by Jen Estes
A soft tapping sounded from the front door. Cat peeked through the newly installed peephole and saw the unmistakable blue of Benji’s eye spying back at her. She opened the door and pointed at her cell phone with a smile.
“Grams, I have to go. My friend Benji’s here.”
“Benji?”
“Yes, Benji.”
“Benji’s a boy?”
“A man.”
“A boyfriend?”
“No, he’s just a friend.”
Benji shot her a look of mock indignation. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Is he a local?”
“Yeah, he’s a native Vegasian.”
“You can’t have just friends when they’re boys. Why, do you remember that young man down the street? The one with that sports car he was always washing?”
“I can too have just friends.” Cat shot a grin at Benji. “Besides Grams, why would he buy the cow when he can grab a carton of milk on any street corner?”
“I thought you said prostitution wasn’t legal!”
“It isn’t. Those were your words, not mine. I was only teasing you.”
“I don’t like that. Now this boy, is it serious?”
“Maybe.”
“There. Was that so hard? We’ll talk about him when you come to visit.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
“Love you, honey.”
“Love you, too.” She hit the end button and smiled at Benji.
He frowned and wagged his finger at her. “It’s not Vegasian.”
“Vegan?”
He shook his head.
“Vegasite?”
“Nope.”
“Tell me!”
He put his palms up helplessly. “Sorry but I can’t. You’ve got to be here for at least three months before you learn the code.”
“Can you at least tell me the secret handshake?”
“Are you kidding? I didn’t even find that out until my sixteenth birthday.”
“No fair.”
“I got your newspaper.”
“You know I get all my news online.” A mischievous smile snuck across her lips. “Well … E! Online.”
He held up several newspapers with various headlines and read them aloud. “ ‘Sins in Sin City.’ ‘König Out of Luck.’ ‘Deceiving Las Vegas.’ I thought you might want a copy of these. Looks like the Cat’s out of the bag.”
She gave him a mock-stern look and scanned each headline as he set the newspapers on the coffee table. Reaching into his back pocket, he added, “I also brought your mail, which was in my box. Any chance our next endeavor can be taking down the postal service?”
She accepted the mail and carried a pastry box over to the sofa. “Donut?”
His eyes lit up. “Yes, please! I guess this is probably the closest I’m getting to a real date right now.”
“Is it my fault our game was canceled due to the team being disbanded, at least temporarily?”
He bit into the Berliner and answered her with a mouth full of jelly. “Actually, yes.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and received a playful grin in return. As she pulled a postcard from the stack of mail, a photo of a pristine beach labeled Store Bay caught her eye. The back of the card read:
Ms. McDaniel, thank you. You’ve brought both me and Jamal more peace than you’ll ever know. Jason.
She showed the postcard to Benji, whose clear eyes glistened in wonder. “You’re like Lois Lane.”
Cat threw back her head and laughed.
He tapped the postcard in her hands. “You gotta admit, this kinda makes the whole hero gig worth it, huh?”
“Oh yeah. I’m a real hero. Let’s see. I just crushed the dreams of twenty-five ballplayers, destroyed the careers of an entire organization and, oh yeah, lost my job, too. Lois Lane was gainfully employed, remember?” She smiled wryly and reached over him for a bear claw.
“So most of the guys will go back to the minors.” Benji shrugged. “They still play baseball for a living. They’re not dead. I think that’s a deal most people would take. As for a job, well, there are still lots of baseball teams out there—ones that aren’t owned by soulless fiends.” A moment passed before he added a teasing, “Maybe.”
She shook her head. “Nah, I don’t know. I think I might be done for awhile.”
“Done with sports writing?”
“No. Just done with baseball. Maybe I’ll try my hand at covering mini golf. Or dodgeball. Perhaps the fast-paced world of professional thumb wrestling is my true calling.”
Benji handed her the second letter off the coffee table. “I guess I’ll get this one out of your way then.”
She recognized the emblem on the return address label and stammered, “N-New York … the commissioner’s office?” Throwing her donut aside, she tore open the envelope. The edges of her mouth curved as she scanned the page.
Benji placed his hand on her knee and gave her leg a shake. “Well, is it a job offer?”
Cat tossed the letter on the end table and retrieved her discarded pastry. “It’s a job fair offer.”
“That’s still good, right?”
“I’m probably just on a mailing list. They send these to every schmuck with a journalism degree.” She bit into the bear claw.
“So are you gonna go?”
“Maybe.”
He reached for the letter. “I’m seeing a lot of Chicagos, New Yorks and Californias …” He scooted closer to her. “No Nevada.”
Cat didn’t reply. Her mind was busy with thoughts of an apartment on Lake Shore Drive, people-watching in Union Square, or morning jogs along the Pacific.
“Any chance you can commute from Las Vegas?”
Cat blinked her daydreams away and focused on the letter he held in his hands. “There’s not even an opening anywhere until next spring. A couple of teams are hiring in the media department.” She pointed to the second paragraph. “Ooh, and Chicago is looking for a junior reporter. That would be amazing.” She frowned. “Junior’s kind of a step down from the lead, though.”
“So you’d have to work your way up in the Windy City. On the plus side, you wouldn’t have to worry about an overabundance of suspicious championships there, huh?”
She poked him in the ribs. “I thought you didn’t know anything about baseball.”
“Maybe I’ve been doing my homework.”
“Have you now? Well, wherever I go, I can promise you there will be eighty-one home games, so I’ll be putting you to the test.”
Benji dropped the letter on the coffee table and grabbed her hands. She stared into his blue eyes and wondered if she would ever tire of that activity.
“So … next spring. Does that mean I have you until then?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Define have.”
“Well, this time next year you’re probably going to be living large in New York or Chicago, running from the backfield to the infield.”
“You know those are from two different sports, don’t you?”
“By then, your short stay in Vegas will be a distant memory.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“So I was thinking, why don’t I play hooky today?” He brought her hand up to his mouth and gave it a gentle kiss. “We can head up to Mount Charleston for the weekend and lay out a couple of sleeping bags under the stars.”
“A couple?”
“Okay, just one.”
“Camping?” She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t camp.”
“And I don’t follow baseball. Yet, I can tell you the Chips were twenty games above five hundred only four days ago.”
“There are snakes.”
“True. However, the breed that’s poisonous to ballplayers and sportswriters isn’t indigenous to this area.” His eyes twinkled.
She grinned. “On second thought, it might be nice to get away.”
Benji fairly bounded from the couch. “Let me give my TA a call.” As he bustled out the door, he p
ointed and said, “Stay right there.”
She giggled and uncrossed her legs. As he went to make the phone call, she picked up the letter from the coffee table and reread its offer.
Job fair.
She wiped her clammy hands on the tattered upholstery.
Another interview.
She chugged the rest of her orange juice and set the glass back on the table with a bang.
Make that interviews.
She hopped off the couch and searched her bookcase for Tamela’s interview guidebooks. Iss-Yous! fell to the floor as she pulled the first one from the shelf. She picked up the paperback and dusted off the cover.
Time for a whole new ballgame.
* * *
Born and raised in Illinois, Jen Estes started her writing career as a baseball blogger in 2007 and expanded to freelance sports writing in 2009. She is an active member of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), Springfield Poets & Writers and the National Writers Union (NWU). Big Leagues is Jen’s debut novel and the first in a three-book series featuring sassy sports writer Cat McDaniel. When she isn’t writing, Jen enjoys running, yoga, traveling and watching baseball with her husband and cat. You can find Jen on the net at www.jenestes.com and on Twitter @jenestesdotcom.