Half Court Press

by A. J. Stewart

  “Well, yes, I have met other people, but nothing stuck. You’d be surprised how many men get scared off by successful women.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Your fiancée carries a gun.”

  “She does that. I don’t mess with her.”

  “You’re a smart guy.”

  “Occasionally. But I can’t believe that in South Florida there isn’t some rich, successful dude who isn’t intimidated by you. I mean, forgive me for saying, but you’re an attractive lady. I don’t get it.”

  “Forgive me for saying? You have no idea how much women hate being told they look nice.”

  “I don’t know these days.”

  “Would you tell a man he’s a good-looking guy?”

  “Sure. I tell Ron that all the time.”

  “There you go. Run with your instinct on that one. But to answer your question, the rich guys are often the worst. They’re used to being the richest and smartest person in the room, and when they’re outsmarted or out-successed by a man, that’s a challenge. When it’s a woman, it’s a reflection of their own fragility, or something like that.”

  I shrugged. “Dumb.”

  “It’s not all there is to life.”

  “True. You seem pretty happy.”

  “I am. I’m not going to tell you that when I wind down at night I wouldn’t prefer some good company over a glass of scotch, but it is what it is, and it isn’t all bad. Plus I get to hold the television remote.”

  I smiled. I didn’t have a television and I never got to hold the remote at Longboard’s, but I got the point.

  We drank our drinks as the ocean fell to darkness and the staff folded up the umbrellas like flowers retreating for the night. Penny finished her gin and tonic with a slurp again.

  “Well, that’s me,” she said.

  I nodded and we stood.

  “Where do we pay?”

  “It’s on my room.”

  “I should pay my share.”

  “Are you being one of those frightened little men, now?”

  “No, just felt right to offer.”

  “Well, thanks, I got it.”

  I held the door open for her and she nodded her thanks and walked inside. We wandered back into the front lobby, and I walked her to her elevator.

  “Come see me when you’re next in Miami, okay? Bring Danielle to the apartment.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened, and Penny stepped inside. She hit the button for her floor and then turned and looked at me.

  “She’s a lucky girl, that Danielle.”

  I shrugged. “Some days I’m not so sure.”

  “Oh, you’re not perfect. But I assure you, if you weren’t engaged, you wouldn’t be walking away from this elevator.”

  She shot me an impish grin, and the doors closed between us. I stared at my fuzzy reflection in the faded brass, and then I smiled, shook my head, and walked out of the hotel.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I woke to the flap of palm tree fronds outside my window. The wind had picked up. Not hurricane strength, not even enough to cancel the sailing on the Intracoastal, but the kind of blow that clears out the stale air if you open all your doors, which is what I did.

  I had stopped at the market on the way home from The Breakers, so I had something in the fridge for a change. I stood in my shorts and made a smoothie and then wandered out into the backyard to drink it. The two loungers looked more lonely than inviting, so I stood out by the seawall and watched the boats float past.

  Danielle and I had shared text messages the previous night. She was staking out some racing guy who might have been juicing his horses, and she couldn’t talk. I understood completely, but still felt deflated.

  Penny Morgan had thrown my day’s plans into disarray. I’d had a sequence of events in my mind that I thought might open up the case and if not solve it, at least make it clearer. Now I felt like I had multiple missions, and I had to work hard to keep all the plates in the air. And I desperately needed a change of metaphor.

  There were a couple of plays bouncing around in my mind that I had unintentionally borrowed from Coach Parkinson at Miami, and given my naïveté regarding basketball tactics, I wasn’t sure I could pull either one off. The one was a half-court press and the other was a full-court press.

  The half-court press was about positioning the players and driving the opposition into a corner from which they would make a mistake. I was ready for someone to make a mistake. I had already done what I could to manipulate the players to get them where I needed them, and all that was left was to spring the half-court trap. If it went well, I would win, and if it didn’t—if the players didn’t get into position on time—then there was a fair risk of egg on my face.

  But first I had to use the full-court press. I needed energy, and I needed to hope that I was as sure a metaphorical ball-handler as I needed to be, because I knew how good the defense was. Tania Bryson had shown herself capable of shutting out all comers, and I was going to have to be on my game to help her the way Penny thought I needed to.

  Then there was my own situation. I suspected another full-court press was required here, too, but despite what Penny had said, I didn’t have the brain space to think about that play, although I promised myself I would. Someday.

  I put on my long pants and drove out to Crescent Lakes and found Tania waiting at the front gates. I stopped beside the gatehouse, and much to the annoyance of the guard, I got out and walked over to her.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just couldn’t sit at home anymore. Rami and Sheryl are at it. It’s like dueling groupies. One gets me a glass of water, the other has to get a bottle of Gatorade. One pushes an ottoman under my feet and the other covers me in a blanket. And it’s eighty degrees outside. It’s too much.”

  I laughed and walked her over to my car. I got in and waved at the guard and then did a backward U-turn and imagined his disgust. Perhaps he’d write me down in his little book as a menace to the community. I smiled at the thought.

  “I just can’t wait to get on court and blow the cobwebs out,” she said as I pulled away. She was quiet until I pulled onto I-95 and headed north.

  “Um, I think we’re going the wrong way.”

  “Change of plan,” I said.

  “We’re not going to the club?”

  “Not this morning. We’re taking an excursion.”

  “You’re not going to ax murder me, are you?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t own an ax.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  A little smile crept onto the corner of her mouth, and I was glad to see it, given how what I was doing could certainly be perceived as being rather creepy.

  We drove for about an hour and then I pulled off the freeway.

  “Port St. Lucie?” Tania said. “What’s in Port St. Lucie?”

  The truth was, not much. It was one of those places about which Gertrude Stein would have said there was no there there. As a town, it had no real center, no main square, no place where the community congregated. There were lots of strip malls and city buildings and gated communities, and there were certainly lots of golf courses, but each of those places had its own separate center. But there was a center to me, so to answer her question, I said:

  “History.”

  I cut into St. Lucie West and down streets lined with neat houses. I pulled into the lot where New York Mets signs were being removed from the façade of the baseball park.

  “A baseball stadium?” Tania asked.

  I nodded as I parked in the front row, next to a truck that was being loaded with crowd-control gates.

  We got out and I wandered over to the stadium. It wasn’t a particularly large complex—not anything close to the major leagues—but like lots of minor-league parks aro
und the country, it was modern and comfortable. I walked up to a guy on a ladder, who was removing bunting near an open gate. I looked up until the guy looked down at me.

  “Is that Miami Jones?” he said, a big smile appearing on his ruddy face.

  “John, how are you?”

  “All the better for seeing you, Miami.” He clambered down the ladder and shook my hand. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, I’m good. Looks like you’re tearing the place apart.”

  “Taking out all the stuff from spring training. You know how it is. Got to get ready for the proper season.”

  “Good spring training?”

  “I tell ya, the Grapefruit League gets bigger every year. Lot of Mets fans down from New York.”

  “Why not? Come for the baseball, stay for the weather.”

  “We both know it.” John turned to Tania.

  “Sorry, John,” I said. “This is Tania Bryson.”

  “Tania,” he said, offering his hand. “Welcome to St. Lucie Park.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You don’t have a naming sponsor on the park?” I asked.

  “Oh, we do, but I can’t keep all those tech companies straight in my head. They’re here a couple years, go bust, and we gotta change the signage.” He shrugged. “It’s St. Lucie Park to me.”

  “Fair enough. Listen, I was just going to take Tania for a walk around the park, if that’s okay.”

  John laughed. “If that’s okay.” He looked at Tania. “You know this guy owned this field, right? For two mighty seasons, he was the best pitcher I ever saw come through this park.”

  Tania smiled. “Is that right?”

  “Oh, yeah, should have gone to the majors, not to Palm Beach. Mets don’t know what they lost.”

  “All right,” I said. “You’re making me sound like a Hall of Famer.”

  “Rightly, too.”

  “Mind if we take that walk?”

  “It’s your park, my friend. Don’t go without saying goodbye.”

  “Not a chance.”

  I led Tania away from John and his ladder and his bunting and into the stadium. We walked up the steps and found ourselves on the lower tier about halfway along the third-base side.

  I took a long slow breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth, like before every single pitch I had thrown in this stadium, and every pitch I’d thrown anywhere since learning the calming technique back in college. I smelled the wet grass and the moist clay. The bases and the lines were as white as lilies, and the hint of hot dogs still hung on the air.

  Tania followed me up the steps into the stand. I stopped, as was my habit, about three-quarters of the way up, and sat on one of the plastic seats. Tania slid in beside me. We were both tall and our knees knocked into the seats in front. The sky was gray and the wind blew around the stadium, but there was no trash to be seen. The park looked pristine.

  I didn’t take my eyes off the diamond, but I knew that Tania was looking at me.

  “You’re wondering why we just drove an hour to sit in an empty ballpark?”

  I felt her shrug. “It’s not the strangest thing that’s happened this week, but yeah, it did cross my mind.”

  “I wanted to tell you a story.”

  “Okay.”

  “About a kid from Connecticut. He’s good at sports. He likes everything about it. He loves the games; he loves the training. He even loves the suicide runs in August heat, in a masochistic kind of way. He has a normal childhood going, and then some bad stuff happens. He loses his mom to cancer, and then his dad to a bottle. So he focuses harder on his sports. It’s the one place he feels good, feels normal. The one place where a big hole isn’t tearing open in his heart.”

  I took a long breath.

  “So he’s good enough to get a ride to college, and to escape the pain, he goes as far from home as he can. Ends up in Florida. Loves it. Meets new people, people who become his new family. One person in particular is like the father he lost. He probably doesn’t make it through without this father figure. And then college is over and he gets drafted to play baseball in California. And he thinks long and hard about not going. About not playing baseball, this game he has loved since he could walk. He thinks about staying close to this new family, because it scares the hell out of him to lose his family for a second time.”

  I clenched my hands together and leaned over on the seat in front. Tania leaned forward with me.

  “But that father figure, he’s a wise man. He tells the kid to go. No, he doesn’t tell him—he makes him. He tells him that he didn’t lose his first family because he left it, but he left because it was already lost. Living in the past isn’t going to change that. He says his new family will be there for him. Not physically there every day, but in his head, and in his heart. He’ll know they’re there, and he’ll know with one call they will be right there in front of him if he needs them.

  “And in the end, that father figure was right. He was a phone call away. He talked the kid up when he needed someone to believe in him, and talked him down when he got too sure of himself. A friendly voice to talk him back from the edge when the loneliness set in. And when the kid played the most important game of his life, that man was there, in the stands.”

  I turned to Tania. A tear ran down her cheek.

  “That was you?”

  I nodded.

  “He said to me something that I want to say to you. He said the opportunity before me was like a carton of milk. It had a use-by date. If I didn’t take it then, I couldn’t change my mind in ten years and decide I wanted a taste. But in ten years I could come back to Florida and my family would still be there, and they would still be watching my journey. But I had to jump on the train then and there, because if I didn’t, it would pass me by.”

  Tania wiped her cheek.

  “You came back?”

  “I did.”

  “And he was still here?”

  “He was. They were. Florida was.”

  Tania nodded and looked out at the diamond.

  “So you think I should play in China?”

  “I don’t have an opinion either way. All I know is that there are opportunities that have use-by dates. The WNBA is an opportunity. China is an opportunity. Only you can decide which ones are right for you, but you need to understand that those doors will close. And you need to know that what you have here doesn’t disappear just because you go away. You’ll see amazing things, you’ll do amazing things, and Florida will still be here. It won’t be the same anymore, but neither will you. Things change, but they change whether you go or stay. But your mom is still your mom and your dad is still your dad, and they’re only a call away when you need to hear their voices. And you will need to. Walking away is hard and being away is lonely. But you can get through it. I did. And you can take your opportunities before they leave you behind.”

  Tania said nothing for a long time. I was sure there was a lot going on in her head, and I knew for me that the best place in the world to ruminate on things was three-quarters of the way up the bleachers in an empty baseball stadium. It was as if the place was designed to exercise the body on playing days, and to exercise the mind on the other days. Tania took a good long time to think, and I sat there and let her do it. She didn’t look at me when she spoke.

  “Is that what you would do? Take all these opportunities?”

  “It’s not important what I would do. It’s not important what your mom would do. It’s about you. It’s about what you are capable of. It’s about reaching your limits and testing yourself and being everything you want to be. I played college ball and I played in the pros, and I spent some time in the majors, and I know the WNBA is going to be a big step up from college. There’s a lot to learn and hard work to be done, and you’ll need to be committed in order to succeed. Half measures won’t cut it. So maybe you’re not ready for China, or maybe you are. I don’t know, but if you do it, you have to do it hard. You have to give it your all. S
o maybe China is a bridge too far this year. But maybe you put in a good season here, offers will come next year. I’m not saying the opportunity ends today. All I’m saying is that it ends one day, and that day comes sooner than you can possibly know.”

  “What about Dad, what about the threats?”

  “Don’t worry about that. That’s my job, and I promise you I’m pretty good at it. I’ll sort that out. You just do you.”

  “But the money. . .”

  “Don’t worry about the threats, as hard as that is to do. Let me do that. Yes, China means money, and if that’s important to you then it’s worth considering. But I don’t think money is your objective. I think you love playing the game. I think you love being on the court. You have a chance to make a living doing something you’d pay to do. I know how that feels. I got paid peanuts to play in the minors, but I would have paid to be out there, so peanuts didn’t matter. Honestly, I think you’d be crazy not to consider the overseas thing at some point, not just for the money but for the adventure. But knowing an opportunity has a use-by date is not the same thing as jumping at every offer. One is smart, the other is desperate.”

  Tania nodded, and I turned to join her in looking at the green grass and the tan clay.

  “All I can say is this. If I wanted to be out on this field right now, I couldn’t. The opportunity is gone. I loved being out there; I loved everything about it. And now it’s gone. But I can sit up here in this stand and not have a single regret. I can look out at that mound and know that I owned that space. It was mine, for a time. I took all that I could take and fate brought me back home when it knew I was ready. I had a great time with it, and it set me up and took me on an adventure that I could only dream about as a kid in Connecticut. That adventure parlayed into this adventure. I met the best friends a man could have and I met the love of my life, and I made mistakes and I lost people, but I don’t regret the opportunities taken. Not one of them. It’s the ones I didn’t take that haunt me.

  “Look, Tania, you know better than most that you’ve got to step out of your comfort zone to find the best in yourself, and life is the same. I didn’t make it big, but I don’t regret that. I gave it my best. You’re a talent, and you work hard. You’ll make it where I never could. You’ll have the best times and the worst times and maybe you’ll meet the love of your life in China or Europe or Atlanta. Or maybe you’ll be like me and play six years and meet the love of your life right back here in Florida, or maybe you’ll end up far afield. That’s okay, too. You can’t begin to guess what the future holds. Lots of it is beyond your control. Life happens whether you like it or not. But you control the reins for some things, and those are the ones that will make you smile or make you sad years from now. Your dad is there for you. You don’t need to worry about him.”