The Ninth Inning of Regret

The orange peel landed in my wastebasket like a confession, its citrus scent cutting through the sterile office air. Forty-seventh floor, corner office—the apex of the pyramid I'd spent two decades climbing, and here I was, alone, watching a baseball game on mute while my assistant fielded calls about the merger.

A baseball drifted across the screen, and I thought about Mark. We'd played together in college, him in center field, me on the bench. He'd had the natural talent. I'd had the hunger.

"You're going to sell people out," he'd said the night before I joined his sister's company. It was supposed to be an opportunity, but we both knew what it really was—a pyramid scheme dressed in corporate casual. "You're already selling yourself out."

I'd told myself he was jealous. When I recruited his sister's friends into the next tier of the operation, when I climbed over bodies to reach management, when I eventually helped federal investigators dismantle the whole thing in exchange for immunity—I told myself it was just business.

Mark sent me a baseball from our last game three years ago, wrapped in newspaper. No note. Just the ball, dirt-stained and scuffed, like something that had been used and abandoned. I kept it in my desk drawer, next to the prenup and the antidepressants.

The phone rang. It was her—Mark's sister, now rebuilding her life in another state. She wanted to know if I'd testify against the founders. The people I'd once called partners. The people whose schemes I'd perpetuated.

I looked at the orange segments on my desk, neat and separated, like all the pieces of my life that no longer fit together. The pyramid scheme had collapsed years ago, but I was still climbing, still selling, still alone in this glass tower where the air was too thin to breathe anyway.

"Yes," I said. "I'll testify."

Outside, the city lights flickered on, a thousand little orange warnings against the coming dark. I ate another segment of the fruit. It was bitter. It was exactly what I deserved.