Since there were a couple free hours before the bus left for the ballpark, she took a walk, getting back to her room just after noon. She hadn’t bothered bringing her cell with her; sometimes the electronic leash needed to be left behind. When she checked her voicemail, there was a message from Alex Clemowitz’s secretary, saying that the preliminary custody hearing was scheduled for October 10. The secretary’s voice was friendly, seemingly unaware that she was delivering news to make Brenda’s stomach turn to knots and her heart start racing. The date felt both too soon and too far away. She wanted more time with Andy, just in case the judge decided to award primary custody to Ed. At the same time, she just wanted to get it over with. The waiting and wondering was giving her a near-constant stomachache.
She put the phone down after checking her voicemail and it almost immediately started ringing. Without even bothering to look at who was calling, she answered.
“Good afternoon,” Charlie said.
“I told you not to call me in the morning,” Brenda said.
“It’s 12:10. I’m calling you in the afternoon.”
This was infuriating. “I specifically said not to call me and now you’re calling me.”
“I thought you were just . . . I mean, it sounded kind of sexy at the time. I didn’t think you were serious.”
Brenda knew that if she were serious about not wanting him to call her then the obvious thing would be for her to hang up. But she didn’t want to. She liked Charlie, but admitting this was a can of worms she had neither the time nor the inclination to open. And living in a constant state of perpetual annoyance helped her pitching. “Well, I was,” she said. “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
She paused but held onto the phone. After a moment, Charlie said, “I was afraid you were going to hang up on me.”
“I don’t want to be a jerk.” That came out sounding too nice.
“You don’t want to be a jerk, you just want me to be a jerk,” Charlie said, as though he was clarifying a point of information. “Sorry, but I’m not an asshole. I don’t spend the night with a woman unless I’m crazy about her, and I always call the next day.”
Brenda was getting more and more frustrated even though she knew her feelings weren’t particularly logical. “But I told you not to.”
“What is with you? It’s like you really wish I was some inconsiderate jackass.”
“Yes!” she blurted out. For a second, she wished she hadn’t said it, but that “Yes” felt like she had just opened the valves on the Hoover Dam. “Yes. It’d be a lot easier for me if you were a jerk. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about this, and I wouldn’t have to invest any emotional energy in it, and it would help me stay mad, and if I’m not mad, I can’t pitch.” She said this entire sentence in one breath and sighed deeply when she was done. She plopped back on the bed and closed her eyes.
She heard a low whistle through the phone, then Charlie saying, “Really? Is that how you do it?”
“It’s not a magic trick.”
“I just . . . I didn’t know. “
“And now you do.” Brenda didn’t open her eyes, didn’t feel like opening them for a long, long time because she knew that when she did, she’d still have to stand up and put on the uniform and sit and watch yet another game and try somehow to make the anger flow. “So there’s your story. Run with it.”
“What are you talking about? That’s not a story—a lot of players play better when they’re mad. It’s all part of being in the zone.”
“I don’t think you heard me right. It’s not that it makes me pitch better. If I’m not mad, I can’t pitch. At all.” It was futile trying to explain a mass of emotions that were more tightly wound than the core of a baseball. It felt histrionic and unreasonable. “So look, I can’t get involved with you, I can’t . . .”
“You can’t what? Let yourself be happy?”
“And obviously going out with you is going to make me happy,” Brenda said. “Let’s hear it for the male ego.” If her livelihood didn’t depend on being able to work herself into an appropriate rage, she would have found the conversation almost comical. Was pushing someone away because you wouldn’t be able to do your job with them around as clichéd as pushing someone away because of fear of commitment? Look, my life revolves around my family and a baseball. Anything beyond that muddies the water. I’ve got to go. The bus is going to leave.”
She heard Charlie sigh the sigh of a man who has resigned himself to seeing something through to the end. “All right,” he said. “Have a good game. I’m here if you need me, but that’s a limited time offer.”
Brenda couldn’t bring herself to say “Thank you,” she merely said, “Okay. Good-bye,” and hung up. She didn’t have time to feel guilty about being rude; she had a game to play.
She had been studying video of opposing lineups on the Gismo throughout the road trip, but hadn’t yet faced the Angels in person that season. She still threw the ball down the imaginary tunnel when she pitched. But having watched video after video of hitters, she was starting to see their swings in a new way. It was almost as if she could see the line that their bat made when they swung. Their job was to swing the bat through the tunnel and hit the ball. Brenda’s job was constantly to move the tunnel so they couldn’t.
Anderson Sparks and the other relievers came out to the bullpen around the third or fourth inning. Brenda and Jimenez had been there since the game started. The Indians started out strong, scoring two runs in the first inning and three more in the second. Now in the fourth inning, the Angels were beating up on Hodges, the starter. They had already scored two runs, and with only one out and a runner on second, it looked like they could have a big inning. Out on the mound, Hodges looked tired and worn out in the smoggy Anaheim twilight.
Brenda was so engrossed in watching the game that she didn’t even hear the first time Anderson Sparks said, “Whatcha thinking about so hard, Haversham?”
“Sex,” Brenda replied.
Half a dozen heads turned toward her. From the other end of the bullpen, she heard Sparks say, “Really?” She gave him the same look she gave Jon when he announced that he had made a homemade parachute and wanted to test it by jumping off the roof. While Sparks hadn’t necessarily been a friend to her, he hadn’t been adversarial either. There was no harm in talking to him. “I was thinking Hodges ought to throw low and outside to Bimbo.”
Bimbo was Billy “Bimbo” Birmingham, the Angels’ DH, who had just come up to bat. Although he didn’t put up the huge numbers that he had a few seasons earlier, Bimbo was still good for twenty-five home runs a year. When the Angels were in town shortly before the All-Star game, Sparks had come into a game in relief and given up what turned out to be the game-winning home run to Bimbo in the eighth inning. She could tell it still irked him.
“If you had ever faced the guy, you’d know that he never chases low and outside pitches,” Sparks said.
From the other end of the bench, she heard Cipriani mutter, “Idiot . . .”
“I know he didn’t used to, but for some reason, he’s started chasing them.” Even as Brenda said this, she felt a little lurch in her stomach. What if Bimbo wasn’t really doing what she thought he was doing? The last thing she needed was to be completely wrong in front of the entire bullpen. Bimbo had fouled off the first pitch and then taken two for balls. Hodges threw a breaking ball that hit low and outside. Bimbo swung and missed for strike two.
“I didn’t notice it before, but it looks like he’s started crowding the plate a little too,” Sparks added.
“Hmm,” Earl said. “Good observation, Haversham.”
Hodges didn’t throw low and outside to Bimbo again. Instead he threw a high fastball that Bimbo smacked into the right field stands for a two-run homer, cutting the Indians’ lead to one run.
The bullpen phone rang—it was the only thing that could stop all conversa
tion and action in the bullpen. Cipriani went in to relieve Hodges and managed to get out of the fourth without allowing any more runs. Anderson Sparks was tapped to start the seventh inning. As he was leaving the bullpen, he stopped in front of Brenda. “Thanks,” he said.
“Anytime. We’re on the same team, you know?” Brenda said. She figured it couldn’t hurt to reiterate that point.
“Sparks, get a move on.”
“Right, Earl.” He looked over his shoulder as he jogged out of the bullpen and said, “You got brains, Haversham.”
•◊•
Excerpt from the transcript for Today in Sports with Charlie Bannister, ESPN, September 17:
Charlie: I hesitate to say I have such powers, but apparently I’ve jinxed the Angels. Since I’ve been in town, they’ve dropped two games to the visiting Indians, and both in grand fashion. The last time these two teams faced each other, it was all Angels, all the time, but now it looks like the Tribe has figured a few things out. Check out this at bat—reliever Anderson Sparks making Bimbo Birmingham look like a ceiling fan. Swing and miss—one, two, three times. Strikes him out to save a narrow Tribe lead, Cleveland wins 5-4.
Chapter Twenty-Four
•◊•
Helping out Sparks didn’t change things much as the road trip continued. Before the first game in Oakland, she found a copy of the Bam! sports bra ad in her locker room with the double-D breasts of some centerfold model taped over her chest. After a month, this type of thing hardly fazed her. Brenda found that her burning hatred of Cipriani and Pasquela had simmered down to a dull, lukewarm sort of campfire—tended only because no one has the heart to put it out.
They had a Saturday afternoon game, which meant a Saturday night in Oakland to herself. At first, Brenda figured she’d be spending it like most evenings on the road—alone. But on the bus back to the hotel after the game, McGall and Landers asked if she wanted to go out to dinner with them and be their wingman.
“Wingman?” Brenda said. “You’re professional baseball players on a playoff contender and you still can’t get laid?”
McGall plopped himself down on the seat next to Brenda and Landers scooted into the seat in front of them. “Haversham! How can you be so crude?” McGall said. “This is a genuine matter of the heart. And it isn’t for us—it’s for young Master Teeset, who is smitten with a lovely waitress at the P.F. Chang’s down the street from the hotel, but she won’t give him the time of day.”
“Maybe she doesn’t like him,” Brenda said.
“Au contraire, she likes him,” McGall replied.
“Yes, she does,” Landers added with a knowing nod of the head. “We’ve seen them interact, and there’s definitely an attraction. She was flirting with him.”
“She’s a waitress. Flirting with you is how she gets tips. Haven’t you ever worked in a restaurant?” Her question was met with two blank faces.
“That’s immaterial,” McGall said, with an almost palpable rise in his crazy level. “The point is, we know she likes Teeset. She even said he was cute, but she refuses to give him her number or an email address because—get this—she knows ‘what ballplayers are like.’ Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can,” Brenda replied. “Most ballplayers are known to be big sluts.”
“Hey, hey, hey, hey—we’re not talking about us,” Landers said. ”We’re talking about Ryan Teeset, who is absolutely not a slut.”
“I’m not even sure the boy has lost his virginity yet,” McGall said.
“Unless you count that sheep back home at the ranch.”
“That was me, and her name was Ginger, okay?”
“You know, Haversham, your face ain’t gonna crack if you smile,” Landers said.
“I’m waiting for you two to say something funny.” She sighed, “Why are you even asking me to do this?”
McGall popped his eyes wide open—wide enough to make Brenda think this was a party trick he hadn’t shown her yet. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re a woman. She’s a woman. If you tell her Teeset is a good guy, she’ll believe you. She even said she’s a fan of yours,” he added off-handedly.
“Now I know you guys are just messing with me. I don’t have fans,” Brenda said.
McGall laughed his donkey laugh, and Landers snickered the way he always did when he got somebody’s goat in the clubhouse. “You don’t get out much, do you Haversham?” Landers asked. “Do you ever look at the signs people hold up in the stands? Do you read the news? Look at the Internet?”
Brenda was tempted to tell them that she had stopped watching the news or reading the paper or visiting sports sites online because continually reading that one was a fat, no-talent whore got a little old after a while. She bit her tongue, though. Saying so would just let them know that sort of thing bothered her. “I’m too busy to watch the news,” she said.
“Well, you’ve got more fans than you think,” Landers said. “And I know for a fact that your jersey has outsold mine. Bitch,” he added with a smile.
“She only had to sell two to do that, Greg,” McGall said.
“Okay,” Brenda said. “Against my better judgment, sure, I’ll go out and be the wingman. But only because Teeset is such a nice kid.”
“Of course he is,” Landers said. “That’s why we’re doing this.”
When they got back to the hotel, Brenda retreated to her room to call home. There was a missed call from Ed and texts from Charlie and Robin, all of which went unanswered. She hadn’t pitched that day but still felt drained. Her arm was twitchy and sore, and she considered bailing on the guys. A phone call from McGall (“Where are you, Haversham? We’re waiting in the lobby.”) made her realize they wouldn’t rest until she was sitting down to dinner with them at the table of the lovely P.F. Chang’s waitress.
Ryan Teeset was blushing bright red by the time Brenda made her way down to the lobby. She could only imagine what advice McGall and Landers had been giving him.
“Thanks for coming with us, Brenda,” he said quietly.
“Anytime, Ryan,” she said. In his khaki pants and light blue dress shirt and emitting a faint scent of aftershave, it was obvious that he had taken pains to get dressed up while trying not to look dressed up. Landers had on the standard Dockers and golf shirt, while McGall looked like an art student, with beat up jeans and a dark red T-shirt that was tight enough to show off his lean, wiry physique.
“You ready to party, Haversham?” McGall asked.
“Absolutely not,” she replied.
“Excellent,” he said cheerfully.
The restaurant was only a few blocks from the hotel, so they walked. Brenda had gotten used to the sidelong glances the rest of the team received whenever they walked through a hotel lobby or airport. Some of the players, like Jimenez, were bona fide stars recognizable even to the casual fan. Others, like Groggins, who had been around forever, and McGall, who had two Gold Gloves under his belt, were sometimes recognized by baseball fans in other cities. Even in a small group, she noticed that the guys moved as a pack, apart from those around them. They all moved like men who knew every inch of their own bodies and exactly what they were capable of. Teeset and Landers were big enough to be pegged as professional athletes, crazy McGall was just about six feet. But it wasn’t their size that made them stand out, each of them had a confidence to their stride that begged you to watch them. Brenda had always had confidence in certain parts of her life—her art, her intellect, but not her body. She envied how smoothly Teeset and Landers could swing and connect and send the ball sailing or how effortlessly McGall could dive, roll, come up with the ball, and throw it to first. And she marveled at their ability to do this over and over and over without any apparent need to psyche themselves up or work themselves into an angry fury in order to do so.
“You nervous, Teeset?” Landers asked as they stopped on a corner for a traffic light. “You’re walking
like a man going to a funeral, not one about to pick up the woman of his dreams.”
“Yeah, pick up the pace,” McGall said. “I’m hungry.”
“I’m trying not to be in a rush,” Teeset said.
“That’s good. Women don’t like if you come and go in a rush.” McGall hee-hawed a laugh at his own joke.
“Come on, Dave. There’s a lady present,” Landers said in a mock scold.
“Haversham doesn’t care. She’s one of the guys. You even walk like a badass . . .” McGall said as the light changed and they began to cross the street.
Brenda stopped herself from telling McGall to buzz off. When the boys were little, she had often found the most effective way of dealing with their volatile, preschooler tantrums was to take herself out of the equation. Now that they were older, she still found this tactic useful. “If you say so, McGall,” she said without breaking her stride, badass or otherwise.
They could see the towering faux Oriental pillars in front of the P.F. Chang’s from down the block. Teeset was noticeably nervous. She moved into step beside him. “What’s her name?” she asked.
“Lily,” he said. He smiled a little when he said her name.
“When did you meet her?”
“The first time we played Oakland back in April. A bunch of us went out and she waited on us and she was so nice and pretty and funny, oh man . . .” His voice trailed off, and Brenda was reminded that Ryan wasn’t that long out of high school. “I went back the next night and talked to her for a while, but she wouldn’t give me her number or anything. But I think she was surprised when we went back last night.”
“She probably figured she’d never see you again.”
“I know. I mean, I know some of these guys have a girl in every city, but I’m not like that.” Ryan turned to look at her as they walked. “I’m not like that at all.”
“I know.”
They were in front of the restaurant now. McGall was a step behind them with Landers bringing up the rear, talking to two young women who looked to be in their late twenties. Both were dressed for a night of clubbing in short skirts, heels, and low-cut tops.
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