Who’s On First, As Written By Emily St. John Mandel
“So… who’s on first?”
Spencer had very little interest in baseball, and even less interest in hearing about it from the man sitting across from her. But like most men, he hadn’t asked her anything about herself, and discussing the team he’d referenced a moment ago seemed preferable to sitting in uncomfortable silence.
“Yes,” he said. His mouth never quite closed, hanging just slightly agape at the ends of his sentences. She was going to kill Julie for setting her up with him.
“I mean, the fellow’s name,” Spencer clarified. The café they’d agreed on had attempted a French theme, with a sign over the entrance reading “Entrée” and wisteria curling through the iron fence surrounding the small patio. She had ordered an iced tea and the cashier had looked baffled, before offering to pour a hot tea over ice. Spencer had liked it here immediately.
“Yes,” the man said again.
“Who is on first,” Spencer asked again, more loudly this time, in case he hadn’t heard her question.
She was suddenly transported back to the last time she’d raised her voice like this, several weeks ago at some club downtown that Julie had dragged her to. Spencer had panicked at the lack of a bar menu and had ordered a gin and tonic, despite not liking gin and tonics. She was wondering if she should just throw it out when a girl — a woman, really, Spencer needed to stop calling women “girls” — had pushed through the throng of sweaty bodies towards her and said something that was drowned out by the loud music.
“What?” Spencer had mouthed. The girl’s eyes were green and her hair was the color of cinnamon, cut cleanly in a straight line just above her shoulders. She’d reached towards Spencer’s ear and pressed down on the small fold of flesh there, blocking the canal.
“I said, I like your earrings.” She heard the girl much more clearly now that everything was muted, which seemed counterintuitive. Spencer had smiled and thanked her, but couldn’t think of anything else to say, her mind still snagging on the physics of ear canals. The girl was swallowed up by the crowd a moment later.
Spencer had found that her ear felt much too bare without the girl’s — the woman’s — finger on it. Was she a lesbian?
“Yes! That’s the man’s name.” The man — what was his name, again? — seemed pleased for some reason.
Spencer swirled her iced tea gently as a sparrow hopped through the bushes by her left foot. She decided she would probably know if she were a lesbian. “That’s whose name?”
“Yes,” responded the man. Spencer wondered, for a moment, if he had slipped something into her drink, and was being misleading intentionally to try to gauge if the drug had taken effect yet. It was 2pm on a Sunday, which seemed like an odd time to roofie someone, but she glanced down at her hot-tea-over-ice nonetheless, before realizing she didn’t know what she was looking for. They make the pills so they dissolve completely, she assumed, but maybe only the good ones? She felt like this man, with gray fingerprint smears on his thighs and dry, flaky lips, would not spring for the good stuff.
“I’m asking you who’s on first,” she reiterated, deciding to double down. She really would like to understand what they’d been talking about for the last few minutes before she never saw him again.
“That’s the man’s name,” he said, harshly, his eyes bulging a bit. Julia had said he was 34, but he looked much older suddenly.
Spencer had been looking forward to going on a date with a 34-year-old, as she’d only been on one other date this month, with a 23-year-old. At 29, she’d felt weird about it beforehand, but then Clara had chimed in from her room, eavesdropping as she always did, to tell her that a 29-year-old man would never think twice about going on a date with a 23-year-old woman. So Spencer had gone on the date, for political reasons, and because both Clara and Vee were at a birthday party that night, and whenever she was home alone she started hearing ghosts.
The 23-year-old had been perfectly kind — charming, even, and handsome — but it became immediately evident how deeply 23 he was. Every sentence was filled with conviction, and his eyes glittered as he talked about all of the things he was passionate about. Spencer had found herself craving a cigarette, despite not being a smoker.
“That’s whose name?” She was having fun, now, actually, watching the man get redder and redder, both of them locked into this miserable conversation like rams with their horns tangled.
“Yes!” he shouted. Being a lesbian must be relaxing, Spencer thought, before remembering homophobia.
“Well, tell me!” she bit back.
Louis — that was his name, she remembered it now — took a deep, exasperated breath.
“Who is the name of the first baseman,” he said, his voice icy.
Spencer smiled. “That,” she said, “is what I’m asking you.”
