1. When he released the pitch, he knew it was a mistake. The look of surprise on Karen's face when the ball hit her cleanly in the jaw was second in his mind to the sound of the dull thud of impact. Karen touched her lip, looked at her clean fingers, and then suddenly bled furiously from the holes where her two teeth had been. His immediate supervisor yelled "Oh my god! Oh my god!" over and over while running over from third base. All the employees ran to the pitching mound making a hushed semi circle. No one in the crowd that had gathered around the sobbing Karen looked at him as he slunk over to his 2001 Honda Accord in the nearby parking lot. He started the car and slowly drove away leaving the chaos behind. And with that, the regional dispatch job was lost.
2. Depending on your point of view, her ability to change her professed dreams and interests to that of her boyfriend-du-jour made her either a supportive loving partner or a cheap social grifter. In the previous five years she had claimed to be a golfer, NFL fan, sailor, skiier, and poker player. Dust collected on her abandoned hobbies in her garage. Now she was part of the greaser car culture as she stood proudly in front of her boyfriend's 1951 Mercury. He bent over the open hood of a nearby Ford, dressed exactly like the two other men next to him in pegged Levi's jeans and Carhartt jacket. He had been pressuring her to get a prominent tattoo of a retro bluebird to solidify her look as a 1950s pinup. The nagging question on her mind was how this would look combined with the script Bible verse on her torso from her previous dalliance with the inner city single father of two and the small butterfly from a disasterous Spring Break trip in her college years. She adjusted the hem on her vintage dress and took a sip from the 16oz can of Pabst he had handed her moments earlier. She was happy to be part of the group. She felt safe. Maybe this is where she was always meant to be. Maybe she would get that tattoo.
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