Work Text:
Safely back through the team house doors that slam unheeded behind her, Jess runs up the stairs two at a time, her chest tight and heart pounding ready to explode. She feels like a laughingstock, a trapped animal, a stranger. Wrenching open the door to their room, she takes in Greta sitting picture-perfect on her bed, then catches a glimpse of her own distressed face in the vanity mirror. Ringlets, blush, lipstick, mascara, yet nothing helps cover the sense of being a mistake, of her presence a ridiculous joke among the other ladies – nearly sent home, saved only by the skin of her teeth.
“Jess, will you please –” begins Greta, annoyed, but she’s silenced by the sweep of the impulsive girl’s arm across the entire vanity table, knocking everything – compacts, silver mirror, brushes, perfume – to the floor with a crash.
In the sudden stillness, Jess looks up wild-eyed, a shattering sound ringing in her ears as she surveys the fragments of her roommate’s pretty bottle of Tosca perfume. Its sickly, too-concentrated scent fills the room as liquid seeps into the carpet. Several shocked faces arrive in the doorway, a blur, and then a brown-uniformed figure steps around the gawkers into the room.
A little horrified by her own outburst, she looks at their chaperone, who is neither impressed nor intimidated by the display of temper.
Silently, Bev grabs the first garments to hand from Jess’ cluttered wardrobe: a nondescript blue shirt and khaki trousers, cap and belt. Sweeping past an equally silent Greta, she picks one item out of the smashed jumble on the carpet: a jar of cold cream, and grabs a facecloth and towel from their hook before pressing everything into Jess’ trembling arms.
“Wash your face,” she orders. “Change clothes and brush out those curls if you choose to. I will see you in my office in five minutes.”
“Greta,” breathes Jess as her roommate kneels, stricken, by the shards of the perfume bottle, but Bev turns her to the hallway with a push.
“Now, Miss McCready.”
Appearing in Bev’s doorway three and a half minutes later, the shortstop looks much better with trousers and a braid again, her face pink from a rough scrubbing but free of the detested makeup. She stands there shamefaced, hands in her pockets with only partially concealed fear.
“Mrs. Hughes did say that you snarled in the street,” Bev says wryly, setting down her paperwork to face her guilty charge. “I thought she must have been exaggerating, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Why did we have to do all that when they just want us to play ball?” laments Jess, her voice plaintive.
“They don’t just want you to play ball, as Fern has sorely learned,” Bev replies, getting to her feet to lend her words an air of authority. “You’re expected to uphold an image. To boost morale and succeed as athletic professionals, yes, but in a way that doesn’t set the world too much on its ear.”
“I hate it,” says Jess tensely, folding her arms so tight Bev nearly expects her bones to snap. “It’s a bunch of –”
“Language, Miss McCready. I absolutely share your sentiments, but profanity is little better than a snarl.” She sighs as the reckless girl bites back her choice words. “Occasionally compromises must be made. We can’t expect the world to change all at once.”
“But nothing ever changes!” Jess bursts out, waving her arms so emphatically Bev is concerned for the vase of lilacs Esti collected.
“Yet the world does turn,” she says sternly. “Were you playing professional baseball at this time last year?”
Jess’ hunched shoulders drop a little in concession to this point, and under her chaperone’s intense gaze.
“At the moment, though, we have another issue to discuss.” Jess looks at the floor, her cheeks reddening as she scuffs restlessly with the toe of her shoe. “You’ve let your temper get the better of you, and you’ve upset your roommate’s belongings and broken something important to her.”
“I know,” Jess murmurs. She’s not apologizing yet, Bev notes wryly, but the penitent tone shows she’s close to it.
“It’s not right to lash out at a teammate when what you’re all really fighting is much further up the ladder,” the chaperone adds. “And if you’re kicked out of the league, you are no use to those efforts.”
The wayward girl nods, a bit more composed now, apprehensive yet ready to face the rest of it.
For a moment, she considers using the paddle, which Jess has already earned once for breaking curfew with the curly-haired pitcher, two unlikely peas in a pod. But this consequence needs to be sudden and sharp enough to settle whatever’s still agitated in Jess, sparking and electric like her flyaway hair.
“I’d like you to hand me your belt, please, and I want your trousers and underwear down.”
A brief, vulnerable look crosses the shortstop’s face, and her lip trembles, but she unbuckles and removes the strip of brown leather before holding it out meekly.
“After your discipline, you will apologize to Miss Gill and clean up whatever’s left of the mess on the floor,” Bev continues, motioning to the desktop as the girl shucks down her pants and boxers and bends over. “I expect you to replace anything you broke, and in future you will keep a grip on your temper like you would a winning catch.”
“I really didn’t mean it.” Her voice is a little unsteady, close to tears, but the chaperone can’t relent quite yet.
“What’s your number on this team, Miss McCready?” asks Bev, tapping her bare skin lightly with the folded belt.
“Six,” Jess says, swallowing hard.
The chaperone nods, lifting her arm. “Hold tight, young lady.”
To compensate for the relatively low number, she whips the belt down very hard across the fullest part of the shortstop’s bottom, leaving an inflamed pink stripe. The young woman remains still but sucks in a breath, clutching the desk edge tighter, and Bev can see her tensing with the burn of it.
She deals out a second stroke, and a third, creating a stinging patch of skin across both cheeks. The fourth swat, with a hiss and a solid crack, lands on Jess’ undercurve, and she gives a soft, low whimper, struggling to breathe evenly. At the fifth, she turns her face on the desk with a quiet sob, and Bev feels a pang of sympathy as she delivers the final blow. It’s followed by sniffling, and she steps closer to rub at the struggling girl's shoulders, grimacing at the visible welts on her hot skin.
Seeing Jess chastened yet calmer again on rising, though, she knows it was the right choice in the moment. Handing her some tissues, she observes quietly, without forcing eye contact, “I know none of this is easy, and I appreciate your resilience. Your team needs you.”
Swiftly wiping her tearstained face, Jess pulls her cotton boxers back up with a hiss of pain, and replaces the khaki trousers before tracing her belt back through its loops. “Thanks for letting me stay,” she murmurs.
Bev steps closer, briefly patting the girl’s arm to soften the warning. “It’s not myself who lets you stay,” she says pointedly, “which is why I ask that you be very careful.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Heading upstairs, Jess squeezes the banister for support, her stomach flipping – facing Greta again is almost worse than the belt. When she hesitantly knocks, though, the voice replying “Come in” is steady, and the redheaded girl’s back is straight again as she matter-of-factly sweeps up the broken items.
“I’m so sorry, Greta,” she entreats, kneeling down to help. “Did someone special give you the –”
“Oh, that?” Her roommate gives her a wry grin, retrieving the last of the pretty glass bottle with its French label in turquoise. “Never mind. Honestly, I’m glad it’s gone. Time to start fresh, right?”
“Yeah.” Jess gives a hesitant grin of relief, and it’s returned genuinely.
As the shortstop gets to her feet to grab cleaning supplies for the carpet, Greta gives her sore behind a teasing pat. “You okay? I could hear that from up here.”
“I’m all good,” replies Jess, and catching her reflection in the mirror – back to herself again – she knows she will be.