Love's Little Instruction Book

by Mary Gorman

  It connected with a resounding thwack! He dropped the bat and started to run to first base. This was it, this would show her. He hoped it would clear the fence and bring both him and Paul Lund, who had made it to second base, home, giving the team both the tying run and the lead. He barreled down the baseline, his eyes on the plate. He poured on the speed, glancing toward the field to see exactly where the ball was.

  Thwump! The sound of horsehide hitting leather was not as loud as when it connected with a wooden bat, but it was just as resounding in Dave’s mind. “Yeeeee’re out!”

  Well, it was only the second inning. There would be other chances.

  Presley held the Stars scoreless for the next three innings. WMTR scored when Todd O’Connor doubled, stole third, and then was hit home with a line drive belted by John Froio. Dave forced a smile as O’Connor jogged up to the plate, to receive the welcomes and back slaps of his beaming teammates. Later in the inning, John advanced on a base hit by the morning show producer, only to be left stranded when Denise, once again, struck out.

  The score was still one to one when Dave got up to bat in the sixth inning. He waited out the first pitch, not finding it to his liking. Denise yelled out something encouraging from the bench. At least, he thought it was something encouraging. He didn’t quite catch exactly what it was she’d said. The second pitch was more to his liking — clean, straight, and just over the plate.

  Denise’s voice sounded in his ears. “Come on, Dave!” He hesitated just for a split second as he registered her words. A split second too long. His timing was impaired. He swung and connected, but it wasn’t the solid hit that he had hoped for.

  Tom Ford, the Soap Opera Stars’ pitcher, close personal friend of Todd O’Connor, Greek God, and despoiler of dreams, took a few careful steps forward off of the mound, held up his glove, and neatly snagged the pop up.

  Out.

  Denise patted Dave’s shoulder consolingly as he returned to the ’MTR bench. “Nice try, Dave,” she sympathized. He couldn’t think of anything to say to her in reply. He didn’t want her sympathy. He wanted her admiration, the thunder and the glory, to be a hero in her eyes. Not sympathy. He pressed his lips together and took his place on the end of the aluminum bench to wait out the rest of the inning.

  • • •

  Denise walked up to the plate in the ninth inning, grim faced. She knew that this would probably be her last time at bat, and while it was no disgrace to go down swinging, she didn’t want to be the only one on the team who hadn’t registered at least one hit during the course of the game. They were down by one run; she could be the tying run if she could just hit the damn ball. She wondered how hard it would be to get walked, then discarded the idea. The Stars’ pitcher was too good and Denise only had a faint notion of where the strike zone was anyway.

  The first pitch came blistering by after a windup that left Denise dazzled. Strike. Darn! Why couldn’t the station have taken on the Soap Opera Stars in bowling instead? At least in bowling a strike was a good thing. She stepped up to the plate again and drew up into her stance, trying to do it just the way Todd had showed her — knees bent, shoulders forward, butt out. Keep your eye on … the ball was already hurtling toward her. She barely had time to blink before swinging, but by then it was too late — the bat fanned aimlessly after the ball. Oh well, she thought, shaking her head. At least she’d go down swinging.

  Someone on the Stars’ bench yelled something encouraging to Tom Ford, who laughed and smiled. The laugh annoyed Denise. If she was going to be humiliated, she wanted it to at least look like they had to work to do it.

  Then the Stars’ pitcher made a major mistake. He got cocky. He wanted to show just how bad a hitter Denise was. Instead of a wind up, he lobbed a slow, underhanded pitch.

  Denise saw it coming. She recognized that this pitch was different. She kept her eye on the ball as it flew towards her. She watched it as she swung. She saw it as it caught on the bottom edge of the bat and felt the impact as it vibrated up her arms and to her shoulders. She kept her eye on the ball as it fell to the ground and rolled feebly in front of her. It was funny. She was so focused on the sight of the ball that she didn’t register any sounds; not the crack of the bat, not the roar of the crowd, not even the angry exclamation from the Star’s pitcher.

  Nothing, until Presley screamed “Run!”

  Denise suddenly snapped back into real time. The catcher was rising from his crouch and the pitcher was starting forward from the mound. The first baseman planted one foot on the base and extended her gloved hand forward, yelling, “Throw it! Throw it!”

  And Presley was still screaming “Run!”

  She ran.

  She had no idea what was going on behind her as she tore her way up the baseline. Her boobs bounced, her ponytail flapped behind her, and she kept her eyes fixed on first base as she pounded toward it. She thought briefly of trying to slide into first, but was afraid she’d stop cold in the dirt and sit there like a giant clod, so she ran, getting there pretty much at the same time she heard the ball slap against the leather of the glove. Her momentum carried her over the base and beyond as she struggled to come to a halt.

  “Safe!” bellowed the umpire.

  The WMTR team exploded into wild cheers and applause. Denise laughed and bowed, first to her teammates, then to the fans in the stands. The ’MTRs gave her a standing ovation. She gave her first real smile of the day and felt the excitement and adrenaline coursing though her body, but more than anything else she felt relief.

  The next two batters failed to help Denise advance, getting out on strikes and a pop fly. So Denise was still stranded on first base when Dave came up to bat. He looked at her as he loosened up, rolling his shoulders and twisting his torso from side to side.

  He had to smile when he thought about how happy — not to mention astonished — she’d looked when she’d finally made her base hit. He didn’t want to leave her stranded at first. She should know the thrill of crossing the plate. And if he could be the one to make it happen, well, he had the chance to do just that and maybe score the winning run besides. He’d never hit a grand slam in all his years of little league, but he felt like he had the chance to hit one now.

  He flashed Denise a smile up the first base line as he stepped up to the plate. She clapped for him and yelled, “Come on, Dave!” He assumed his batter’s stance and nodded to the pitcher.

  The first pitch was low and outside. He let it go by without so much as a twitch. The next pitch came, straight and down the middle. He swung, but it got by him. He glanced at Denise, and she gave him a smile.

  The next pitch was straight, fast, and right down the middle. As he swung, he thought of every baseball movie he had ever seen: Robert Redford in The Natural, Kevin Costner in Bull Durham, the little kid who picked his nose in The Bad News Bears. This was it. The moment he’d been dreaming of since he first played tee ball in kindergarten — he was going to be a hero.

  The bat connected with the ball in a jolt that smacked of success. Dave let the bat drop and paused just long enough to watch the ball begin its downward arc toward the right field fence, then started barreling down the baseline towards Denise, who was still on the base, visually tracking the path of the ball.

  “Run!” he yelled as he approached. Startled, Denise looked at him in confusion, then suddenly remembered what to do and took off toward second base. “Keep going!” he hollered behind her. “Go! Go! Go!”

  Denise widened the gap between them, sprinting full tilt down the base line. She ran for all she was worth and couldn’t believe it when she actually crossed home plate.

  She was positively giddy with relief when she heard the umpire’s call. “Safe!” She wasn’t going to have to apologize to anyone for her lackluster performance. She wouldn’t be the butt of jokes on the morning show. She hadn’t let the team down. She laughed and clap
ped and positively skipped back to the bench, acknowledging the applause from the stands with happy waves of both hands. Presley was there, waiting for her, hand raised to give her a congratulatory high-five. She went down along she bench, receiving hugs and pats on the back as she went.

  When she got to the end of the line, there was only Todd O’Connor left. He stood a little apart, beaming, as if he felt he deserved the credit for driving her home. The tall, blond man suddenly spread his arms wide and Denise launched herself at him. He caught her against his body with his strong arms and swung her around, both of them laughing as her feet left the ground.

  • • •

  The game ended in a tie score. Paul Lund came to bat just long enough to pop fly to left field, where it was easily nabbed by the pitcher. Dave was left stranded at third. Stranded, he thought, in more ways than one.

  There was a pizza party at a restaurant in the North End after the game. Dave seriously considered not going. He didn’t want to watch Todd O’Connor putting the moves on Denise anymore, but since his triple had saved the team from total defeat and stolen the win from the Stars’ pitcher, he didn’t see any graceful way out of going.

  The pizza place was congenial, full of dark wooden booths and bentwood chairs padded with red vinyl. Stained glass swag lamps hung over plastic tablecloths and wait staff in forest green polo shirts skirted through the crowd, trying to keep up with the sudden influx of business.

  Dave had settled himself in a booth and was sipping a beer, accepting congratulations and compliments from teammates and opponents alike. Presley had scooted onto the bench next to him, effectively trapping him, but he didn’t mind. When people came over to talk to him, he could count on Presley to take over the conversation after just a few words of acknowledgement, and that suited him just fine. He didn’t really feel much like talking.

  He was trying not to watch Denise, yet somehow he felt aware of her wherever she was in the room. Just now she was standing over by the jukebox, talking and laughing with Todd O’Connor and his flight school buddy. He forced his attention away from her and back to whatever it was that Presley was saying. One beer, he told himself, and one slice of pizza. Then he could excuse himself.

  “You all right?” Presley asked him suddenly. He was surprised to realize that they were momentarily alone, their well wishers having momentarily dispersed to join in other conversations.

  “Fine. Why?”

  “You just hit the tying run. You’ve got bragging rights galore here, and here you are, letting me do all the talking. What gives?”

  “Maybe I’m just trying to be classy by not gloating.”

  “Nuh-uh,” she replied, shaking her head so that the miniature softballs dangling from her ears swung wildly. “You’re not the classy type.”

  Dave snorted. “Then what type am I?”

  “You’re a guy,” she said. “You know. Back slapping, sports loving … Normal. You’re a normal guy. You should be loving this moment.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I’m just famished. The pizza should be here any minute,” he told her, trying to divert her attention to the food.

  “Nuh-uh. I’m allowed to be hypoglycemic. You’re not.”

  “Because I’m a guy?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yeah!” she replied brightly, setting the balls to swinging again.

  Just then, Denise slid into the bench across from them as Todd and Tom stood at the end of the table. “The guys are going to bail out early. They’ve got tickets to a show.”

  “We wanted to congratulate you both again on a great game,” Tom said. “Presley, if you ever want to work for a daytime drama, just let me know. The team could always use a ringer on the mound.” He flashed her a two hundred watt smile. Presley pretended to swoon against the back of the booth. Dave resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “And Dave, that was a great hit you made at the end there. We were damned lucky that you didn’t make it home.”

  “It was a lucky shot,” he said self-deprecatingly, all the while thinking that he wished he had knocked a homer instead of just a triple.

  “Lucky, hell,” Denise interrupted. “You let me score. That makes you my hero.”

  Dave smiled wanly as Tom said, “We’ll do better next year.”

  “You can try,” Presley returned gallantly.

  “Have a great weekend, guys.” Denise smiled. “And don’t forget to show up for work on Monday, Todd.”

  O’Connor laughed, throwing back his head and showing off his straight, white teeth. “I’ll do my best.” Then he turned and smiled at Tom Ford. “You ready to go?”

  “Ready and raring. Goodnight, everybody.”

  As Dave watched, Todd slipped his arm around Tom Ford’s waist and was rewarded with a reciprocal arm around his shoulders. They slipped off through the crowded restaurant with their arms around each other, through the glass door and into the evening light.

  Dave couldn’t keep the dumbfounded expression from his face. “They’re not … ?” He couldn’t think of a diplomatic way to say it.

  “An item?” Presley supplied, reaching for her iced tea and sipping it. “Not really. They used to be, though. Todd says it’s too hard to keep up a long distance relationship like that, what with Tom in New York and him here in Boston, so they only get together every now and then.”

  “I think they’re still close, though, don’t you?” Denise asked.

  Presley shrugged. “Based on the way they just left here, I’d say so.”

  “Do you mean to tell me that Todd O’Connor is gay?” Dave said, in a kind of wheezy stage whisper.

  “Yup,” Presley replied. “A waste, isn’t it?”

  “You know what they say, Pres,” Denise said. “All the good ones are either gay or married.”

  “Too true.”

  Dave sat back and smiled as the waitress set a large vegetarian pizza down on the table in front of them, and suddenly felt like maybe he had hit a home run after all.

  Chapter Eight: Painting

  “Hey, guys,” Ghoulie said as he rummaged through his refrigerator looking for something for them nosh on while they waited for the first regular season football game of the year to start. “You won’t believe this. We’ve been reading the wrong books.”

  Kirk looked up from his search for the bottle opener. “What do you mean, ‘the wrong books’?” he asked with a hint of irritation in his voice.

  “Well, I had been taking books from the bottom shelf, hoping that Shelby wouldn’t notice, but she did, and she asked me where they were.”

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?” Dave asked, concerned.

  Ghoulie shook his head. “No, of course not. I told her I missed her and I got curious one night, so I picked some out to see what it was that she was reading.”

  “And?” Kirk prompted.

  “And she told me that if I really wanted to know what she liked to read, I should go to the top shelf. See, she’s got a system, which I didn’t know about. Her favorite books go on the top shelf, and then the ones that she thought were okay go on the middle shelf, and finally, the ones that she plans to get rid of — ”

  “Don’t tell me,” Dave interrupted. “The bottom shelf?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dave drew in a deep breath. It was kind of reassuring in a way. He hadn’t been impressed by most of the books he’d read, especially the ones where the hero or heroine was simply too stupid to be believable or where the heroines had been raped and either got off on it, sexually speaking, or eventually fell in love with their rapists. Those things struck him as downright disturbing. If Shelby hadn’t liked them that meant that they didn’t necessarily reflect the kind of thing that women really wished for. Now he could disregard anything that he’d read that seemed to cross the line.

  “So what happened?” Kirk asked.
/>
  Ghoulie shrugged. “She pulled a book off the top shelf and gave it to me to read. But first she said that when I got to page one-fourteen I had to stop and tell her.”

  “And … was page one-fourteen a sex scene?” Kirk asked slyly.

  Ghoulie grinned. “Hell, yeah.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Dave asked. “How was the book otherwise?”

  “Otherwise?” Ghoulie repeated, as if he had only a vague recollection of the book after page 114. “Oh, it was great. It was about this guy who was a Navy SEAL, and he fell in love with a senator’s daughter, only he didn’t know that’s who she was. Then she got kidnapped by terrorists and he and his team had to go in and rescue her. It was a kickass story, actually. Lots of action. I learned a lot about SEALs, too.”

  “Seals like in the aquarium?” Kirk asked.

  “No, no. It stands for SEa, Air, and Land, because they work on all three. These guys are like supermen. Something like over ninety percent of everyone who starts the training doesn’t make it to the end, and the ones that do, they’re like the top dogs. Shelby says there’s a whole series about the guys in this unit, and she thinks I’ll like them.”

  “So,” Kirk said. “I assume that from now on we’re going to be reading some top shelf romantic literature?”

  Ghoulie smiled his goofy smile and nodded.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Dave began slowly. The other two looked at him. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong.”

  “How so?” Ghoulie asked.

  “Every week we’ve all read different books by different authors set in different time periods.”

  “True,” Kirk agreed.