Playing the Game

by Stephanie Queen

  “Do you want to see the team therapist?” The coach was serious.

  Barry stared, incredulous. Where Barry came from people didn’t see therapists. They gutted it out. They played through whatever was bothering them—and this was nothing anyway.

  He laughed at the coach’s suggestion. “I don’t think so. Maybe you should see the shrink—this all seems to be bothering you way too much.”

  “Maybe you’re right. What about the woman?” The coach spoke quietly.

  “What about her?” Barry knew he was not known for one night stands or flings with hordes of women—he couldn’t be bothered spending the time and energy mostly. But he didn’t like the coach’s line of questioning into his personal life.

  “Are you seeing her now?”

  “I’m not planning on looking for trouble if that’s what you mean.” Barry smirked at the coach. It was only a half-lie. He wasn’t planning on seeing her socially, only for the interview.

  The coach nodded his head. “A one night stand, eh? You know, I really thought you were above all that—I thought you were above the temptation of a tawdry affair.” The coach shook his head as if disappointed.

  “You make me sound like some priest.” Barry was annoyed, but he wasn’t sure if it was with the coach or himself.

  “You are in a way—a priest of basketball. Only you have a better deal than real priests do—you at least get to fool around.” He smiled, but not all the way.

  “Just don’t let yourself get too distracted. If you start feeling restless again see the team therapist.” The coach handed him a card.

  “Don’t worry, Coach. Have I ever let you down?” Barry’s mood lightened as he slipped the card in his pocket, thinking he’d sooner call Roxanne. The coach shook his head and stuffed the newspaper in the wastebasket.

  “I suppose a little sarcastic publicity isn’t going to hurt us. Hell, it might even help cure you of your over-inflated ego problem.”

  “Not a chance. No matter what they say, I know I’m indestructible,” Barry said.

  “Now all we need is a cure for your over-active libido.”

  “I hope to hell there’s no cure for that.” Barry thought of Roxanne again. He stood and left the room with a wave of his hand while the coach chuckled. Maybe he did hope there was a cure—for her. Thinking of her was becoming a distraction. But he’d overcome more important distractions than a woman before. He thought of his daughter. He had to be at practice in ten minutes to get taped and he forced himself to focus on that. It had never been so difficult to psych himself for basketball.

  Roxanne sat with Laura at the wrought iron table on her deck overlooking the Atlantic. The bulky white sweat suit helped insulate her from the chill of the late October morning air. She spoke on her cell phone while her friend poured herself a second cup of coffee and pulled her navy cardigan more tightly closed.

  Roxanne shivered. “It feels like winter already.”

  “It was your idea to have coffee out here at this ungodly hour.”

  They were both accustomed to early mornings and good coffee—ever since they went to college together. That had been almost six years ago. Roxanne went to work for a TV station and got Laura a job working in the Children’s Mercy Hospital’s fund-raising office. Roxanne had been hooked on doing volunteer charity work at the hospital since she was a child. They gave her her first big break as on-air talent at their Christmas telethon three years ago. That was when she met Don and his mother. Roxanne shook her head, remembering.

  When she persuaded Time Magazine to do a profile on Dr. Oki and his research team the publicity coup helped double the funds for the good doctor’s cause. Ever since then she’d been nicknamed Midas around the hospital. Her reputation was an embarrassment to some of the development professionals because she was only a volunteer, an amateur. Luckily Laura, and even more importantly Laura’s boss, Harry, were both grateful for the help.

  “Hey, snap out of it. About this annual holiday benefit party of yours, Roxy—we may as well get the business taken care of so I can justify my being out of the office all morning. Dr. Oki can’t make it the night you suggested. We just have to move it to the Sunday night.”

  “That’s the beauty of holding the event at my house. We can have it any time. Move the date to the following weekend.”

  Laura jotted some notes, then looked up with the wrinkled-forehead face of worry and said, “We’ll need all the money we can get. I was talking to accounting and the new building project is way over budget and starting to affect cash flow for operating expenses. They said it might even start affecting the cash flow for research soon too.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about it. They can’t touch the National Institute of Health funding and Dr. Oki’s unit has plenty of that.”

  “That’s true. We should be hearing any day exactly how much our NIH grant will be for the next fiscal year,” Laura said absently. She paused, and then gave Roxanne another frown. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you heard from Barry Dennis?”

  “I spoke to his agent and scheduled his interview in two days.” Roxanne wondered what Laura had on her mind.

  “Don’t you want to see him…socially?” Laura asked.

  Roxanne did a double take at her friend’s wicked smile and laughed. So that was it.

  “I’m not so sure he’s someone to play with.” She rose from her chair. “Come up with me while I get dressed. I’m coming into the office later,” Roxanne said.

  “Okay, but if a man like Barry Dennis showed any interest in me I don’t think I’d be wasting time playing coy.”

  “Laura, let’s face it, you’ve never played coy in your life. You don’t know how.” Roxanne’s laugh prompted Bonnie to look up from her paper as they passed through the kitchen.

  “What’s so funny, ladies? Am I missing something?” Bonnie’s sarcastic drawl turned their attention and they automatically smiled.

  “Roxanne accused me of being incapable of playing it coy with a man.”

  “I shouldn’t say incapable. Disinclined is probably more accurate,” Roxanne amended.

  “Okay. I’ll go along with that,” Laura agreed.

  “Now that you have that resolved you can move on to the problem of paying the bills. When can we put this albatross of a house on the market, or are we gonna have to go down with the ship?” Bonnie peered over the top of her glasses, waiting for an answer.

  “Not today. But I’m working on it. Don’t worry.”

  Upstairs, they entered Roxanne’s room. A wall of windows overlooked the ocean. A small fireplace helped warm the room even if it was too spacious to be called cozy.

  She looked over at Laura who had plopped herself down into one of the two overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace.

  “Have you heard from Penelope? Or should I say her lawyers?” Laura asked.

  Roxanne nodded her head. “About the lawsuit over the house. I talked to Al Dover. He’s handling everything for me. The court date to have it dismissed has been postponed again. I don’t know how long this will take. I was hoping he wasn’t serious when he said it could go on a year.”

  “What about her threat to get you thrown in jail for murder? Is she still harassing the police about it?”

  “Not lately. Al says she’s been quiet—a little too quiet suddenly. He says he’s going to look into it and see what she’s up to.”

  “God, Roxy. It’s a good thing you have Al for your lawyer. You’ve been keeping him terribly busy. He hasn’t had any time to work on development contracts lately. And I can’t imagine what your legal fees would be like if he was charging you full price.”

  “Yeah. I’ll pay him eventually.”

  “Well, he’ll never send you a bill. Not after the favor you did him. You practically saved his son’s life.”

  “The way you talk. So I got him into the program. It was Dr. Oki’s research that saved Chris. I’m glad he’s doing so well now. It was an experimental program and it could h
ave gone either way.” She heaved a sigh. Those were dicey times and Al was very grateful ever since. If he hadn’t been so persistent in wanting to do whatever could, she would have never called him. “I wouldn’t have called Al if I wasn’t desperate. I have no money in my bank accounts. I can barely keep the minimum balance. Too many bills and too little planning.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Sell jewelry. Al said he can help me with that too.”

  “Al’s a good guy.” Laura shook her head. “Too bad he’s already married.”

  “Not my type,” Roxanne said. “Too close to the Penelope Boswell set.” Roxanne chose not to go into it further with Laura, but she was definitely on the fence about how good an idea it was to become so indebted to him.

  She had been riffling through a pile of sweaters and finally came up with one. Her friend’s bright green eyes widened and her shoulder length brown hair bobbed about her face as she shook her head. Roxanne pulled on her sweater and headed for the dressing area to look in the mirror and touch up her makeup.

  “Don’t bother. You’ll never improve on that face.” Laura told her with a disgusted wave of her hand.

  Roxanne sat down to pull on her black leather boots. She flipped a stray tendril of hair from her face and looked at her friend. “Don’t worry, Laura. Some day I’ll be old and wrinkled and ugly.”

  Laura took a last sip of her coffee and stood. She shook her head before turning to leave. “Your outfit is ridiculous as usual. I have to get going into the office.” Laura walked toward the door.

  Roxanne also stood, and looked down at herself to see what was the matter with her clothes. Then she decided she looked fine, as usual, wearing black leather jeans with a red cashmere turtleneck sweater that was slightly snug. She decided that was to her advantage.

  “I’m going to the hospital too. I have a meeting at Dr. Oki’s lab.” She escorted her friend downstairs to the front door. She grabbed her red leather jacket and headed out the door before Bonnie could see her. She made her escape in her red Corvette with the convertible top down and waves of hair blowing out behind her.

  Chapter 4

  ROXANNE FOUND Dr. Oki where he always was, in his lab. But he wasn’t working as she might normally expect him to be, even at lunchtime. She walked in, undaunted by the small gathering of lab workers who appeared to be having some kind of informal meeting. She stepped into the middle of the group as Dr. Oki was speaking.

  “Sorry if I interrupted, go right ahead.” She gave them a smile along with her apology. The lab team felt more like a close-knit family than a group of workers. She was invariably greeted with warmth from this dedicated group. When she saw wan smiles accompanied by silence today, she knew something was wrong. Even Dr. Oki’s smile was sad.

  “It’s okay, Rox, I was finished anyway.” The group began to break up and only murmured their hellos to Roxanne.

  “It looks like I got here just in time. You guys look like you could use some cheering up. On second thought, maybe you could all use a good stiff drink.” She frowned as they passed by her with their shoulders drooped and feet shuffling, not meeting her eyes. There was not a single lively response among them. She pushed forward toward Dr. Oki who sat on a lab stool in front of one of the many tables covered with test tubes and beakers filled with unknown liquids. Sitting on the stool made him taller than if he’d been standing on the floor, Roxanne thought.

  “What’s wrong? Must be something drastic.” She frowned, thinking of what it could possibly be. Please don’t let it be one of the children, she thought to herself. She struggled not to let her fear show through. She steeled herself for the possibility, but she sensed this was somehow different.

  Dr. Oki told her. “We lost our NIH funding for next fiscal year. They gave us zero dollars for our grant requests.” He paused.

  She could only begin to register her disbelief at the news. She couldn’t speak and he continued.

  “But they approve wholeheartedly of all our projects. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem, as I understand it from talking to some administrators, if it wasn’t for the construction project for the new wing going over budget. Apparently it’s putting a strain on cash flow for clinical operations already. The building is already using up whatever money we could have used from the general fund. As of June first, we’re flat broke.”

  She felt shocked, then horrified, and at last, indignant. Dr. Oki looked resigned.

  “How could they do this to you? You are the best research team in the country! You get published every month in major medical journals. You save lives!” She only paused a moment to breathe.

  “Take it easy, Roxy. We’ll submit a revised proposal of course. But there are other research units out there and we’ve gotten more than our share of grant money in recent years. We’ll get our grant or find other money—eventually.” He didn’t sound convinced. She certainly wasn’t.

  “What about the children, Doc? And what about this ridiculous building they’re constructing? It’s supposed to be a research wing isn’t it? It’s ironic that we’re spending all this money to construct a building for research and by the time it’s completed the research department won’t have the funding to use it,” Roxanne said. She couldn’t hold in the force of her anger.

  Dr. Oki had mastered the emotional detachment necessary in his line of work, but she couldn’t do it so easily. Not ever since she had seen the faces of the children in the terminal ward when she first started out years ago. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to go back and witness such pain for a long time afterward.

  “Look, I know you want to help, right along side of the rest of the lab, even though I know it’s hard on you sometimes. Like now when we have these setbacks. But there’s no use trying to soften the blow now. And I admire you for it. But for now we’re cutting back on all projects and cutting down on staff. We’ve had to cancel therapy for all of the children that started in the burn program since September. We’ll have to look into relocating them elsewhere.” He stopped.

  She remained standing with her back to him. .

  “No.” She turned and begged him with her eyes. “Not those kids, Doc. You can’t do this to them.”

  “You know I have no choice.” He took a step toward her, but she stepped back.

  “God, I wish I had all Don’s money now! I would pay for them myself.”

  “Even if you did, we’d still need a long term solution. But I’m working on it.” He paused. “If I could buy six months it would be helpful, I admit. I understand a big part of the fiscal crisis is tied to this bank note for construction that’s coming due in May.”

  “Maybe I don’t have Don’s millions to donate personally, but I’m a top-notch fund-raiser after all. I’ll set up a special fund,” she insisted.

  “Roxanne, it’ll never work. It’s too much money to raise in such a short period of time on top of all the other fund-raising…”

  “Doc, I haven’t been in this business all these years for nothing. If there’s one thing I’ve gotten out of it, it’s contacts. We’ll do it.” She stared at him without blinking, without smiling, until he finally spoke.

  “Okay. Just tell me what I can do,” he said.

  She hugged him. “Don’t worry about a thing, Doc. I got a million ideas.” She bit her lip and thought about it.

  “Good. I hope you have about twelve million of them.”

  “You think that’s what it will take?” She held her breath when she asked.

  “The NIH grant request was for twelve million.”

  She blew out a long whistle. She paced the small area between the lab tables. Finally she stopped.

  “Doc, forget that lunch I was going to buy you. I have a lot of things to do right now. The first thing is to write a check to the Dr. Oki Research Fund for say, ten thousand dollars.” She beamed at him before she turned and headed for the door. Dr. Oki stood there, wide mouthed and speechless. She didn’t have that kind of money, but she knew whe
re she could get it. Roxanne blew him a kiss over her shoulder as she left the lab room. She wanted to be his princess on her shining white horse. It was time to ride off on her crusade.

  Thoughts of money and where to get it consumed her as she proceeded on to the development office to set the wheels in motion for the new project. As she marched down the hall, Roxanne wondered if she’d been too hasty in promising a ten thousand dollar check after all. Now she realized she’d have to sell another piece of jewelry. But there was no doubt in her mind that she could carry it off. At least she had her TV job back.

  “I don’t know, Roxy. That’s asking an awful lot. We usually only do two of these charity promotions a year and it takes time and planning. This would be very short notice even if I did agree to do it.”

  She heard the apprehension in Mark Baines’s voice even more than his words, even through her cell phone. She knew she’d be more persuasive in person though, so Roxanne didn’t let it bother her. Stretching her long legs out in front of her, she sat back in the chair facing the fireplace in her bedroom. She had called Mark in his Chicago office as soon as she got home that evening.

  “Just for one week. All I ask is that you think about it.” She only needed him to leave a crack in the door, and she knew she could convince Mark to let her into the lucrative fund-raising potential of his coffee shop chain. He was vice president in charge of corporate giving.

  “How about if we discuss it when we get together in a couple of days? I’ll be flying into Boston in the morning. I’ve been promised tickets for the Celtics season opening game and dinner with my choice of companion while I’m in town.”

  She could hear the smile in Mark’s voice. Roxanne laughed. She was always his choice for dinner companion when he was in Boston, ever since they had started working together on the Mercy Hospital House project years back. They’d come a long way since then on the ongoing project, but Mark hadn’t made any headway in his progress with Roxanne.