Archive of Our Own

Lupe’s first hint comes at dinner.

She is presented with potatoes, roast ham, and eggs. Jess is on her left and when she turns to her right to ask Esti to pass the salt, the girl isn’t there. She is met instead with the placid, blank face of DeLuca.

Lupe frowns; glances around.

Esti is at the other end of the table, staring at her plate, poking the jellied top of her egg with a fork.

“You okay, hermano?” Jess asks. The blond stabs her ham with her fork and raises the whole thing to her mouth in one dangling slice, dripping grease. Across the table, Gill twists her face up in exaggerated disgust. Lupe can practically hear the taller woman’s sneer.

“Yeah,” Lupe says, glancing again at Esti.

It’s probably a one-off.

~

Except - Esti goes to bed early.

By the time Lupe makes it upstairs, the room is dark, the curtains drawn, and Esti is prone in bed with her eyes closed.

“Es? Are you awake?” Lupe whispers in the dark.

There’s no answer. 

~

The next morning, Esti is nowhere to be seen. She does not jostle for elbow room with Lupe at the sink; doesn’t wrinkle her nose at Lupe for putting on the same pair of socks as yesterday; does not eat her cereal with Lupe at the breakfast table.

Still, Lupe tries to reason, it’s probably nothing.

~

It’s not nothing.

The younger girl cycles to the pitch with Maybelle and Gill.

Lupe rides next to Jess, watching the back of Esti’s head.

Sure, Esti likes Maybelle and, for some godforsaken reason, Gill too. And… it’s probably good for Es to have someone to chat with who isn’t Lupe. Who isn’t Jess. Good for her to have women who don’t think girl talk is what kind of animal is spam anyway? and do you think you could outrun a bear? and what about if it only had three legs?

But - it gets worse.

Esti changes into her practice clothes at the other end of the locker room even though her locker is right next to Lupe’s.

The younger girl waits until Lupe is distracted by Shaw to pack her clothes away, their dearly beloved coach asking Lupe what plays they should run again today, half in and half out of her stupid green sweater, flashing the white lace of her bra, face earnest as if Shaw actually gives a fuck about what Lupe thinks.

By the time Lupe makes it out and onto the mound, Es is already on the pitch, standing in the outfield, laughing and chatting to Gill.

~

From there it only gets more obvious: Esti is avoiding her.

The younger girl changes direction during practice whenever Lupe gets within five meters of her. She switches teams to be on the opposing side. She drops down next to fucking Gill again to eat her sandwich, back turned to Lupe, at lunch.

It’s that more than anything else that makes up Lupe’s mind.

No one, except maybe Shaw and DeLuca, like Gill enough to seek her out three times in a row. And Esti’s not stupid. Lupe may not have said that Gill, huh? Fucking hate that stuck-up prat out loud, but Esti knows, knows that Lupe would rather tell Shaw she has the goddamn yips that sit down to lunch and cookies with Gill.

Jess sprawls out next to her on the grass and squints at her. “Why’s your face doing that?”

“Gas,” Lupe says.

~

Esti continues to avoid her.

The younger girl goes sleep early; gets up late; is barely ever in their shared room. She is no longer pestering to sit next to Lupe on the bus or at meals; not clamouring for the older woman to teach her to pitch.

~

They play the Racine Belles and win.

Lupe’s victory feels hollow though. Esti is normally glued to her side after a game, bouncing around her, reliving this pitch and that catch and her slide in the second half. Now, Esti doesn’t say a word to her; sits at the back of the bus with Maybelle.

Lupe ends up sharing with a tired Shaw at the front.

“Nice pitching,” Shaw murmurs as she collapses into the seat.

Lupe grunts at her; ignores how Shaw’s thigh presses against her own as the other woman stretches.

“You could compliment me back you know?” Shaw says, smiling lopsidedly.

“You didn’t fall on your face,” Lupe says, “congrats.” She cranes her neck back and catches sight of Esti staring out the window.

“Oh,” Shaw mutters, flushing scarlet, “I did actually. In the first half-”

“Do you ever,” Lupe snaps. She’s not remotely in the mood right now for Shaw and her fucking post-game analysis, “think about anything other than baseball?”

Shaw clicks her mouth shut; stares at the pitcher.

Lupe waits thirty seconds and when Shaw comes up with nothing, she turns her whole body away and reflects briefly that it is no wonder Shaw and Gill are so fucking loved up. Shaw can’t talk about anything other than playing ball and Gill‘s only topic of conversation is herself.  They are made for one another.

Lupe spends the rest of the journey sitting in sullen silence, occasionally glancing back over her shoulder at Esti.

~

The thing is - Lupe’s not stupid. She knows she’s not great with people.

She can pitch like a goddamn lightning bolt, and she gets her fair share of girls at the bar, but beyond that, at least in the privacy of her mind, she knows she’s kind of a nightmare.

She barely has a grip on what she is feeling half the time. She’s learnt, by now, the basics – what makes her happy (Jess, pitching, playing ball, girls, beer, smokes, riding her bike so fast that she feels like she’s left her heart behind); what makes her angry (the league’s fucking rules, men, Dove, her stupid twinging elbow); what annoys the fuck out of her (Shaw, Shaw, Shaw, Shaw), what she can’t stand (Gill, skirts, dresses, pantyhose, stones in her shoes, victory red), but other stuff… other stuff comes more slowly.

It takes a week, a whole goddamn week, of Esti avoiding her before she realizes: she misses her. She misses her stupid fifteen-year-old limpet like someone has sawn off her arm.

Lupe didn’t ask for this. She didn’t ask for Esti to latch onto her, to be responsible for her.  But somewhere along the way, Lupe has gotten used to Esti, fond of her even. She’s like the annoying little sister Lupe never wanted.

And Lupe… Lupe has forgotten how hard it is to feel alone - to listen to the demons in your own head when there is always someone in your ear chatting about the movies, or the Peaches uniform, or why English is such a stupid language, or whether she can have Lupe’s mushrooms, or what does she think of the colour blue, isn’t it just lovely, and what might her parents be doing right now, and isn’t Rita Hayworth pretty, and do you think Sarge was really in the army, and please Lupe will you help me with my hair?

Now… now Lupe doesn’t know what to do with herself.

She feels like a sleeping bag that someone has unfurled; unable to stuff herself back into the small, neat bundle she was before the fifteen-year-old came into her life and started prodding at her.

~

Lupe tries to think of what she might have done wrong; what she might have said to have caused the girl to avoid her so stubbornly. As much as Lupe moans about her, Esti is thick-skinned. Lupe can’t think of anything she’s done that might have gotten to Esti more than usual.

She snaps, grumbles, shoves, rolls her eyes, and drops Esti at the drop of a hat. But Esti, although it makes Lupe squirm to admit it, is used to it.

There has to be something, though. Something that has made the chatter-filled space around Lupe a quiet, Esti-less, void.

~

Lupe tries asking. She does.

She catches Esti’s arm one morning as they get ready to practice, just inside the front door.

“Esti?”

“Not now, Lupe.”

“But-”

“Not now!”

~

Eventually after a full week of being ignored, Lupe caves and does what she always does when the soft weak complex human tissue of other people becomes too puzzling: she asks Jess.

~

“Have you asked her?” Jess says, loose-limbed and reasonable, sitting in the bright sun on the front porch.

“Fuck, you really think I’m clueless, huh?”

Jess smiles at her. “Have you?”

“Yeah, I fucking asked.”

“What you say?”

Lupe groans, “I said ‘Esti’.”

“Yeah,” Jess prompts, “what else?”

“What do you mean, what else? What else is there?”

“Fuck, hermano,” Jess laughs and lets her head fall back against the wall of the house.

“What? What?’

“That’s not asking.”

Lupe scowls at her friend. “You’re a dick.”

“Try like this,” Jess says, and the blond tilts her body into an odd, hunched-over bunch, bringing her arms out at an angle and shifting their grip on their cigarette. Lupe hisses at her. That’s how she holds fucking smokes.  

“Don’t you dare-”

“Hi, Esti,” Jess says, her voice stupidly high. Lupe wants to sit on her. “You’ve been avoiding me. Is anything wrong or has my normal, sunny demeanour just become too much?”

“Fucking hate you,” Lupe snaps.

Jess relaxes back into her usual boyish, graceless sprawl. “Yeah? How much?”

“A lot,” Lupe says, and then, “you think that’ll work?”

“Maybe,” Jess shrugs. She glances at Lupe, “you want me to come with you?”

Lupe thinks about telling Jess to fuck off, but only for a reactionary split second. She knows Jess well enough by now to know that her friend is genuine.

“Fuck,” Lupe sighs, “yeah, okay.”

~

They find Esti sitting with Maybelle, leafing through one of the blonde woman’s magazines, nodding along as Maybelle knits and chats, spilling gossip about various Hollywood stars.

Esti’s English is getting better - her understanding anyway. But Lupe can still tell that most of what Maybelle is saying is going over the younger woman’s head.

Esti smiles when she sees Jess; drops it as soon as she spots Lupe.

“Hey, Es,” Jess grins, “can we borrow you?”

“I want to read,” Esti says, sullen. She holds up the magazine; sets her shoulders in a stubborn line.

Jess glances at Lupe and twists her face up. Lupe sighs - gives in. Uses the only thing she knows will work: “Gonna teach Jess a curveball. You want to come?”

Indecision wavers across Esti’s face and Lupe presses her advantage. She says, in a loud, theatrical, trill: “Doesn’t seem like she’s interested. Come on, Jess.”

“No!” Esti says and rockets up from the couch. “I want to come! Thanks, May.”

“Have fun, hon,” Maybelle says. “Knock em’ dead.”

~

They walk Esti to the backyard.

Lupe produces a ball; makes a show of setting up a loose game of catch. She waits until Esti is fully relaxed, laughing as Jess purposely over-eggs one of her throws and then says, “What have I done wrong, Esti?”

Esti falters; drops the ball Jess has thrown at her.

“How do I put it right?” Lupe presses.

They look at each other for a long moment; Jess a spot of sun-bleached hair holding together the space between them.  

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Esti murmurs eventually. She picks up the dropped ball and throws it to Lupe.

Lupe catches it; presses her thumb against the ball’s stitching. She remembers Jess’s terrible impression of her. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

Esti wraps her arms around herself and turns her face away. She looks tiny suddenly. “Not because you’ve done anything wrong.”

“Why then?” Lupe asks. She wants to step closer to the girl; doesn’t.

“You’ll be angry,” Esti says, softly. She swipes at her face and Lupe is too far away to see if she’s crying. Jess moves closer to the younger girl though, hooks her pointy chin over Esti’s shoulder and Esti leans back into her.

“Esti?”

“I don’t want you to be angry with me.”

“Then, I won’t,” Lupe says.

Esti makes a hiccupping noise.

“You promise? Promise?”

“Promise,” Lupe confirms. She takes a halting step forward, then another, until the three of them end up standing in a little knot on the grass.

“Upstairs,” Esti says, “not here.”

~

Lupe manages to keep her temper, but only just.

It’s too much. She’s not prepared for this fucking shit.

This was supposed to be an in-and-out job: get on a team, pitch for her goddamn life, ride the wave. She wasn’t supposed to develop… fondness for stupid fifteen-year-old kids. She’s not supposed to be here, mopping up their problems and cursing the fact that the whole fucking world is exactly the same as it was when she was fifteen and stupid and alone.

“So… you’re late,” Jess clarifies. She’s sat next to Esti on her bed, arm thrown around the younger girl’s shoulder. Esti is properly crying now, huge tears sliding down her face as she watches Lupe pace up and down.

“Please, Lupe,” Esti pleads. “You promised.”

“Dios, Esti,” Lupe wants to pull every hair out of her head, one fucking strand at a time, “how could you be so stupid?”

“I wasn’t stupid,” Esti says, snapping up from the bed. The tears fall faster down her face.

“You went on a date with- with some kid and-”

“Okay,” Jess says, standing up, hands outstretched and placating. “Let’s just-”

“Other girls do it,” Esti cries, “He liked me!” She tries to step around Jess, to catch up with Lupe’s pacing.

Lupe rounds on her, “fucking stupid.”

“You’re a hypocrite,” Esti spits.

“Woah,” Jess says, “okay-”

Lupe feels incandescent. She’s in Esti’s face before she’s really thinking about it, all thoughts of promises gone. “Yeah, fucking stupid. You want to be like me, Esti?”

Esti jerks back and almost collides with Jess. Then she says, so quietly that Lupe almost misses it, “Yes.”

Lupe’s rage dies, spluttering out. She stares at the girl.

In the sudden silence, Jess rallies. The blond pushes Esti down so that she’s sitting on her bed. “Lupe,” she murmurs, trying to get Lupe to back up.

Lupe lets the blond push ineffectively at her for a second then twists sideways, crouching down in front of Esti. “Hermana,” she tries. She has no idea what to say.

Esti makes a strangled noise and then throws herself at Lupe, nearly knocking them both on their asses. “Okay, okay,” Lupe says. She soothes at hand down the back of Esti’s hair. She feels like someone has carved out a hole in her head, and filled it with buzzing static noise.

Esti sobs into her shoulder, her hands tight around the older woman’s shoulders. “I don’t know what to do,” Lupe manages to make out through her cries.

Lupe doesn’t know what to do either. She feels a hand touch her shoulder; looks up to find Jess hovering over both of them.

“Let’s start,” Jess says, “by getting you both off the floor, yeah?”

~

Once Esti starts talking - once she starts crying - it’s like she can’t stop. It pours out of her – words and tears mixed together until Lupe feels like she’s drowning. Esti clings to her and Lupe clutches at Jess’s hand in turn.

Eventually, the girl cries herself to sleep, exhausted.

Jess helps Lupe untangle herself, propping Esti up against the pillows.

“Smoke?” Jess says.

“And a beer,” Lupe croaks.

~

“Fuck,” Lupe manages when she’s five cigarettes in, three beers down.

They’re sat at the back of the garage, on their asses in the dirt, leaning against the wall.

“You okay?” Jess asks.

“Fuck,” Lupe says again.

“You didn’t tell her,” Jess murmurs. The blond is peeling the label off her beer bottle.

Lupe’s head feels like it is about to fall off her shoulders; she doesn’t have the patience for Jess’s softly-softly approach right now.

“What, McCreedy?”

“Es thinks you got knocked up by accident,” Jess says plainly, and the words make Lupe feel like she’s been punched, all the air knocked out of her. “Sorry,” Jess says, apologetically, when she catches sight of Lupe’s face.

“How did you-”

Jess shrugs. “You’re into girls.”

“I didn’t come out the fucking womb knowing that,” Lupe protests. “It- it could have happened…”

“But it didn’t?” Jess asks.

Lupe swallows. “No.”

Jess nods; gazes out at the line of trees that borders the yard. They are both silent for several long minutes and then Jess says, “There are things that women can do. That Esti could do. Maybe.”

“What- what kind of things?” Lupe asks.

“I don’t know,” Jess shrugs, “I’ve just heard stuff, you know. I don’t know the details.”

“Well, that’s not much help then, is it?” Lupe needs another smoke. Several of them. A whole damn packet.

“We just need to find someone who does know,” Jess says like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world. Like they both wouldn’t be kicked out of the league in an instant for asking around about things women can do.

“Oh,” Lupe mocks, “let’s just ask Sarge. Vivienne Hughes. Mr Baker Jr. We’ll hang a banner.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Jess snaps. “We’ll ask someone we can trust.”

The list of people Lupe trusts is exactly one person.

Jess, in that unnerving way she has, reads the thought on Lupe’s face, “Fine. We’ll ask someone I trust and someone you tolerate.”

“I hate it when you do that.”

Jess shrugs, “you’re an open book, Garcia.”

“Who do you trust, then, that could actually help us?” Lupe says, because starting an argument about her face and what exactly Jess can read on it is not helpful to anyone right about now.

Jess thinks for a second, tugging at her skinny plait and moving her mouth like there is an invisible toothpick in it. “How long did Shaw say she was married to her husband?”

“Dunno,” Lupe says, “a long time. Ten years or something.”

“Odd, don’t you think, she never popped any sprogs out?”

“Jess,” Lupe says, warning laced through her tone.

“You got a better idea?”

Lupe grits down on her teeth. Hates that she has to admit: “No. I don’t.”

~

“Farm girl,” Jess says from where the two of them are waiting in ambush, leaning against the landing bannister on the stairs.

Shaw, predictably, jumps about two feet in the air. “Jess,” she says, flushed, blinking up at them.

“Need your help with something,” Jess says and then nudges Lupe beside her.

“Yeah,” Lupe murmurs, voice laced with reluctance.

Shaw eyes her; Lupe eyes her right back. There’s a long moment where, had anyone walked past and seen their staring contest, staged over two floors, they all would have looked like idiots.

“Help with what?” Shaw asks eventually, and Lupe considers that their dearly beloved coach is not as naïve as she had first thought.

“You’ll see,” Jess says, “come on.”

~

The two of them lead Shaw to Esti and Lupe’s shared room, closing the door quietly.

Esti’s still asleep, curled in on herself on her twin bed. She looks small, fragile, and Lupe wants to scope her up and hold her close; wants to run away and forget any of these women ever existed.

“She okay?” Shaw asks quietly.

“Not really,” Jess says. She offers Shaw a cigarette; Shaw smiles and shakes her head.

Lupe leans against the vanity and waits until Shaw has awkwardly settled herself into the space next to Jess on her own bed. Then she snaps at Jess, “tell her then.”

“Alright,” Jess says easily.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Lupe adds.

“You guys are worrying me,” Shaw says. “What’s wrong with Esti?”

“Well…” Jess says, and Lupe can see her considering how exactly to phrase it.

“She’s pregnant,” Lupe says for her because if you are in for a cent, you might as well be in for the whole fucking dollar.

Shaw’s body goes very still and then relaxes by degrees as if she is forcibly trying to unwind it. Her hands flex against Lupe’s bedsheets and Lupe looks away.

“That’s… bad news.”

Jess snorts, “No shit.”

“What, um,” Shaw says, and there’s a barely perceptible tremble in her voice, “do you need my help with? Um, you know, in regard to, uh, to that.”

Lupe glances at Jess. Jess meets her gaze and shakes her head ever so slightly. Not yet.

“We think she messed around with that kid she went on a date with a few weeks ago,” Jess says, “You know, the one with the elbows.”

“Elbows?”

“Yeah, they were sort of,” Jess holds her arms out from herself, gives them a floppy kind of shake.

“Gangly?” Shaw guesses.

“Right. Gangly,” Jess agrees.

“She’s five weeks late,” Lupe adds. She can see where Jess is going now; can feel the shape of her friend’s plan.

“She’s so young,” Jess says.

“They’ll kick her out of the league,” Lupe nods.

“She’s not got much to go back to,” Jess intones.

“And she’s one of our key players,” Lupe interjects.

“Okay,” Shaw holds up a hand. There’s a glimmer of something in her eyes and Lupe can see that she’s cottoned on. She might not like Shaw per se, might not trust her, but Lupe can admit that she’s smarter than the ruffled, doe-eyed, dimpled exterior suggests. True to form, Shaw says, slower this time and in a tone made of lead, “what do you need my help with?”

“How long,” Jess says carefully, “have you been married to your husband, Farm girl?”

Shaw’s eyes snap to Jess so quickly that Lupe’s body tenses instinctively.

“Eleven years.”

Jess nods slowly, picks a little at her fingernail, and says so, so causally, “you put out much?”

Shaw’s body does that freezing thing again, only this time it does not relax. “What are you asking me, Jess?”

“You know what she’s asking,” Lupe says. There’s something about the carefully curated looseness of Jess’s limbs against the coiled body of Shaw’s, sat at opposite ends of Lupe’s bed, that is making Lupe’s pulse race.

Shaw stands suddenly. She takes a single step towards Lupe, her eyes a bright, burning brown, and then she falters.

She glances at Esti, then at Lupe again, at her own hands, at her feet, the ceiling, back at Esti. Finally, she sits back down.

“How far gone is she? If you had to guess?”

It’s not what Lupe is expecting her to say. If she’s honest, Lupe had expected Shaw to shy away, pretend stuttering ignorance, and maybe, maybe, Lupe trusts that Shaw wouldn’t have run to Beverly, wouldn’t have outed Esti to the league, but…

“About seven weeks,” Jess says quietly.

Shaw closes her eyes and takes a long shaky breath. “No one can know about this.”

“We’re not going to tell anyone,” Lupe snaps. She feels, suddenly, furiously angry and doesn’t know why.

Shaw looks at her, apologetic, “I know. Sorry. I just… we’ve got to be careful.”

Jess, her curated calm now thawed to a more natural one, throws an arm around Shaw’s shoulder, “what’s one more secret, eh?”

~

They go their separate ways with the promise of meeting back up after curfew that evening.

Shaw, undoubtedly, has some coaching job that needs attention or some prearranged meeting with Gill to sneak off to, but she catches up Lupe’s elbow on the landing and Lupe, through sheer force of will, manages not to rip herself away from the other woman’s warm hand.

“Esti will be okay with, um,” Shaw murmurs lowly, “you know?” Her eyelashes are very long, and Lupe shifts her gaze so that it is somewhere in the shorter woman’s hairline.

“Yeah. We’ll talk to her about it. But yeah.”

Shaw blinks at her, must see something in Lupe’s face and for the love of god, what is it about these people reading her like a fucking play-by-play. “Are you okay with this?”

Lupe does rip herself away from Shaw’s grip then. “Are you, coach? You seem to be the fucking expert here.”

It’s a low blow, even for Lupe, and she regrets it almost immediately. She watches Shaw’s face flicker into guilt, the kind of bone-deep guilt that Lupe herself is achingly familiar with.

“Fuck you, Lupe,” Shaw spits and then turns on her heel and strides away.

~

Shaw ignores her for the rest of the day. It feels like old times almost, when Shaw was newly the sole coach and Lupe, as always, was the second choice, the afterthought, the kid no one wants at the party.

Worse, this time it’s Lupe’s fault.

There’s something a little bit magnetic about Shaw and her stupid fucking feelings, like the whole team revolves on a hinge around her. Lupe’s noticed it before. If Shaw is happy or sad or fucking dying for a piss then the rest of the team slowly edge into happiness, or sadness, or start disappearing every two minutes to the bathroom. And sure, she’s the coach or whatever but Lupe thinks it is fucking rich that just because she’s pissed off the beloved Coach Shaw,  she’s also got to deal with Gill’s fucking holy-than-thou side eye, like she’s Shaw’s fucking eight-foot tall bodyguard, and DeLuca’s cross-armed frown, and Maybelle’s sad little smile, and Shirley’s tentative suggestion that tensions are bad for the psyche of the team, Lupe.

So, by the time Jess sidles up to her and asks, “What did you do to Farm girl?” Lupe is fucking ready to throw down.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Jess grumbles back at her and grins at full wattage when Lupe scowls at her.

“She needs to keep her nose out of other people’s business, is all,” Lupe grits out.

“Lu, we asked her to help us.”

“Not that.”

“What then?” Jess asks and Lupe growls because Jess, like always, has backed her into a fucking corner of emotional honesty and she’ll either have to fess up and say Shaw asked me how I was, and I fucking ripped her a new one or lie through her teeth. Lupe hates lying to Jess, mainly because it doesn’t fucking work.

“I was a dick, alright. Snapped at her.”

“Oomfph,” Jess says. “You better say sorry then.”

“Why?’ Lupe whines and hates that she sounds like a child. “She’ll still help us.”

“She will,” Jess agrees, “which is probably why you should say sorry.”

~

Lupe finds Shaw in her room with, of fucking course, Gill.

They both look up when she knocks - Shaw hesitantly and Gill like she wants to shield the smaller woman with her ginormous body. 

“Lupe?”

“I, uh, can I have a word, Shaw?”

“Why?” Gill says, and really Lupe does not get why the whole fucking team – and the whole fucking stadium full of fans – are falling over themselves to get their heads between Greta Gill’s legs. So, she’s tall. Lupe’s tall. Taller than Shaw anyway. And yeah, Gill dresses fine, if you like that sort of thing - the frills and peak-a-boo bellybutton tops and whatever. And she has red hair, big fucking whoop. Lupe’s always preferred brunettes.

“Can I have a word, Shaw?” Lupe repeats, ignoring Gill entirely. She glances at the smaller woman; says through her teeth, “please.”

“Okay,” Shaw agrees.

Gill huffs and Shaw smiles at her, a little shy, and says, “I’ll, uh, find you later?”

“You do that,” Gill coos back and really Lupe does not get it.

“What do you want, Lupe?” Shaw says tiredly when Gill has pranced off.

“Sorry,” Lupe grits out, without preamble, “I was a dick. I shouldn’t have said… what I said.”

Shaw blinks at her, clearly taken aback. “Okay,” she says, slowly. “I’m, uh, sorry too. I didn’t mean to push.”

A warm little balloon tries to blow itself up inside Lupe’s chest and Lupe, because what is a balloon for if not for bursting, says, “it’s good of you to apologise, Shaw.”

The smaller woman just smiles at her though, and Lupe marches herself away before the balloon can get any bigger.

~

Esti wakes up and Lupe manages to get her to eat some soup, letting the girl lean against her on the bed with the tray on her lap.

She still looks awful.

“We have a plan,” Lupe tells the girl.

She explains and Esti nods, pale but determined. “Yeah, okay,” she murmurs. Then, “Was coach angry?”

“No,” Lupe says grudgingly. “She’s got you back.”

Esti smiles at her, tired but with a little of her usual fire visible beneath, “You like her.”

“No. I don’t!”

“Yep.”

“She’s a pain. A pain,” Lupe hisses and jostles the girl with her shoulder for good measure.

“A pretty pain?” Esti laughs.

“Eat your soup,” Lupe snaps and refuses to say another word.

~

At ten, Lupe slips out of the backdoor, around the garage, and finds Jess already leaning against the back wall, half hidden in shadow.

“Fucking freezing,” Jess offers by way of greeting.

Lupe grunts in acknowledgement. “Where’s Shaw?”

“Dunno. She’s been out, I think. Not seen her since dinner.”

Lupe settles herself next to Jess on the wall. “You really think she knows what she’s doing?”

“Yeah,” Jess says.

“How do you think, you know, she’ll…”

Jess shrugs, “not really my field of expertise.”

“No,” Lupe agrees and finds herself smiling, suppressing laughter, although god knows nothing about this is funny.

Jess grins at her and opens her mouth to say something, but there is a crack of branches nearby and Shaw practically tumbles out of the line of trees next to the garage. When the smaller woman stumbles closer, Lupe can see she’s got mud on her dress, as if she’s been kneeling in dirt.

“Hey,” Shaw says.

“What the fuck,” Lupe snaps, “were you doing in there?”

Shaw squares her shoulders, “I was, uh, getting some stuff.”

“Stuff?” Lupe sneers, “picking some daisies for Gill?”

The look Shaw gives her is inscrutable. “No. Stuff for Esti.”

“For Esti?”

Shaw, clearly reaching the end of patience, twists her face up and bites, “What do you think I’m going to do? God, Lupe, I’m not going to go finishing about in Esti with a knitting needle.”

“I-,” Lupe starts and then snaps her jaw shut. A fucking knitting needle?

“Okay,” Jess says soothingly. “Farm girl, I’ll be honest, Lupe and I are a bit hazy on the details of what exactly helping Esti is going to look like.”

Shaw steps a little bit closer and in the low light from the moon, Lupe can see there is a smear of dirt across her forehead too. The smaller woman digs around in her pocket and pulls out a clump of plants. She holds them up in a fist; practically shoves them into Lupe’s face. “Mugwort and salvia,” she says. “I spotted them when- uh, well, the other day, um. Anyway, they’ll work. Ideally, I’d want some black cohosh too.”

“The other day, huh?” Jess says, in a gentle teasing voice, “what were you doing in there the other day?”

Shaw ducks her head and says in a shy, pleased voice, “none of your business, McCready.”

Lupe reflects briefly on Jess’s ability to put everyone at ease; to tease and befriend and rub along with everyone. She’s like the fucking human equivalent of leather oil.

“What’s black cush?” Lupe says because she figures someone has got to be the sensible level-headed one.

“Black cohosh,” Shaw corrects. “It’s a plant.”

“No shit.”

“There should be some,” Shaw murmurs, “we have it in Illinois and we’re not that far…”

“Whereabouts does it grow?” Jess asks.

“Near rivers and lakes normally. It likes the wet.” Shaw shoves her handful of plants back into the pocket of her dress, “you might have seen it, Jess? It grows up north too.”

“You’re really living up to that nickname, Farm girl,” Lupe mutters.

Jess shrugs, “I don’t pay much attention to plants. What’s it look like?”

“It’s like, spiky?” Shaw offers, “big, green leaves.” She holds her hand up and spreads her fingers out as if this will somehow help Jess and Lupe conjure up a good image of a plant they’ve never seen before.

“I sort of figured it would have been green,” Lupe says.

Shaw rubs at the bridge of her nose, “yeah, okay. It’s got, like, big, tall, white flowers in a kind of spire.”

“Have we got any lakes nearby?”

“There’s a creek,” Lupe suggests, “near the baseball stadium.”

“Dahlquist park?” Jess guesses.

“Yeah, maybe. You think we’ll find some there?”

“Could do,” Shaw says, “you guys will help me look?”

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Lupe decides. “And yeah. But we might need more of a description than big green leaves and,” she mimics Shaw’s hand gesture back at her. She’s aiming for teasing, trying to follow Jess’s example. Her voice sounds odd to her own ears, but Shaw laughs.

“Fair,” she says. “How’s Esti?”

“Better. Not sobbing or asleep anymore.”

“She’s, um, definitely okay with this?”

“Yeah, Shaw,” Lupe says.

“Okay. I’ll, uh, need to talk to her,” Shaw shuffles her feet a little, visibly wincing, “about… about what to expect.”

Lupe eyes her, “what should she expect?”

Shaw swallows; wraps her arms around herself.

“Coach?” Jess prompts.

“Pain,” Shaw says, “if it works.”

~

Shaw goes back inside first, leaving Jess and Lupe leaning against the garage wall, looking at the line of trees that the smaller woman had stumbled out from.

Jess lights a cigarette and stares thoughtfully at the glowing red end for a little while. “There’s always more to people than anyone expects,” she says.

It’s cryptic but for once Lupe knows what her friend is getting at.

~

The three of them manage to get away the next afternoon, although how Lupe isn’t sure because, for some godforsaken reason, they let Shaw come up with the excuse. Their dearly beloved coach stutters out: “Lupe and Jess are going to help me forage for mushrooms. For, um, when it’s my turn to cook dinner.”

It’s obvious that Gill at least is not convinced because she says, “your turn to cook dinner, which is… in two weeks.”

“Uh,” Shaw says, “well, they need time to dry, you see. Because, well I’m, um, making a mushroom pie and, er, they have to be dried. For a week, at least. But they get more flavour if they dry for two weeks and honestly, it will be delicious. You know, fail to prepare then prepare to fail. Especially when you’re cooking.”

“Dried mushroom pie?” Maybelle says, “are you sure, hon? That sounds-”

“Delectable,” Jess inserts firmly and eyes Lupe until Lupe says, “so excited for it. Yum.”

“Carson,” Shirley begins for what Lupe can already tell will be a long and expertly delivered breakdown of the hazards of mushroom foraging.

“We’ve got to go, like now,” Carson says, cutting across her roommate and grabbing both Jess and Lupe by the wrist, “sorry, Shirley, can it wait, until I get back? Just, it will get dark in, uh, well, four hours and you know, mushroom foraging in the dark oh boy it is not easy!”

Lupe sees Gill’s eyes zone in on where Shaw’s hand is wrapped around Lupe’s wrist and Lupe flexes her arm and brings it upwards until her own fingers are firmly entwined with the smaller woman’s.

“We’re going to have so much fun,” Lupe rasps, “mushroom foraging.”

Shaw looks at her like she’s grown another head but Gill seethes and frankly Lupe will count that as a fucking win.

“Bye everyone,” Jess says and shoves the both of them out the door.

~

“Dried mushroom pie?” Lupe says when they are all sat in the pickup, Carson leaning over from the back and grinning at them triumphantly.

“I panicked,” Carson shrugs, “but they brought it. We’re out, aren’t we?”

“Sure are, Farm girl,” Jess laughs. “Fuck if they brought it though.”

~

Carson shows them a truly terrible picture she has drawn of what Black cohosh looks like. It’s better than nothing but not by much.

Jess squints at it and then points at a green wiggly thing that Carson has roughed out at the edge of the page. “What’s that?”

Carson flushes and begins to fold up her drawing, “nothing.”

“Come on Shaw, what is it?” Lupe murmurs.

She’s clearly getting better at the whole friendly teasing thing because Shaw smiles bashfully at her, “It’s, uh, a worm. I got into it.”

Jess scuffs up Shaw’s hair, “are we looking for one of those too?”

“Sure,” Shaw says, “we can add it to the pie.”

“Yum,” Lupe drawls, “you should cook every night, Shaw.”

~

They find some Black cohosh fairly quickly, growing in pretty spires by the very edge of the creek. It has a bright flush of white flowers that look like clouds.

Lupe watches Shaw drop to her knees and dig directly into the soil with her hands. Jess, she knows, from the heat at the back of her neck is watching her.

Shaw pulls out a fistful of the plant’s roots and carefully wraps them up in a scrap of cloth from her pocket.

“What now?” Shaw says when she bounces up from her knees.

“Mushrooms, I guess?” Lupe grunts and scrubs her hand across her face. She feels happy, lazy, full of sunshine; feels, too, a little thrown by it and chalks it up to the creek babbling away and Jess pressed up close by her elbow.

“Or,” Jess murmurs and Lupe hears the unmistakable sound of bottles clinking. Her friend pulls three beers from the bag looped over her shoulder, “we say we couldn’t find the mushrooms and drink these instead?”

~

They drink the beers, sitting in an easy circle, watching bees and dragonflies dart around them.

It’s nice.

It’s really nice.

~

“I should have everything ready by Friday,” Shaw says when they make it back to the front porch of the Peaches’ house.

“Okay,” Jess says, “Friday. Evening?”

Shaw nods, “we’ve got a game Monday. Hopefully, Esti will be, um… well-”

“-We got it, Shaw,” Lupe says as gently as she can manage. She can see the shape of Gill through the bug screen on the front door, hovering by the stairs, eyes fixed on the three of them.

She knows Jess has noticed too from the way her friend gives Shaw a little push and says, “see you then, coach.”

They both watch as Shaw takes three steps into the house and is pounced upon by Gill, who hisses lowly, “garage, now.”

“She won’t tell,” Jess assures.

“I know,” Lupe says and hates that the list of people she trusts might now have another name on it.

~

True to her word, Shaw knocks on Lupe and Esti’s door on Friday evening. She slips through when Lupe opens it and then stands, twitching, in the middle of the room.

Esti smiles at her, “Coach.”

“Hey, Esti,” Shaw says, and Lupe watches the catcher suppress her nervousness, clearly trying to present a reassuring front for the younger girl.

“Ready?”

“Yes,” Esti says. “What do I do?”

Shaw glances at Lupe, “can you translate?”

“Yeah,” Lupe agrees.

Shaw sits down at the end of Esti’s bed, hesitates for a second then taps a single finger against Esti’s knee like she wants to hug the girl but doesn’t know if she’s allowed. “I have something for you.” Shaw pulls out a glass jam jar. There’s a thick black liquid sitting in it. “This is three plants: mugwort, salvia, and black cohosh.”

Lupe translates and Shaw waits for Esti to nod before she continues. “I’ve crushed them up with cooking oil. You need to mix it with water. Er, a glass of water. Drink it all as quickly as you can.”

Lupe dutifully translates.

“You remember,” Shaw says, “what I talked to you about? What would happen?”

Esti nods. Lupe hadn’t been there for that conversation. Shaw had insisted she could manage and held up Jess’s pocket Spanish to English dictionary when Lupe had tried to argue.

“It’s, um, going to hurt,” Shaw says quietly.

“I know,” Esti says. The younger girl reaches out and grabs tightly at Shaw’s hand, “thank you, coach.”

Shaw shakes her head and Lupe shoves her hand in her pockets, clenches them into tight fists so she won’t do anything about the tense line of the catcher’s neck and the wooden set of her shoulders.

“I’m here if you need me,” Shaw says to Esti. She stands, turns to Lupe, “come get me, if you need me.”

“Sure,” Lupe says and jumps when Shaw steps into her personal space, eyes locked on her own.

“Come get me,” Shaw says again, hard, “if you need me.”

Lupe swallows, “I will.”

~

Esti drinks her water mixed with the black plant sludge. It looks disgusting and Esti’s face twists after every mouthful, but she finishes it and she and Lupe end up sitting on their own beds, facing one another, waiting.

Nothing happens.

Esti screws her face up, “I don’t feel anything.”

“How long did Shaw say it would take?”

Esti shrugs.

“Okay,” Lupe hedges, “let’s just get ready for bed? We’ll talk to Shaw in the morning.”

~

Lupe is woken three hours later by Esti sobbing.

The younger girl has twisted her way out of bed and is curled up on the floor. The room is still dark, but Esti’s face is a pale point of luminescent pain in the middle of the room.

Lupe fumbles for the clock; it’s a little after 2 am.

She scrambles to the younger girl and Esti sinks her fingers into the flesh of Lupe’s arm and twists at her cotton nightshirt.

“Lupe! So much pain.”

Esti forehead is sweaty, and her limbs are heavy and stiff like they’ve been turned to wood.

“What type of pain?” Lupe asks. She feels untethered; unsure of what to do. There are a thousand possibilities, and her brain wants to do them all at once.

“Cramps,” Esti groans, “but worse, much worse, than usual.”

Lupe desperately tries to remember what Shaw had said - what to expect. Pain, yes. But what else?

There are quiet footsteps outside the room and then Jess is with them, falling to her knees next to Esti and smoothing a hand over her forehead.

“Heard her,” Jess says, “through the wall.” Then: “How you doing, Es?”

“I hate boys,” Esti grinds out. “It wasn’t even good.”

Jess looks stricken but manages a choked laugh, “that’s the spirit.” She glances at Lupe, “need help getting her back on the bed?”

“Yeah,” Lupe says.

They thrust their arms beneath Esti, carrying her in a kind of joint bridal style onto the pile of twisted sheets.

“Fuck!” Esti grits out. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

Jess goes very quiet as she pulls her hands off Esti, frozen with one of her palms upturned towards the ceiling. There’s a dark wet stain on it.

“Blood?” Lupe asks, quietly.

Jess nods. “We need Carson.”

“No,” Lupe says, “we can handle it.”

“Fuck you,” Esti snaps from the bed, “I want coach.” There’s a high trill of fear in her voice and Lupe relents immediately.

“Okay, okay. We’ll get her.”

“You go get her,” Jess urges.

“Me?”

“Who do you think will freak her out less,” Jess murmurs, “waking her up?”

It’s a good point. Jess, in the moonlight, their face pinched with worry, looks like a pale malevolent spirit, sent to catch up pretty daughters and steal away cows.

“Okay,” Lupe says. She leans down and brushes a kiss across Esti’s forehead. “Keep swearing, hermana.”

“Fuck you,” Esti says and smiles a fraught smile up at her.

~

Lupe feels ridiculous creeping down the hall in her socked feet, even more so when she stops outside of Shaw and Shirley’s room like she’s enacting the ghost of fucking Gill, sloping off to see her lover.

Both women are sound asleep: Shirley mumbling and Shaw snoring softly.

Lupe wonders how best to wake the catcher. Shaw’s mouth is a loose open shape against her pillow; her hair is a soft dark plush around her head. The first few buttons of her pyjamas are undone.

Lupe thinks of princesses locked in towers. Shaw looks like the real version of the wispy illustrated girls Lupe had seen as a child: solid, freckled, tanned, with a furrow between her eyebrows. With a jerk, she remembers that the tiptoeing storybook princes woke up their beauties with kisses. It’s a sweet, horrible, dangerous thought and Lupe instinctively reacts against it. She smushes her hand down hard across Shaw’s soft sleeping face and shakes it.

Shaw makes a noise against the palm of her hand and strikes upwards, slapping her hand against Lupe’s chest and sending the pitcher reeling back a few steps. By the time Lupe has got her balance back, Shaw is sat up in bed.

“What the fuck?” Shaw says.

“I couldn’t wake you,” Lupe snaps defensively. “You have to come. It’s Esti.”

~

Shaw, thank god, follows Lupe back to her room without complaint, leaving Shirley, still fast asleep, behind them.

The catcher takes one look at Esti, curled in on herself on the bed, whimpering softly, and climbs up behind her.

She props Esti against her chest and murmurs, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

“She’s bleeding,” Jess says.

Shaw nods. “She’s meant to.”

“It hurts,” Esti cries. The younger girl turns her face into Shaw’s chest.

“I know,” Shaw says softly. “You’re doing so well.” She glances at Lupe and Jess, “Have you got any towels?”

“Yeah,” Lupe says.

“What can we do?” she hears Jess ask as she rummages around in the draw of the vanity.

“Distract her,” Shaw says. “Wait with her till she’s through it. Do we have any hot water bottles?”

“There’s one in the kitchen,” Jess supplies.

“Get it,” Shaw nods, “fill it up but not with boiling water. We can lean her against it. It might ease some of the cramps.”

Lupe thrusts the towels at Shaw and Shaw shakes her head. “Put them underneath her.”

Lupe does the best she can with the towels, lifting up Esti’s hips and wincing when the girl hisses in pain at the movement, swearing at her in low, threatening Spanish. “I know, sorry, sorry. Shaw told me to.”

She tries to retreat to her own bed after that but gets as far as sitting her ass down before Esti calls out to her. “Lupe, don’t go.”

“I’m still here,” Lupe reassures. There’s not really room for her on Esti’s bed and as much as she wants to scoop Esti up and rock her like a babe, Shaw seems to have things in hand. The catcher has her knees around Esti’s hips and is squeezing ever so slightly; Lupe can see the flex of Shaw’s muscles. Why Lupe has no idea, but it seems to be helping - the younger girl’s whimpers are getting softer, less frequent.

“Lupe,” Esti whines and she sounds so young and so fragile that Lupe feels tears burn at the back of her throat, at the corner of her eyes.

She blinks them away; swallows, once, twice. She looks up to find Shaw’s eyes on her.

“There’s room,” Shaw says, “come on.”

“It’s- no, no,” Lupe tries.

Shaw tilts her head and gives Esti a gentle, conspiratorial nudge, “Our pitcher, huh, afraid.”

“I’m not afraid!”

Esti though laughs and grits out, “scaredy cat.”

“You’re fearsome, Esti,” Shaw says, gently.

“It’s not me she’s afraid of,” Esti mutters and Lupe thanks every god and saint she can remember that Shaw’s Spanish is non-existent.

“Lupe,” Esti begs again, holding out a hand, “please.”

Lupe relents. Finds herself shuffling onto Esti’s bed and ends up pressed shoulder to hip with Shaw, who shifts Esti slightly so the younger girl can lean her head against Lupe’s shoulder.

Esti is hot, damp with perspiration, and Carson smells like apples and, faintly, of Gill’s perfume.

“This looks cosy,” Jess says from the doorway.

“Jess!” Esti murmurs, and Lupe knows from the tone of Esti’s voice and the way Jess slopes towards them that Jess is also going to end up on the damn bed.

True to form, Jess climbs on. She’s holding a huge ceramic hot water bottle, which probably weighs more than Jess herself. The bed groans a little and Lupe feels Shaw tense.

“I should probably leave you guys to it,” the catcher concedes.

“No,” Esti says, “Lupe! Lupe, tell her no! She has to stay. The hip thing is helping. I want her to stay!”

Love is a sneaky little beast, Lupe reflects, as she watches Jess worm her way into a comfortable position at the bottom of the bed – Esti’s knees slung over her own hips, her head pillowed on Lupe’s thigh. It creeps up on you and before you know it you are doing and saying all manner of stupid fucking shit because some fifteen-year-old kid needs you.

“Stay, Shaw,” Lupe says, “you’re helping.” She taps at one of Shaw’s raised knees, which is still tense around Esti’s hips.

“I can teach you to do this,” Shaw counters.

“You could,” Lupe agrees. “But she wants you to stay.” 

“Oh,” Shaw says like she hadn’t even considered that, and Lupe thinks, with sudden furious clarity, that Greta Gill might be the fucking baseball bombshell or whatever it is the fans call her, but she is also a fucking moron.

“What if someone finds us?” Shaw asks.

“What,” Jess huffs against Lupe’s hip, “you think they’ll assume we are having some sort of queer foursome? One that requires a hot water bottle?”

“She thinks too much,” Esti murmurs. She’s drowsy against Lupe’s shoulder and that, in itself, is enough for Lupe to want to chain Shaw to them all. Lupe never wants to see Esti in pain like that again. Never wants to see any woman like that again.

“If anyone finds us, we’ll tell them the truth. That Esti got sick. That we helped her.”

She can feel Shaw’s hive of a mind buzzing with counterarguments, worries, and hypotheticals.

The bed is warm with the heat of all four of them, plus the hot water bottle, and Esti and Jess’s combined weight against Lupe is a comforting lull.

“But-”

“You’re good, Carson,” Lupe murmurs and shifts her own body until it presses more firmly against the line of the other woman’s. She waits until she feels Shaw relax against her and then closes her eyes.

~

She’s woken just as light is beginning to creep into the room. Shaw is half on, half off the bed, teeth between her lips, trying to climb over Jess without waking any of them up.

Lupe watches her through slit eyes. Shaw bangs her shin on the end of the bed, swallows a groan; steps on every squeaky floorboard between the bed and the door; trips over one of the discarded towels.

Jess is still asleep against Lupe’s legs; Esti now fully curled up against Lupe’s chest.

She lets Shaw go.

~

She rides, deliberately, next to Shaw to the practice grounds the next morning, pedalling slowly so that she falls behind the others and in line with the catcher’s own bike.

“How is she doing?” Shaw asks.

Jess and Lupe had flat-out refused to let Esti come today, despite Esti’s protests, which were promptly silenced when the younger girl had tried to stand and collapsed under her own weight.

“Tired,” Lupe says, “sore, but better.”

“Good,” Shaw says. Then, “she still bleeding?”

“Yeah.”

“She’ll- you’ll- we will need to check,” Shaw murmurs, gaze fixed on the street ahead, “that it is gone.”

“Yeah,” Lupe says.

They ride in silence for a while. Something niggles at the back of Lupe’s head. “You’ve done that before?”

Shaw glances at her and smiles wanly, “helped women with, um, stuff? Yeah.”

“No,” Lupe says, “I mean yes. But…” she steers her bike in a lazy zig-zag, waits until she draws close to Shaw again, “you did that, to yourself?”

Shaw’s bike wobbles for a second. It takes the catcher a few strokes of the peddles to right herself. “Yeah.”

“Alone?” Lupe asks and isn’t sure whether she wants an answer.

“Yeah,” Shaw says quietly. “Charlie… he wants- he wanted- but not me.”

Lupe thinks of Esti last night, pale and sweating, cringing in pain, biting at her own arm to try and muffle her sobs. Thinks of her this morning, tired and wrung out, unable to stand. Lupe’s mind conjures the image, against her will, of Shaw like that: the catcher sobbing quietly to herself in the kitchen of some farmhouse, while her husband sleeps upstairs.

“How many-”

“Lupe,” Shaw breathes, “please. Just… don’t. It happens, okay? It happens all the time. Because it needs to happen.”

Lupe flexes her hands against the bike’s brakes and thinks about using them, about falling behind and letting Shaw cycle the rest of the way on her own. “It didn’t happen for me,” she says instead.

Shaw looks at her. “You…?”

“Yeah,” Lupe says. “Didn’t have a choice. Not in how she began or ended.”

“Lupe,” Shaw breathes.

Lupe doesn’t look at her. She can’t bear to. Cannot bear to hear what Shaw will try and say to her either. She begins to peddle faster, hoping to get away, to pull ahead. Shaw lets her, says nothing; just keeps her steady pace. Lupe pushes forward by a meter, then two, then five, then ten.

Shaw says nothing.

Lupe relents, slows, and falls back into line with her catcher.

They turn onto the road with the practice pitch. Park up their bikes. The others are already on the green of the field, laughing, stretching.

Shaw brushes, so feather-light that Lupe barely feels it, a hand across her shoulders as they turn to go in, murmurs, “You’re good, Lupe. Really good.”

~

Lupe checks in on Esti when she gets home. The younger girl has more colour; can stand without collapsing.

She pokes at Lupe when Lupe tries to sit down next to her. “You stink.”

“Charming,” Lupe gripes but goes and showers anyway.

~

“Hermano,” Jess says, a couple days later when Esti is back to normal: running around, grumbling about not being included in Lupe and Jess’s plans, and generally getting under Lupe’s feet. “How do we check that it is gone?”

They are smoking on the porch together after dinner. Shirley had cooked. The meal had been largely green. Lupe doesn’t need to ask what Jess is talking about because it’s been playing on her mind too. Shaw had said they would need to check.

“Dunno,” Lupe says. “You got any idea?”

Jess shrugs, “wait a few months and see if Esti swells up?”

“So, no then,” Lupe says.

“Nope,” Jess says cheerfully.

Lupe sighs, already knowing where the conversation is going – in the general direction of Shaw. “Fine,” she says, “I’ll ask her.”

Jess grins at her and then says, with careful nonchalance, “how’s that crush treating you?”

Lupe takes a long hit on her cigarette, then drops it; stamps it out. “How’s yours?” she snaps as viciously as she can manage.

“Oh,” Jess says, enigmatic and sincere all at once, “I love you more and more each day.”

Lupe doesn’t know what to do with that. She settles for lighting another cigarette, kicking at the back of Jess’s heel and then, for some god-forsaken reason, grumbling, “love you too.”

~

Lupe takes her chance that evening, sliding in past Shaw as the smaller woman disappears into the upstairs bathroom. Shaw closes the door just as Lupe gets her body into the room.

“Lupe!” Shaw cries predictably, “I have to pee!”

Lupe waves at the toilet, “sure.” She’s seen Jess piss multiple times. Enough times actually that she’s beginning to wonder whether Jess likes to be watched.

Shaw gapes at her. She’s holding her toothbrush too and Lupe nods at it. “You piss while you brush?”

“What? Wh-no! Lupe,” Shaw waves the toothbrush around wildly for a second, hisses, “that’s disgusting.”

“It would save time.”

The other woman stumbles, “…I guess. But, you know, there’s probably like, bacteria. And- and, and it’s weird. And-,” Shaw seems to realise where she is: in the upstairs corridor bathroom with Lupe. And better: that Lupe probably had a reason for following her in here. Her voice drops a little lower, “Uh, did you need something?”

“Yes,” Lupe says and tries to ignore the way the catcher’s raspy voice sounds echoing against the tiles of the bathroom. “It’s about Esti, about what you said. How,” Lupe brings her hands up, as if she can somehow gesture the meaning of her question to Shaw, then realises she has no idea what shape her hands would even make and drops them again. “Shaw,” she tries again, “how do we, um…  check?”

Shaw looks at her like she’s mad. “What?”

“How do we check,” Lupe hisses and hates that she has to say it again, “whether Esti is still, you know?”

Shaw considers her for a second. Then smiles. It’s a worrying smile – Lupe’s seen it a couple of times. Mostly before Shaw is about to absolutely demolish an opposing team with some ridiculously ballsy play that she’s pulled out of her ass. Lupe’s not entirely sure she likes it being directed at her.

“What?” She demands.

“Nothing,” Shaw shrugs, “just, it’s common knowledge.” Her stupid smile is still in place and the bathroom feels a lot smaller than it did a few minutes ago. Hotter too. Shaw says, “it’s a really good job you can’t get girls pregnant.”

“Fuck, Carson,” Lupe scrubs a hand across her face, “just tell me.”

“Okay, okay. You’re going to need some bread-”

“-bread?”

“Do you want to know or not?” Shaw snaps.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Tell me.” Lupe needs to get out of this fucking bathroom.

“Bread,” Shaw says again, “and you soak it in fish oil.”

“Fish oil?”

“Yes, and then you get Esti to pee on it.”

There’s a long silence. “That’s how you check?” Lupe says finally.

“Yes,” Shaw says.

“What happens, uh, if she is?”

“It will bubble,” Shaw sighs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh.”

“Lupe?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you get out? I have to pee.”

“Right. Yeah. Thanks.”

~

“You’re kidding?” Jess says, “that’s fucked up.”

Lupe sighs and continues digging around in the bread bin. She finds a stale crust of some long ago eaten loaf.

“Just, get Esti, okay? I’ll meet you at the back of the garage.”

“Fucked up,” Jess says again, “but yeah, okay. In five.”

~

Lupe douses the bread in fish oil. It gets on her hands; splashes onto her shoes. It stinks. If Esti so much as looks at a boy after all this, she’s going to chain her to Jess and only let them both out on game days.

“Ready?” Jess says. Esti’s standing behind her. There’s an odd look on the younger girl’s face like she’s holding something in her mouth and trying not to let it out. She won’t meet Lupe’s eyes.

“Esti,” Lupe murmurs like if she says the words quietly enough, she won’t actually be saying them. “Er, can you, um, pee. On this?” She gestures to the sad, wet, greasy bread.

Esti takes a few steps closer, glances at Lupe and then begins to chuckle. The girl presses a hand over her mouth, but then hinges at the waist, braces her hands on her knees and starts to cackle, great bellowing laughs falling out of her, tears sliding down her face.

Lupe stares at her. She looks at Jess, helpless, “you think this is some sort of side effect?”

Jess watches Esti for a second, now flat on her back on the ground, hands pressed over her face, hooting. She looks unhinged.

Jess shakes her head and begins to smile and for a mad second Lupe thinks Jess has caught whatever strange nervous hysteria Esti has clearly contracted.

“I think you’ve been had,” Jess says. She glances at the bread, then starts to chuckle too.

“What?”

“It is too good,” Esti gasps, “Your face. Your face!”

“What?” Lupe says again.

 “She got you!” Esti manages. She takes a deep breath and then promptly breaks down in a fresh wave of giggles.

“Fucking Shaw?” Lupe says. She glances at her hands, covered in fish oil, then to the sad, hunk of bread in the middle of the garage, Esti next to it, weeping with laughter. Something warm creeps up her spine; pools in her stomach. She finds herself smiling and, desperately, tries to stop.

“She got you good, hermano,” Jess says, “Ho boy.” Her friend grips her shoulder, smiles hugely.

“Yeah,” Lupe says and tries not to notice how fucking fond she sounds.

~

“Shaw,” Lupe says.

The catcher is tucked up in bed, a book propped open on her knees. Shirley is in the bathroom. She’ll be in there for a carefully timed 35 minutes, performing her eighteen-step bedtime routine and bathroom mediations.

Shaw smiles at her, “figured it out then?”

“You’ve got some nerve.”

Shaw shrugs, “I thought Esti could use a laugh.”

“Yeah, at my expense.”

“She loves you,” Shaw says as if she’s saying nothing at all. Like it is common knowledge and not something that clenches around Lupe’s fucking heart every time Esti so much as looks at her.

Lupe slouches a little closer and thinks about sitting at the end of Shaw’s bed. Shaw is clearly thinking about it too and moves her legs so there is room. It is enough that Lupe decides to stay standing, instead leaning down a little so she can talk more quietly. It’s a stupid decision in hindsight because she ends up hovering over Shaw, the catcher’s eyes staring up at her.

“How do we actually check?” Lupe murmurs, “and be real this time. No more bread. Or fish oil.”

Shaw laughs softly. She’s in one of her matching pyjama sets and she looks so soft that Lupe can barely believe she’s the same woman who catches her pitches, mud smeared across her face behind her mask, mind working to take apart opposing teams, play-by-play.

“Lupe, god, just wait a few weeks. If she has her monthly, then she’s in the clear.”

“That…” Lupe says and suddenly feels very foolish.

Shaw tilts her head, “not everything has to be a forkball. Sometimes a fastball does the trick.”

“Won’t that be too late?”

Shaw considers, eyes flicking across Lupe’s face. “No. You said seven weeks?”

Lupe nods.

“Eleven is fine. We can try again. Or, um, try something else.”

“Something else?”

Shaw’s eyes flicker to the door, “not now.”

“Okay. But-” Lupe licks her lips, feeling wrong-footed.

Shaw reaches out and cups the angle of Lupe’s elbow. Heat shoots up Lupe’s arm where the catcher’s hand touches, and Lupe leans forward reflectively, overcome with the urge to press her face into the soft, tanned corner of Shaw’s neck. She catches herself and sways upwards, but can’t quite bring herself to tug her arm out of Shaw’s grip.

“We’ll sort it,” Shaw promises. “Whatever way it goes.”

“Okay,” Lupe murmurs.

Shaw’s hand returns to her book.

“Night then,” Lupe manages.

“Night,” Shaw says.

~

Jess is in her room, Gill sat next to her on the bed, filing her nails.

“Bar,” Lupe says to her friend, ignoring Gill’s presence entirely, “tonight.”

~

They go to the bar.

Lupe flirts with as many women as she can but it is Jess she presses against the bathroom door at the end of the night. She kisses her friend with a biting, ferocious fever.

Jess lets her; kisses back; whispers, “it’s all good, hermano,” into her ear.  

~

Things go back to normal. Shaw stops sneaking around with them, even if she smiles more frequently in Lupe’s direction, is more affectionate with Esti, and can occasionally be found sitting next to Jess on the porch, chatting while the blond smokes.

~

Shaw makes her promised pie.

Lupe sits down, expecting dinner, and is promptly handed a plate of the driest, the most unappetising square of pastry she’s ever laid eyes on.

“What’s this?” Jo says from the other end of the table.

“Oh?” Shaw says, the picture of innocence in her apron and housedress, hair tied back from her face, “Dried mushroom pie.”

Her eyes meet Lupe’s briefly and Lupe snorts, ends up choking on her laughter and has to excuse herself from the table to take deep, hysterical gulps of air on the front porch.

~

Esti gets her monthly.

She comes running into their shared room, waving a bloodied menstrual rag. She shoves it under Lupe’s nose victoriously.

“That’s great, hermana,” Lupe says and pulls Esti into a hug, bloody rag and all.

~

She finds Shaw in the kitchen the day after.

She’s meaning to tell her that Esti’s in the clear. Instead, she finds Shaw knuckle deep in the chicken carcass that Anni had cooked for dinner, the catcher digging out minuscule pieces of meat with delicate precision. There is grease smeared across the top of her lip and a little on her cheek, right by her stupid dimple.

Lupe stops short; stands staring for a good minute, watching Shaw bring tiny pieces of chicken to her mouth, humming as she munches on them.

Shaw catches sight of Lupe eventually and flushes right up to the roots of her hair. “Hi,” she says and then, “don’t tell Greta.”

The words are out of Lupe’s mouth before she’s processed them, “you’re too good for her.”

“Greta?” Shaw says and she’s already laughing, like the idea that Carson being too good for Greta is so obviously, painfully a joke that it is hilarious.

“Yes,” Lupe snaps.

Shaw stops laughing. “Lupe,” she says, helplessly.

“Forget it,” Lupe sneers and slams her way through the backdoor and out to the front porch where she smokes three cigarettes in quick, precise, succession.

~

Lupe avoids Shaw after that. As much as she can anyway, given Shaw is the fucking catcher to Lupe’s pitcher. Which is to say, barely at all.

~

When it all goes to shit and Shaw’s husband works out what has been going on and leaves her sobbing on the side porch of the Peaches’ house, it is Lupe that finds her. It is Lupe that picks her up and holds her close and rocks her.

It is Lupe that does it because fucking Gill is long gone in her fancy taxi for one to New York.

Jess ends up sitting with them. They sandwich the catcher between their bodies, still sprawled on the ground.

Shaw’s sobs fade to soft sniffles and then to hiccups and then she turns her face up to the sky and says: “sorry. No crying in baseball.”

“Fuck that,” Jess says.

Shaw smiles at her; leans her head against Jess’s shoulder.

Lupe watches them. They make an odd picture. Square and straight against long and whip-thin; tanned and freckled against pale and fair. But both are the more lovely for it. Like a mountain against the sky or a star that befriended the moon.

“Got a thought,” Lupe says because she’s been thinking about it for a while if she’s honest. “Jess and me, we’re moving out. Heading north. Up to Saskatchewan. Probably pass Idaho, you know, if you need to pick anything up.”

Shaw looks at her.

Jess leans out from behind the catcher, grinning like a cat.

“Come with you, you mean?”

“Yeah,” Lupe says, “if you want.”

Shaw looks thoughtful. “Just to Idaho?”

“Or further,” Lupe says quietly, and purposely does not say anywhere, everywhere.

“You’d be okay with that?” Shaw glances back at Jess and Jess promptly arranges her face into something less wildly pleased.

“Yeah, why not?”

“Lupe?”

“Come with us, Shaw.”

“Okay.”