Starting From Scratch (4 page)

me. He was probably around the same age as me, but he

always treated me with the respect he showed his elderly

tenants.

“Jamal,” I said as I signed in on the visitors log. “How

many times do I have to tell you to call me Avery?”

“A few more, I guess,” he replied with a wink.

Tossing down the pen, I sighed with feigned

exaggerated irritation. “Kids today. ey just don’t listen.”

“Have a good one, Ms. King.”

I exited the elevator on the third floor and headed

down the hallway with my two grocery bags, nodding to

Mr. Schwartz and saying hello to Mrs. Rossi along the

way. Grandma had been living here for five years now, so I

knew the residents pretty well, at least well enough to say

hi and offer a friendly smile. Grandma told me there were

a lot of elderly people there who never got visitors, whose

families moved them in and then pretty much forgot about

them. e thought made me sad. No way I wanted my

grandmother to be lonely and forgotten like a pair of old

shoes. So I made sure I said hello to each and every person

I came across, whether I knew them or not.

At apartment number thirty-seven, I set down one

bag so I could knock, but Grandma pulled the door open

20

Starting From Scratch

before I had a chance. Knowing she’d been waiting for me

made me all warm and mushy inside.

“Hi, Grandma,” I said as she pulled me into a hug.

“You’re too skinny,” she said, tightening her arms

around me. It was the exact same line she opened with

every time she saw me. “Don’t you eat?”

“I eat plenty, Grandma, trust me.”

I was one of the only women I knew whose

grandmother was actually taller than she was. Needless to

say, height was not something that showed up in my genes,

and I obviously didn’t inherit that from Grandma. At

about five-six, she had me by two inches. Apparently, my

mother was also a shrimp, not that I’d have any way of

knowing that, since she’d been gone since I was four. My

coloring, on the other hand, definitely came to me through

my grandmother. Her hair was now a steel gray and rich-

looking but when she was younger, it was the same auburn

shade as mine. We weren’t really traditional redheads, as we

both had fair skin but no freckles. Our hair was more like a

burnished copper, kind of rust-colored with lighter natural

highlights. My hair was definitely one of my better features

and I tended a little bit toward freakishness with it,

spending way too much on designer shampoos,

conditioners, and styling products. Grandma said the same

thing about hers, that she too used to fret a bit more than

necessary over her locks. I’d seen old pictures when her

hair was the exact shade as mine, and it was beautiful. I

also got her eyes. My mother’s were apparently hazel, but

Grandma’s were a clear green the color of a shimmering

summer lake and she’d passed them on to me.

21

Georgia Beers

e scent of warm chocolate drifted through the air

and caught me by the nose. “Hey,” I scolded. “Did you bake

something without me?”

“It’s just brownies,” she said, waving her hand

dismissively as if her brownies weren’t the most awesome

confections ever. “Mr. Davidson down the hall hung a

picture for me last week, so I told him I’d make him some

in return.”

“Yeah, you watch out for Mr. Davidson. He’s got his

eye on you.” I put the grocery bags on the counter in the

small galley kitchen and took a quick peek in the oven.

“Nonsense,” Grandma said, though the slight

pinkening of her cheeks gave her away. “What did you

bring?” she asked, changing the subject as she emptied the

grocery bags. “Avery, I told you that you didn’t have to

bring me food all the time.”

“I know, but I like to.” Her nearly empty carton of

half-n-half I found in the small refrigerator made me

happy I had. I knew she felt better, felt more independent,

if she could protest a little, so I let her, knowing I’d done

the right thing.

We sat at the round table in her little dining area and

chatted, just like always. Her apartment was small but just

what she needed. She even had a little balcony off the

living room where she could sit and read on nice days. I

bought her a wicker rocker for a housewarming present

when she moved in and it sat proudly in the spring

sunshine. Parting with some of her big, heavy pieces of

furniture was probably the hardest part about moving her

from the house she’d lived in for almost fifty years. What

she’d been able to keep lent it a feel that was very similar to

her old house, homey and comfortable and neat as a pin.

22

Starting From Scratch

I told her about Maddie’s bombshell as we sipped our

tea. I drank mine just like she did, with a little sugar and a

lot of cream, and we took mirror-image sips. She dabbed at

her mouth with a linen napkin and reached for the plate of

lemon cookies she’d baked the day before.

“Well, you’re very good with kids.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “Since when am I good

with kids?”

“Avery, just because somebody doesn’t want to have

their own children, it doesn’t make that person unable to

handle them. You handle them very well.”

Who were these people?
I wondered. First Maddie and

J.T., then my own grandmother, telling me how well I deal

with children and determined to turn me into some kind

of babysitter. “Well, I’m certainly not looking forward to

it.”

“But you’ll do it because you owe Maddie.”

e tone of her voice was firm enough that it made

me flash back to being twelve years old. “Yes, Grandma, I’ll

do it. I told her I would.”

“Good. Maybe it’ll be fun.”

“Maybe money will fall from the sky, too.”

e corner of her mouth quirked up and she brought

her cup to her lips in an attempt to hide it. Yeah, my

grandma was finding my situation amusing. I narrowed my

eyes at her. “I’m going to drag you to one of the games, you

know,” I threatened. “at’ll teach you to mock me.”

“Hey, if it gets these old bones out of the house and

into the sunshine, I’m all for it.” She winked at me and bit

into a lemon cookie.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re evil.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

23

Georgia Beers

1

at night, I spent hours online researching tee-ball,

how to play it, and how to coach it. Shockingly, I found a

handful of websites on the subject, as well as a couple

books, which I put in orders for. I wasn’t sure exactly how

they would help, but I held out hope anyway. If I was going

to do this, I wanted to do it right. Or at least make the

attempt.

I sifted through Maddie’s notes. What I found most

interesting was that she made some observations along the

margins that had to do with not worrying about winning

or losing. e line that made me laugh said, “e kids don’t

really care if they win or lose, they just want to learn to

play and have a little fun. Let the score roll off.” I made

myself a mental note to ask her if she’d gotten a little too

wrapped up in the number of runs during her first season

as a coach, because I knew first hand how competitive

Maddie could be. At the same time, it gave me pause. I

liked to win just as much as the next girl. I took my red

pen and wrote in big letters at the top of one page:

TEACH THEM HOW TO PLAY. From the blurbs on

the various websites I’d checked out as well as Maddie’s

notes, that was going to be the thing to remember. And as

the coach of these oh-so-young children, that was my job.

Maddie was scheduled for surgery the next morning,

so I called to wish her luck and get the details of where

she’d be so I could visit later. She confirmed the time and

place for practice on Wednesday and said she’d have J.T.

zip to the room they used as an office and e-mail me the

list of names for the kids on the team.

24

Starting From Scratch

I took a deep breath as the e-mail arrived, and I

scanned the list of twelve names. Five girls and seven boys.

Eight five-year-olds and four six-year-olds. And they were

counting on me to teach them how to play ball.

I dropped my head into my hands and groaned loudly.

Steve lifted his head from my reading chair and regarded

me with curious brown eyes.  en I got up and headed

downstairs to do what I always did when I was stressed out

and nervous.

I made cookies.

25

CHAPTER THREE

ey’re five-year-olds. ey’re kids, for Christ’s sake. Relax.

I said it over and over again in my head, but the nerves

were still there and I felt like somebody was shooting

billiards in the pit of my stomach. I’d gotten to the field a

little early—Tyrell was far too amused by the fact that I

was actually doing this and kicked me out of the office a

full half hour earlier than usual. J.T. had dropped by the

office parking lot the day before and transferred all

Maddie’s supplies to the trunk of my car, so I had

everything I needed.

I’d decided that one large benefit to tee-ball was that I

didn’t really have to pitch, and therefore the chances of me

getting nailed in the face with a line drive by some kid who

was on track to be the next Barry Bonds were pretty slim. I

hauled out the bases and Maddie’s pre-cut twine and set

them up, making the infield a little smaller than actual size

for the time being. Five-year-olds had short legs.

e tee was made of heavy duty plastic, as were the

bats, and we would use plastic balls as well. e idea was to

get the kids used to the rules and the feel of the game, not

to overwhelm them with heavy equipment. It was sort of

glorified whiffle ball, not that any of these little tykes

would have any idea what that was.

Georgia Beers

I was swigging from my water bottle and running

through the list of names again when the first car pulled

up and two kids got out. A minivan pulled up a few

seconds later, followed by another. I glanced at my watch.

Five forty-five on the dot. Nice. ese would be the kids

that were punctual, I suspected.

Once the seventh member of my team appeared, I

decided I wasn’t going to bother trying to learn their last

names. First names were hard enough, especially

considering I had two Brittanys, a Samuel not Sam, a

Mikey, and a Mikki. By six o’clock, the last kid showed up,

a little boy named Max. His mom followed him from their

Lexus and was chatting on her cell phone as she took a

seat in the bleachers with the one other mom and one

other dad who’d also decided to stick around for practice.

(Maddie hadn’t mentioned the possibility of spectators on

my first day and I was not happy about them…I felt I

didn’t really need anybody over the age of six to see that I

had no idea what I was doing.)

“Okay, guys. Okay.” I raised my voice to get the

attention of all of them. “Let’s have a seat right here.” I

waited until they all grabbed some grass between home

and the pitcher’s mound and then I took roll call. “All

right, first things first. It’s going to take me a while to

remember your names. I’m old, like your parents, so my

memory stinks.”  at got a little chuckle out of them,

which was kind of cool. “So, you’re going to have to help

me out until I get used to you, all right?”

ere were nods all around and one little blond girl

(Isabella?) raised her hand. When I pointed to her, she

asked, “What do we call you?”

“at’s a good question. Coach is just fine.”

28

Starting From Scratch

“Coach what?”

Hmm. Another good question. Avery seemed kind of

a weird name to expect them to remember. “How about

Coach King? Does that work for you guys?”

“A king is a boy.” Okay, so the little blond girl was a

smarty-pants.

“at’s true,” I said to her. “But it’s also my last name,

so it makes sense.”

“Oh.” She shrugged and that was the end of that,

apparently. Deceptively easy, I suspected.

Keeping their attention turned out to be the hardest

part. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the majority of

them knew some of the basic rules of the game—which

bases were which, for example—so I decided to get right

into hitting, thinking that if I spent a short amount of time

on the boring details and most of the time on actual

participation, it would all work out. I also crossed my

fingers and toes, figuring it couldn’t hurt.

I set them up in the field using the imaginary line in

tee-ball that I’d read about in Maddie’s notes as well as

online. It meant that the fielders all stood back beyond an

invisible forty-foot arc from home plate that ran from first

base to third.  is was a safety measure so nobody got

blasted by a ball right off the tee. Plus, it helped the kids