VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [72]
“Do you happen to know which basket either of his uniforms might be in?”
“Try the yellow one.”
Amy rooted through and came up with a pair of filthy pants and a mud spattered jersey.
“What’s in the washer now?” she asked Michelle.
“Delicates.”
“We don’t need delicates right now; we need baseball uniforms.”
Amy pressed the knob on the machine and stopped the washer mid-cycle.
“Mom! What are you doing?”
“Expediting.”
“But you’re going to screw up my system!”
“You want your brother to have to play left field in his underwear?”
“That’s a thought. I’ll get my camera.”
“Get an empty laundry basket instead. We’ve got to get these wet clothes out. Come on, we’ve got just enough time to get this done.”
“You’re ruining my takt time,” Michelle grumbled as she held the basket for her mother.
“Never mind takt time. We’re in a rush.”
Amy stuffed the uniform into the washer basket, doused it with liquid detergent, and restarted the machine.
“All right, now that that’s going, what’s in the dryer?”
“Towels.”
“Oh great,” said Amy. “Towels take forever to dry. Listen, as soon as the washer is done, take the towels out and hang them up to air dry.”
“Ah, Mom, this is really messing me up! I’ve already been down here like forever! And now everything is going to take that much longer! I have to wait until his stupid uniform is washed, then I have to restart all the sopping wet delicates, hang up the towels, get his uniform into the dryer, and while I’m doing all that, I’m falling behind on ironing and folding!”
“Michelle, your brother needs his uniform; what do you want me to do?”
“Why can’t he do it himself?”
“Because it’s your week for doing laundry. That was the deal.”
“But how come I always get the heavy-duty weeks – with baseball uniforms and towels? It’s not fair!”
“All right, go back to folding. I’ll handle this.”
“So much for efficiency,” muttered Michelle. “You know, when you’re one person having to do everything, you’re really out of luck when something goes wrong.”
“No kidding.”
Ben struck out once, then had a fly-ball out. His uniform to that point in the game was immaculate. But then in the fifth inning, with his team down by one run and runners on second and third, he smacked a ground ball up the middle. The ball whispered past the shortstop’s outstretched glove and rolled deep into center field. The runners on second and third raced for home and scored, as Ben Cieolara rounded first base and slid into second, raising a huge plume of red-brown dirt – safe! On the next pitch, Ben stole third and raised another plume. But a strikeout ended the inning. Still, the visiting team was held scoreless in the sixth – and, for Little League, final – inning, meaning that Ben’s team won. His uniform? Immaculate no more. Amy made him dust off before she would let him sit in her car.
Late in the afternoon the whole family was at Amy’s house. Amy was going out that evening with Tom Dawson, and so her parents had come over to be with the kids. There was the usual chaos with her father shuffling around, and the kids forever thinking up new ways to annoy each other, as well as everyone else. Yet Amy had blocked all of that out.
She was at the kitchen table again, peering at the screen of her laptop. Sometime during the excruciating boredom lasting between the second inning and the fifth, her mind had returned to work matters. As a vapid smile on her face pretended to suggest keen interest in what was happening on the field, a few nagging facts about what was happening at Oakton continued to disturb her. Now she had called up a number of spreadsheets and reports from years before – prior to Winner – and was making comparisons between then and recent performance.
She was absorbed in this when suddenly from behind two strong hands clamped down on her shoulders, startling her enough that she let out a little shriek.
“Gotcha!”
It was Tom Dawson. One of the kids had let him in the front door, and he had sneaked up on her.
“Good thing you’re not a terrorist,” he said.
“Yes. Good thing.”
She