by Mindy Klasky
DJ laughed without humor. “That’s just it. He’s my father.” She let his bitter words evaporate into the darkness, thinking he wasn’t going to elaborate. Finally, though, he shrugged. He caught himself short with the motion, hitching his left shoulder as if his arm hurt. He shook his head. “He wants me to succeed.”
“It didn’t sound that way.”
“This is how it’s always been. He’s the Big Man. Top dog. He’s the one who has every goddamn answer to every goddamn question. And the only way for me to learn the secret handshake is to toughen up. Faster, higher, stronger, and all that bullshit.”
She heard raw pain behind the words, and she tried to imagine what it would be like to spend her entire life trying to live up to her parents’ expectations and failing, always failing. That wasn’t all, though. DJ had disappointed his father on the most public of stages—a Friday night game in the major leagues—and in a field that both men held dear.
What had it been like, always hoping he would measure up? How had he felt as a boy, as a teenager, as a young man, making his way in the only profession that mattered to him?
Desperate to find words that would make everything all right, she spoke the sentence she’d vowed not to say back at the ballpark. “It was only one game. You’ll pitch again in five days.”
“I’m not pitching in five days.” He delivered his flat denial staring straight ahead.
“Of course you are. You’ll be back on track the next time you take the mound.”
“Listen to you. ‘Take the mound.’ Like you’re the expert.”
His tone stung, but she told herself he wasn’t truly angry with her. She concentrated on keeping her tone even. “Your manager’s going to understand, even if your father doesn’t. You blew one game.”
“It’s my arm, dammit!” His shout echoed inside the car. “Something’s not right. I don’t know if it’s a labrum tear, or dead arm, or what, but I blew it out tonight.”
She stared at him in horror. “Then what are we doing here? You should be back at the clubhouse! Aren’t there trainers there? Or the hospital. Let’s go there now. Let someone help you!”
“There isn’t any help.” He shook his head. “Don’t look at me that way. This is my job. I know what I’m talking about. They’ll do an MRI tomorrow, maybe the next day, and they’ll come up with a rehab program. Some combination of exercises and rest. Maybe talk about surgery if that doesn’t help.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell your father?”
DJ snorted. “No one tells the great Dan Thomas anything. They didn’t call him Iron Dan for nothing. I’m a candy-ass puss—” He cut himself off. “Um, pushover for not pulling on my uni and getting back out there.”
She dared to reach out, to settle her palm against his good arm. “DJ, be realistic. You’re a twenty-nine-year-old man. You make your own decisions now. You don’t have to do what he says, don’t have to pretend his expectations are reasonable.”
“He’s my father!”
“That doesn’t mean he’s right.”
“He is where baseball is concerned. He’s never been wrong a day in his life.”
“So that’s why you’re pushing Daniel so hard.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized she’d spoken out loud. Now that she saw his pain—the emotional agony that was infinitely worse than anything he felt in his pitching arm—she began to understand the baggage the ten-year-old boy was being forced to carry. Grandson of the almighty Dan Thomas, son of a professional pitcher… Daniel was going to be warped just as much as DJ had been.
“I’m pushing Trey so he can maximize his potential.”
“The same way you’ve maximized yours.”
“He can be ten times better than I am. He has that sort of ability.”
“But what if that’s not what he wants?”
“Of course it’s what he wants. He’s a ten-year-old boy.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“You don’t know anything about Trey.”
“I know he hates that stupid nickname! I know he wants to be called Daniel! And I know he was happy coming to Musicall, wanted it badly enough that he lied to you, when you’re the most important thing in his life!”
“Is that what this is all about?”
“What what is all about?” She matched the anger in his tone. She’d been unhappy when DJ forced Daniel out of Musicall and back to Little League, but she’d understood the logic. The boy had made a commitment to baseball before he’d latched on to her music program. Now, though, that decision seemed like a referendum on their entire relationship. Was she willing to step back and let DJ make every single decision? Was she going to let him say what was right for her, for them, forever?
“You’ve been pushing to keep my son in your little music club since you first met him. That would make great copy—‘Pitcher’s son has perfect pitch.’”
“Oh my God, DJ, is that what you think? That I’m using you to promote Musicall? You’re the biggest threat my music program has faced, since the Summer Fair finally got me into Polk Elementary!”
“That’s right. I’m the threat!”
“You know how the Summer Fair feels about my being seen in public with you! And after tonight—”
After tonight, their pictures would be plastered all over the newspaper. All over the Internet. After tonight, she’d be lucky if they’d let her shovel manure in the Summer Fair cattle barn, much less enter the beauty pageant offices.
“Fine, Sam. Just keep telling yourself I’m the big bad wolf here. Tell yourself that you didn’t want to come to the ballpark tonight. That you weren’t the one who came down to the parking lot. I bet you can even come up with a story where you didn’t let yourself into my house two weeks ago and seduce me on my own goddamn couch.”
She stared at him, shocked at the venom in his voice. “I’m not trying to come up with a story. I’m only telling you this craziness has to stop. Why should your son feel the same way you do? Why should he be forced to live with the same resentment?”
“I don’t resent my father!” His throat seemed to rip on the bellowed words. He swallowed hard before he continued in a carefully reasoned voice. “I do not resent my father. I wouldn’t be the man I am today, if he hadn’t pushed me. And I owe it to Trey to do the same for him.”
The words were simple. Transparent. DJ honestly believed them, honestly thought that his father’s system of tough love had been best for him. He could do no less for his own son.
There was no room for argument. No room for Sam to say anything at all.
She leaned against her door. “Fine,” she said. And when he remained silent, she added, “I’d like to go back to the ballpark, please. I need to pick up my car.”
“No. I’ll take you home, but I’m not going back to the park tonight. I’ll have one of the guys drive your car over tomorrow.”
One of the guys. He wasn’t offering to pick her up, wasn’t offering to help her out. He was adding to the barrier between them.
Tears stung beneath her eyelids, but she refused to acknowledge them. “Fine,” she said again, not trusting herself to add another word.
She barely heard him start the car’s engine. She scarcely noticed when they left the gravel driveway for the country road, when they merged onto the interstate. She stared out the window as he made efficient turns, keeping the car precisely at the speed limit until he pulled to a stop in front of her house.
She wasn’t surprised to see the cars parked on the street. An SUV, same as that first night that DJ had driven her home. A handful of other vehicles. A cluster of reporters were knotted on the sidewalk, holding cups of coffee, checking their phones.
They sprang to attention as DJ pushed his way into the driveway. A couple thrust out microphones, and a cameraman fought to the front of the pack.
Sam paused with her hand on the door handle. The wall DJ had put up was towering between them now. She couldn’t read any emotion in t
he set of his jaw, and he kept his eyes focused on the driveway in front of him. His hands were clenched around the steering wheel.
She thought of all the things she could say. She could apologize, tell him this entire fight was her fault. But it wasn’t. She could scream at him, demand that he listen to her, that he see that she was right. But she couldn’t do that either.
Instead, she could step out of the car. She could shiver as the cold air hit her bare legs. She could swallow her sudden nausea as she thought of her panties, crumpled inside his pocket.
She marched up the walk to her front door, ignoring the lights, the camera, the questions shouted over and over and over again. She refused to look back as DJ gunned the car, as he sped off into the night.
Her key turned easily in the lock. She closed the door and fastened the security chain. One by one, she went to the windows and pulled down the shades, cutting out the sight of the reporters, if not the sound.
Across the room, the Cyclops eye of her answering machine was blinking. By force of habit, she found the silver button and played back the message.
“Samantha Winger.” The voice belonged to Judith Burroughs. A Judith Burroughs who was clearly speaking through set teeth, past a crushed cigarette filter. “Report to the Summer Fair office tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp. Bring your tiara and your sash. You’re fired.”
Sam sank against the door and cried.
CHAPTER 8
The first day was the worst. After sneaking out to the Summer Fair office and crawling back to her house, Sam hid inside, ignoring the knocks at the door from enterprising reporters who shouted that they just wanted to get her side of the story. She refused to answer the phone, no matter how many times it rang.
By the second day, there were newer stories, more interesting people for the press to buttonhole and harangue. Sam took advantage of the change to dash out to the grocery store. She stocked up on macaroni and cheese, kettle-cooked potato chips, and a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Curled up on her couch that night, she watched the Rockets lose to Florida. Tears leaked down her cheeks every time the camera caught a glimpse of DJ.
By the third day, she was exhausted. Her eyes were swollen from too much crying. Her hair crackled when she brushed it, as full of static as her heart felt. She left a pre-dawn message at James K. Polk Elementary, saying that she wouldn’t make it to Musicall. If there even was a Musicall left to make. That night, she feasted on carbs and ice cream, then poured herself a stiff drink. Alas, the bourbon only made her remember that first night at DJ’s. She thought another few fingers of whiskey might help her to forget. She was wrong.
By the fourth day, she felt like she’d gained a dozen pounds, and she had a hangover to boot. She threw out all the junk food and sat down at her kitchen table, staring at her laptop screen as if it held the secrets of the universe. Alas, no universal secrets lurked there. But her calendar glared back at her, steady and unwavering.
Three times, she steeled herself to reach for her phone, to call the school. It should be easy enough. She just had to keep her tone light, her words simple. She just wanted to confirm they were expecting her that afternoon, for the final Musicall class before summer vacation.
Three times, she hung up the phone without calling.
And then, the suspense was removed. The phone rang, even as she was staring at it, even as she was trying to firm up her resolve. “Miss Winger,” a cool voice said. “I just want to confirm you’ll be picking up your things by the end of the school day.”
“My things?” Sam’s voice trembled. She sounded like she was about to burst into tears—again—which wasn’t far from the truth.
“At the request of the Summer Fair, our janitorial staff placed your belongings into boxes. We were told you’d claim them by the end of today, or we could discard them.”
“Um, I appreciate that,” Sam said, unconvincingly. “How many boxes are there?” She imagined renting a trailer, collecting the assorted instruments and paperwork and classroom projects the kids had created.
“Two.”
“Excuse me?”
“There are two boxes of your personal possessions. Those are separate, of course, from the twenty-one boxes that will go to the Summer Fair.”
Twenty-one boxes, holding all the projects the kids had created, all the instruments Sam had begun to collect. They’d end up in storage. Or worse.
The woman on the other end of the line cleared her throat. “The school office closes at four. After that, we’ll place your boxes in the Dumpster.” She hung up before Sam could say anything.
Sam stared down at her sweatpants. She had six hours to shower and put on makeup, to get dressed and look like a civilized human being before she drove across town to pick up her belongings. What did it matter, though? Who cared about her notebooks, her carefully constructed lesson plans? She was never going to teach Musicall again. The files deserved to be trashed.
Even if she did get the boxes, nothing would change. Sam had poured the past eleven months of her life into the Summer Fair, putting everything else on hold. She’d graduated from college; there was no retreating into the life of a student. She hadn’t begun to line up a new job yet, because Summer Fair activities had kept her so busy. And she’d always believed she’d have Musicall after her reign ended—somehow. Some way.
In one fell swoop, DJ had wiped out her job, her extracurricular activities, and her love life.
That wasn’t fair. DJ hadn’t ruined her job. Sam had done that herself. She had let the reporters catch her in a compromising position. Even though she’d known they would fall on her like starving sharks on chum, she had let herself be overcome with her need for DJ.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was she’d let herself believe she loved the man.
It was one thing to enjoy spending time with him. He was attractive—he could catch the attention of every person with two X chromosomes simply by walking into a room. He was the best lover she’d ever had—he understood how to give her pleasure, and he’d made it clear that her satisfaction actually enhanced his own. And he was devoted—he had figured out a dozen ways for her to work around the Summer Fair’s restrictions.
But her relationship with DJ was—had been—far more than physical. She had told him things she’d never told anyone else before. She had told him how lonely she’d felt, moving from military base to military base. She had shared her desire to belong, to build a community for herself and others. She had explained how hurtful it was when people viewed her as just a pretty girl, as a mindless beauty queen, without any semblance of a brain in her head. She had told him how much it hurt her when her friends abandoned her, when they chose fun and public entertainment over the staid life the pageant had demanded for the past year.
And he had shared with her. He had told her how hard it was to live in Iron Dan Thomas’ shadow.
She’d thought they were a team, united toward a common goal. She’d been ready to give everything to him, to do whatever it took to keep him in her life forever.
And now she had nothing.
No job. No prospects. And no partner to hold her, to soften the blows, to tell her it would be all right.
Sam closed her computer and retreated to her couch. Pulling her afghan closer about her shoulders, she closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing. She failed, miserably. Hours later, she finally slipped into an uneasy sleep, but her dreams were full of the discordant music of loss. Long after midnight, she realized that her Musicall lesson plans had been thrown out, like the trash they were.
* * *
“What a shithole,” Ormond said, dropping his catcher’s mask onto the bench.
“Yeah.” DJ was staring at his phone. He’d grabbed it from the top shelf of his locker as he returned from the cramped showers. Even with the other guys shuffling around in the crowded space behind him, he hurried to check the screen, to see if anyone had called.
No one.
Well, that wasn’t a
surprise. He’d spoken to Trey before the game started, told him to finish up his homework, to stop hassling Isabel and get to bed on time. The nanny would only call in an emergency. And it wasn’t like anyone else was going to reach out to him.
Not now, anyway. There’d been a time when he’d had a message waiting for him after every game. Win or lose, he’d had something to look forward to, a breath of fresh air to take him away from the constant parade of crappy visiting-team locker rooms, from the hotel rooms that were the same city after city after city, from the countless miles logged on airplanes where the air was too dry and the food was inedible.
But it had been two weeks since he’d blown that to hell. Two weeks since he’d given Sam her walking papers, embossed with gold. Shit.
“Hey!” Ormond shouted.
“What?” DJ asked, feeling stupid as he shoved his phone back into the locker.
“I said we should work on that curveball when you throw tomorrow. You’ll want it against Washington, with all their lefties.”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Man,” Ormond said, shaking his head and pulling off his shoes. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Got what bad?”
The veteran catcher leaned back against his locker, ignoring the wobble of the bench in front of him. “Just call the woman.”
“What woman?” DJ thought he sounded totally innocent.
“Maybe you can bullshit all of them,” Ormond said amicably, nodding toward the rest of the locker room, “but you’re not getting that crap past me. You’ve worked your rehab for two weeks. You’re throwing practice pitches tomorrow. Get your mind back in the game.”
“My mind never left the game.”
“You’re a piss-poor liar. I saw the pictures, same as you. Same as anyone with an Internet connection. But get over it, man. Call Samantha Winger and tell her you’re sorry you got her fired from her job.”
DJ felt something crumble inside him. The mere thought that he was so transparent to one of the guys… Still, he had to make a protest. “I didn’t get her fired.”
“I could have sworn that was your ugly face, coming in for the kill. And I just assumed you were the one who gave her that hickey.”
