiral that wouldn’t stop. Feeling bad didn’t change a thing. He’d spent his entire youth feeling bad about his father, but that had gotten him nowhere. There was never anything anybody could do, and then one day not long ago he heard his father had finally died.
    Boom.
    Just like that. There was no dramatic deathbed scene where his dad gripped his hand and asked for forgiveness.
    No, if Cory had been there, Dad probably would have started complaining about the way he’d been hitting.
    Feeling bad couldn’t bring Dad back, couldn’t make him replay his youth.
    It is what it is.
    This was a favorite saying of his because it spoke so much truth. You live, you die. You excite some people, you let others down. You bat a ball over the wall, you knock a batboy over.
    Life was full of surprises.
    Cory glanced at his first-class ticket and then thought of what awaited him back home.
    He wondered if he’d see her, and what she’d say to him after all these years.

It starts to be amusing.
    Ten straight hits in three games in the middle of his junior year.
    Cory Brand knocking them down.
    Home run.
    Single.
    Double.
    Single.
    Home run.
    He finds a group named Queen, and he starts playing “Another One Bites the Dust” after each game.
    People aren’t just watching him with interest anymore.
    People are talking about him.
    And they should be, because he’d be talking about someone like him.
    Cory doesn’t know what it feels like to be arrogant because he’s still some poor kid living on