“I know. One of the Ladies’ Auxiliary members leaked it to the Press-Herald.” She had her business voice on. Damn. He’d been hoping she’d softened since their lake adventure. “At least it’s just local.”
“What does the mayor think?”
“She’s on the phone with Crush Taylor right now. I think they’re negotiating some joint comment.”
“Any fallout from yesterday?” His voice went deep and husky at the memory of their moment in the lake.
A pause. “Caleb . . .”
Fuck. She was going to tell him she couldn’t see him again. In her tone of voice, he could hear the axe about to fall. She was worried about her job, he got it. But they were two single young people; who could blame them for being attracted to each other? There must be something else going on. Something she wasn’t telling him.
Before she could finish her thought, he interrupted. “I bet I know what Crush is telling the mayor. If the petition’s going public, he’ll want us to get going on Sluggers for Slugs right away.”
“Maybe. They’ve been talking for a long time.”
“I’m pitching tonight. Do you want to come? I can leave tickets for you.” He held his breath. He had a feeling tonight was going to be a big night. With his groove finally back, all he wanted to do was get out there and humiliate some opposing batters.
“I’ll try. I’m working late on budget stuff with the mayor.”
“I can leave a ticket for her too. Courtesy of the morally corrupt and depraved Catfish. And the man who ruined her assistant’s favorite bra.”
She let out a burst of rippling laughter. “Come to think of it, you do owe me, Catfish.”
Flirty Voice was back. Whew. Dumping averted—at least for the moment.
That night, the first game of a three-night home stand against the Sacramento River Cats, was Dental Health Night, sponsored by a coalition of dentists. The Jumbotron flashed tips about cavity prevention, and the first five hundred fans through the gate received giant foam toothbrushes. Just another day in the wacky minor leagues. Normally, Caleb would have been rolling his eyes, but tonight he had other things on his mind. During the Catfish’s at-bats, he kept compulsively scanning the stands, looking for Sadie.
On the mound, things were shaking out exactly as he’d hoped. He was on fire through the first two innings. He only had to throw eleven pitches the first inning, and even fewer the second, as he got a dribble to first, a foul-out, and a strikeout in less than ten minutes.
The fans knew it too. The sound of thousands—well, at least two thousand plus—people clapping gave the pleasant evening air a glow and an addictive buzz. It was one of those wonderful evenings at the ballpark when it seemed that nothing could dampen the mood. The Catfish’s hits kept falling in the right places, the River Cats couldn’t touch him, the temperature was just right. The only thing missing was Sadie.
Caleb told himself that she was probably stuck at work with the mayor, making up for the problem he’d caused by kissing her at the lake.
Sadie’s warning that he shouldn’t blame himself had gone in one ear and out the other. Of course he blamed himself. Hadn’t he been plotting how to get her into bed for days now? He hadn’t planned on getting her into a lake in her underwear, but he sure had seized the opportunity when it came up. Completely his fault.
Besides, he didn’t carry the world on his shoulders. Not even close. Just the team. And his family. That didn’t count as the “world.” And if he couldn’t handle that, he didn’t deserve to be called a man.
At the bottom of the fifth inning, when the Catfish had two men on base and no one out, trying to pad a 3-0 lead, something in the stands caught Caleb’s eye. A man in a straw hat, not cowboy-style, but boater-style, with a ribbon around it. A hat you might see at the Kentucky Derby. The man wore big white-rimmed sunglasses that hid nearly his whole face and made him look ridiculous. He was eating peanuts from a bag and chatting with a group in the row ahead of him, leaning forward to listen. It was the way he listened, with his head cocked, as if nothing could be more interesting, that caught Caleb’s attention.
It couldn’t be. His father wouldn’t dare, after he had specifically forbidden him to come to a game. It must just be a weird resemblance.
When the man leaned back in his seat and tossed a peanut into his mouth with a lightning quick move, Caleb knew without a doubt. That was his father’s favorite trick to entertain kids. It had worked on him, and on any number of kids related to wealthy older women. Who didn’t trust a man adored by one’s grandkids?
No doubt about it. Bingo was in the stands.
Top of the seventh inning. Caleb took the field with the rest of the team, jogging out to the mound. His legs felt like lead. Random unpleasant thoughts stumbled over each other. What’s he doing here? Father son reunion, my ass. He’s up to something. Where’d he get those white sunglasses? I ought to alert security and get him kicked out. Everyone’s a cheater. Maybe he stole the sunglasses out of some old lady’s purse. Yep, that’s my dad.
Someone was yelling. The umpire. Right. First batter up. Pedro Guttierez, righty who liked ’em fast and high. Solo called for the changeup, which looked like a high and tight fastball until the bottom dropped out just as the pitch was crossing the plate. Focus, Hart, focus. Doesn’t matter if Beyoncé’s in the stands, gotta get Pedro out. Those look like Beyoncé sunglasses, come to think of it. Maybe Bingo scammed some shades from Queen Bey. Shit. What’s that?
The pitch he’d delivered went flying past him, a little blooper right over his head. He jumped, trying to get a glove on it, but he was a half step too late. He came down stumbling, while Pedro, incredulous at his good fortune, booked it to first.
Caleb tried to shake it off, walking around the mound. One man on base was nothing. All he had to do was get the next guy, Koji Tanaka, to hit into a double play. Or strike him out. Or induce him to fly out. So many ways to get a guy out. Everyone’s a con. Don’t you try to fool the hitters?
Mike put up two fingers for a curve, but he shook him off. He wanted to throw some hard heat. With a shrug, Mike set up for a fastball. Caleb went into his windup, ignoring the blurred faces in the stands, all of whom seemed to be wearing white sunglasses, and delivered a fat, juicy fastball right over the plate. Home run.
Three hits later Duke came to the mound and held his hand out for the ball. “You’re done, Hart.” Caleb took a quick glance at the stands, but the straw boater and white sunglasses were gone.
“I’m good, Duke. I pitched myself into this jam, I can pitch myself out.”
“No. You’re done. You had six good innings, Hart. Not bad. Things are looking up, big guy. Now go.”
The taste of failure bitter on his tongue, Caleb surrendered the ball and loped off the field. His teammates showed no reaction, which he appreciated to the bottom of his soul.
He slumped onto the bench a good distance away from anyone else. The familiar scent of sweat and dirty socks, leather gloves and turf, relaxed him. The smell of baseball. He loved this game. Baseball had saved him in more ways than he could count. Baseball was all about the numbers, and numbers didn’t lie. Numbers didn’t cheat. Numbers were cold, hard reality, and he’d take that any day over finding out your entire childhood was a bunch of lies.
When the police had first come for Bingo, he’d been at home, studying for his chemistry final. In fact, he and his friend Pete—a genius when it came to science—were on the phone working on a foolproof way to share the answers. Caleb knew the history stuff cold, so they decided to work out a trade. They’d just figured out a code system when a knock on the door interrupted them. It was the kind of knock that meant business. When he opened the door and saw two police officers, he just about had a heart attack.
Did schools send the police after cheaters?
Hiding his terror behind the famous Hartwell smile, he had answered the officers’ questions. When he figured out they weren’t after him, but Bingo, his terror didn’t lessen.
“He’s at Applebee’s, I think. With his girlfriend.” No, he wasn’t at Applebee’s. His father despised the place. Stupid lie, because it would be so easy to check. But the lies kept pouring out of him.
They asked about his mother. “She’s traveling in Europe.” That sounded so much better than “She abandoned us for a race car driver.”
“Is your father home a lot?”
“Well, sure, as much as he can be. He tries to work from home as much as possible.”
“What work does he do?”
“He’s a consultant.”
The glance the cops shared was one step from an eye roll. “Well, son, we have a search warrant here. Want to step aside so we can take care of this?” It wasn’t a request.
“But . . . shouldn’t you call my dad? He’s not far. He can be here in a few minutes.”
“I’m afraid he’s across state lines, kid. We’ll have him in custody shortly.” Realizing the police knew every word out of his mouth had been a lie, he’d wished a thunderbolt would incinerate him on the spot. “Social Services should be here in a few minutes.”
“We don’t need that,” he said quickly. “I’m eighteen. Two months and three days,” he added for extra accuracy, as if that could make up for his lies.
“Not up to us.” They pushed past him, flashing the warrant at him, and all he could think was to hide the chemistry book and don’t let them look at his phone with all those texts. Do they send people who try to cheat on tests to prison? What if they’re just thinking about cheating and haven’t actually done it?
After they’d rifled through Bingo’s office, filling several boxes with papers and photos and mementos, one of the officers paused at the door. “You seem like a good kid, so let me give you some advice. Remember this moment. Remember how this feels. And try to do the right thing. Even if you think you’re trying, try harder.”
He knew about the cheating. Shame, quick and ruthless, filled him the way the creek behind their house flooded every spring. He nodded, though it seemed to take a huge amount of effort to move his head. Getting his legs to move, to carry him to the door, sapped the rest of his energy. After closing it, he watched out the window as the officers carried their boxes to the two police cars parked outside. Every neighbor on the street was blatantly watching the show.
Even though he’d never, not once, considered cheating at anything ever again, that hot, sickening, debilitating sense of shame had moved in and become such a permanent fixture he didn’t even notice it anymore. It was just there, like red on roses or stink on shit. But sometimes it crept out of its hiding hole and sapped the life out of him.
Farrio was pitching now. Bases were still loaded, but he struck out the next batter. The audience responded by cheering and waving big foam toothbrushes in the air. Caleb grinned, feeling slightly better. No matter what, life went on. So did baseball.
He scanned the crowd. White sunglasses. There was Bingo. He’d moved seats. What was he doing here anyway? If he was looking for another old lady to scam, a ballpark wasn’t the best hunting ground. He shaded his eyes and squinted to see who Bingo was talking to, and saw red.
Sadie in red. Talking to Bingo.
Everything that happened next was a blur.
Chapter 9
DUKE SLAMMED HIS office door so hard a framed photo of Nolan Ryan fell off the wall and toppled face forward, as if ashamed to be in the room with Caleb.
Caleb winced. He stayed close to the door, not daring to get any closer to his furious manager. Not when he was in this kind of mood.
“What the fuck were you doing up there? If you say helping that man with dental hygiene, I’ll bench you for a month.”
“Sorry, Duke,” Caleb muttered.
“Sorry? Sorry? You’re supposed to be making the Catfish look good. Not assaulting our customers in the stands.”
“I didn’t assault—”
“Did I miss an e-mail? Does Sluggers for Slugs mean actually slugging the fans?”
“There was no slugging.”
Duke flung himself into his chair, shoved a big wad of cherry gum in his face, then bolted to his feet again. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening at any other ballpark. A pitcher climbing into the stands and whaling on a fan.”
“It won’t happen again.” He cleared his throat, scrambling to come up with some kind of explanation without revealing too much. “I was in the dugout, and I thought I saw a crime in progress. My protective instincts kicked in.”
“Nice try.”
And yet, it was the truth. The only thing on his mind had been getting Bingo away from Sadie. It had worked too. Bingo had slipped through his grasp and scurried out of the ballpark.
“When I realized I was mistaken, I hung out with the crowd for a little while. I signed twenty foam toothbrushes. And one woman’s chest.”
“Who was it? Who’d you think you saw up there?”
Fuck. Cold fear sent icy fingers down his spine. He couldn’t afford for Duke to know that Bingo was in town. “I told you, it was a mistake.”
Duke butted his chest against Caleb’s. The scent of cherry blasted him in the face. “If you got family shit going on, deal with it outside the ballpark.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have to put this in my report to San Diego, Hart. What am I supposed to say? He’s getting the juice back, but losing his freaking mind?”
Caleb stayed silent, letting Duke get the rest of his rant out. He knew he deserved every spitting word. It was probably nothing compared to the fury Sadie would dish out.
She’d been so horrified by the crazy scene that she crawled behind the bleachers and disappeared even faster than Bingo. He’d texted her and gotten no response. Bingo, on the other hand, had texted him about twenty apologies. His agent had sent him a scathing message saying they needed to talk, stat.
When Tessa and the twins called that night, Caleb had to tell them what happened. Teddy and Frankie kept cracking up and asking if anyone had been filming it. But Tessa said only, “Geez, Caleb. Are you trying to get the Friars to drop you?”
Could he possibly fuck things up worse? Hard to imagine.
The next day, things got worse. Caleb stared at the sports section of the Kilby Press-Herald, which featured a crisp color photo of his hand fisted around Bingo’s shirt, his father’s weird sunglasses making him look like a pinned bug. Sadie stood next to them, mouth open, hands in the air as if she were on a roller coaster. In the background a forest of foam toothbrushes waved.
Bingo peered over his shoulder. “Those sunglasses were a good call, I think.”
“Yes, a genius move. Thank you for that, Bingo.” Not. “You still haven’t explained why you came to a game when I asked you to stay away from the ballpark.”
“When you were a kid you cried when I didn’t make it to a game.”
“No, I didn’t.” Yes, he did. But the hell if he’d admit it now. That naïve kid was dead and gone.
“I’m trying to be supportive, Caleb.” Bingo wandered to the fridge, his linen trousers incongruously elegant in the tiny kitchen. “What do you want from me?”
“If you want to be supportive, you could start with the finances. How’s the job hunt going?”
Bingo took out a carton of orange juice and poured himself a huge glassful. That orange juice was expensive. The man never denied himself anything, as far as Caleb could tell.
“Well, son, it’s not easy when all your job experience is of an illicit nature. But things are looking good over at the Laundromat. It’s far beneath my skill level, but my probation officer keeps reminding me not to be so picky. It will give me plenty of time to work on my memoirs.”
“Your ‘memoirs’?”
“Under a pen name, of course. Don’t get so panicky, son. I have a pretty fascinating life story, or so they tell me.”
Either Bingo was making this up as a way to get under his skin, or he was serious, in which case . . . well, either way, Caleb didn’t wan
t to hear any more about it. He brushed past his father and grabbed the phone book that sat on top of the refrigerator along with other assorted junk.
The white pages listed only one Merritt, first name Brenda, on Brownsville Lane. He snapped it shut and tossed it on the counter. “I have to go see someone. I’ll be back later. If you go out, don’t wear those sunglasses. They’re too recognizable. You can wear mine.” He tossed his aviators to his dad.
“Sure thing, kiddo. Don’t want to cause any more trouble.”
Of course he didn’t. He never wanted to. It just happened no matter what.
Caleb drove to the address listed, which was in a low-rent neighborhood where every tiny house seemed to have an old truck or junk car parked in the front yard. Not so different from some of the neighborhoods he’d lived in, when Bingo’s luck was on a downslide.
Taking a deep breath, he rang the doorbell of a vinyl-sided, salmon-pink house with an old TV antenna sticking from the roof at an oddly jaunty angle.
A woman in her forties, with sleepy eyes and long black hair piled on her head, opened the door. She pulled a white earbud from one ear, and Caleb caught the faint sound of a droning voice. “Well, who the heck are you?”
“I’m Caleb Hart.”
“Get out of town.”
Did she mean that literally? He opened his mouth to ask if Sadie lived there, but just then she appeared at the end of the hallway, barefoot, in a tight white top over a sports bra. Her ragged cutoff jeans ended just below her ass and left her long legs bare.
“Sadie, can I talk to you for a few minutes?”
“I’m kind of busy,” she said stiffly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m helping my mom with some important stuff. Which is why I haven’t answered the phone.”
Sadie didn’t seem interested in introducing him to her mother, so he took matters into his own hands. “I’m Caleb,” he told her mother. “It’s nice to meet you . . .”
She got a look on her face that reminded him strongly of the first moment he’d met Sadie, when she’d elbowed him in the stomach and told him to watch where he was going. “Brenda Merritt.”
All of Me Page 10
