Come Back to the Ballpark, Maisy Gray

by Cynthia Tennent

  Zoom was still talking. Sam tore his eyes away from Maisy and stared at the two-lane highway ahead. Funny how, in the space of a moment, he was suddenly on Maisy’s side.

  “Sam?” Maisy’s clear voice was breathy and soft. He liked the way she said his name. As if she cared. It might have been the way she would say it from the next pillow first thing in the morning.

  “Make her bring some cute little shorts,” Zoom’s voice blasted. “The fans will like seeing her cute—”

  Click.

  Sam stared at his phone wondering where he had just gotten the guts to hang up on his boss.

  “Sam. Are you okay? You look a little pale.”

  He’d tell Zoom later that he’d hit a dead zone. Something like that. And he wouldn’t think about dirty old men like Zoom eyeing Maisy in shorts…even though he had done just that last night.

  Whatever the hell had just happened to him, it was time to snap out of it. Time to get back to the point of this whole dog and pony show. The one that called for him to lie to Maisy…

  It was only a little lie. It was for her sake just as much as it was for his.

  He pulled up a report Tristan sent on his phone. “I have work to catch up on if you don’t mind.”

  “No. I don’t mind. But are you okay? Is your toe hurting?”

  “No. Don’t worry.” It was kind of nice to think that she cared about him.

  For the next thirty minutes, Sam tried to focus on the world of stats, budgets, and numbers. Somehow none of it was so pressing now that he was out of the office and away from the constant stream of interruptions that made up his day. That was typical for him. Even when he got home after games, he often found himself fielding phone calls and emails. Usually he fell asleep in a bed covered with folders, his laptop propped up beside him. With nothing but a pillow and the sound of rain outside the bedroom window last night, he’d slept like a baby.

  They were an hour out of Indianapolis when Maisy turned into a parking lot. “Do you mind if we make a pitstop for a cup of coffee? Neither one of us got to finish ours this morning. Or the muffins.”

  “Sure.” Sam turned off his phone and let his eyes readjust to the sunlight.

  Time for plan B.

  Chapter Ten

  The Fork in the Road Diner had been a favorite pit stop for Maisy years ago, when she’d driven back and forth between the apartment she shared with Kevin in Indianapolis and home. The vintage sign by the road was still missing a light in one of its letters. The faded red-and-green awnings over the windows hadn’t been replaced. Like the old days, the parking lot was full.

  Kevin had never wanted to stop at The Fork in the Road. He’d preferred the McDonald’s at the next exit. She, on the other hand, appreciated the family ownership and the way the waitresses stuck their pencils in their hair after they wrote down the order.

  Maisy sat across from Sam in a red booth and watched him pour three packs of sugar into one cup of coffee. “Easy there. Is that the real stuff?”

  He frowned. “You got a problem with that?”

  “No, but you seem to.”

  He shrugged. “I like it sweet.”

  “You wanted it black at my parents’ house earlier.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, I like to try it without sugar at least once a day. I’m hoping someday I’ll actually like it that way.”

  Interesting. A man who struggled with a sugar addiction. “That’s going to make you crash if you aren’t careful.”

  “Yes, Mom.” Obviously, he was touchy about his sugar habit.

  “Do you ever take a break from work?” she couldn’t help asking.

  “Sure.”

  “When?”

  He folded his arms across the table and gave her a sunny smile. “Right now.”

  She wasn’t sure if she believed him. Still, his phone was in his pocket. At least he seemed to have given up coercing her to come to the stadium. He hadn’t tried to convince her to come to the ballpark once this morning. It felt like a white flag had been raised between them. Maybe they could find a way to have a normal conversation.

  “So, you’re from California?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll bet you miss all that surfing and sunshine.”

  “Not quite.” He shook his head ruefully, as if he got that line all the time.

  “You don’t like the beach?” She tapped the counter with her finger.

  “I didn’t live anywhere near the beach growing up. My hometown was pretty working class.” He sipped that sugary coffee. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “I’m curious how a working-class kid ends up at an Ivy League university like Yale and then major-league baseball?”

  He froze. “How did you know all this?”

  “Wikipedia.” Yes, she’d gotten up in the middle of the night in between all her tossing and turning and Googled Sam Hunter. “It wasn’t hard. The info was all right there. Baseball scholarship to Yale University. Graduated from the School of Management summa cum laude. Worked your way up through the ranks in Boston. A brief stint in Baltimore. Now second year with the Turbos.” She didn’t add the other part. Youngest manager in the game. He seemed touchy about that.

  He pursed his lips and made a fair imitation of Sarah Halderman. “Young lady, I am surprised at you. I feel so violated.”

  “Hey, you know everything about me. The least you can do is answer a few questions, young man.” She liked the way his eyebrows didn’t always work together when he made that funny grin. It was adorable.

  He held up his hand. “Okay, before you ask, I’ll tell you. Yes, it’s true.”

  She made a little whistle. “Yale. Wow.”

  “Fluke. They needed a catcher who didn’t blow up the GPA on the admissions grid. I’m not that smart.”

  “Oh, sure…” She didn’t believe him for a second. “Family?”

  The waitress brought her bagel and his omelet with home fries and toast.

  “Is that all you’re going to eat?” he complained.

  “I love bagels.” She smeared on the cream cheese. “Don’t change the subject. Family?” she asked again, taking a bite.

  “I was unlucky enough to have three sisters. All younger.”

  She chewed for a moment. “Somehow, I can’t imagine you surrounded by three little sisters.”

  “You and me both.”

  “Who was barking from your personal phone earlier?”

  “Little sister number one.” He put his hand up. “No, she isn’t a dog. She loves Labrador retrievers. She has two. No, three. I bought her a puppy last spring. I haven’t met him yet.”

  A man who bought his sister puppies. Her heart melted a tiny bit. “That’s pretty nice. The only thing Chad buys for me is groceries so I can cook him more meals when he visits. His wife isn’t much of a cook. Just curious, what is your mother’s ring tone?”

  “The Titanic theme.”

  “Because you want her to sink in a cold sea?”

  He laughed. “No. Because she loves cruises. It’s my inside joke.”

  “Did you get her one of those like you got your sister a puppy?”

  “Every year.”

  “All right, now I am curious. What’s your ring tone for your other sisters?”

  “Beyoncé, ‘Girls Run the World’ for my middle sister. She’s in law school. Very smart. Very bossy.”

  “Nice. I like her. And the youngest sister?”

  He pulled out his phone and played the Psycho theme song.

  She almost snorted out her coffee. “Oh, my God, I should have given Chad that ring tone. What about your dad?”

  His face lost all humor. “Just a ring.”

  He grabbed the salt and pepper at the side of the table and added a generous amount to his omelet. Maisy wanted to know why he hadn’t assi
gned his father a ring tone. She wanted to know how a man from a working-class background handled Yale. How a baseball player became a businessman. How he could look so fit and add three packets of sugar to his coffee.

  He scarfed down the omelet as if it were his last meal. His plate was almost empty. He was an efficient eater. Polite but fast. He probably had to be quick with a job like his.

  “One more question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What was it you were talking about with Charlie Zumaeta?”

  He chewed, swallowed, and ran his napkin across his mouth. “Actually, I was just about to tell you when you started playing twenty-one questions.”

  “That was only like ten questions.”

  He ignored her. “Mr. Zumaeta wanted to show you his gratitude for coming out to the ballpark. But I told him you weren’t going.”

  She stopped with the bagel halfway to her mouth. “What was included in his gratitude?”

  Sam’s face went blank. “It’s not important. I told him you aren’t interested.”

  “I’m just curious…”

  “Ten thousand dollars in supplies for your school.”

  She stuffed the bagel in her mouth and chewed. But her mouth was dry. She had to suck in a full glass of water to help the food, and the thought of ten thousand dollars, go down.

  ***

  Ten thousand.

  Maisy was still thinking about it as they entered Indianapolis.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Sam said.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  “Listen, don’t let Zoom’s offer bother you.”

  Easy for him to say.

  “Maisy, you are the most important person in this whole thing. Remember that. Not the Turbos. Not the fans. Your parents will be fine in another few weeks when the phone stops ringing. And your students? There are all sorts of ways to raise money. Right?”

  Little did he know. Last summer’s fundraiser had been their most successful yet. But they’d worked hard for it. And they had only raised three thousand. It had barely covered fifth-grade calculators.

  “Everyone understands how painful it was when Kevin dump— well, when you broke up. They don’t expect you to go.”

  Her face heated up at the thought of people feeling sorry for her. Was she that pitiful? Suddenly she wasn’t sure about her decision. Was not coming to the game a bigger mistake than going?

  Sam directed Maisy to the underground garage in his apartment building. The Commodore. She knew it well. It was one of the fancier buildings in Indianapolis. She and Kevin had looked at it when they were shopping for a place to live after they got married.

  “Come on up and I’ll arrange for a car for you,” Sam said. He sent her an easy smile. As if none of this was the least bit stressful.

  She handed Sam his keys and they headed through the dim garage toward the elevator. The air felt hot and stuffy, as if all the engines had been turned on at once.

  “You can use the guest apartment if you want to freshen up. No one’s there and it’s just sitting empty,” he said.

  “Not necessary. I’m going to call my friend’s mother and stop by. She lives in town.”

  While they waited for the elevator, Maisy pulled out her phone and called Heather’s mom. Maybe Marla could help walk her through the doubts that whirled in her fickle mind.

  “Hello, Maisy?” Laughter roared in the background.

  “You sound like you’re having a party,” Maisy said.

  “My sisters are visiting from Louisville. They brought Aunt Alice and my cousin Riatta. There is so much smack talk the roof is going to blow off this house. How are you, honey?”

  “Great.” Maisy didn’t want to interrupt family time. The numbers on the digital screen showed the elevator was almost at the garage level. “Just checking up on you, but I’ll call later.”

  “Okay, honey. Love ya!”

  The elevator door opened. Automatically she stepped inside.

  Sam followed her and his finger hesitated over the key pad. “What’s your plan?”

  Maisy bit her lip. She could be stupid or brave. They were interchangeable for the decision before her. Either way it felt like she was going to lose.

  “I have been thinking…”

  It wasn’t the thought of a comfortable bed or the owner’s suite or even the ten thousand dollars that made her change her mind. It was all the talk, no, the actual idea that Sam had planted in her mind. The assumption that she was too scarred by Kevin’s betrayal to attend a Turbos game again. That’s what bothered her the most. Because there was a grain of truth in that suggestion that weighed on her like a boulder.

  Last month, she had almost missed coming to the stadium with her wonderful fourth graders because she was scared to see Kevin. For the past few years, she had denied her amazing father the opportunity to watch the Turbos on TV, because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. And here she was now. Making this ridiculous situation worse because of her own fear.

  She had been kicking herself for all kinds of things when it came to Kevin. But the real question she had to ask herself was, how strong could she be?

  A car pulled into the parking lot. Maisy pushed the button to close the door. “You know what? If it makes the fans happy, what’s the big deal? And even better, if it earns a little money for my kids and their school supplies, that is good, too.” She stopped. She was inexplicably out of breath. As if she had been running for miles and miles.

  Sam stepped toward her. “You’re flushed. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” It came out as a squeak.

  Maisy stepped backwards until her shoulders came in contact with the faux wood and metal wall of the elevator.

  “Maisy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You aren’t going to be sick or anything are you?”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Claustrophobic,” she lied.

  “We could take the stairs.”

  “No. Just give me a second.” The elevator wasn’t moving yet. They hadn’t pushed a floor. “Let’s just…just go upstairs to that apartment.”

  For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, “Are you saying you will come to the ballpark tonight?”

  She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. He was so close she could feel his breath on her face. She wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss her or if he was laughing at her.

  When the waiting was too much, she peeked.

  “Pardon me,” he said as he reached across her and hit the elevator button.

  ***

  Resistance and victory.

  The former was a skill Sam hadn’t needed since he was a freshman in high school and Caroline Dunn had cornered him underneath the back stairs to the gym. Thanks to his father’s strong jaw and his mother’s pretty hair, Sam had always been popular with the girls. His friends teased that all they had to do was stand next to him and they could have second pick to the school dance. By the time he was a senior in high school, they’d changed that to first pick. Sam had been too busy studying to earn that acceptance to Yale to bother with the girls. That’s where the resistance had come in.

  As for the latter, Sam didn’t feel like he’d won a victory. He felt like a user. A man who took advantage of people in their weakest states and bullied them to get what he wanted. Like his father.

  He had been thirteen when he had opened his ears and eyes to his dad’s bullying as he screamed at Sam from the bleachers. Joe Hunter had been out of work and on disability by then. He had stopped sending child support payments to Sam’s mother, too. That didn’t stop him from coming to the games and coaching him from the stands. Irrationally, Sam had thought that if he played well enough, his father might come back home.

  On that afternoon, the California sun had beat down, and the sweat ran down the b
ack of his neck as he faced the best pitcher in his league. The pitch had been a fastball. He could practically feel the bat connect in his mind. See it sail over the right-field fence. Hear his father proudly cheering.

  He’d swung and missed.

  The string of four letter words out of his father’s mouth had been enough to get Dad kicked out of the stands for the rest of the season. Sam was so mortified he had wanted to quit on the spot.

  After the game, the umpire had cornered him in the parking lot. He had been a white-haired man with a good eye. Sam had respected his calls. “Do you love this sport, son?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How much?”

  “More than practically anything.” Apart from his mother and maybe even his annoying little sisters.

  “Then don’t ever let anyone keep you from it, son. Play because you love the game and not for any other reason. Don’t ever let anyone, including your father, get between you and what you love. That’s how you’ll win.”

  Sam never forgot his words.

  There was nothing more important than the game. He had a team and a thin budget that needed his attention. He had a demanding owner to please. And he had a woman to get to the stadium.

  In the closeness of the elevator, with her silky hair brushing his neck, it was not, repeat, not in his plans to get cozy with Maisy Gray. Even though that’s all he could think of.

  ***

  Turned out, Maisy needed somewhere to stay after all. Sam escorted her to the apartment seven floors above his own, amazed to see that Joanie already had fresh flowers on the entry table.

  Maisy skewered him with a skeptical eye when she spotted the basket of fruit and pastries set out on the dining room table. He waved it away. “That’s available every weekend for whichever guest comes in at the last minute.”

  “And if no one comes in?”

  He looked away so she wouldn’t see the truth. Joanie had never doubted his success getting Maisy to the game. The food was all her doing. “I don’t know. I guess the maid takes it home and enjoys it.”