THE STADIUM ABOVE THEM ROARED.
“Joe,” said Neverett to his analyst, Joe Castiglione, “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Reuben Hall launches himself one foot, two foot off the corner of the wall and makes the catch, and this game is over, folks, in dramatic fashion, 2–1 Yankees.”
Castiglione laughed bitterly. “There was a ball girl in 2009, Tim, who did something just like this, just like it, and it makes me wonder if Reuben Hall saw it himself on YouTube and just said, ‘Hey, if a ball girl can do it, then so can I.’ Amazing . . .”
“Ha-ha!” Cat squealed, and turned and slapped high fives with Jalen. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“Come on.” Jalen raced through the gate and they threw themselves into the Rover.
“Mom, go!”
“Yes, all right.” Cat’s mom put the Range Rover into gear and the SUV jumped into the street.
They took a right, then a left, and surged up Brookline. Jalen looked back behind them and saw waves of people streaming from the stadium. He looked ahead at the empty road and giggled. “This is so great, Mrs. Hewlett.”
They went right onto Route 2, then left onto Charlesgate, without any traffic at all. Jalen knew the fields were just fifteen minutes away without traffic. They raced around the ramp that led to Storrow Drive, flying now because Cat’s mom knew that for Jalen, every second counted. They whipped around the tight bend so fast Jalen swallowed hard, because an accident was the only thing that could stop them now. Suddenly Cat groaned. A snake of red taillights stretched along Storrow Drive.
“Mom, can you go back?”
The traffic in front of them was stopped completely.
“Maybe I can back up.” Cat’s mom put the Range Rover into reverse and looked into the mirror before she stopped. “No. I can’t.”
Jalen looked back. There were several cars stacked up behind them now on the ramp. In front of them some drivers had gotten out of their vehicles for what was apparently a total shutdown of traffic.
“How far are we?” Jalen asked Cat.
“Three miles straight up the river,” Cat said.
Jalen swung open the door, the trees and the river and the skyline blurred by tears, because he did the math quickly. First, he’d never run three miles at one time. Second, even if he could make it without collapsing, it would take him at least forty minutes, and by then the game might just be over.
“I’ll meet you guys there,” he said before he closed the door, thankful for the sunglasses that hid his watery eyes.
Cat got out too, and followed him as he set off running down the ramp, his baseball cleats clacking against the pavement. They climbed the guardrail, stumbled down a grassy slope, and fell in with a throng of runners, walkers, and bikers along the wide riverside path.
Cat was right there alongside him until she suddenly pulled up short and grabbed Jalen’s arm. “Wait.”
Jalen looked toward the traffic, thinking that maybe it had begun to move, but Cat was looking the other way, toward the river, when she said, “I’ve got an idea.”