Fireside

by Susan Wiggs

  “The Yankees,” she repeated, feeling a sinking sensation in her stomach. “As in the New York Yankees?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s been a long time coming. I was at November tryouts down in Florida, same as I am every year. And I figure every year, I’m going to get the same song and dance—no room on the roster. This year, there was an opening on their pitching staff.”

  Kim felt queasy. A bass player she could handle. A tall guy with long hair and blue eyes—she could deal with that, too. But an athlete? A major leaguer? It was a nightmare. After the Lloyd fiasco, she didn’t want a thing to do with athletes in any way, shape or form, ever again. And here was one expecting to move into the house where she lived. She must be cursed. What god had she angered? What karmic boundary had she crossed?

  His smile faded as he stared at her. “You all right?”

  “Um, yes. Why do you ask?”

  “You look a little green around the gills. I usually get a different reaction when I tell people I’m going to pitch for the Yankees. Or at least, accused of being delusional.”

  She swallowed hard. “No, I believe you. It must be very exciting.”

  “No sh—er, yeah, it is.” As though he couldn’t help himself, he smiled again.

  Under different circumstances, this would be an auspicious meeting—a media relations expert and a newly minted major-league player. And—she couldn’t help herself—it was in her nature to assess a guy like this. The first thing that struck her was that, for a rookie, he was long in the tooth. Judging by his looks and the age of his son, Bo Crutcher was in his late twenties or early thirties. Already, she caught herself speculating about him—what was his story? In spite of herself, she thought about his image. If this was true and not some fantasy, then this guy needed some serious work.

  She had a sixth sense about what it took to make it in sports. Talent was only the beginning. Pro athletes today were packaged, and everything had to be in that package. Talent—of course. But there were other elements crucial to an athlete’s success. His determination and heart. His looks and personality, the way he presented himself. Especially when it came to the Yankees. During the season, at any given time there might be fifty members of the press in the clubhouse, and only a couple of areas were off-limits. A guy’s public persona was extremely crucial. This guy—Bo Crutcher—there was something about that lion’s mane of hair, that face...she had a hard time looking away from him. Then she caught herself noticing the icy clarity of his blue eyes, and the shape of his mouth and—

  Kim made herself quit speculating. This guy wasn’t even close to ready. She wondered if he knew that. She wondered why she cared. She felt a flare of irrational anger at her mother, who had gone to the market, leaving Kim in charge. Penelope had told her the newcomer would be a “nice young man and his son” who had come on Dino’s recommendation. But never in her most lunatic moments had Kim imagined it could be a professional athlete. She tended not to connect “nice” with “professional athlete.” Sure, there were probably plenty of nice ones out there, but she always seemed to encounter the other kind.

  “This feels like my lucky day,” he said. “I wanted to explain about the airport—”

  “That’s best forgotten,” she interrupted. “Mr. Crutcher...” She caught his look. “I won’t lie to you. If it were up to me, I’d ask you to find someplace else to live. But this is my mother’s establishment, and, based on Mr. Carminucci’s reference, she wants to accommodate you.”

  He offered her the warmest of smiles, as if she’d just welcomed him with open arms. “We’re going to get along just fine,” he said. “I got a feeling a house like this is just what AJ needs.”

  Through the doorway, they could see the boy in the rotunda. Pale winter light flooded through the mullioned windows. He was checking out the shelves of well-thumbed books, a collection of Meerschaum pipes, her grandfather’s chess board, the pieces lined up in readiness like an army geared for battle. The ship-in-a-bottle never failed to fascinate. AJ treated the objects in the room with respect and reverence. This might be because he knew he was being watched. Then again, unlike his father, he might just be a well-behaved kid.

  Who needed a place to live.

  Suddenly Kim felt petty. “Why don’t you hang up your coat?” she said to Bo. “I’ll show you around.” On autopilot, she led the way into the kitchen, which adjoined the dining room through a set of double doors covered in green baize. “Breakfast and dinner are served buffet-style every day. Guests help themselves in the kitchen, and everyone eats in the dining room. Er, if you decide this is going to work for you, that is.” Please say no, she thought. Please say you need to keep looking.

  “It’s just right,” Bo said.

  AJ was checking out the kitchen. Like everything else, it had been painted in startling colors—walls the color of a Lifesaver. Yet it still retained its old-fashioned character, with bead-board wainscoting and high ceilings, tall cupboards with wavy glass cabinet doors and a deep farm sink. There was a butcher-block island and a long wooden table, lace curtains in the windows.

  “This used to be my grandparents’ house,” she told AJ, suddenly flooded by a rush of memories, the smells and sounds of cooking and conversation. “We spent every Thanksgiving here.” She could still see her grandmother in a flowered apron and huge oven mitts, bringing the feast to the table. Her grandfather, who had turned Kim’s own childhood to days of magic, used to ad lib prayers of thanks that were as natural as conversation.

  “This is a really nice house,” AJ commented.

  Kim showed them to the sitting room, which was equipped with TV, stereo and shelves of books. “I’m glad you like it. I spent a lot of happy hours here when I was a kid.” Long ago, she’d been filled with hopes and dreams, but those had been the dreams of a girl who didn’t know who she was. Now here she was, years later, and she still didn’t know. Not anymore. It was a bit depressing that she’d built a fine career for herself in California, then lost it all in a single moment. Thanks to a strict employment contract, her other clients would stay with the firm, not with her.

  “Your lodgings are on the third floor,” she said, heading for the stairs.

  Many questions occurred to her, but she didn’t ask them. It was a tricky thing, this concept of a boardinghouse. Her mother called the residents guests, yet they weren’t, not really. They hadn’t been invited, and their stay lasted much longer than a few days. In reality, this was a house filled with paying strangers. Her mother swore they came by referral only, and provided impeccable references. Bo had been referred by Dino, whom Penelope seemed to trust implicitly.

  Still, Kim didn’t think she’d ever get used to the boardinghouse arrangement, nor could she imagine getting accustomed to the invisible fine line between intimacy and privacy. Not that it was up to her. So long as she was a member of this household, she went by her mother’s rules.

  She imagined how Bo’s references would read: A natural at baseball and flirting.

  A man with a child and, apparently, no wife.

  She opened the door to the top floor and stood to the side, feeling a bit like a hotel bellman as she invited them in. A glow of soft light, reflected by the snow off the sloping roof, filled the room. The stream of light through the gabled windows reminded her of moments long past, when she used to gaze outside on white winter days, imagining herself a snowflake from The Nutcracker, an inhabitant of an enchanted kingdom. She wondered if AJ would do the same, or if he was too old for childhood fantasies.

  The room was L-shaped, with a twin bed in an alcove and another around the corner, a sitting area with a desk and small television, and an adjoining bath.

  “Is this where we’re staying, ma’am?” AJ asked.

  She smiled at the boy, turning her back on Bo. “You can call me Kim,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Kim.”

  “Ah, I’m guessing you’r
e from Texas, then. Boys from Texas say ‘ma’am’ a lot.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He flashed his first smile since stepping through the door, and that smile took her breath away. It was like seeing a glimpse of the sun in the midst of the darkest days of winter—rare and bright, fired by an invincible spirit. When he saw her watching him, he quickly turned solemn again.

  “This looks fine here,” Bo declared. “It’s just fine.”

  So his mind was made up, she thought with a shudder of nerves.

  “How about you put your things away,” Bo suggested. “I’ll go down and get the rest of the stuff.”

  AJ nodded without looking at him, and set his backpack on a chair. “Okay.”

  “See this bookcase?” Kim asked, feeling a thrum of tension emanating from both of them. “It’s got all my favorite books from when I was young—Superfudge, Maniac Magee, the whole series of Matt Christopher books. My friends used to think I was weird because I liked Matt Christopher books so much.”

  “Why is that weird?”

  “They’re sports books, and I guess some people didn’t think a girl could be interested in sports stories. I was, though. I still am. What about you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t really like sports.”

  At that moment, Bo Crutcher stepped into the room, laden with bags. His color was high from the cold, his eyes bluer even than they’d looked a few minutes ago. “Hey,” he said, “I thought it was just baseball you didn’t like.”

  AJ stiffened, tossed his glossy straight hair out of his eyes. “I’m not a big fan of any sports,” he said. “It’s not like that’s a crime or anything.”

  Bo regarded him warmly, ignoring the attitude. “It’s not a crime. Just a surprise. I don’t mind a surprise every now and then.”

  AJ nodded. “Okay.”

  Interesting, Kim thought, watching them. They acted like strangers. Yet when each didn’t think the other was watching, they took turns studying each other with hungry eyes. She showed AJ a recreation guide to the area. “There’s lots to do around here,” she said, spreading out a colorful map. “That’s the golf course, Avalon Meadows. In the winter, it’s used for cross-country skiing and sledding on the hills.” She indicated Saddle Mountain at the western edge of town, scored with cleared ski runs and webbed by the black threads of the ski lifts. “Up there, that’s a ski resort. A lot of the kids are into snowboarding, too.”

  AJ shaded his eyes to look, but made no comment.

  “My favorite winter sport is sitting by the fire, watching a football game on TV,” Bo chimed in. “What about football, AJ? Think you’d like watching football?”

  “Not really,” the boy said.

  “Winter sports are my favorites,” Kim told AJ. “I love snowboarding, sledding, ice-skating—anything in the great outdoors. Willow Lake freezes hard enough to skate on. Ever tried ice-skating?”

  “I’ve never tried any snow sports,” AJ confessed.

  “Maybe you’ll give them a shot this winter.”

  “To me, being out in the snow is about as much fun as a trip to the dentist,” Bo said. “Never tried skiing or snowboarding. Never had the urge. I think it’s purely nuts to strap a board on your feet and head down a mountain at sixty miles an hour. You won’t see me doing it, not in a million years.” He turned on the television, handing the remote to AJ. “You get settled in, okay? I’m going to go downstairs and have a word with Miss van Dorn.”

  She sensed he was leaving a pause so she could say, “Call me Kim.” She didn’t. “AJ, we’ll be down in the front room.” She was dying to hear what was going on between this man and the boy he seemed to barely know. She led the way down to the main floor, keenly aware of Bo’s eyes on her. What did he see? she wondered. The person he’d accosted in the airport? A woman who’d been defeated by her own career? Or a throwback to a simpler time—a landlady?

  When she reached the bottom of the steps, she turned to look at him, and saw him checking her out. Great. Just what she needed. “Do you mind?”

  “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t—I mean, just...give me a minute.”

  “A minute for what?” She reached up and touched her hair.

  “You know, when I saw you at the airport, I thought you were the prettiest thing in the world.”

  His words disarmed her. Despite all her experience in the PR business, she could still be disarmed by certain things, like a tall, blue-eyed baseball player looking her in the eye and telling her she was the prettiest thing in the world.

  “I was wrong, though,” he went on.

  Oh.

  “Now I’m thinking you’re the prettiest thing anywhere. Seriously.”

  Oh.

  “Mr. Crutcher—”

  “I know, I shouldn’t have said anything, but everybody who knows me says I got a mouth like a bullfrog in springtime. I go on and on. My agent—I just started working with him—says I need to quit talking so much.”

  She fought to master the creeping blush, lost the battle and said, “Would you like something to drink?” Immediately, she regretted the offer. It sounded too social.

  “Maybe in a while,” he said easily.

  They went to the living room, the largest of the downstairs spaces. It was filled with her grandmother’s furniture and keepsakes, her old-fashioned lamps and art on the walls. It had been painted a startling shade of robin’s egg blue, another discontinued color. Her mother called this a house of discontinued colors.

  Bo took a seat on a spindly legged chair, his lanky frame dwarfing the piece. He leaned back, settled his ankle on the opposite knee and watched her expectantly.

  She grew unsettled by his scrutiny. “Tell me about you and AJ. He seems like a good kid.”

  “I hope so, but to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know.”

  What an odd thing to say about one’s child, she thought.

  “AJ’s twelve years old,” Bo continued. “He was born in Texas and lived there all his life. I never met him until yesterday morning. That was what I was doing at the airport, when we—when I was there to meet him.”

  “You hadn’t met him before then?”

  “His mother’s choice, not mine. After AJ was born, she married some other guy, and he was the only father AJ knew. Yolanda—his mom—didn’t want me coming around, confusing the kid.” Bo’s voice was low, filled with regrets. “I never had a dad, growing up, so it bugged the sh—heck out of me, knowing AJ was in the world but never seeing him. I respected his mama’s wishes, though. Never tried to see him, until she called me Friday and said she needed me to look after him for a while.”

  Kim tried to imagine what would compel a woman to send her own child to a person he’d never met. “Is she...all right? What made her change her mind about getting you and AJ together?”

  “It’s a long story. Her husband left her, and she got in trouble with the INS.”

  “You mean, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.”

  He nodded, pressed the tips of his fingers together. “She was sent immediately to a temporary holding center in Houston. No advance warning whatsoever, and there was no one to take care of AJ. They’ve got no other family in this country, no friends or neighbors who could help. See, she’s an only child. After her father passed away, her mother moved back to Nuevo Laredo. That’s in the Rio Grande valley, on the Mexican side.”

  Kim’s heart lurched. “You mean, his mom just went to work one day, and wasn’t allowed to come home?” She could scarcely imagine what that had been like for the boy.

  “That’s right,” said Bo. “So I wasn’t about to let him be sent to foster care. But I’ve been living in an apartment above the Hilltop Tavern. It’s too noisy there for a kid. We came here because I wanted him to be in a place that felt more like home. And here we are.”

  “In a place that feels like home,” she said quietly. A
nd for the first time, she understood her mother’s enthusiasm for this new enterprise.

  “That’s right. If I hadn’t been around, AJ would’ve had to go into foster care. And believe me, foster care is a total crapshoot. It can be the best thing that ever happened to a kid, or it can be a nightmare.”

  Her expression must have been easy to read, because he said, “Yeah, I know the system from direct experience.”

  She flashed on her own childhood, secure and predictable. Despite her father’s financial missteps, she had never for a moment had to worry about being abandoned. “You were in foster care?”

  “A couple of times. The first time it was straight out of a Stephen King novel. After that, another couple took me in, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Sometimes, when my mama hit a rough patch, I’d go stay with my coach, a guy named Landry Holmes. We didn’t have much when I was a kid, but Coach Landry taught me to focus on what was important.”

  Kim couldn’t help being intrigued, and she caught herself thinking like his publicist. He had a strong personal story. It was a little messy, but that was all just part of the challenge. His matter-of-fact honesty reminded her of the kind of clients she’d started with before she was saddled with guys like Lloyd. She much preferred the ones who deserved a shot, as opposed to the ones who believed they were entitled to one.

  The jerk from the airport was fading fast, obliterated by a flesh-and-blood person. AJ’s situation made Kim’s troubles pale in comparison. “He’s just a child. I can’t believe they can separate a mother from her child.”

  “Happens a lot apparently. More than you or I know.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got a lawyer on it. Sophie Bellamy-Shepherd. You know her?”

  “I know the name Bellamy, but no. Not Sophie.”

  “Married to a friend of mine, Noah Shepherd. She’s already found an immigration specialist, and they’re filing paperwork with the Board of Immigration Appeals. Someone’s doing a records search on Yolanda’s family, but Sophie warned me that this could take some time.”