“Don’t talk to me!” she screeched then paused and turned partially around to look at him, “May I have my bat? I got that in 1972.”
Parker winced and eased the bat around behind his back. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Frankel. Think I better hold on to it until you’re feeling better.”
That prompted her to make a derogatory remark that he heard quite clearly, but she continued to waddle down the drive, muttering to herself.
And still, that wasn’t the worst of it.
This morning, he was awakened by his radio alarm just like he was every morning, and surprise, surprise; it was Kelly O’Shay of Sports Day with Kelly O’Shay startling him from a fitful sleep. Just like she did every freakin’ morning.
“Wait, wait, wait, Guido,” she was saying to her sidekick, who was, ironically, actually named Guido, “Are you trying to say the coach didn’t signal him?”
“No, no, he signaled him. The Priceman either didn’t see it or didn’t read it right—but in either case, it’s inexcusable for a topflight professional ball player.”
Parker bolted upright, furious. Like some punk named Guido could possibly understand the split-second decision-making skills baseball required.
“You’re right, it’s inexcusable,” Kelly cheerfully agreed in that drop-dead sexy voice of hers, and someone played a tape of people booing loudly. “You expect base-running errors like that in Little League, but not the majors. The Mets can’t afford to pay some bozo from Texas that kind of scratch and then let him get away with those sorts of errors, right? I’ll tell you straight up, Guido—losing that game on the error last night was compounded by the fact that Price obviously can’t hit, has no glove, and is just wasting an otherwise perfectly good uniform.”
“I agree,” Guido said, and the sound of a loud cheering section filled the room for a moment.
“I have a suggestion for the Mets, however,” Kelly chirped, like she was about to impart a decorating tip, which frankly, to Parker’s way of thinking, she ought to be doing.
“Oh yeah?” Guido asked, already laughing. “What’s that?”
“Get some giant cue cards that say something like, ‘Hey, Parker, run this way and run now!”
Guido howled.
Parker groaned, sank back into the pillows, and threw an arm over his eyes.
She did this every morning, using that sexy voice that she once used to lull him to sleep with the sports scores every night. But then they moved her to mornings with her own radio talk show, and dammit, he was convinced that if she’d just stop, he’s probably play like he used to. That woman had jinxed him. He was firmly convinced that his slump was her fault. Her constant ridicule was killing him, because every day she rubbed it in, the worse his slump got.
“Hey, let’s go to the phones and see what New York has to say about the worst Mets ball player in the last hundred years!” she cried like a cheerleader with pom-poms. “Okay, we’ve got Paul from Jersey. Hello, Paul! You’re on the air at Sports Day with Kelly O’Shay. What’s up?”
“Yo, Kelly, I first want to say that I love your show,” a guy with a thick Jersey accent said.
“Thanks!”
“And second, I saw that base-running error in the seventh last night, and I gotta say, that was the sorriest excuse for baseball I have ever seen in my fifty-two years of following the Mets,” Paul shouted over the cheering section the show was playing behind him.
“Oh yeah, it was bad,” Kelly readily agreed.
“I mean, he looked like a damn freak. He can’t even run, you know what I’m saying? Dude, I could run faster than that, and I’m pushing three bills!”
“Paul, I hear exactly what you’re saying,” Kelly said.
“That piece of bleep ain’t worth no ten million!”
“No, he’s not worth ten million, so it’s like a double insult that the Mets paid him one hundred and ten million,” Kelly gleefully corrected him.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant. One hundred ten million. It’s bleep obscene.”
“But, Paul . . . I know Parker Price is slow as Christmas, but frankly, I thought that was the most artistic steal I’ve ever seen.”
Parker uncovered his eyes and looked at the radio.
“Kelly, whaddaya saying?” Guido cried.
“I’m saying that attempted steal was poetry in motion. Beautifully executed,” she continued over Guido’s groans. “Really, if you think about it, the only thing missing?”
“Yeah?”
“A tutu and the final pirouette when he hit the bag.”
Guido and Paul with the Jersey accent howled with laughter along with the stadium of cheers as Parker shouted at the ceiling and sank deeper into the pillows. He had to stop it. He had to stop it.
“Hey, Guido, did we get our game count of how many balls disappeared in his magic glove last night?” Kelly asked, dragging up a little stunt they did sometimes, which was to count how many errors he’d made—and count them with a giant gong, which they seemed to think was hilarious. They never cute him any slack, never counted how many spectacular, leaping grabs he had. Oooh no. That was because Kelly O’Shay had it in for him.
“Let’s see, Guido, there was the line drive up the middle that nearly took his hat off, right?”
Parker didn’t hear the rest because he had grabbed the radio, yanked it from the wall, and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall and fell, cracking in the center. He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, grabbed his phone, punched a number, stood up, and stalked across the room to pick up the pieces of the radio.
“Sportsdaywithkellyoshay,” a young man answered rapidly.
“This is Parker Price, and I want to talk to Kelly,” he said gruffly as he dumped the radio into a trash can.
“Right, and I’m Tinkerbell,” the guy snorted.
Parker stilled. “Look, you little ass, I am Parker Price, and I want a word with Kelly O’Shay right this minute!”
“Hey, pal, you know how many goofs call every single day claiming to be someone? And like Parker Price would have the ’nads to call this show!” He snorted again. “Save it for your girlfriend, pal,” he said, and hung up before Parker could get another word out.
Parker yanked the receiver from his ear and stared at it. The kid had just hung up on him! With a roar, he hurled the phone onto his bed, but in the next instant, he pounced on it, punching in another number.
“Frank,” he said when the call was answered. “Did you hear the show this morning?”
“Still hearing it,” Frank, his agent, said jovially.
“It’s gotta stop. I can’t take that constant needling. She is single-handedly ruining my career.”
“Park, Park! Calm down, now! Why don’t you just listen to another station?” Frank asked as Parker padded into a massive walk-in closet.
“I can’t! You know I can’t! Frank, I have to talk to her. I have to explain baseball to her so she will stop jinxing me. You have to get me know that show.”
He could almost hear Frank gulp. “No, Park. That is not a good idea—”
“Did you hear anything I said?” Parker shouted as he reached for a box containing a new radio alarm from a stack of boxes that contained radios identical to the one he’d broken moments ago. And yesterday. And four days ago after the San Francisco game. “I’m telling you, Frankie, if she’d just back off, I’d start hitting again!”
“Listen to me, Parker,” Frank said, sounding a little frantic. “You are putting too much stock into what this check says. She’s nobody! She’s just a morning trash jockey trying to keep her measly little share of the market! Look, look, look, take a walk, go out with a girl, maybe take in a movie, something like that. But don’t let her get under your skin. She’s not worth it.”
“Frank,” Parker said, stuffing the box with the new radio under his arm. “I want on that show. If you don’t get me on that show, I will fire your ass and find an agent who will. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Like hell I don’t!” Parker roared into the phone so hard that he dropped the box with the radio. “You get me on that damn show, or I will get an agent who will!”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Frank said. “I’ll call you later,” he said and clicked off.
Parker tossed his phone onto the bed, then stooped to pick up the box with the new radio alarm. Frank would get him on that show. He better. The whole season was riding on it.
Julia London Page 12