Off Season

by Jean Stone

Maybe he should get drunk. There might be enough single-malt scotch in the cabinet downstairs. No one would know. Everyone on the island would be busy with their own families today, their own friends, or, in his wife’s case, with whomever they could find.

  Then again, he admitted, when she’d said she was going to the church with Amy, he had agreed. She’d asked him to go, then seemed relieved he’d said no. He told her that if he felt like giving thanks this year, he wouldn’t be certain for what.

  She responded by saying he might be grateful there had been no fallout from him trying to confront Mindy, right there in public.

  He rolled onto his side and stared out the window. It was not a pretty day. The wind had kicked up and the branches of that oak he’d meant to prune were brushing against the window, scratching at the glass like a dog trying to get in.

  If they had a dog, he wouldn’t be alone today.

  He was trying to decide whether to get out of bed now or ever again—when the telephone rang out in the hall. If they had a cordless phone upstairs, he wouldn’t have to get out of bed. But they didn’t have a cordless any more than they had a dog.

  The answering machine didn’t kick in: Jill must have disconnected it in her quest for privacy. He lay there for a second, thinking it could be Jill checking to see that he was okay; or Carol Ann wanting to say Happy Thanksgiving. Whoever was calling let it ring the full seven rings it took Ben to haul himself from the bed and go out to the hall.

  The whoever was not Jill, and it was not Carol Ann. It was a voice he recognized from TV years ago.

  “Niles?” the caller asked. “This is Christopher. Edwards.” He said his name in two parts, as if the first part wouldn’t mean anything without the second. As if Ben would know anyone else named Christopher with a polished, celebrity voice.

  “My wife isn’t home,” Ben replied.

  There was a loud, guffawing chuckle that Ben might have thought was caused by nerves if it had come from anyone else. “I wanted to let her know her accommodations are set for a week from Sunday.”

  Ben wanted to ask if he’d become one of Addie Becker’s lackeys or if there was some other reason he and not Addie was calling. And it was Thanksgiving, for God’s sake, not the middle of a workday in the middle of the week. He might have challenged the jerk’s motives, but he was really too tired now and didn’t much give a shit. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Well, no,” Edwards concluded. “I just wanted to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. Amy and Jeff included.”

  Mind your own damn business, Ben wanted to shout. Instead, he said, “Yeah, sure, you too.”

  He did not remember saying good-bye, but he did remember that he hung up, then removed the receiver from the hook, in case anyone else decided to call. Then went back to bed without the single-malt scotch because it was downstairs and that was too far to walk.

  Chapter 15

  Jill went to Manhattan on Friday and spent three days shopping because her wardrobe needed updating and most of the good shops on the Vineyard were closed for the season. That was, of course, the excuse she’d given Ben. The greater reason was that she wanted to escape his depression, his deepening dark mood.

  Maybe all that would change once she’d secured a good lawyer. As long as he didn’t divorce her for doing it behind his back.

  By Sunday evening, she was exhausted from walking and thinking and spending too much money, as if she still had it to spend.

  She stepped from the shower and wrapped herself in the thick white terry robe with the Plaza logo on the pocket. Towel-drying her hair, she went into the bedroom of the suite just as there was a knock on the door—room service, no doubt, with the light supper she’d ordered.

  It was not room service. It was Christopher.

  She sucked in a small breath and clutched her robe tightly closed.

  He smiled that tawny, tanned, straight-white-teeth smile. “You came early,” he said.

  “To shop,” she replied.

  “Did you find any bargains?”

  “No. But I bought some nice things.”

  “Christmas gifts?”

  “Not yet.”

  He nodded. “Are you going to make me stand in the doorway?”

  “Oh,” she said, and quickly stepped back as he moved into the living room, as he walked past her with his full six feet of height and his former athlete’s firm body dressed in a buttersuede jacket and sleek light wool pants, not the jeans and flannel shirt of Vineyard men. For a moment, his aura enveloped her; for a moment, she became light-headed.

  Ben, she forced herself to remember.

  “Addie’s not arriving until tomorrow,” he said, walking to the window and looking down on Fifth Avenue. “In the meantime, how about dinner uptown?”

  It was as if he had stepped not only into the room but back into her life, right where he’d left off, right back in control.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve ordered room service.”

  He turned back to her and smiled. “Cancel it. The truth is, I wanted you here a day early so we could spend some time alone. There are things we need to discuss.”

  Jill felt a little bit duped and a little bit angry, because she could not imagine that Christopher had anything to “discuss” that necessitated her being here a day before Addie, anything that required them to spend “some time alone.” But he’d been insistent, and he was, well, difficult to turn down.

  So she’d shooed him away and canceled her supper. Then she’d called Ben to tell him good night, to say she was going out to meet Addie for dinner, hoping that the lie would not catch up with her.

  Then she dressed, first in an outfit she’d brought from home, a three-year-old St. John knit. But when she’d stood in the mirror, she looked too much like the old Jill, so she’d discarded it for a new dress she’d bought yesterday at Escada: a beige cashmere sheath that stopped just above her ankles and had a slit on one side clear up past her knee. New Bally heels and a long tiger pin made her feel like New York, made her feel like today.

  Maybe she’d gone a little too far, she thought now, as she sat across from Christopher at a small linen-covered table in a tiny French restaurant on the Upper East Side, and was uncomfortably aware that he could not stop staring at her—the woman who’d once been his fiancée.

  “I guess I thought you’d look different,” he said over a balloon-shaped wine goblet. He had on a pale blue sweater, the color of his eyes, and a navy blazer from Armani or someone equally chic.

  “How?” she asked. “Old? Dowdy?”

  He laughed. “Maybe with no makeup and soil beneath your fingernails and wearing a yellow slicker that smelled a little like low tide.”

  She laughed. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  He sipped his cabernet sauvignon, then set down the glass. “Remember that day we trucked Maurice Fischer all over the island in the pouring rain? God, he loved it. He even loved those yellow slickers. We were bored stiff.”

  Jill had been bored—he was right about that. But that was before … “Well,” she said, “yellow never was your color.” She did not add that today she would not have been bored, because, until recently, she’d begun to see the island in a whole different light, a whole loving light. She raised her own glass to help ward off the guilt she now felt for having dressed up purposefully to look good for Christopher.

  “We need to talk about the future,” he said so abruptly it took Jill off guard.

  “February,” she replied.

  “And more if you like.”

  She took a deep drink. A waiter arrived with their pâté de canard.

  “Lizette is leaving the show,” he said after the waiter was out of earshot.

  “But the ratings are good.”

  “Have you seen the book?”

  “No. But I can tell by your advertisers—”

  “Well, you might not believe this, but for once Maurice is not worried about the ratings. He wants Lizette out. She’s been doing cocaine.”

&n
bsp; Jill suppressed a sigh, a big, deep sigh. She had only wanted to find a lawyer for her husband. She had only wanted to come to New York early to escape the gloom at home. She had only wanted to dress up tonight to show Christopher she had not “lost” anything. She had not expected this news, or the whirlwind of emotions it set off in her mind.

  And yes, her ego had told her that it was nice that he was looking at her, wanting her. But now to learn that what he really wanted was only a co-anchor …

  She felt like a fool. “Christopher,” she said, “I have a home and a husband. I have a business. I have no intention of relocating to the West Coast, or of forming a permanent career on Good Night, USA. I made that decision three years ago, and it has not changed.”

  “The show is moving to New York.”

  She tried to keep her surprise from showing on her face.

  “We’ll finish out December in L.A. with Lizette as best we can. January will be a hiatus—they’ll build the new set then. When we return in February, it will be in the Big Apple, and you will be beside me. It’s the way I want it, Jill. It’s how Maurice wants it.”

  “I just told you, I will not form a permanent career on Good Night, USA.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Even if your husband goes to prison for child molestation?”

  Jill did not remember getting up and leaving the restaurant. She did remember stumbling in her heels out onto the sidewalk. She did remember that it had started to rain, no, sleet. That it was cold. That she stood shivering until he hailed a cab. She did not want to go back indoors, where people might see her cry.

  The next thing she remembered was Christopher helping her off with her dress, wrapping the Plaza robe around her, leaning down and kissing the hollow at her collarbone just below her shoulder.

  Then he half-carried her out to the living room of her suite, where he set her down. He sat down next to her, where he cradled her face and her back as she cried.

  If he’d had an erection, she would have let it slide into her. She would have done just about anything right then to feel warm and secure, safe and protected. But if he wanted sex, he did not let it show.

  “How did you find out?” she asked when the numbness had faded enough that she was able to speak.

  He stroked her hair. “Hugh Talbot, the Gay Head sheriff. He’s always been a huge baseball fan—and a fan of mine, I guess. I hate to admit it, but Hugh has helped me keep track of your life these past few years.” He chuckled a little. “I guess I wanted to be sure I knew if your life fell apart. If you would ever be ready to return to the real world.”

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. It was a few minutes before she could speak again. “How long?” she asked. “How long have you known?”

  “From the day your husband was arrested. Actually, before he was arrested. Hugh called me right after Ashenbach left the station.”

  “Addie called me the same night,” Jill said, trying to sort out the pieces.

  “I saw my chance to get you back. I got on the phone with Maurice and told him about Lizette. I knew he’d freak. Did you know he had a son who died of a cocaine overdose?”

  Jill shook her head as if she cared about Maurice Fischer or his dead son right then.

  “Well, then I talked to Addie. She took care of the rest.”

  She closed her eyes and asked a question she did not want to ask. “Does … does Addie know about Ben?”

  “No.”

  For that, Jill was grateful.

  He smiled. “In case you declined the offer, I needed to use what I knew as leverage.”

  “Blackmail, you mean.”

  He was quiet for a moment. He stroked her hair again. “Jill, I cannot stand Lizette. I never could. All that time you thought I was fucking her, believe me, I was not. And now I want you back on our show. Where you belong.”

  He moved his hand to her neck, then ran it down her throat. Despite herself, Jill felt her breasts swell, her nipples grow firm. She wondered if he could see their outline through the terry robe. “Why did you sign the contract, Jill? Why did you agree to come back?”

  She knew she should get up. She knew she should get up off the couch and ask him to leave. But his hand felt so warm and her heart ached so much. “Because I wanted to use Addie’s connections to find Ben a good lawyer,” she admitted.

  “Then it seems we need each other,” he said. “You need to save your husband. And I need Good Night, USA. I’m a washed-up baseball player with no family and no life. The show’s all I have.” His hand had stopped moving, but her heat had not abated.

  “You never married,” Jill said. “Was that my fault?”

  He laughed. “Despite what the tabloids say, I do not take commitment lightly.”

  Sometime in the past three years, she’d stopped paying attention to the tabloids, for there no longer had been a need. “You could go back to sportscasting,” she said.

  “No. That would be like you returning to local street news.”

  “You could find someone other than me. A new face. No entanglements.”

  “You’re a proven commodity. You’ll give the show a big boost.”

  She wished he would move his hand again. She wished he would slide it inside the terry cloth and fondle her breast, squeeze her nipple, make her feel a woman’s velvet heat again, remind her that there was life and love and ecstasy out there, and that she deserved it again. She arched her back a little in response to her growing need. “So now you only want me for my ratings,” she said with an attempt at humor that rang oddly true.

  His hand remained steady, it did not move. “That’s all,” he said, “I promise. I don’t want to interfere in your personal life. Besides,” he added, “I do care about you, Jill. I do want you to be happy.”

  She closed her eyes again, and her back relaxed. She wished she did not wish that he would interfere, that he would whisk her off on his white horse for good, that she could forget what it meant to love Ben and could return to the land of TV-make-believe and be quite happy there.

  But she’d learned long ago that no man rode a white horse. And even if Christopher did, he would not whisk her away, because he only wanted her so his ratings would soar.

  On her skin his hand now felt chilled. She slid from under his touch and slowly sat up, wondering why it seemed she now had so much more to lose than when she’d arrived.

  “You promised you’d help paint and wallpaper the kitchen,” Amy whined to Ben on Monday morning, when she called him at eleven and got him out of bed. He briefly wondered why he didn’t just leave the answering machine on and pretend he wasn’t home. But for some reason, leaving on an answering machine while one was in the next room seemed deceitful.

  “I don’t remember that I did,” he told Amy truthfully. These days Ben found he forgot many things, like the date and the time and often his name.

  “It’s bad enough I had to order cable. Charlie never did anything to spruce up this place,” Amy said. “Anyway, the new wallpaper I ordered is in. You’ve got nothing else to do, and Rita said she’d help. Are you reneging on the deal?”

  He rubbed his beard growth, then looked down at his sweats. He couldn’t be sure if he’d changed his clothes since Jill left days ago. Going to Amy’s would mean he’d have to shower. And shave. And look human again, no matter how bad he felt.

  “I don’t know, honey,” he said. “I haven’t wallpapered in years. Besides,” he added in what really wasn’t a lie, “I planned to go Christmas shopping today.”

  “We’re not doing it today. We’re doing it Wednesday. Can I count on you, Ben? Please, please?”

  Well, Wednesday was two days from now, forty-eight hours. Maybe he’d feel up to it by then. Besides, Jill would be home at the end of the week, and sooner or later he’d have to buck up.

  “Okay, you win. But only if Rita or her mother makes some food. I can’t stand my own cooking another day.”

  “I’ll cook!” Amy exclaimed, which was not the greatest culinary news.


  Ben sighed and really wished he could drop the whole thing.

  From doing a stint on a morning news show to being photographed at Rockefeller Center with its famous skaters and its festive tree, Jill had pretended to love this reunion for the good of the show.

  By Wednesday she was ready to ask Addie for the favor. With Christopher’s coaching, Jill had dreamed up a story that should seem plausible, as long as Addie didn’t ask many questions.

  They were having lunch at Tavern on the Green, because Addie felt that the more tourists who saw them together, the better. It was part of the limelight that Jill had once relished.

  In the bright daylight of the garden room, though, Jill felt oddly self-conscious. She looked at Christopher for support: his unnerving wink made her feel a little bit naked.

  She danced her fork through the salad of spring greens. “A friend of Amy’s has himself in hot water,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. “Would either of you know a decent lawyer?” She chewed a piece of lettuce and slowly swallowed.

  “Seems to me you had a decent lawyer who got you out of your contract with me,” Addie remarked, not lifting her eyes from the piece of bread that she slathered with butter. It amazed Jill that the woman had not died of overconsumption—or tactlessness. She was still as fat and brusque as ever, but now the brusqueness was more bothersome to Jill. Perhaps living back on the Vineyard had weaned her off barracudas, emotional and otherwise.

  “What kind of a lawyer do you need?” Christopher asked, stepping up to the plate, the baseball-player-celebrity still pitching.

  “Well,” Jill replied, not daring to look at him for fear of revealing her anxiety, “a thirteen-year-old girl says he touched her in an ‘inappropriate place.’ He denies it.”

  “They all do,” Addie said, gazing at the salmon in parchment that had just arrived.

  Jill waited until the food was served before she continued. “Anyway,” she added, “the girl claims he only touched her breast.”

  “He didn’t rape her?” Christopher asked.

  “He claims no. And there’s no physical evidence that says otherwise.”