The Ninth Inning

by A. J. Stewart

  As I walked I called Lizzy and asked her to see what details she could track down regarding the Facebook friend of Lily Barkin. I forwarded Lily’s text message, which was nothing more than a username, on to Lizzy, who told me she’d call me back shortly.

  I headed back toward downtown but didn’t quite get there. As I crossed the Tuolumne River, I recognized the landscape and my homing pigeon DNA directed me down Tuolumne Boulevard and under the freeway toward the municipal golf course.

  I found myself at the south end of the golf course looking at John Thurman Field. It had been home to baseball in Modesto since 1955, and although it had been refurbished throughout the years, it was still one of the smaller and older parks I had played in.

  I found the players’ entrance and wandered in. It wasn’t like a major-league setup, where the parks were locked up like maximum security prisons. Minor-league parks in small country towns didn’t mind if the occasional local dropped in to sit in the bleachers, as long as they kept off the field.

  The sun felt warmer inside the ballpark—as it always did—and I moved up the bleachers until I was about three quarters of the way up, then I sat. The park hadn’t changed much since my days, except for the colors and the team name. In my day we had been the Modesto A’s, affiliated with the Oakland major-league team. The year I left for Port St. Lucie, the affiliation switched to the Rockies and the team name to the Modesto Nuts, in homage to all the nut farms in the area. I had enjoyed playing in A’s colors—it felt like there was a direct line from us to the majors—but I liked the new name better.

  The park was quiet. I could hear a vacuum or a leaf blower somewhere on the other side, but it was muted and barely there at all. The field looked immaculate, as if it had never been used. Baseball fields were like that. The game itself was built on the pedestal of history, but the fields were washed clean of that history every day so new history could be created.

  I sat in the sunshine and thought about my own history, and that which I might make. Life had thrown me many curveballs, and I had taken paths that I never expected to see, let alone walk down. Baseball was always the constant, my true north, but everything around it was a constant state of change.

  Ryan Castle had been right about that. Just when you get comfortable, life had a habit of slapping you in the face to see if you were paying attention. It had taken me a long time to realize that after baseball was done, Lenny had become my true north, and after him, it was Danielle. She was the constant in the sea of change. I felt uneasy about some of that change and had fallen victim to letting it determine how my life unfolded. But Ryan had shown me that I was not a victim. I just had to be determined to accept that which I could not affect and focused on keeping that which was important firmly within grasp.

  Modesto had been my home for four years, and before that I had lived in Miami for four years. But I only wore one of them as my name. It made me think that the idea of moving to Miami with Danielle had been a solid one—I enjoyed my time there and still loved the beat of that city. But since landing there again, everything felt off-kilter. I had doubts about everything, and a pitcher with doubts was destined to be pulled from the game mid-inning.

  As I sat there thinking, I noticed movement and turned to see players scattering out onto the field. The major-league teams were in full spring training, but the minor-league teams were just warming up. I saw the guys moving out to start with a jog around the field—hated by every player—and then start with relaxed games of catch.

  They were built like men but had the faces of boys. There were smiles and jokes and lots of gum chewing. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves, and I wondered if they knew that they were living one of the best times of their lives.

  One of the best, because I saw too many guys thinking later that their youth was the pinnacle of everything, that growing up and growing older held no joy, no value. I had learned that if their lives held no joy now, it wasn’t the fault of their youth. It was a function of them not putting their efforts into the things they could affect.

  That was what I hadn’t realized in my youth, that the days were grand not because I was young but because I was focused on that which I loved, that which I could control, and not yet consumed by the things that affected me but which I couldn’t readily change.

  It was altogether too much thinking for a fine spring day. I decided to walk back into town. It wasn’t much more than a thirty-minute trek from the ballpark into town.

  The south side was a workaday part of town and things improved as I made my way onto Ninth Street, which was as close as anything got to a main drag in Modesto. It still had a small-town feel to it, despite looking vastly different than it had fifteen years before. It was no American Graffiti. I had heard a story that George Lucas had written that movie based on his youth in Modesto. The muscle cars were long gone by the time I had arrived, and when I’d asked about it, I had been told that the movie had been filmed in a place called Petaluma up in Sonoma County, and Mel’s Diner had been filmed in San Francisco, and it too was long gone.

  There was nothing particularly romantic about main drag Modesto. It was an agricultural town where people worked hard during the week and enjoyed their friends and family on the weekends. Its relative proximity to the growing tech scene in the Bay Area had seen it tarted up just a tad, and out-of-towners had bought up their share of property, causing the kind of friction that happened when old met new.

  I wandered past a couple of bars that I recognized, dive-type places that looked pretty much the same. Perhaps the memories that I had of Modesto had left with me. Perhaps, like George Lucas, my memories had moved to Petaluma. Or maybe the town was as it had always been, another nice American small town with a minor-league baseball team to root for, and the thing that had changed was me.

  I came upon a diner that did a good burger and fries back in the day and still did. I sat in my booth and ate my burger and fries and looked around the faded walls of the diner. Where once the walls had been adorned with paraphernalia regaling the Modesto A’s baseball team, now all I saw was support for Golden State Warriors basketball.

  I was sitting in the booth using my final fry to mop up some ketchup when Lizzy returned my call. She asked if I had a pen and gave me a phone number.

  “It’s a nail salon in Modesto,” she said. “The lady whose Facebook profile you sent me works there.”

  I thanked Lizzy, left some cash on the table for my lunch, and headed off to find the salon.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I found the salon in a long line of stores that were closed on Sunday. Those that were open had very few customers. The salon sat between a Goodwill store and an Indian restaurant, all of which were in the shade of a multistory parking structure.

  I went inside and asked for Regina Foster. The woman who greeted me at the front desk had the longest nails I had ever seen. I wondered if they retracted like a cat’s, and what kind of damage they would do if she decided to use them for evil. She called out for Regina and then asked if I had an appointment. There appeared to be four workers—I didn’t know if they were called stylists, technicians, or something else—and only two customers, so I wasn’t sure an appointment was completely necessary.

  The woman who approached from the rear of the store was one of those women who tried very hard to look like she was still in high school, despite being well into her thirties. She had blond hair that wasn’t naturally so, and it came down to her shoulders dead straight, also not naturally so. At least that was my best guess. She wore too much makeup around her eyes and a thick layer of concealer to fill in the cracks in her face. It struck me as odd that she had never realized that under all the crud she was probably quite an attractive woman, albeit one in her thirties, and that the high school look should have been left back in high school.

  “I’m Regina Foster,” she said, offering me an impressively wide smile. “Have I done you before?”

  It was a turn of phrase that had never been put
to me like that, and it caught me off-guard. “I am doing some research into the history of the local high school,” I said.

  Regina kind of bounced on the balls of her feet as she responded. “Really?”

  I nodded. I wasn’t completely sure why I had lied to her on the spur of the moment, but I was getting the kind of vibe that suggested she might prefer to relive her glory days rather than talk to a PI.

  “That’s right,” I said. “For a book.”

  “And you want to speak to me?” There wasn’t a hint of uncertainty in her voice. It was a question posed with false modesty, or at least that was the impression her tone gave me.

  “I hear there have been a few legends of the school over the years. And your name kept coming up.”

  She bounced as if she liked the sound of that. “Did you want a manicure or a blow dry?”

  I knew for certain that I wanted neither. I had pitcher’s hands, gnarled and large, and my hair was the same tangled blond mess it had been since childhood. I spent a lot of time on or near a beach in South Florida and got all the blow drying I ever needed from the ocean breeze. But I figured something was necessary in order to keep her talking, so I glanced up at a list of services that was plastered to the wall. None of them sounded good. Several of them included the word waxing, which made me shudder involuntarily. I looked for the service that might involve the least pain.

  “A pedicure, perhaps?”

  “Perfect,” said Regina.

  She ushered me around into the main salon area, which was set up much like a hair salon, except no one was cutting. There were little stations where a patron could rest their hands while the technician—I had decided that was the highfalutin word I was going with—would perform their tasks. Nothing I saw looked like anything a person couldn’t do for themselves in the privacy of their own bathroom, but I got the sense that I was somewhat missing the point.

  There was a lot of talk. The women were all sharing stories, of their families and their loved ones and the men who drove them crazy. I decided that coming out with some nice-looking nails and a Farrah Fawcett hairdo was only the physical manifestation of what they were there for. The real business seem to be in therapy. And I for one was a big fan of therapy. I never went to a psychologist because I never saw the point. I got my therapy at Longboard Kelly’s, and I figured to each their own.

  Regina sat me down at her station and reclined me in a chair that looked like the Ferrari version of a barber seat. It was a lot more comfortable than I gave it credit for, and I found myself at an angle where a quiet snooze was a distinct possibility. Regina took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my chinos to the knee, then set about bathing my feet.

  It wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever done, but it was up there. For a service that seemed to be provided in every strip mall in South Florida, it probably came as a shock to everyone but me that I’d never had another human being bathe my feet. Danielle had certainly washed them, along with various other parts, every now and then. But to have my large pads serviced as the center of attention was a new experience. It felt weird and uncomfortable, but as she soaped them up and rubbed them with a loofah, I had to admit the whole thing started to grow on me.

  I asked Regina to tell me some stories about her high school days, and in that way that people do, she suddenly had a dearth of memories.

  “Take your high school graduation, for example,” I said.

  “Oh, what a night.” She actually sang the words like Frankie Valli. She told me about her dress and her date, and the crew that she hung out with, who sounded more Sandra Dee than Pink Ladies.

  “I’ve heard some stories about a big after party. Club Mediterrano, maybe?”

  Regina rolled her eyes like this was a memory lost in time. “That was a big night. One of the guys—was it Jeff or Pete?” She glanced up at the ceiling to try to recall the right name. With a shrug she said, “Pete. It was Pete. He drove us over the river. The best times were always over the river.”

  “It was a different venue back then, I understand,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t believe it. You can’t get away with those sorts of things anymore. I don’t know what the kids do for fun these days.”

  I always enjoyed listening to people who were imbued with the notion that their generation had somehow invented sex and music and good times. That they themselves must have appeared out of the ether, delivered by stork. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of history knew that sex and music and good times had been around since people were spitting hand portraits onto the insides of caves. The clothes changed, and the music changed, and what qualified as a good time might have changed, but the rest was nothing more than simple biology.

  “It was a fun place,” she said. “They used to serve drinks there. You didn’t even have to show fake ID. Don’t think they do that anymore.”

  “I heard some stories about certain people making out with a famous baseball player.”

  Regina gave me a coquettish look as if she were embarrassed. There was no way I could see her blush through the layers of foundation, so I took the look at its word.

  “There may or may not have been a hot stud at the club that night. An older guy, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew what she meant. I was one. I had been one for some time.

  “I heard that one of the girls might’ve caught his eye. On the dance floor . . . and maybe on a quiet sofa somewhere?”

  Regina dried my feet as she spoke. “A girl doesn’t like to tell.”

  I decided to go for broke. “Someone like Lily Barkin, for example?”

  Regina gave a quizzical look, as if under all the makeup there was a frown occurring. It was like an earthquake, where all the action occurred subcutaneously.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t have my notebook with me.”

  “Did Lily tell you that?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve even spoken to her,” I said. “Perhaps I should. Does she live somewhere nearby?”

  Regina pulled out a miniature table and plonked my feet on it, then got to work with what looked more like a woodworking rasp than an emery board.

  “No, she’s long gone. But I can assure you the player you’re thinking of, he didn’t have eyes for Lily. And she’d be dreaming if she thought so. She really wasn’t in his league.”

  Her impish grin suggested that while Lily may not have been in the player’s league, Regina certainly was. And her words made me think of what the old mob guy had told me about the night and about what had gone on in the bathrooms.

  “So,” I said, dropping my voice and putting my hand beside my mouth like we were conspiring to overthrow the government. “This is off the record, of course. Did you make out with any baseball players that night?”

  Regina looked shocked, in a pantomime kind of way. “I told you, a lady doesn’t like to tell.”

  “You can tell me.”

  “We might’ve had a moment on the dance floor.”

  She started working on a callus on the side of my foot that had been put there by my pitching motion when I was in my teens. I figured she was going to ruin her tools before she got any kind of result on that.

  “What about in the bathroom?” I raised my eyebrows and gave her a wink.

  “In the bathroom?” It was a genuine inquiry this time. She didn’t look so much shocked as emotionless, as if the concept was beyond her.

  “How easy do you think I am?” she said with a barely convincing look of indignation.

  I had to consider her phraseology. She hadn’t said I’m not that kind of girl, or I’m not that easy. She had said, How easy do you think I am? It was an altogether different question. But not one I really wanted to get into.

  I shrugged. “I just heard a story, that’s all. Perhaps it wasn’t with you.”

  “No perhaps about it. I did not get off with some baseball flunky in the bathrooms at Club Mediterrano.”

 
I got the sense that I may have offended her, that I had taken her flirtatious nature for granted. I had to concede that underneath the layers of makeup was a human being, one who clearly wasn’t leading the life she had dreamed and, more importantly, wasn’t getting the love that she had always needed. People who tell stories about their sexual escapades are rarely getting the love that they needed. The notion made me think of Danielle. Not of her telling stories, but of her need. It made me want to leave. It made me want to get out of the nail salon, out of Modesto, out of California and back to where I was needed. Whether Danielle said she did or not.

  “I hope I haven’t offended you,” I said. “I’m not suggesting the person in question was you. I mean, I can imagine a fella wanting to, but you do seem too classy to get involved in that kind of thing.”

  She appeared to consider my words and then gave a soft, almost imperceptible nod, as if she approved of what she had heard.

  “No offense taken.”

  “You can’t think of anyone who might’ve been into that kind of thing?” I asked.

  She genuinely seemed to consider the question and took a fair while before she answered. “If I remember correctly, and I do admit the night is a little fuzzy,” she said, offering me the grin once more. “I do seem to remember this player paying quite a lot of attention to Anita.”