“But that’s not all,” Mom interrupted. “Her neighbors held an emergency meeting and elected your sister president of the neighborhood alliance!”
I tried to laugh but it hurt too much. “Lucky you,” I said to Charli.
“Oh, yeah. Lucky me.” My sister looked glum.
I watched out the window as Dad drove past the place I thought that I’d seen Lady Luck, but didn’t see her again. Maybe Charli was right. I was three days past exhaustion, taking some seriously strong pain killers, and I am a wee bit prone to letting my imagination run away with me. Just then, the woman appeared again, and this time she pointed her wand right toward me and waved it around. Then she began to do this bizarre little tap dance.
“There, there she is,” I shouted.
“Where who is, honey?” Mom asked.
“Lady Luck. Chance. Destiny. You know, one of the Divas of Doom!”
Mom and Dad both stared at me. “Don, do you think we should take her back inside?” Mom worriedly asked my Dad. “I think she’s hallucinating or something.”
“No, I’m not. She’s right over there, dancing around. Don’t y’all see her?”
Tim looked to where I was pointing. “I don’t see anyone. Do you Charli?”
Charli said she didn’t see anyone either.
“What I think, Marty,” Tim said, “is that you could use a bowl of Dave’s potato soup and a great big root beer float with a double dip of chocolate ice cream. Tell you what, if your Dad will stop at Pilazzo’s, I’ll treat.”
“Finally,” I said, and even though she was watching me, pointing that stupid wand right at me, preparing to split the uprights with my head, I went ahead and said it anyway. But, then, some people just never learn, you know?
“It’s about time I had some good luck.”
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
* * *
Copyright © 2013 Sherry M. Siska
All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
* * *
Paperback :
ISBN-13:978-1482086607
ISBN-10:1482086603
“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”
~ Dorothy Parker
This one is for Lindsey
1
“Hurry up, Marty! It’s not like we’ve got all the time in the world.”
My best friend, Tim Unser, says that to me all the time. I am much more relaxed about time management than he is; Tim thinks arriving somewhere five minutes early is equivalent to being ten minutes late.
It’s one of the umpteen zillion ways we’re polar opposites. Tim’s a neat freak. I’m not. He works out all the time. I’m practically allergic to exercise. He’s a cop and prides himself on logical thinking. I, on the other hand, tend to send my imagination out on cross-country marathons.
Recently, though, I’ve had a little more trouble than usual reigning in my, er, let’s call it creativity. For the past couple of years I’ve been convinced that those whacked out Floozies of Fate – Chance, Destiny, and Lady Luck – have been up to no good, brewing up massive amounts of mischief and mayhem for sweet, little, ol’ me. However, things took a turn for the worse recently after a particularly traumatic series of events, and I started to imagine that I was actually seeing the devilish divas. In fact, for the past few weeks, they’ve been appearing everywhere, buzzing around like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes.
Things have gotten so bad that I finally took Tim’s advice and scheduled an appointment to meet with a shrink this afternoon. I’m not looking forward to it either. What if the doc decides I’m bonkers and packs me off to the loony bin? Or talks my folks into springing for a lobotomy? They may be certifiable, but I’ve grown rather attached to my cute little crop of brain cells.
Okay, so I don’t really expect either one of those things to happen. The truth of the matter is, I think this whole therapy thing is a bunch of hooey. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. And boy, am I ever desperate. I’m starting to think that if I don’t hurry up and rid myself of the Doom Divas once and for all, Tim will be right and I’ll run completely out of time.
In fact, that’s what almost happened. Last month I got involved in yet another situation that almost cost me my life.
The whole thing was, as usual, my sister, Charli’s, fault. It’s true that I’d just barely escaped being sent to prison for a murder I didn’t commit because of Charli’s unreasonable fear of worms, but never in a million years would I have expected a simple phone call from her on a lazy Sunday to lead to an unmitigated disaster like the one I’ve dealt with these last few weeks.
“Marty,” she said once I finally got my eyes unglued and answered the phone, “have I ever got the perfect man for you.”
I groaned and almost hung up on her, but I was so sleepy that I tucked the phone in next to my ear and dozed off instead. I don’t have a clue as to how long Charli yammered on, but the next thing I remember her saying was, “So we’ll pick you up at one thirty, okay?”
And then she hung up.
One thirty? Why was she picking me up at one thirty? Had I actually agreed to go somewhere with Charli and this so-called perfect man she’d found for me? Surely not. I may moan and mumble in my sleep, but no one in his or her right mind would construe that to be a yes. Except for my sister, that is.
Charli thinks that there’s nothing wrong with my life that a walk down a church aisle, a six-tier coconut cream cake, and eighteen yards of white lace can’t cure. But, then, Charli’s the mother of three and married to the world’s greatest guy. I, on the other hand, having been stranded at the altar a mere three days before my carefully planned nuptials were scheduled to commence, have, shall we say, a slightly different opinion on the matter.
I tried calling back, but Charli’s line was busy. I punched redial over and over again for almost ten minutes and it was always busy. I gave up on her land-line and sent three texts, each one a bit more heated than the previous one.
Finally, I dialed Mom and Dad’s number. Busy too. And Mom also ignored her cell. That most likely meant that Charli and Mom were working out who was going to line up the band and which one of them would order the invites. Needless to say, Mom’s opinions on fixing my life veer to the Charli side of the equation.
Delbert, my massive black and white tomcat, sandpapered the back of my hand with his tongue and let out a really pitiful sounding meow. I pulled on a pair of shorts and yanked my hair back into a ponytail, then went into the kitchen to rustle up a can of Kitty Gourmet for him and a chocolate doughnut for me. Ahh, chocolate: the breakfast of champions.
The clock on my beat-up microwave told me that it was twelve forty-five. I know that sounds late, but I’d been to a party the night before. Besides, I was scheduled to go back to work the next day after having been laid off for several months. I’m a DJ at a ‘hot country’ radio station and my new hours meant I’d have to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:00 A.M. I was trying to store up as much snooze time as I could.
I tried Charli’s number again before I hopped into the shower, but it was still busy. And she was evidently ignoring my texts, now totaling seven, which all basically said, “call me”, but in slightly less g-rated language. Since I couldn’t reach her, I finally gave up and decided not to fight it. Truthfully, even if I did, I knew I’d end up doing whatever the heck it was that Charli wanted me to do. At least this way I wouldn’t have to listen to her whine and lecture for an hour before giving in.
Because I didn’t have the foggiest notion of where we were going, I dressed in my all-purpose denim skirt, a Mandy Barnett t-shirt, and a slightly scuffed pair of flip-flops. It took me all of twelve minutes to get ready, so I ate another chocolate doughnut,
drank a root beer, and brushed my teeth. Charli rang the doorbell just as I stuck my wallet in my pocket and gave Delbert a goodbye pat.
Silly me. I actually spit into the wind and went to answer the damned thing.
“Baseball? But you hate baseball,” I said as I settled into the backseat of Charli’s fancy new silver SUV and buckled up. “In fact, your exact words were “I’ll roll in pig slop before I go to another baseball game”. Right, John?”
John, Charli’s husband, didn’t let me down. “Joe’s Farm Petting Zoo is on the way to the stadium. I called and told them to water down the hog trough.”
Charli took the high road and ignored us. “I can’t wait for you to meet Harry, Marty. He’s so interesting. He’s not good looking in that plastic Ricky Ray way. (That would be Ricky Ray Riley, country music heartthrob, recent Grammy nominee, and the man who abandoned me at the altar.) Harry’s what people call handsome. He’s got an angular face, really great sandy blonde hair, and the most amazing green eyes. Oh my gosh, those eyes of his are really something else. So soulful. The eyes of a poet.” She shifted around in her seat and looked back at me through the gap. “And seriously, Marty, the man has the best body I’ve ever seen!” She glanced toward her husband. “Well, next to John’s, of course.”
John smiled and gave Charli’s hand a squeeze before flicking the signal and turning onto Main Street. “Nice save, babe.”
“So he’s meeting us there?” I asked.
Charli turned back around, flipped down the visor, and checked her flawless makeup in the little lighted mirror. “Yes. Well, sort of. I thought I told you when I called. He’s a ball player. A pitcher. He was sent down to rehabilitate an injury or something.”
“How’d you meet him?” I asked through a yawn. I probably could have used another hour or two of sleep. The nine I’d had didn’t seem to have done the trick.
Charli stopped messing with her perfectly coiffed ash-blonde hair and peered at me in the gap again. “Geez, Marty! Don’t you ever listen to people? I told you all about it when I called. He’s staying at Kyle Zagle’s place. Kyle’s late wife was his cousin or something like that.”
Kyle Zagle had briefly lived across the street from Charli, but had recently moved back out west. At one point, I’d thought we were on our way to a love connection, but I’d been wrong. The good news was that he’d helped me get my job back. Kyle was a great guy. Hopefully, this Harry guy would be too.
John pulled into the parking lot of the beautiful new baseball stadium our city had just opened and found a space. The Bombers are a minor league, single A team, but the facility was first class all the way. Here in Glenvar, (population twenty thousand or so) folks pride themselves on doing things “right”.
The field has a magnificent view of the surrounding mountains and there’s not a bad seat in the house. It also has plenty of snack bars and beer carts, and lots of tables and chairs dotting the concourse for those more interested in socializing and people watching than game-viewing. Families love the kids’ play area, which has a bunch of those bouncy castles and slides. A gang of little boys were already playing a spirited game of throw-back tackle in the grassy area between the concourse and the fence.
“By the way, where are the kidlets?” I asked, referring to John and Charli’s three adorable rug rats, Kevin, Adam, and Jaelyn.
“I knew you weren’t listening! I told you that when I called too. Kevin and Adam went on a camping trip with the church Ranger Scouts and Jaelyn is spending the night with John’s folks,” Charli answered. “This is our first date night in so long. Maybe we can go out to dinner or something after the game. That way, you can get to know Harry, but without a lot of pressure.”
I mumbled a “we’ll see” and followed John to the office, where Charli’s new friend had left the tickets. We found our seats, front row, just to the right of the home team dugout, and John went off to buy us some peanuts and beer. I squinted and studied the players warming up on the field, seeing if I could figure out which one was the mysterious Harry. The pitcher warming up was cute, but not at all the sort of man Charli had described, so I counted him out pretty quickly.
“Let me see those binoculars,” I told Charli.
She handed them to me, but, before I could get them adjusted, she poked me in the shoulder. “There,” she whispered. “He’s coming out of the dugout.”
I dropped the binoculars in my lap, looked up, and locked eyes with him. Charli was right. The man was something else. If anything, she hadn’t done him enough justice. He was exceptionally handsome. He was dressed in uniform, complete with those tight baseball pants, and a dark green Bombers ball cap. He smiled at me, tipped his hat, and winked.
I’m not sure, but I might have gasped. I know I felt one of those tingles that burble up from deep inside and make you feel like you’re about to catch on fire. Talk about raging hormones. One look, that one tiny little look, and I knew right then and there that Harry Evans was a heartache waiting to happen. If I’d had a lick of sense, the tiniest shred of sanity, I’d have jumped up from that blue plastic seat and high-tailed it home.
But I didn’t. Even though I knew better, knew that I should be running as fast and as far away from him as I could get, I didn’t. Just a few seconds of gazing into those eyes and the next thing I knew, I was in way, way over my head. I fell in so deep, as a matter of fact, that I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to completely recover from what happened.
2
He met us at Pilazzo’s after the game for the best pizza this side of Italy. Pilazzo’s is a wonder of a place. It used to be an old gas station, but now it’s a dive. A dive with awesome food and great people, but a dive nonetheless.
I was actually surprised Charli agreed to go there. Usually, at the mere mention of the place, she shudders and makes gagging noises. Personally, I think the slight odor of gasoline and motor oil adds to the charm. Charli just thinks it’s nasty.
Evidently, the image of Harry Evans in a wedding tux was enough to overcome her disgust, though, because she didn’t even blink an eye when he sent word by one of the ball boys asking that we meet there.
At first we didn’t say much, mainly because Charli chattered on and on like someone had stuck a penny in and wound her up. Harry smiled and nodded and laughed at all the right places, and actually seemed to be listening to Charli’s monologue. I picked at the label on my beer bottle and pretended to do the same.
I tried not to stare at him, but it was pretty hard. Harry definitely had the best body I’d ever seen. And I didn’t even have to suck up to John. I liked the way his jeans fit and I appreciated the heck out of his biceps. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair and see if his lips were as soft as they looked. But, like Charli had said, it was those eyes that really got me.
Three times I caught him looking back at me. All three times, I felt like I was falling into some sort of abyss. My heart pounded so loud that I thought I was going to have to use the bar’s recently-installed defibrillator before the night was over.
Finally, when the pizza arrived, Charli stopped talking long enough to let the rest of us get a word in. The nice thing was that Harry came across as someone who was comfortable in his own skin, confident, but not excessively cocky, unlike a lot of the extremely good-looking guys I’d met before. He asked me lots of questions and seemed really interested in getting to know me. He put me at such ease, that I got over my nervousness and began to enjoy myself.
It also turned out he wasn’t some dumb jock; he was charming and funny and really smart. He spent his off-seasons taking classes for his Master’s degree in sports psychology and was due to start his final thesis as soon as the season ended.
“I probably should know this, but when does the season end?” I asked.
“Next week. I might stay on for a bit after that so I can have a quiet place to work on my thesis. Depends on if Kyle sells the house.”
“Glenvar is nothing if not quiet. In fact, if it had one, “Boring”
would be its middle name.” I picked a pepperoni off of my pizza and nibbled at it. “So, Charli said you were doing rehab for an injury. That must suck.”
He took a big drink of his beer before answering. “It does. I’ve had a sore shoulder off and on for a year or so. Rotator cuff tendinitis. I was in triple-A ball last year, about to get called up to the show, but instead I had to take off about three months. I recovered over the winter, then slowly worked back into throwing again.
“Team bounced me down to the double-A league while I tried to get the juice back. Things were finally looking good and I thought I was going back up, but then it started hurting again last month. They D.L’d me, I rehabbed, and finally, Doc cleared me to go live. Team sent me down here a couple weeks ago to do it. The Zippers, that’s the double-A team I’m with, are in a playoff race. But, it feels good, so I’m hoping I’ll be firing on all cylinders again and heading back up in time for post-season. Maybe even make it back up to my old triple A team.”
In contrast to everything he’s said before, which had sounded very adult-like and smooth, this bit he delivered in a nervous, staccato voice like a high school kid hopped up on sugar and caffeine. It was sort of odd, to be honest.
After we’d scarfed down the pizza and beer, John suggested we shoot pool. “How about girls against the guys?”
“No fair!” I said. “Charli doesn’t even know which end of the cue to use. Last time we played, she almost tore a hole in the felt.”
“I’ve been practicing,” she said. “I’m way better now. In fact, I watched a pool tournament on ESPN2 the other night. I learned all kinds of great tricks.”
I groaned.
“By the way, the bet’s whoever loses has to stand on the stage and sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” John shot me a wicked grin. “Better start practicing your high notes, squirt. Harry, you’re up.”
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