Summer of Unanswered Riddles

The summer before freshman year, I joined the rec baseball league because Jake—and his perfectly messy hair—was playing center field. My batting average hovered somewhere between tragic and nonexistent, but I showed up every practice with my glove pulled tight and my stomach in knots.

"You're standing like a sphinx," Jake said during drills, grinning as I froze mid-swing. "Ancient. Mysterious. Horrified at the prospect of actual athletic movement."

My face burned. "I'm thinking."

"About what?" He tilted his head, and I forgot how to speak.

"Math," I blurted. "For next year."

Lame. So lame. But he laughed anyway, and I committed that sound to memory.

After practice, the team—all six of us who hadn't quit by week three—ended up at Manny's house. His mom had cut up this alien-looking fruit, bright orange with weird black seeds. "Papaya," she said, like it was obvious. Like everyone's mom served mysterious tropical produce on random Tuesdays.

"Try it," Jake said, already popping a piece in his mouth.

I did. It tasted like sunshine felt, if sunshine had a flavor—sweet but weirdly subtle, like it was trying too hard to be something it wasn't. Something I understood.

"It's actually good?" I said, surprised.

"Fox," Manny announced, pointing at me with his fork.

"What?"

"You're a fox now. First papaya experience and you didn't make a face. That's fox behavior. Cunning. Adaptation."

"Thanks? I think?"

Jake bumped my shoulder with his. "Fox fits you."

My heart did something stupid and complicated. The papaya suddenly tasted like everything—like firsts and almosts and the terrible, wonderful uncertainty of being fourteen and not knowing who you were yet, but wanting someone to notice while you figured it out.

"Hey," Jake said, softer now. "You coming Saturday? We're doing extra batting practice."

The sphinx had nothing on the riddles of summer. But some questions, I decided, were worth stepping up to the plate for.

"Wouldn't miss it."