“I know! I was all …” Carlos acted like he was being led out of the parking lot and made his thumbs-up gesture again, which made the rest of his teammates laugh and cheer again.
Clay looked back at Karen and offered her a smile. “I think Carlos is fine.”
Karen couldn’t dispute it.
“Seriously, he’s been checked out by the team doctors. They completely indulged him in there. Used every state-of-the-art gadget they have.”
“Good. Is there something to examine your brother’s head?”
“I think they’re still looking for that tool.” He sighed, staring back at the massive brick stadium in the distance. “He’s all the family I’ve got left.”
Karen nodded her head slowly. “All right.”
He glanced at his wife, who still looked so young and beautiful in her baseball cap and shirt. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“Do you think you’ll even be able to get hold of him?”
“I don’t know,” Clay said. “But I have to try. I have to do something.”
Cory deliberately skipped meeting with the media, and he also made sure he delayed leaving the stadium for a while. As he walked out of the empty clubhouse, after getting an earful from Ross, he recalled his conversation earlier with Helene. She’d barged in on him as he was watching the other team score five runs in the eighth inning.
“You’re killing me,” she’d said as she walked toward him, wearing her panic-mode face.
“Technically it’s only batboys I’m killing,” he replied, trying to make a joke. “And he’s still alive, last I looked.”
“This isn’t funny, Cory.”
“I know. They scored five runs now that I’m out of the game.”
Helene stood next to him but didn’t even look him in the eyes as she spoke. He knew she was already trying to figure out whom to talk to and when, and what she would say to get him out of this mess. All the reasons he paid her so well.
“This is serious, Cory. I mean it.”
Cory yawned and nodded. He was tired and needed to get out of this place.
“You better get on your knees and pray that his family doesn’t sue you and the Grizzlies.”
“Get his family season tickets and some vouchers for free beer,” Cory said. “They’ll be more than excited.”
“This isn’t the year to be messing around like this,” Helene continued.
“It’ll change.”
“What will change? The team or you?”
“Both,” he said, flashing his grin and trying to convince her that everything was under control. “Once I start hitting again, everything will be fine.”
“You have to stay in the game in order to hit.”
They watched another shot to left field. The score was now six to nothing. “Yeah, they’re dying out there.”
Helene looked at her phone and shook her head. “I need to put out some fires. Can you just make sure you avoid the media?”
“What do you mean?” he joked. “Why do you think I’m waiting here? I got a seat warm and ready for Johnny Steiman.”
“Stay away from them, especially Steiman.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
Helene brushed back her hair and gave him her trademark laugh. “You bloodied a kid’s nose out there. No, you’re not an idiot. You’re just a jerk.”
“Thanks for having my back.”
“I’m here to save your pretty backside.”
Her phone summoned her attention, and she left Cory in the silence once more. He liked the banter with Helene a lot more than the solitude and the waiting.
A little while after that, one of the trainers came up to him with a smile. “We took good care of him, don’t worry.”
He’d just coldcocked a kid, and yes, it was an accident, and yes, he was trying to tell himself that over and over again. But smiley-guy here was making it seem like everything was fine and he hadn’t been just kicked out of a game they were now losing by seven runs.
“You should’ve seen the kid. He couldn’t believe he was actually being examined by an official trainer. He was really proud of that.”
“Yeah, great. Cool.”
It was already dusk when Cory walked to his car. He’d had a few uncomfortable moments with the manager and gotten cold looks from some of the guys, but that was it. He’d managed to avoid the media. Heaven forbid he came within earshot or eyesight of another Little Leaguer or his mother or perhaps a 350-pound father waving a baseball bat at his head. He wanted to leave without any fanfare or without anything to do with a fan at all.
He was ready to go home and leave this waste of an afternoon behind. Hopefully the whole thing would blow over by tomorrow.
As he approached the last remaining vehicle in the players’ lot, a black luxury Porsche SUV, he noticed someone standing by it, waiting. He wasn’t worried, because security was top-notch and not just anybody could get in this lot without clearance.
But the last person he expected to find waiting there was his baby brother, whom he hadn’t seen in over a year.
“What’s this, Clay-boy? You should’ve told me you were coming!”
To be honest, it was a relief to see him.
The relief lasted about the amount of time it took to drain a beer. The smile on Cory’s face wasn’t coming back from grim-faced Clay.
“I did.” Clay looked like he’d been knocked in the face.
Cory tried to remember if they’d spoken about Clay coming even as he grinned and unlocked the car doors.
“That’s right, that’s right. You know—that’s why I put on the big show out there.”
“You gotta be kidding me.” Clay glared at Cory. “What happened to you?”
Cory shook his head. He knew how to deal with Clay. “Aw, it’s just show biz.”
This was the last thing he needed, his little brother starting in on him. So he didn’t know Clay was coming, and didn’t play the part of the loving brother who met him on the field and introduced him to everybody and promised him a grand slam later in the game.
Yeah, maybe next time.
Cory casually tossed his bag into the back.
Clay’s expression didn’t change. “That was some serious rage out there.”
“Whatever.” He opened his car door, unwilling to be lectured.
People didn’t understand the pressure of the game. He could tell Clay this, but he was too tired and too thirsty.
“Cory, we should talk.”
Oh no. I don’t like that tone.
“Talk? ’Bout what?”
“About—you’ve got a problem.”
Clay looked so dang earnest, like a judging parent or principal or priest. But the fact was, he was none of those things. Cory didn’t have the time or the energy to be lectured by his kid brother.
“Okay, I think we’re done here.”
Cory climbed into the SUV and slammed the door, then watched as Clay opened the passenger door and sat down next to him. Cory ignored him, refusing to start the vehicle, refusing to say another word.
“I need a ride,” Clay said.
“Then call a cab. I’m going home.”
“I need a place to crash too.”
Cory chuckled in disbelief. “Forget it.”
“Hey, slugger, that kid you elbowed in the nose? He’s my son. Karen and I adopted him two months ago.”
Cory turned and saw the grim face looking at him. There was no punch line coming, no Just kidding. Clay was serious. In the black hole of his mind, Cory connected a few dots.
The team sitting behind the dugout, the kid stammering when he met him, the special attention placed on him …
“You know,” Clay continued, “it’d be nice if you actual
ly read an email or returned a call once in a while. Or remembered when you do.”
Cory exhaled. He felt like a hot-air balloon shriveling up and dropping back down to the earth. Then he let out a curse.
No wonder he was so excited to see you, you complete and utter moron. No wonder he was the designated batboy.
“I’m sorry.”
His words felt like a lone island in the middle of an endless ocean.
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t the first apology his brother had heard from him. But it was the first he’d heard personally in quite a while.
Cory rubbed the back of his head and then his eyes. For a moment, he just sat studying his brother.
The days of the two of them running around their farm seemed like a whole other life.
“You look kinda pudgy,” Cory joked.
“I could kick your butt. And I could do it without a personal trainer and a masseuse. I work for a living.”
Clay wasn’t joking, yet he still made Cory laugh. Clay always made him laugh, when he wasn’t making him feel the need to go find a priest and a confessional. Cory couldn’t believe that the batboy was Clay and Karen’s son, or that Clay had been in the stands watching the whole thing.
Uncle Cory. What a loser.
“So you’re what. Mayor now?”
“District attorney,” Clay corrected. “I get a parking place and a key to the restroom.”
“Congratulations. Just tell me they’re in different places.”
“Your humor’s not going to get you out of this one.”
It had been a year since they’d seen each other, and a lot longer than that since he had been home. Cory wasn’t even sure how many years, to be honest. When you were in this business it was hard to remember facts about others. Those details everybody else kept track of—stuff like birthdays and anniversaries and names of nieces—all drifted away like a fly ball soaring over the fence, out of reach.
“How’s Emma?”
Hearing her name on his own lips was strange. It was one thing to occasionally think of someone who used to be a big part of your life. It was another thing to utter the name out loud and realize you hadn’t done so in a long time.
Clay got serious and sober so quickly that Cory almost laughed.
“She’s good,” Clay said. “It’s been hard on her and Tyler since James died.”
Names from yesterday, from yesteryear. Cory stared at the dashboard and for a moment lost himself in a strange cloud of memories.
“She says she likes being back home in Okmulgee,” Clay said.
Good for her, and good for Okmulgee.
Cory wanted to crank up some Rage Against the Machine, but that might have been a little obvious, so he decided against any music. The cologne he’d doused over himself to cover up the smell of booze on his breath seemed to be competing with Clay’s scent of sweat and nachos.
“I think she was geared up to see you at Dad’s funeral,” Clay said. “I think we all were, to be honest.”
It’s going to come any moment now, any second, just like that inevitable curveball you just know is gonna get thrown.…
“I still can’t believe you didn’t come.”
Boom.
Cory had been waiting for those words since the moment he saw Clay standing by the SUV. They’d been waiting to be spoken for some time now.
“I couldn’t.”
That was all he would say. There was more, of course. A whole book more, but he didn’t want to—no, he couldn’t start that. Not after the kind of day he’d just had.
“I know.”
Clay sounded as though he understood.
“You hungry?” Cory asked to try to figure out some way out of this conversation.
“Yeah.”
He started up the engine and headed out of the parking lot. “It’s gonna be a salad for you, chubby.”
This time Cory did turn on the stereo, and for some reason the radio blasted an old song that seemed to be dedicated to Cory Brand.
This one’s coming from all the batboys of the world, Cory: “I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me?”
There’s something different about the girl in his freshman class at Fremont High.
He knows this, even though he can’t really admit it or articulate why.
She’s more than just a pretty face.
She’s shy when the pretty girls usually aren’t.
She’s feisty when the shy girls usually aren’t.
She’s generous when the feisty girls usually aren’t.
She’s pretty when the generous girls usually aren’t.
There’s nothing usual about Emma, and that’s why he likes her. He’s just not sure of one thing, and this is the thing that baffles him.
He doesn’t know if she likes him or not. And that makes her even more unusual.
Chapter Five
On Deck
“Okay, so you’re totally serious, right? About the whole adoption thing?”
For a moment Clay didn’t respond. He just watched his brother as he worked on the large steak on his plate like a person recently let out of prison.
“Why would I lie about something like that?”
“Because you hate your brother and want him to feel guilty for not giving you season passes.”
“That would be a long drive from Oklahoma,” Clay said. “Plus, I like my teams to win.”
“Ouch.”
They sat at a table in the back of the steakhouse. Clay had suggested they go someplace like Chili’s or T.G.I. Friday’s, but Cory laughed as if that was a joke. As if the very mention of those restaurant chains was so far below his lifestyle that they were a punch line. Cory instead had driven to Elway’s. The servers were professionals who apparently didn’t pay attention to baseball games. Clay had actually felt a bit silly in his jersey and cap, walking into the fine dining establishment.
“I thought you said you were hungry,” Cory said.
“I was thinking more of fast food or something.”
“Should’ve gotten the rib eye. I told you I’m paying.”
“Such generosity.”
Clay thought of the last time they had spoken, over the phone after their father’s funeral. He’d just wanted to know why Cory hadn’t been there, but all he got was a drunken rampage about a messed-up childhood and the pressures of the game. Cory obviously didn’t remember the conversation, because he’d ended it with some harsh things to say about Clay.
“You guys all should’ve spent the night,” Cory said as he took a sip of his beer.
“Did you want a team of Little Leaguers spending the night with you?”
“I’m talking about Karen and you. And the boy.”
“Carlos.”
“Yeah, Carlos.”
Clay picked at the pasta in front of him. Nothing about this felt natural. The fine linens at the table, the hushed atmosphere, the expensive clothes Cory wore. At least back in the stadium, things made a little more sense. Even with the hysterical Cory Brand going off. That was a picture he recognized. This was something that belonged to someone else’s life.
“It took a lot for Karen just to agree to the ball game,” Clay said.
Cory shook his head, obviously not wanting to talk about it. He was a good-looking guy—always had been. The resemblance was there, of course, but with Cory everything was always just a little more. He was a little taller and a little broader. His eyes were a little more striking, his smile a little more shiny. Clay could play sports, but not like Cory. Living with someone like that day after day, this brilliant bursting sun that was impossible for the world to miss, simply made the shadows in Clay’s own life all the more noticeable.
“I really thought you knew we
were coming.”
“It happens,” Cory said in a casual, everything’s-going-to-be-fine manner. “I’ll make up for it. I’ll make sure Carlos doesn’t regret coming.”
Clay chuckled. “Are you kidding me? He’s already on top of the world. It’s his mother I’m worried about.”
“Yeah, well …”
Cory obviously wasn’t so worried about Karen. Perhaps he’d given up on her the same way Karen had given up on him.
“You know, this past year—with Dad passing away and our adopting Carlos—a lot has happened.”
Cory nodded but didn’t look at him, not really.
Don’t push him like you usually do. Don’t force the issue.
“There’s just—it’s been a pretty wild year.”
“You and me both,” Cory said with a knowing laugh.
Clay knew what Cory was talking about. He didn’t want to admit this to his brother, but every day Clay kept track of Cory Brand. The name and the number. One of the first things he did every morning was Google the name to see if there was any news on him. He was interested in the games, of course, and he watched all of them that time allowed. But Clay couldn’t care less about stats or streaks or any of that stuff. He cared about the news items that linked Cory to some latest bit of trouble. A fight in a bar or being seen in public with some floozy actress. Clay wanted the star athlete to go away and his brother to come back home. To get straightened out and to be in his life—their lives—once again.
The server came, and Cory didn’t hesitate to order another glass of beer. Clay wanted to say something about the drinking but knew he couldn’t. Not here, not tonight. All it would do was make Cory shut down.
I said enough in that last phone conversation.
He was here with his brother and spending the night at his condo. That was a start.
Clay would pray that this was indeed just the start of something bigger and better for the two of them. The start of Cory finding his way back home. One way or another.
Sometimes the condo felt like another hotel room in another state. Or another home belonging to another person.
Cory made small talk with Clay and set him up in the living room to sleep. The guest bedroom was a complete disaster, a storage place that he used for everything, including his baseball gear. He never had guests. Usually Cory was the one staying overnight somewhere else. This was a bachelor pad. Designed for a bachelor who didn’t spend a lot of time at home.
Home Run: A Novel Page 4
