Rain Delay

You may be wondering what happened after that haircut. I wore my ballcap to practice as usual, so it took a few minutes for my teammates on the Lightning to notice. In theory, girls were allowed on the team, but I was the only one that year. Most of the girls who had started in baseball had switched over to softball by my age. So if I bobbled a throw, I felt that everyone in the stands was rolling their eyes. If I hit a ground-rule double to the fence, everyone seemed super surprised, like, What a novelty! The fact that I was a girl was a big deal, even though everyone pretended it wasn’t. When it was my turn to bat at practice, I pulled off my cap so I could fasten on my helmet.

“Cassie,” said James, the first baseman for the Lightning. “You sure did a number on your hair. You totally look like a boy.”

“I like it,” said Matt quickly. “It’s better for wearing a batting helmet.”

Matt knew I felt like a boy. Actually, I’d told him I sometimes felt like a boy. I hadn’t wanted to tell him the whole truth, that I always felt like a boy.

“I think she looks like a boy,” said James, standing his ground as usual. I didn’t know James that well, only that that he was stubborn and sometimes lost track of his strikes and balls when he was batting—but he would never admit this. He also played hockey, and sometimes I wondered if his heart was really in baseball like mine was.

“Can you guys call me Caz all the time instead of Cassie?” I asked, all in one big breath, afraid of what they’d say.

“Totally like a boy,” said James, as if we hadn’t heard him the first time. I wanted to look like a boy. I just didn’t want everyone talking about it.

“Girls can play baseball, you know,” said Eddie, who was usually the catcher.

Of course I knew that. Girls could play baseball. I just didn’t feel like a girl. I realized it was going to be impossible to explain all this to them. They were never going to get it—get me.

“Just call me Caz, okay?” I said, and then it was my turn to bat.

That’s when it started. While I was batting, someone started singing that “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” song, which didn’t even make any sense but caused me to miss my pitch. The day before, we’d been working together on our run to win the championships. Now they were making fun of me. How could that happen because of one haircut?

Pressure is what makes diamonds, Nana Cadman once told me. That and carbon dioxide. She said something special often comes from being in a situation where you have to tough it out—like my mom being in labor for eleven hours, and eventually out came me! Nana was no geologist, but she did usually have good advice. She said your best friends will be there with you through thick and thin. So I finished the practice, and the one after that, despite the whispers. We didn’t need the distraction. The regular season playoffs were coming up.

Our coach planned an extra practice the day before our first game. It was hot, but it went well. No one said anything strange, and I thought maybe they were getting used to the new me. We finished the regular practice, the coaches packed up and went home, and a few of us stayed behind to play a game of 500. My parents often picked me up a few minutes late, because they knew I loved 500—playing just for fun as the summer night cooled down and the sky began to fall dark.

The way we played was simple. One person batted, and the others tried to catch their shots. You got different points for your catch—100 if you grabbed it clean, 50 for grounders and so on. Once someone reached 500, they switched places with the batter. James put on his batting helmet over his long brown hair—he was growing it all feathery. Obviously he was going to bat first. We played for a few minutes, just four of us, as James batted. The ballpark was rimmed with backyards, and I heard a mom calling a kid home. Someone else was playing a radio on a porch.

“Nice hit, James,” I said as I caught it in my glove. No bounce. That was 100 points. James just scowled at me. I should have known something was wrong then.

I caught a couple of fly balls, and Eddie caught a few, and Matt got some grounders. I picked up two grounders. Then James hit a line drive, thwick, right between Eddie and me. I dove for it into the grass and snagged it in my glove.

“Five hundred!” I called, standing up to dust myself off. That meant James could play while I batted.

“You’re really a show-off, Cassie,” said Eddie. “That was my mine to catch. You didn’t even call it.”

“That’s not my name,” I said, confused. I looked over at Matt. He shook his head, but I didn’t know what that meant—no, don’t say anything or no, that’s not your name?

“Yeah, and I think you have trouble with math since you cut your hair, because there’s no way that’s 500.”

“She’s cheating. She didn’t used to cheat when she was a girl.” There was so much wrong with that sentence that I couldn’t think of what to say. I actually couldn’t even speak. I felt as if a panicked horse were galloping on my chest, trapped there, trying to find its way out.

“Guys, we’re supposed to be a team,” said Matt, walking over from right field.

“Tell that to Cassie the show-off,” said James, glaring at me. “Oh, sorry—Caz.”

“What did I do?” I asked, staring down at my glove as if the answer might be there.

Something had changed. I had changed. And they didn’t like it.

“Let’s just go, Caz,” said Matt, tapping his sports watch. “It’s time anyway.”

We walked home in silence, the sound of my baseball cleats ticking against the sidewalk. Each step reminded me of the new names I had been called—show-off, cheater.

Finally, just as we reached the junction where we went our separate ways home, Matt cleared his throat.

“They’re just jealous, Caz, because you’re a better player than them.”

I nodded, trying not to cry. You’d never see Joey Votto cry. I just wanted to get out of there.

“How was practice?” called my dad from the living room when I finally got home.

“Great,” I lied. I could not tell them what had really happened. I could not begin to explain.

“Want to watch the game with me, pal?” asked my dad.

“Nah,” I said. “Too tired.” I admit it—I went to my room and cried, burying my head under my pillow as if that could make my thoughts go away. J.R. bumped the door open and barged in to see me, as if he knew I was sad. I fell asleep in my baseball clothes and had a dream that I was trapped in a steamer trunk—the heavy kind with buckles that you take on long journeys. I tried knocking on the lid from the inside, and even though I could hear footsteps around me, no one helped me.

Nana Cadman appeared at our front door the next morning, carrying a paper bag of bagels from the bakery. The bagels were still warm.

“Fuel for the superstar,” said Nana, smiling and placing the bag on the kitchen table next to my untouched glass of orange juice.

“Please don’t call me that, Nana,” I said.

Her smile disappeared. She was wearing the baseball earrings she liked to put on for games.

“I’m sorry, Nana,” I said. “Thank you for the bagels. I’m just feeling…” I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Nervous about the game?” she finished.

“Something like that,” I said, tracing my finger through the condensation on the orange-juice glass.

“Win or lose, what’s the worst that could happen?” asked Nana.

I thought about it. Everyone laughs at me. I let my team down.

“Mascot fight?” I said, to make her laugh. We’d seen a YouTube video of two minor-league mascots, an otter and a black bear, duking it out, except they were both too fat in their costumes to land a punch. It ended up being really funny.

“Just try your best, Caz. That’s all anyone can ask. Hold your head high. Cadmans never give up, you know. Remember what pressure makes?”

“Pressure makes diamonds,” I recited, reaching for the bagels.

When we got to the game, the first of the regular season playoffs, I asked the coach to write my name on the lineup as Caz Cadman, because I didn’t want to hear “Cassie” over the loudspeaker. Everyone knew something was up. The announcer said my name but pronounced it in this funny tone like, “Heeere’s Caz,” and a few people laughed. My mom and dad and Nana Cadman just sat there in the stands, looking confused.

“What kind of name is that?” I heard someone mutter. “Didn’t number 3 used to be a girl?”

I knew then, standing at home plate, that most of the Lightning players weren’t really my “through thick and thin” friends. They had tolerated a girl on their team when my arm helped them win, but now? I froze at the plate, just long enough.

Strike one.

I replay that strike sometimes, because that is when I knew. Caz, you are on your own. Then it happened. The second pitch was coming straight for me—not my bat, but my head. I spun fast and got struck on the top of my shoulder. It felt as if someone had dipped it in fire.

The pitcher was glaring at me. He was heavyset and at least a head taller than me, with chocolate freckles and an overbite. His name was McGillan, but everyone called him Big Mack. I knew he was friends with James. They played on the same hockey team.

Sorry, Big Mack mouthed, then smiled.

That smile showed one thing—the hit was intentional. Since I’d been hit, it was a dead ball. I took a base. No one made a stink about me getting a beanball. No one clapped when I walked to first base. The whole diamond was silent, like the sound of snow falling. Then, when the next Lightning got a base hit, I ran to second base wondering if anyone besides Matt still had my back.

Was it wrong to cut my hair and ask to be called Caz? I was so tired of feeling like nothing about me felt right—my hair, my name, my clothes. I had thought my team would understand. I’d known most of the Lightning since we were little. They must have all been put in the right bodies when they were born. Why was it so wrong that I wanted the same thing?

Matt was up to bat and managed to get to first on a line drive. I ran to third, beating the throw. Big Mack was getting rattled. Too many batters were getting hits off him. Eddie was up to bat now, and Mack lobbed a wild pitch. The catcher bumbled it and then went lumbering off in pursuit, super slow, like some Stone Age tortoise.

“Caz!” I heard Nana Cadman yell. “Run like ya mean it!”

I fell back into my body, and I hightailed it for home, kicking up the dust. I slid and made it, just before the catcher swooped in for the tag. I heard my mom and dad cheering and Nana loudest of all.

I stood and dusted myself off. My run had nudged us into the lead of the first playoff game. I had done something. I had helped my team. I let myself feel a flicker of pride.

“You’re still just a girl,” the catcher said to me, as if reading my mind.

And things just kept going downhill from there. We won the game, but my teammates acted weird around me, like they couldn’t look at me. The day before my tenth-birthday party, my mom fielded a flurry of emails from parents canceling. We’d booked a party at the batting cage and invited the whole team—ten players—as well as two girls from class that I’d known since preschool. It ended up being just those two girls and Matt. Everyone else on the Lightning suddenly had something else to do.

“More chances for us to hit,” said Matt, but even he couldn’t pretend it didn’t suck. The saddest thing was seeing the enormous ice-cream cake my mom had ordered, back when she anticipated a crowd. It was shaped like a baseball. My new name was written on it in red icing. We barely made a dent in it. I can still picture that big melting cake. I told myself not to cry, and I didn’t, mainly because I knew how sad it would make my mom.

It turned out my dad had already been offered the new job with the airline in Washington, and my parents had been weighing the pros and cons. Just before the school year ended, I went to class and found my desk stuffed with boys’ underwear. It was supposed to be funny, I guess. I stared and left it all there. I heard a roar of laughter. Everyone saw and no one said a thing—not Matt and not my teacher. I ran from the room without even asking permission. I didn’t tell my parents about it until a full day later.

I was just sitting there, staring at my dinner.

“Caz,” my mom said, standing up from her chair and reaching to clear my nearly untouched plate, “tell me what is going on with you.”

I burst into tears, and I told her. The next day my parents drove me to school, both of them wearing ironed clothes and proper shoes. We drove in complete silence. I don’t know what the principal said, or what my parents said, but when I got home that night I could tell they weren’t happy. That made three of us. I went straight to my room, in case they wanted to talk. I heard my mom slamming drawers in the kitchen as she started dinner. She was so angry that I could hear her fuming even from my room. Apparently the principal had told them that perhaps I should try to “toughen up.”

When they called me for dinner, I came and sat down at my place.

“Let’s go. Let’s just go,” I said. My parents knew exactly what I meant.

And two weeks and one Blue Jays game later, we left.