The Man For Me

by Gemma Bruce

  That thought sent a wave of anxiety through him. God only knew what kind of questions she would ask them. At least they didn’t know anymore than Bernie did about why he was here. So he didn’t have to worry about them spilling the beans.

  Maybe it would be all right. With his grandmother and Grace and Bill and their kids all living under the same roof, there wasn’t too much of a chance of J.T.’s getting a question in edgewise.

  He was hit by a worse thought. What would happen when she took off her jacket? Did she wear anything but those skimpy little tops? Or those ass-confining, low-cut jeans?

  He could just see Gran’s face now. This was a terrible idea with disaster written all over it.

  She’d probably expect him to pick her up at the motel. The whole team would start speculating. Giving him grief. And what would happen when he took her back to the Night n Day? Would she expect him to kiss her good night? Finish what he’d started the other night? That stopped him for a second as a pleasant warmth spread over him. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  Bobby Kurtz came up to bat. Sanchez released a sinker. Kurtz connected; the ball zoomed to the back of right field.

  Bernie roared. “That’s the way, Kurtz. Did you see that, Tommy? That’s what I call hitting.”

  “Yeah,” said Tommy, forgetting J.T. Kurtz had gone through an amazing transformation since last season. Tommy was just afraid it wasn’t vitamins that were giving him the extra edge.

  Kurtz rounded second at top speed.

  “Slow down, damn it,” Bernie yelled. “It ain’t the damn play-offs. Don’t strain anything.”

  Tommy stood there, watching the runner, shaking his head.

  Kurtz was grinning as he beat the throw home. There was a light in his eye that Tommy recognized. Kurtz was hyped. He had hope. He couldn’t have communicated it any louder if he had screamed it at the top of his lungs. Bobby Kurtz thought he was on his way back up.

  And Tommy was pretty sure he was taking drugs to get there.

  Chapter 8

  J.T. drove slowly down Main Street, consulting the directions that Tommy had given her when he left the park at three. He’d changed back into sweats and practically shoved the paper at her before he walked away.

  That spoke volumes. This wasn’t a date. He had no intention of picking up where they’d left off in the Pine Tree parking lot.

  J.T. didn’t care. Exactly.

  She’d dressed in her one skirt with a hemline near to knee level. And a soft cotton-knit blouse with pearl buttons. Her hair was pulled neatly back into a ponytail. She knew it made her look more like a cheerleader than a serious journalist, but it was exactly the nonthreatening look she was going for.

  She just hoped it passed whatever the Bainbridges’ dress code for dinner might be.

  She was beginning to wish she’d refused the invitation. She was sure Tommy was regretting it.

  Well, she’d given him a chance to back out and he hadn’t done it. Now they could both live with it.

  J.T. was already planning a story in her mind. Tommy B. at home with his family. It would be a coup. He might court the regular sports reporters, appear on the side of every bus in Manhattan and every prime-time ad slot during the play-offs in his Calvin’s. He might be a regular on page six of The Post. But he was closed-mouth about his family.

  She wondered where they lived. In the new estate community at the edge of town, maybe. Or in a home surrounded by acreage and fences. That seemed more like Tommy’s style.

  She wondered how Tommy’s fame had changed them. He came from a working-class family. His father died when Tommy was fifteen. A baseball scholarship had paid for his college education. But after that, the page was blank. Tommy Bainbridge liked his privacy. And J.T. didn’t know diddly about what made him tick.

  She drove through town, past the little league park, past Gilbey Field and the factory into a residential area where parked cars lined both sides of the street. The houses were packed close together surrounded by little strips of yard.

  The houses were in various states of disrepair. Some with newly painted trim, some weather-beaten. Some of the yards were well tended, but others were mostly hard scrabble and crabgrass.

  Maybe this was a shortcut to the foothills where she’d seen the roofs of several large homes earlier in the day. There had to be a faster route there. She wondered if Tommy wanted her to get a dose of the Gilbeytown have-nots before wowing her with his castle.

  She found Melrose Street, then turned right. It didn’t look like a major thoroughfare. In fact, she was getting the unwelcome suspicion that it led not to the more upscale suburbs but to a dead end.

  She started checking the house numbers for the one Tommy had written down.

  Thirty-two was a two-story brick house with a narrow front porch, painted white. Light poured out of two front windows. The door was open and more light shone from behind the screen. Two rose bushes flanked the brick steps, their branches heavy with big pink blossoms.

  J.T double-checked the address. It must be a joke. And not a funny one. Tommy’s mother couldn’t possibly live here.

  Unless her childhood hero was a scrooge. It would be disappointing, but she could use it. The golden boy of baseball leaves his family in poverty. Well, maybe not poverty exactly, but definitely not rich.

  And she’d been worried that she hadn’t had anything to wear. Her skirt and knit blouse would be right at home here. Hell, she might even be overdressed.

  Then it occurred to her that all their riches might be inside the house. Some older people refused to leave their homes, and if Tommy’s grandmother also lived there, maybe the two women were just eccentric and not poverty stricken.

  Stop making excuses for him. Keep an open mind and see how it plays out.

  She eased the Mustang forward, looking for a parking spot. Was it even safe to park on the street? None of the other cars were new or expensive.

  Then she saw Tommy’s Beemer parked up ahead with a spot right behind it. She carefully maneuvered the Mustang into the space.

  J.T. got out of the car, locked the doors, and backtracked down the sidewalk until she was standing in front of the house. Nerves fluttered in her stomach. She was more comfortable in the dugout. She didn’t do families well.

  She walked reluctantly up the short concrete walk to the house, stopping to breathe in the sweet scent of roses. Flowers filled a bed across the front of the house. Someone had braided spent daffodil stalks and tucked them behind the little mounds of white and pink flowers that edged the flower bed.

  It was charming.

  She could almost remember the house where she’d spent her early childhood. It had flowers, too. She’d helped her mother dig the little holes to plant the annuals. They’d chosen impatiens because they were easy to grow. But before they even bloomed, the Coach took a job in Cincinnati and they’d moved to a town house.

  The town house was landscaped with evergreens. Several years later, they moved to another city, a larger house. Her mother was too busy driving them all to practices, lessons, and school to plant impatiens or anything else.

  Now her mother and the Coach lived in a condominium in Houston. They had time-shares in Aspen and Florida.

  But no impatiens, as far as J.T. knew.

  At least the Coach provided for his family. Shouldn’t Tommy be doing the same for his? She bet he wasn’t staying here. He probably had a suite at some posh hotel in Pittsburgh. How could he look his mother in the face?

  While she stood there, the front door opened. Tommy stepped onto the porch.

  “You found it okay.”

  She nodded, choked with a confusion of emotions and memories and the sight of him, large and lean with his hair shining in the porch light. His was wearing dark slacks and a gray oxford shirt.

  She climbed the steps, feeling a little like Cinderella with Prince Charming waiting for her at the top. And damn, he was charming.

  Her step faltered.

  Sh
e was being ridiculous. Unprofessional. He wasn’t a prince, and this little house was no palace. She shouldn’t have accepted the invitation. It would have been better not to know. She could only hope that the whole ordeal would be over soon.

  J.T. walked past him into the house. Two little boys clambered down the stairs, swung on the newel post, and raced down the hall, just as a woman stepped out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron tied at her waist. She laughed and shooed the boys into the other room.

  She was tall with closely cropped gray hair. Beneath the apron, she was wearing navy-blue knit slacks and a striped blouse. And J.T. knew she was looking at Tommy’s mother. She wasn’t what J.T. had expected. The apron maybe, but that was all. After seeing the house, she’d expected a stooped, washed-out woman with her hair pulled back in a bun.

  Eugenia Bainbridge looked too young and fit to have borne eight children. And she didn’t look like she was suffering the rigors of deprivation.

  “You must be J.T.” she said, coming forward and holding out her hands.

  J.T.’s first reaction was to bolt and run. Get a grip, she told herself. You’re a reporter. Reporters don’t run. They also didn’t make assumptions about their subjects. And she’d just been given a seriously salutary reminder not to fall into preconceptions.

  She let Mrs. Bainbridge take her hands and hold them. Her hands were warm and she smelled like fresh bread and love. J.T.’s throat tightened; she breathed it away.

  “It’s very nice of you to invite me to dinner.” She’d sounded stiff and formal and totally bogus. She finished with a halfhearted smile.

  “We’re glad to have you. Dinner will be ready in a minute. Grace called to say she’d be late. We won’t wait for her. Why don’t you and Tommy go sit in the living room?”

  Tommy shot his mother a look. She returned the look with a minute dip of her chin, and Tommy gestured J.T. toward an archway. J.T. had meant to ask if she could help, but she obviously wasn’t needed. Maybe not even wanted, though Mrs. Bainbridge’s welcome had seemed sincere.

  She sat down on a brocade sofa. Not antique; more depression veneer. There was an oval mahogany coffee table with matching end tables. A newish-looking wing chair and an old recliner. There were lots of family pictures placed on side tables and jumbled along the top of an old upright piano.

  It was a comfortable room, if a little dated. Tommy sat in the recliner, but he hesitated before he sat down, and J.T. instinctually realized the chair must have been his father’s.

  Preconceptions and guesses, she reminded herself. Think facts. It was probably just an old chair. Still, she had this overriding need to make Tommy a good guy, not a selfish, disloyal son.

  They sat across from each other, not speaking, and J.T. began to look around the room trying to find something to talk about.

  She stood up and crossed over to look at a large family photograph that hung on the wall. Tommy was right behind her.

  J.T. frowned. Did he think she was going to steal something?

  “There sure are a lot of you,” she said, counting five boys and three girls in addition to Mr. and Mrs. Bainbridge. And the dog that lay stretched out at Mr. Bainbridge’s feet.

  The picture had been taken in this room. The couch was a dark brown tweed, but Mr. Bainbridge was seated in the recliner, a daughter on his knee and two of the boys perched on each arm of the chair. “Which one is you?”

  Tommy pointed to a tall, skinny boy with blond hair combed and gelled straight down from a side part. He was standing between two taller boys. They were all dressed in their Sunday best. Some of the clothes fit better than the others; none of them were new. Mr. Bainbridge’s suit looked too big for him. He must have already been ill when this picture was taken.

  His features were sunken, but he was still handsome. His hair was a little thin and a darker shade than his children’s, four of whom were towheads. Only two were dark headed, a girl who looked about eight and an older boy, already a young man.

  They all smiled at the camera except for Mrs. Bainbridge. She beamed across the heads of her children to her husband. Only a close look at her eyes showed the sadness there.

  “How old were you when this was taken?” J.T. knew her voice was shaky. She’d been moved by this picture. It was stupid. Sports casting revolved around sappy family stories that tugged at your heartstrings. In every post-or pregame show on television there were vignettes on the quarterback’s dead brother. The goalie’s sick child. An illness overcome. A dream lost. It made great copy.

  “Thirteen.”

  Tommy Bainbridge’s family could furnish hours of those sound bytes. And this was a perfect opportunity for asking some innocent questions.

  She was distracted by his closeness. He was standing right behind her. He smelled clean, with a faint aura of citrus. If she turned…but she didn’t.

  “Do they all still live in Gilbeytown?”

  “Most of them. Or nearby.”

  She waited.

  “Greg, the oldest, lives in Pittsburgh.” He pointed to the boy on his left. His arm brushed her shoulder and electricity arced between them.

  She heard him exhale. “Bobby and Dale own their own construction company over in McKeesport. The rest live here about. Grace and her husband, Bill, and those two demons you saw live here at the moment. You won’t meet Bill tonight. He works the graveyard shift while he’s going to school. But Grace will be here soon and here come her rug rats now.”

  He stepped away and J.T.’s brain started to work again.

  The two little boys she’d seen earlier raced into the living room and screeched to a halt.

  “Mom Mom says dinner’s ready,” said the oldest of the two.

  “And Gran says show the lady where to wash her hands,” said the other. He scrunched up his face at J.T. “You don’t look like a lady.”

  J.T. blushed. What did she look like? What surmises had they been making about her in the kitchen?

  “These guys are Wayne and Billy, my nephews,” Tommy said.

  “Hi,” they chimed together.

  Wayne took J.T.’s hand and pulled her into the hall. “It’s there.” He pointed to a door behind the staircase. “I’ll wait for you.”

  J.T. washed her hands in the little powder room surrounded by wallpaper of yellow and pink tulips. The tiles were avocado green, rimmed with black. It was a decorator’s nightmare, but it made her smile.

  She was smiling when she came out and found Wayne waiting for her.

  “This way, please,” he said in a deep voice. Then he giggled. “That’s what Lurch says.” He raced ahead and announced to the room, “She’s done,” before climbing into a chair next to the only member of the family she hadn’t met—Gran.

  Gran smiled primly. She was more of what J.T. had expected. Except that she was wearing a matching knit pantsuit and a strand of pearls. Her hair was completely white and was styled in soft curls around her face.

  “This is my grandmother, Edna Bainbridge,” Tommy said, and pulled out a chair next to him.

  “You can call her Gran like we do,” Billy told her. J.T. smiled at the older Mrs. Bainbridge and sat down.

  Everyone linked hands and bowed their heads. J.T. tried to think Christian thoughts as Tommy’s fingers closed around hers.

  Billy said the blessing. J.T. opened her eyes and closed them immediately when Wayne began a new blessing. He sped up near the end, and the last line blurred into one long word, ending with a loud “Ah-men.”

  Then everyone let go of hands and began reaching for dishes.

  Billy grabbed the bread basket.

  “William Randolph Tucker.”

  “Sorry, Mom Mom. May I have a roll, please?”

  “Yes, you may.”

  “Grace working late again?” Tommy asked, passing a bowl of fresh peas to J.T.

  “Old Grimbutt made her stay,” Wayne volunteered.

  “Wayne David Tucker,” Eugenia Bainbridge warned in a stern voice that teetered on laughter.
>
  “Mister Grimbutt is Mommy’s boss.” Billy shot a look at his grandmother and covered his mouth with his white cotton napkin.

  “William Randolph Tucker.”

  They all turned toward the new voice. A young woman stood in the doorway. She was slim and pretty with dark hair. The young girl in the picture.

  The two boys jumped from their chairs and dashed toward her.

  “Mommy.”

  “We got company.”

  “Uncle Tommy brought her.”

  “Wonderful.” She spotted J.T. “Hi, I’m Grace.”

  Tommy introduced J.T. and Grace took her place at the table.

  J.T. got a whiff of cooking grease as she passed by. Tommy’s sister worked in a restaurant.

  “Sorry I was late…” Grace tried to look innocent, but her eyes danced. “But Old Grimbutt—”

  “Grace Alice Bainbridge Tucker,” her mother warned.

  “Well, he is a Grimbutt,” said Mrs. Bainbridge Sr. “So was his father.”

  It was too much. Everyone cracked up, including J.T.

  The dinner was right out of Norman Rockwell, with old-fashioned china rimmed with blue flowers. Mounds of food. Meat, potatoes, peas, rolls, and apple crumb cake for dessert. No wine, but large glasses of ice water. Lively conversation.

  J.T. was asked about her job. Her family. She didn’t feel like talking about either. The warmth of this family made hers seem even more remote than usual.

  By the end of dinner, the Bainbridges knew a lot more about her than she did about them.

  She offered to help with the dishes, but Mrs. Bainbridge Sr. said that was her job and the young people should go sit a while. Grace excused herself to get the boys ready for bed, and Tommy and J.T. were once again left alone.

  J.T. was feeling like a traitor. They’d been enthusiastic when she told them about her human-interest story. But J.T. knew Skinny would never go for the anecdotal day-to-day of baseball practice, even about Tommy B. She’d send it and he’d file it under “delete.”

  He’d said as much this morning in an e-mail about her first article. “Nice. Real sappy. Get me news.”

  She’d managed not to think about it all day. She’d still been optimistic about cashing in on Tommy’s presence in Gilbeytown. Now she knew she couldn’t do it. She liked the Bainbridges. They were loving, welcoming, warm. All the things she’d always thought a family should be.