She wasn’t expecting it. It had never crossed her mind. “You could have blown me over with a feather,” she would say later, explaining it to her friends. “A feather,” she would repeat. But at the very moment she heard it from her office assistant Denise, she said nothing.

“You’re the boss now!” Denise cried out.

“What’s up?” the mail room boy asked as he poked his head into her office.

“She’s the GM!” Denise repeated.

“The what?”

“The General Manager, stupid. She’s it. She runs this whole club now.”

“Nah,” said the mail room boy, “she’s a girl—I mean a … a …”

“Mrs. Tipitina to you from now on,” Denise insisted.

“No,” the middle aged, former office manager said quietly, “it’s still Roberta.”

“But you’re the boss,” Denise protested.

“Doesn’t mean I have to act like one,” she said, turning away. But she turned back to ask Denise, “How do you know? I mean … who told you?”

“He did, Slummings.”

“You spoke to Mr. Slummings?”

“He called, just now, I told you.”

“Called you?”

“The office, he called the office, the land line. I was standing right there,” she gestured toward the large wooden desk with three phones on top, “when it rang.”

“Where was he calling from?”

“The train. The 3:10. He’ll be here in the morning.”

“He will?” Denise nodded. “Alone?”

“No, Mayberry’s with him.”

Roberta looked at her assistant. Something wasn’t right. She wasn’t sure which question to ask first, so she blurted them both out at once. “He had a cell phone and Mayberry is coming back?”

“Yes, yes!” Denise quivered with excitement. “And you’re the new boss.”

“No,” Roberta said slowly, “if he’s coming back—Mayberry—then he’s still boss.”

Denise looked puzzled. “You don’t want to be boss?”

“I think I’ve done enough bossing since Slummings left. I look forward to letting them make the decisions and get the headaches.”

Denise didn’t understand. “But …”

“Spit it out.”

“You are the first woman GM in PEBA.” 

“Assistant GM, Denise. Assistant.”

Denise shook her head vigorously. “No no no, he said—I’m sure he said GM. No ‘assistant,’ nothing like that.”

Roberta looked at her young assistant, a woman she had trusted with some very sensitive tasks after Slummings left the two of them in charge of the Yuma Front Office, and she tried to reason it out. But it wouldn’t reason. There was nothing reasonable about it. If she wasn’t Assistant GM, then … 

Roberta slapped her own head, but it didn’t make anything clearer. “ No,” she finally said, “if Mayberry’s coming back, he’s still GM. We kept him in that position even while he was in the hospital. It makes no sense—no sense, whatsoever—for him to be removed now that he’s out of the hospital.” Denise started to object. “No, sorry, Denise, there’s a mix-up somewhere.” She saw the look on her assistant’s face. “I’m not saying—”

“I know what I heard,” Denise interrupted. “I know what he said. And it wasn’t assistant.”

“Okay … okay,” Roberta said, squeezing her eyes closed to think harder, “maybe … maybe there was a poor phone connection. Maybe he said ‘assistant’ but it got lost in transmission.”

“Or maybe he didn’t say it.”

Roberta looked at her obstinate assistant. She wasn’t going to change her story, so the source of the confusion, Roberta now surmised, was likely not her. Which meant …

“If he didn’t say it, then maybe he’s confused.”

“Slummings?” Denise asked to clarify.

“Yes. Maybe,” Roberta conceded.

“Or maybe …” Denise paused to judge Roberta’s reaction, “maybe he and Mayberry decided …” Denise couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Roberta looked her in the eye. “Don’t say that,” she said. “You can think it, for now, but don’t say it. Not until they’re standing right here—both of them in front of us telling us what they’ve decided. Until then,” Roberta turned to walk away and end the conversation, “Mayberry’s still GM.”

Denise could do nothing but stand and wonder why Roberta would walk away from such a gift—a gift from the Fates. Why is she so afraid to hear such good news? Is she afraid of being GM? But, Denise reasoned, she’s been GM, really, she’s been doing the job since Slummings turned the office and the decisions over to her. For a couple seasons now, she’s been doing the GM’s job. Why won’t she accept the title that goes with that?

Denise could not understand Roberta’s reluctance. And there was nothing to do about it now, except wait for tomorrow morning, for the return of Mayberry and Slummings, when surely everything would be explained.

Surely, she told herself, tomorrow we’ll know. But not for a moment did she believe it would be that easy.

“I’m heading home early,” Roberta called from inside Slummings’ office.

“Okay,” Denise called back. “How come?”

Roberta marched out of the inner office with her coat and bag in hand. “Need to get some shuteye if I’m going to meet the 3:10.”

“You’re meeting the train?” Roberta nodded as she turned toward the front door. “At 3 in the morning?!?”

“Yup,” Roberta called over her shoulder as she opened the door and stepped into the icy Sonoran Desert wind. Spring training was a week away, Opening Day less than a month, and Roberta knew that by that time, by the time the ump bellowed out “Play Ball!” for the first time in a new season, her life would be changed. Utterly, irrevocably, and not necessarily for the better.

She closed the door behind her and ducked into the wind. A woman running the Yuma Arroyos. It didn’t seem possible.