by R. D. Power
Fortunately for her, a record producer saw her on the soap opera and saw star promise in her. That he’d never heard her sing is merely an obvious observation on the present state of the music industry. One simply needs to be young and pretty; talent in music is unnecessary. He asked her to audition a new song, and she was happy to comply. He liked what he saw and heard. Jennifer had an excellent voice.
“Krissy, I just recorded a song!” ejaculated Jennifer as soon as Kristen answered the phone that evening.
“Wow!” said her cousin.
“It should be released in about three months.”
“Congratulations, Jenny, I’m happy for you. My cousin, a pop star.”
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe my song will flop.” The two talked about the song for a few minutes, and Jennifer sang the chorus. Afterward, Jennifer continued, “What’s new with you?”
“Nothing nearly as exciting. Residents work long hours. I’m really enjoying pediatrics. My professor, Andrew, is fantastic.”
“Andrew? Are you on a first name basis with all your professors?”
“No, just him.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me, cuz?”
“Well, he really likes me. I like him, too.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He’s intelligent and caring. He’s tall and very handsome; he has blond hair and brown eyes. He’s a bit old, thirty-three, but he’s a marvelous teacher.”
“So is he enough to make you finally forget Bobby?”
“I’ll never forget him. I still love him, but I think I can live a happy life without him. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. Andrew has hinted he’d like to date me. I won’t be his student anymore as of August, and maybe we can start dating.”
•
After spending two stellar months in triple-A ball, Robert Peter Owens was called up to the major leagues on August 14th. He made his debut for the Twins three days later in a game against the Red Sox in the sixth inning. His team was well behind, an ideal situation to bring in an untested rookie pitcher. The first batter up laced a line-drive base hit to right, which was worrisome, but he settled down after that, and ended up pitching one inning, allowing the one hit, one walk, and no runs. Trying to capture his feelings in one word is difficult, but here goes: electrified-blissful-proud-nervous-as-hell.
Sports reporters gathered around him after the game, asking the obvious. “How did it feel?”
“There is no word to capture how thrilled I am,” he replied. “It’s been my lifelong dream. I’m very grateful to the Twins for giving me a chance.”
He got home, a small apartment he’d just rented in Minneapolis, still excited, but soon became sullen because he had no one special with whom to celebrate the best occasion of his life. Robert sat there alone, drinking a bottle of expensive, award-winning wine that his uneducated palate could not prize, and looked out the window, thinking about his dad’s first day when he ruined his shoulder and how devastated he must have been. Then he thought of Kristen’s point that his father met his mother only because of that misfortune. For the first time, he understood what she was trying to convey. For the first time, he began to think how nice it would be to have someone to share his life with: to have a wife, to have Kristen.
“But she’s long gone and she probably hates me. I wonder about Jenny,” he said aloud to no one.
On August 29th, Jeremy called Kristen and told her to turn on the TV to the sports network. There he was on TV, pitching for the Twins against Seattle. Pitching in long relief, he ended up winning the game: his first major league win. How ecstatic she was to find him, how proud she was of him, and how happy for him. After the game, Kristen went to her computer and found the Twins’ website. She checked the schedule and learned the team would be in Oakland the next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
To Oakland Dr. Taylor went that Tuesday. She got to the stadium a half-hour before game time to make sure she could get a good seat. “Can I get a seat close to where Minnesota’s pitchers sit?” she asked the woman in the ticket booth.
“I have some available seats in the second row next to the bullpen.”
“How far is that from the pitchers?” Kristen asked.
The lady looked over her glasses at her as if to say, “Shopping for a husband, dear?” She said, “The second row would be maybe ten feet away from the pitchers.” Too close for comfort.
Kristen bought a seat in the fourth row, donned her sunglasses, tucked up her hair under her new Twins cap, and walked into the stadium. The players were on the field warming up, she saw as she walked down the stairs toward her seat.
She spotted number 13 standing by the front row of seats, talking to several men. Oh, God, it’s him! she said to herself, taking in a deep breath and putting her left hand to her mouth. So emotional was she, her eyes and nose started to moisten, and so excited, goose bumps jumped up all over her body. Yet melancholy slowly began to eclipse her joy. He was right there, twenty feet away from her, but he might as well have been on the moon, so distant was the prospect of being with him. She took her seat and listened in on the badinage as best she could. The men with whom he was conversing were current and former Berkeley ballplayers here to see Robert play.
“What’s it like?” one asked.
“Well, I’m way too special to associate with you clowns anymore,” he joked. They jostled with him, shoving and laughing like little boys. This was heaven for him, Kristen knew. She overheard him giving his phone number to one of his former teammates. She jotted it down for safe-keeping.
A young boy approached Robert and asked him who he was. Robert answered. “Can you get his autograph for me?” the boy said pointing to another Twins pitcher. His friends hooted at that.
Robert asked the pitcher to sign the boy’s program, but he refused without his standard fifty-dollar fee. “Sorry, kid,” he said, “he charges for his autographs, but you can have mine for free if you want.”
“No,” said the boy, and his friends howled again. Kristen giggled, too.
“Hey, Owens,” jested one friend, “I’ll take your autograph if you pay me.” Robert pulled out a sawbuck, signed it, and gave it to him.
“Hey, Owens, you could charge fifty bucks for your autograph, too, if you did it on a hundred-dollar bill,” another of the guys joked.
Once the game got under way, he warned his friends to calm down. He was serious about baseball. He didn’t pitch that day, but Kristen enjoyed being there close to him.
Kristen called her cousin that evening with the exciting news. “I found him, Jenny!”
“Who? Bobby?”
“Yes. He’s a major league baseball player; he’s on the Minnesota Twins. I went to see him play today.”
“He made it, eh? I’m glad for him. He must be so happy. How did he react to you?”
“I was way too nervous to go near him. I just watched.”
“What about Andrew?” Jennifer asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Krissy, are you sure you want to open this can of worms again? With Bobby, I mean. It sounds like Andrew could be the best thing for you. I don’t want to see you hurt again.”
“Thanks, Jenny. It’s likely nothing will come of it anyway. A big league baseball player will get lots of female attention. I can’t see how I would have a chance for him anymore.”
“You say that, but you don’t really believe it, do you? You won’t give up on him, will you?”
“Not without trying once more for him.”
Jennifer said goodbye and muttered an oath.
Kristen went to the rest of the Twins games in Oakland that summer, but could never bring herself to approach him.
•
In early September, Jennifer’s song was released. Although the song wasn’t much good, it was among the best out at the time and went as high as number four on the charts, assisted by her sexy music video, which was later nominated for Video of the Year. The
video was noticed by a certain Minnesota Twins pitcher. When he saw her as he was channel surfing on a lonely evening, he was again instantly spellbound, just like the fourteen-year-old who gazed with awe at her matchless beauty the first time they met. Unable to get her off his mind, he hacked into the record company’s computer system to get her number. But he couldn’t convince himself to dial it.
In mid-September, with the Twins in Toronto to play the Blue Jays, Robert asked Kim and his son to the city for the weekend. Kim enjoyed the wining and dining in the city with Robert, but was indisposed to hosting him in the hotel room at night with their son sleeping close by. “Don’t worry, he’s asleep,” Robert would say, but women have a hard time letting go when their children are nearby.
Kim permitted Robert some action, but warned him to stay quiet. Before they went to sleep, Kim whispered, “I assume from your bawdy conduct with me that you’re still not serious about any woman?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You plan on ever settling down?”
“I think I blew my only chance.”
“You mean with Kristen?”
“Yes. I think I miss her more every day. I made a huge mistake pushing her away. She’s long gone, I guess.”
“There are other fine women in the world, Bob,” said Kim. “Maybe someone right under your nose,” she added, as she pulled him on top of her.
“Maybe,” was all he said.
She sighed and made love with him for the last time. The next day she accepted a date with a handsome associate professor at Western. She’d wanted to see how things went on the weekend with Robert before moving forward with this exceptional prospect.
Robert ended his rookie season with a mediocre record. He was proud of making the majors, but disappointed in his performance. The injury done to his fingers in Iraq had begun to take its toll. His wonky fingers had forced a slight change to his pitching delivery, which maintained his former effectiveness but increased the strain on his arm. At the college and minor league levels, he was able to perform well because the competition was manageable. At the major league level, though, he’d had to pull out all the stops to keep the opposition at bay. He finished the season with a very sore shoulder. The father’s Achilles’ Heel is the son’s, he thought, envisaging a quick end to a forgettable major league career.
The Twins didn’t make the playoffs. Robert intended to spend his four-month layoff vegetating, but could brook no more than two weeks of it. So, for lack of anything more productive to do, he took a few graduate courses online, his first step toward a PhD in computer science.
He also visited his son in Kilworth twice. On the first trip, he learned that Kim had met a man, a professor whom she was getting serious about. Robert had to sleep in the spare bedroom. He brought a pintsized Twins uniform, plus a glove, bat, and several baseballs for his son and started teaching him the basics of the game. One of the baseballs was the one he’d pitched first in the majors. Brian treasured that one.
On the second visit, he learned Kim planned to get married soon. She assured him he could see his son whenever he pleased, however. He asked if Brian could stay with him when they went on their honeymoon, and she thought that was an outstanding idea; she was going to ask if he didn’t offer. Father and son spent a delightful fortnight over Christmas season sightseeing in California.
Chapter Six
Jenny and Bobby Sitting in a Tree
Robert had held back on calling Jennifer throughout the autumn; it was her cousin he wanted. In early January, though, he decided to call Jennifer. Maybe he could learn what had become of Kristen through her, he reasoned.
“Hi, Jenny, guess who,” he greeted when she answered.
“You know what? You’re the second person who’s called this morning asking that, and this is like the fifth call already from guys looking for action or money. I don’t care who you are.”
“Okay, well, I guess I caught you at a bad time or in a bad mood, or maybe you’ve turned into a real bitch now that you’re famous. Come to think of it, you’re not much different from the last time I saw you in Kilworth.”
“Bobby? Bobby Owens?”
“Never mind. This was a mistake. Goodbye.” He hung up determined to forget about her.
“Bobby? Bobby! Oh, shit!”
Jennifer had never lost interest in her first love. With her looks, not to mention her newfound success, she could have had a better-looking man, a richer man, a more famous or accomplished man, a nicer man—well, any man she pleased—but this was the only man she’d ever loved, and he was the only man who had saved her life, or so she thought, and that tends to bedazzle a woman. It wasn’t so much that she felt she owed him for that, for he never once made her feel she did, which she thought estimable; it was more that the Taylor women required gallantry of their men, and what could be more gallant than a dashing war hero who’d saved her life?
Knowing how Kristen still felt about him, Jennifer hadn’t done anything about her desire for him, but why did he call? Was he interested in her? If so, why should she step aside and leave him to Kristen? Kristen had no greater claim to him; he had always preferred her to Kristen in her view. She tried *69, but it didn’t work. Then she called the Twins’ head office, but the team refused to share contact information with anyone without the player’s prior approval, and she didn’t have it. “Where and when is spring training for your team?” she asked.
•
On GRAMMY night in late February, Jennifer and her date arrived to grand fanfare. Her finery got more publicity than the ferry that sank that day in Indonesia, killing 879 people. Kristen, who was watching the show on TV, almost fainted when she saw Robert enter with her.
Jennifer had wanted to forewarn her cousin about this, but couldn’t find a way to tell her. The day spring training for pitchers opened, Jennifer had gone to see him in Ft. Myers to make amends, and to investigate her prospects for him. Maybe now that he was older and she was getting rich and famous, he might be willing to make a commitment, she hoped. Had she phoned, he would have told her to go to hell, but she showed up in person. Once he saw his charmer in a halter top and short denim shorts that looked like they were drawn on her, he was under her command once more.
They spent the next two months together in Florida, but her hold, as ever, was tenuous, for a bond based on physical attraction alone is easily made, but also easily broken. One needs the physical for the initial draw and the spiritual to make it stick, which prompts some doggerel that could make Robert Frost sit up in his coffin and bang his skull: “Baby, I am the base, you are the fixer/ together we make glue that really sticks, sir.” (Kristen was supposed to recite that verse, but she flatly refused to do it.)
Dressed in a slinky black mini-dress so short that no man in the audience blinked for her entire rendition, she performed her song. As the song was coming to an end, she sauntered into the audience, went to Robert, sat on his lap, put her arms around him, sang the final words while looking in his eyes, kissed him, and flashed her prepossessing smile at him to end her performance. She appeared to say, “I love you,” to him as she turned to return to the stage. Kristen felt like the thirteen-year-old little girl who was invisible to him while she stood next to her fabulous cousin.
Jennifer’s video took the GRAMMY. Four people lined up to give tedious acceptance speeches. “I also want to thank my hairdresser, Georges, my dog walker, Johan, and his assistant, pooper scooper Lance,” ended person number three before stepping aside in favor of Jennifer.
She thanked a few people and concluded with, “Only one thing could make this wonderful evening perfect: if I get the offer I’m hoping to get later on.”
Had Kristen kept listening, she would have learned that Jennifer was talking about a long-term recording contract. But concluding, Oh, my God, he’s going to ask her to marry him! she was incapable of hearing anything else. Her ears started ringing, her forehead and neck burned, her mouth went dry, and she trembled.
Lying i
n bed that night, staring at the darkness, she said to herself, She’s gorgeous and she’s famous. I’m nothing. I have to give up on him. Logic trying to assert domination over emotion, she told herself, He’s just a man, one with a lot of issues. There are probably a million men better than Bobby, Andrew for one. Andrew is at least as smart, and there’s no question he’s handsomer, warmer and more caring than Bobby. Andrew’s work is so much more important than playing baseball. And if Andrew had a chance to be a hero, I’m sure he would be. After tonight, Bobby is gone forever anyway. The miserable woman went to sleep.
•
“Gertrude,” remarked Mr. Carlton, “the paper says that that pretty singer we never heard of—you know, the one on TV last night in the short dress—and that baseball player we never heard of—you know, the one she sat on—is both from London. I hate them spoiled, rich baseball players. I bet that guy don’t got no idea how hard real life is or how lucky he is. Today’s high is s’pposed to be ten below. I ain’t delivering mail in that. Call in sick for me, will ya?”
•
The next morning Kristen woke up determined to make one last stab at Robert. I can’t let her win without a fight! she decreed to herself. Before she could change her mind, she called him. He didn’t answer, so she left a message: “Hello, Bobby,” she started anxiously, “Um … this is Krissy. Uh, I’m not sure … Um, I need to talk to you. Please. I miss you. Please don’t marry Jenny. You won’t be happy with her. Something deep within you must know that our souls are one. Please call me.”
She gave him her number and hung up. The next several hours were anxious ones for the young lady as she waited in vain for his call. Hours stretched into days and still no call. Kristen made up her mind to get serious about Dr. Katz.
Over the next several weeks, Kristen and Andrew dated extensively. She enjoyed the time she spent with him and was beginning to think he could make a good husband. He was thinking she would be a first class wife, too, judging by the engagement ring he offered her after an extravagant dinner date in early May.