Green Scorecard

Joanie found her in the noisy knot of jerseys.

“You caught that ball.”

“I was hoping nobody noticed how scared I was.”

“I noticed both things.”

Luz took a bite of cupcake. “Is this where you tell me I’m on the team?”

“I thought you were already on the team.”

That landed somewhere tender.

You could build a whole life out of people who saved you a cupcake and assumed you belonged.

At 11:19, the Riveters piled into cars, cargo van, and one dented hatchback that Rupa drove like she had a personal argument with every red light.

They reached Kaczmarek Tattoo at 11:34.

The team came through the door carrying boxes, tape, leftover tournament food, and enough volume to wake the phone-repair shop next door.

Rupa pointed at the old speaker. “Music. Farewell rules.”

Joanie looked at Luz. “Your pick?”

Luz thought for a moment. “Talking Heads.”

Joanie pressed play. “This Must Be the Place” filled the shop.

“Painfully appropriate,” Rupa said.

“Pack a box,” Dalia told her.

Luz wrapped ink bottles in old towels while Joanie took framed flash from the walls. Roses. Dice. A fierce ship. A woman holding a match. Every empty nail left a pale square behind.

“What’s this one?” Luz asked, lifting a framed green design from the counter.

“First softball tattoo I did,” Joanie said. “Rupa wanted a tiny bat.”

“I wanted a majestic bat.”

“You got a six-inch bat with a bow.”

“It is majestic.”

Dalia directed the packing with a marker in one hand and tape in the other.

“Needles here. Machines there. Nobody puts coffee cups in a box with art.”

“Specific rule,” Luz said.

“Learned it the hard way.”

At 11:50, the cargo van was full. Dalia had offered her basement for the boxes until Monday. Rupa had somehow found room for the speaker, three plants, and a framed tiger with a bad attitude.

The shop looked strange without its clutter. Bigger. Sadder.

Joanie stood in the middle of it with one last envelope in her hand.

“The keys,” Luz said.

“Downstairs office slot.”

Dalia came over and squeezed Joanie’s shoulder. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You all have plans tomorrow?”

“We are lesbians with a moving project,” Rupa said. “Of course we have plans.”

Joanie laughed. Then she looked around at all of them.

“Thank you.”

Rupa lifted one hand. “No speeches. You’ll make me cry in public.”

“Already happening,” Marta said.

The team crowded Joanie for quick hugs, loud goodbyes, and one final argument about whether the tournament trophy should live with Dalia or rotate through apartments.

Then they were gone.

The door shut behind them.

At 11:56, Joanie took the envelope downstairs.

Luz stood alone in the nearly empty parlor. “This Must Be the Place” played low from the battered speaker. The song made the room feel less like an ending and more like a door left open.

Joanie returned with empty hands.

“That’s it,” she said.

Luz looked at the clock over the counter. “How does it feel?”

Joanie considered that. “Sad. Good. Both.”

“Both is allowed.”

“Apparently.”

She came closer.

“Luz.”

“Yes?”

“I want to ask this clearly.” Joanie’s hand rested at Luz’s waist. “Do you want tonight to become more than packing boxes and winning softball games?”

Luz laughed once, nervous and happy all at once.

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“Not because it’s late. Not because this place is closing.”

“No excuses,” Luz said. “I want you because I want you.”

Joanie’s eyes softened. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“May I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

Joanie moved slowly enough that Luz could change her mind. She did not.

Their first kiss was careful. Then it was not careful at all. Luz put her hands on Joanie’s shoulders, felt the familiar black cotton of her shirt, and kissed her again.

Joanie smiled against her cheek.

“Still good?” she asked.

“Very.”

“Green means go?”

“Green means keep asking.”

Joanie laughed. “I can do that.”

They sat together on the old couch behind the curtain. Luz’s jersey ended up over the armrest. Joanie’s boots stood crooked by the wall.

Every new touch came with a question.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

Luz had thought a first time might make her feel behind. Instead, she felt present. Fully there. Joanie wanted her, and Joanie waited for her answer every time.

At midnight, the clock clicked forward.

Outside, the deadline arrived and went.

Inside, the speaker began “This Must Be the Place” again.

Luz turned toward Joanie and kissed her once more, then let the nearly empty parlor keep their secret for a little while.

Monday morning, Luz met Joanie outside Dalia’s building with two coffees and a roll of packing tape. The final boxes waited beside Rupa’s van: sketchbooks, a red-shaded lamp, framed flash, and the green metal cash box that had sat under the tattoo counter for eleven years.

“You’re late,” Dalia said from behind the wheel.

Luz checked her phone. “It is nine-oh-one.”

“Exactly.”

Rupa emerged from the lobby carrying a carton marked NEEDLES, NOT SNACKS. “She is technically early for a tattoo artist. We should give her a ribbon.”

Joanie took one coffee and gave Luz a quick kiss. “Morning.”

“Morning.” Luz smiled at a curb beside a recycling bin. She decided she could survive silly.

The shared studio was three blocks from the elevated train, on the second floor of an old brick building. Rupa had taped a cardboard sign to the glass door.

RIVETERS MAKE THINGS.

Inside, her screen-printing rack occupied one wall. Joanie’s chair and machines stood near a sink. A broad table sat by the windows with a drop cloth folded beside it.

Luz set down a box. “What’s that table for?”

Joanie looked at it, then at Luz. “Sign work, if you want it. A couple afternoons a week. More later. Less later. Whatever works.”

“It has good light.”

“It does.”

Dalia cut through their moment with a clap. “Wonderful. Artistic futures later. Box labeled ART, which is all of them, goes by the window.”

Luz laughed. “Tuesday afternoons?”

Joanie’s grin changed the whole room. “Tuesday afternoons.”

After the last box was inside, Joanie took a folded square from her pocket.

“I made something,” she said.

“I’ve been warned about items that arrive in boxes.”

“Not a box.”

The paper held a design in green pencil: four small bases, a sharp little 46 beneath them, and a star in right field.

Luz looked at it for a long time. “That’s my catch.”

“And your first game.”

“It’s a scorecard.”

“Your scorecard.”

“Will it fit?”

“Small enough to hide under a watch. Not that you need to hide it.”

Luz ran her thumb along the paper’s edge. “Maybe I don’t.”

“You can take it home. Think about it.”

“I’ve postponed things long enough.” She held out her left arm. “I want it here.”

“Today?”

“Today.”

Joanie studied her. “You’re certain?”

“Green means go.”

Rupa put Brandi Carlile’s “The Story” on her phone before taking Dalia downstairs for sandwiches. Joanie prepared the chair and showed Luz every sealed packet.

When the machine began, Luz laughed at the first sting.

“Still good?” Joanie asked.

“Still good.”

“I can stop anytime.”

“I know.”

For a while, Luz watched the small green lines appear.

“This is silly,” she said. “I thought I would feel different all at once.”

Joanie looked up. “You are different all at once. You just got here one choice at a time.”

“That sounds like a tattoo.”

“It can be, if you want.”

“No more today.”

“Good call.”

When Joanie cleaned the ink away, Luz saw the little scorecard on her arm. Green. Clear. Hers.

“What do you think?” Joanie asked.

Luz turned her wrist toward the window. “It looks like I belong to myself.”

“Yes,” Joanie said.

Two Thursdays later, the scorecard had healed cleanly. Luz wore her corrected jersey, SOTO and 46 shining in gold.

Joanie waited at third base, cap backward, glove under one arm. Before Luz took right field, she handed her a folded note.

“One more note?” Joanie asked.

“Deliberately delivered.”

Joanie opened it.

DINNER FRIDAY?

NO MOVING. NO FIXING. NO DEADLINE.

JUST US.

—LUZ

Joanie read it twice, then looked up with a grin.

“I’d like that.”

“Good.”

From the dugout, Rupa called, “If this is flirting, do it after we win.”

Dalia pointed toward the outfield. “Soto. Right field.”

Joanie tucked the note into her shirt pocket. “Ready?”

Luz settled her cap and lifted her glove. “Ready.”

The first ball rose high over the dirt. Luz moved beneath it.

Joanie cheered from third base before it landed cleanly in Luz’s glove.

The Riveters roared, and somewhere in Joanie’s pocket, Luz’s note had reached exactly where she meant it to.