Chapter 95

By the end of the first week of classes, everyone seemed to settle into their new digs. The room dimensions and furnishings were identical but each upstairs apartment reflected the personality of its occupant(s).

Katelyn had a large bookshelf where Tiffany’s desk sat in the other apartment. The contents ranged from Frederic Nietzsche to Ellery Queen. There were biographies of Muhammad Ali and The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King alongside the works of David McCullough. There was a picture of Katelyn’s high school basketball team on the wall. The kitchen was sparse, with only a microwave on the counter and there were two large pillows on the couch. The place was like Katelyn, even and neutral.

The opposite apartment was brighter. The pictures on the wall were vibrant and lively. A bright red quilt hung on the back of the couch and was offset by two stark white pillows. The kitchen had a dish drainer in the sink and a teakettle on the stove. The place was effervescent – just like Tiffany and Molly.

If anything, the apartments were too big a hit. For five straight days, Phil and Hailey ate alone. She frowned at her boyfriend as they ate cereal on Friday morning before heading to class.

“I didn’t expect them to completely abandon us,” she growled. “We didn’t do that to them!”

“We made it a point to make sure we didn’t,” Phil said with a smile. He had enjoyed the relative exclusivity he’d spent with Hailey. “They’ll come around. They’re just enjoying something we’ve grown used to in the past few months.”

“I guess,” Hailey muttered.

“It’s not like we never see them,” Phil said with a laugh. “We all went to the bookstore together Wednesday. We’ll grab them and force them to spend time with us tomorrow if they don’t do it on their own.”

Phil’s laughter continued when he saw the look on Hailey’s face.

“What are you going to do when the kids turn into teenagers and want nothing to spend time with us,” he joked.

“Take it out on you,” Hailey said with a wink.

“At least I’m getting a preview,” Phil told her.

“Do you still start lifting on Monday?” she wondered.

“Three o’clock,” Phil answered. “Two days of arms, two days of legs and a day of cardio.”

“We’re going to work out at the same time,” Hailey informed him. “Well, we planned to. Molly’s practice is done at three and she is coming straight over.”

“You can’t exercise with us,” Phil told her.

“Of course not!” Hailey declared. “You’d just stand there with a boner and gawk at us. We’re going to do our thing at Atkinson. We’ll meet you in the parking lot afterward.”

“So you’re going to let other people gawk at you with boners?” Phil asked. “That hardly seems fair.”

“I’ll let you poke me with your boner,” Hailey giggled. “They can look and but not touch. You can’t look but you can touch all you want.”

“Well, that’s OK then,” Phil replied. “We’ve got to get moving.”

The class schedule was easier now that the group had three vehicles when they registered. Phil and Hailey tried to make their schedules as similar as possible. Tiffany and Molly did the same thing. It was easier for them because they were in different disciplines. Phil and Hailey had found they couldn’t travel together on Tuesdays and Thursdays unless they wanted to spend 90 minutes in the library. Much to her chagrin, Hailey had a required class at 8 a.m. There was nothing Phil wanted to take so he didn’t start until 9:30 a.m. Hailey’s classes ended earlier than Phil’s did.

So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Phil rode in with Molly and Tiffany and Hailey rode in with Katelyn. It would be more difficult when baseball practice began in a couple of weeks. Phil would spend from three to six either on the field or in the workout room or in the batting cages beneath the gymnasium. Once the season started, he would be gone one or two evenings each week. He would be gone five weekends from March to May – and he would spend all Spring Break in Florida.

In all, the college would squeeze in 45 games over 52 days (because no games were scheduled for Sundays). There would be rainouts (and games canceled because of snow). They would play three games in 24 hours at least twice during the season – and maybe more frequently as games had to be rescheduled because of weather. Phil wondered how often he would see Hailey during those months. He wondered how he would keep up on his studies. He was taking only four classes: Two on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and two on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

He had a required study hall each afternoon prior to practice. There would be three hours of required tutoring during any overnight trip and three hours a day of study hall during Spring Break.

The women each had their own things going on. Hailey and Tiffany were involved in Beta Club; Katelyn was the sophomore class treasurer; Molly was the featured cellist for the school symphony. The social sororities had approached them to encourage them to go through rush but they had decided to pass.

It would increase their visibility but that wasn’t as important to them as it had been a year before. There was no guarantee that all four would receive bids from the same group. Plus it was expensive – and the groups wanted all seniors to live on the same dorm floor. That wasn’t going to happen.

With Emma and Stacy spending time at the house – and the hundreds of people who spoke to them on campus each day – they decided they had almost started their own sorority (without the cool Greek letters).

Phil and Hailey exchanged a kiss and another day of classes began.

The weekend saw the end of the upstairs residents’ self-sequestering. They came downstairs for breakfast. The first week of classes was pretty easy. Most professors gave the students a syllabus on the first day and spent the first class discussing it and the textbook assignment. A brief overview followed the next couple of days but nothing of great importance was discussed.

The real work would begin during the second week of classes and the group wanted to get a head start. Stacy and Emma Thomas arrived just after breakfast and Bob Prohl and Ted Billings showed up an hour later. Aaron Feldman had decided to transfer to a bigger school after one semester, much to Emma’s disappointment. She understood why he wanted to go somewhere bigger. He had come from a small town and he wanted somewhere he could be anonymous.

The group studied for a while but then broke up by gender. Bob, Ted and Phil talked about the start of conditioning and the eagerly awaited the opening of practice. The women were comparing the workout gear they planned to wear the following day. The gathering continued through dinner and they made more plans.

Molly and Hailey made plans to attend several chorale concerts that were of no interest to anyone else. Tiffany and Stacy made arrangements to take in a few upcoming older films. Katelyn and Emma decided to become fans of the women’s basketball team. They checked and rechecked their schedules against the baseball team’s schedule to make sure they could see the 12 home games and several of the closer away games.

Before they left, the whole semester was under control. Every weekend that Phil, Bob and Ted were too far away had something for the rest of the group to do. It seemed to work out well for the first few weeks of practice.

Phil would drag in of the evenings, tired from three hours of practice and classes. Hailey and the group were still working out of the afternoons but they had two or sometimes three hours to relax and recharge.

Phil would take a quick shower after practice and head home to study. He would read the requisite chapters or compile the necessary reports and then tumble into bed.

“Let’s go out tonight,” Hailey said. “We haven’t been anywhere since we got back.”

“I’m tired,” Phil admitted. He was battling Darren Jones tooth and nail for the starting right fielder spot and working his ass on the pitching mound, too. He had two exams the following week and a paper due at the first of the month – the day he left for Spring Break.

“You’re always tired,” Hailey pointed out. Her voice wasn’t whiny; she was simply making a statement.

“I know and I’m sorry,” Phil told her. “This is a lot different from high school. I have so much work for classes and getting in shape for baseball is kicking my butt. This isn’t low-stress like the fall. Those practices were easy. We’d take a few minutes of batting practice, a few minutes of fielding practice and play games. We took a lot of time off.

“Now it’s ‘go’ from the start. If I’m not in the outfield, I’m pitching. If I’m not pitching, I’m running the bases. It’s three hours of constant motion. I’m not used to it.”

“I know,” Hailey said, sitting down beside him on the couch. “I just want to go and do something. I’ve got two papers due next week and I just want to do something fun before I have to finish them.”

“I know you do,” Phil said consolingly. “I have exams next week and a paper I still need to start on. I just want to eat, crawl into bed and sleep for a week.”

Hailey looked at him with sympathy.

“What did you want to do?” Phil asked.

“This is a party down on the Golden Mile,” Hailey replied.

Phil shook his head.

“Bob and Ted won’t be going there,” Phil told her. “We had to sign that ‘Athlete’s Pledge’ this year. We had to agree that we wouldn’t use alcohol or drugs during the season. We’re officially in season.”

Hailey frowned and narrowed her eyes at the news. Neither Katelyn nor Stacy had mentioned anything like that. Of course, Phil hadn’t either.

“I’ve never heard of that,” she said. She had gone to dozens of parties the year before with athletes in season.

“This is the first year for it,” Phil told her. “It’s why there were no football or soccer players at the Halloween party. We’re subject to random tests now. It’s something we had to sign in order to compete. It’s almost certain I’ll be tested tomorrow morning. I can’t go to a party. Even if someone is smoking something, it’ll turn up. Secondhand smoke, taken to its extreme.”

“Why will you be tested tomorrow?” Hailey asked. “You don’t have practice.”

“I have to go to see the trainer in the morning,” Phil said.

“The trainer?” Hailey asked. “Are you hurt?”

Phil lifted up his right sweatshirt sleeve to show her a bruise on his wrist. He had been hit with a pitch during practice and it was swollen and discolored.

“They don’t think there is anything broken,” Phil told his girlfriend as she immediately jumped up to get him some ice. “They want to check after the swelling goes down.”

“Jesus, Phil,” Hailey exclaimed as she poured ice into a plastic bag. “You should have told me about this when you got in. We could have put ice on it earlier.”

“I’ve had ice on it since four,” Phil told her. “I don’t want to get frostbite.”

Hailey sat back down and touched his wrist.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“It didn’t until you pushed on it,” Phil remarked with a smile. Hailey jerked her hand away as though she had touched something hot. Phil caught her hand and held it. “It’s fine. It hurts a little if I twist it but it’s not bad. Look, you should go ahead and go to the party if you want. It sounds like it might be fun for you.”

“I don’t want to go to the party,” Hailey said. “I want to do something with you. I want to have some fun with you and the rest of our friends. I just want to cut loose before I have to dive back into my finance classes. I feel like I haven’t seen you in a week.”

“This is the way it’s going to be for the rest of the school year,” he told her. “We’re going to have a game every Friday and Saturday until we hit finals. If we win the conference, you’ll be back in the city for a week or more before I get through with the tournament. I should have told you how this would be.”

“I knew,” Hailey said. “If I didn’t know last year, I knew how it would be once the fall games started. Stacy told us. She said it gets worse at tournament time. You’ll be gone the whole week before finals if you keep winning. You’ll have to take your exams while you’re at the tournament if you keep winning. It’s just more difficult up close than I thought it would be.”