Hardball

by CD Reiss

“Liar,” she whispered so softly I barely heard it.

  “I thought it would solve itself.”

  “Whatever.”

  She opened the door, and I cracked mine, making the dashboard ding ding ding. I was supposed to open her door. It was a habit. But she was out and gone, slamming the door and running up the stone path.

  Getting out first and opening the door for her was a promise of something more. A promise that I’d be careful with her body and her heart. As she ran up the steps and pushed the door open without needing to unlock it, I knew I’d broken that promise.

  If I couldn’t keep my word with a woman like Vivian, I’d never be a worthwhile partner to any woman. I sat outside, coming to terms with the fact that she was it. She was my last chance at love, and I’d blown it. I’d had a choice between a woman I could love the rest of my life and baseball.

  I’d made the only choice I could have, and I had to be okay with that.

  By the time I got home, I’d resigned myself to a life alone but secure, steady, and predictable.

  Packing was easy. Sleeping was hard. Impossible.

  The sheets smelled like fucking.

  I stripped the bed, made it again, and stared at the ceiling until morning.

  I missed her already.

  thirty-one

  Vivian

  I wasn’t surprised. I’d known deep down that it wasn’t going to work, so I was as good as someone who had cut the bungee cord and jumped anyway. So I fell and fell hard, but I wasn’t shocked when I met the ground.

  “Of course I’m bummed,” I said to Francine as I pulled blue and white balloons off the shelf.

  She was helping me get supplies for Dad’s birthday party and had a baseball piñata under her arm. “Yeah, but you’re doing everything Dodger blue. Got the baseball balloons and the piñata. He’s too old for a piñata.”

  “We have nieces and nephews who will be there. Should I get this silver fringey stuff?”

  She snapped it from me and put it in the cart. “All I’m saying is, when Carl did that thing, you wouldn’t listen to Procol Harum for… how long? Ever?”

  “I never really liked Procol Harum in the first place.”

  “And you wouldn’t go to the Singapore Lounge forever.”

  “This is different.”

  “It was shorter?”

  “Yes. Shorter. Also I came out of it sad, yeah. I wanted it to work. I still wished it had. And I’m nuts about him. I cry, Francine. I cry every night. But it’s because I miss him, not because I think I’m worthless.”

  “You’re not worthless.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. It was him. Not me. I wasn’t too boring. I was actually too much fun.” I did a little dance with my shoulders and snapped up a stack of blue cups.

  My shimmy belied the depth of my tears. After he drove away, I’d taken two sick days and just bawled. My father shook his fists at heaven and threatened to sue the league for something, anything. I couldn’t calm him down because I was in such a state. I could barely breathe, much less argue him out of taking legal action.

  On day two, my eyes ached. I put an ice pack over them and, through the cold blackness, explained to my father that it was all right. I’d stop crying soon. I was in love with Dash Wallace. He didn’t love me, and not only did that have nothing to do with any of my shortcomings, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Dad didn’t say anything.

  But late on day two, he exploded when I stood in front of the fridge, looking at the cold inside as if it were a fish tank.

  “That son of a bitch. I’m going to kill him.” He leaned on the counter. He was having a bad day but refused to admit it while I was upset.

  “It’s fine, Dad.”

  “What I don't have because of the arthritis I make up for in bludgeons. I can hit him with my walker. I don’t care if I go to jail. And God help him. That’s all I have to say. God help him.”

  I shut the fridge. I didn’t even know how to be angry. I couldn’t work up the energy for it. I remembered why I was there and opened the freezer.

  “It’s fine,” I repeated, getting out the ice pack again. “I’ll get over it.”

  “I don’t understand it. When I was a young man—and it wasn’t that long ago if you ask me—when I was a young man and a woman like you came along, there would have been a fight. Big fight for you. Now they fight to see who can treat the best women the worst. It’s disgusting. Taking pictures of their schlongs.”

  “Dad, really?” I put the ice pack over my eyes to reduce the cry-swell.

  “They’re all intimidated. That’s the problem. They don’t know how to act, so they act like animals, and they push the best ones away because they’re afraid you’ll wake up and realize you can do better. Mark my words, he’ll either be back or be in the paper with someone so far beneath you he feels like a bigger man. You wait. It’s gonna happen, and either way, you’re still better than any man deserves.”

  “I don’t think it’s about deserving.” I took off the pack. “I don’t think it’s a contest.”

  He grumbled something I couldn’t make out, and I tossed the ice pack back in the freezer.

  “You’re a beautiful girl, you know that, right? Just say you know.”

  “I know. I’m also funny and sexy, but you can ignore the sexy part. I’m just…” I sighed, and the breath caught in a sob I dismissed for later. “We had a great time.”

  “I hope so, peanut. You didn’t sleep in your own bed for weeks.”

  “Yeah.” My tone was rueful. I couldn’t help myself. All the hours I’d spent wrapped in his sheets, laughing and crying his name, flashed in my mind like a high-speed slideshow. “Anyway. I have today to wallow in grief, then I have to get back to work. Should I make the jambalaya?”

  “If you cut the carrots.”

  “Deal. What do you want for your birthday dinner?”

  “It’s six weeks away.”

  “It’s something to look forward to.”

  Francine and I were going out later to get his decorations and order his cake. Though Dash had licked envelopes on invitations, my time with him had kept me from doing anything else to get ready for the most epic surprise party in generations.

  “Can you get the potato pancakes from Merv’s?” Dad asked.

  “What’s wrong with the ones I make from scratch?”

  “Eh, they’re a pain in the ass. Just get from Merv’s, and then you get the sour cream right there. It’s easy. And the soup. You can get the soup. You’re done.”

  It was clear he really wanted the matzo soup, which I’d never gotten right. The balls always fell into a goopy paste. Well, he was going to have it. After the party store, Francine and I stopped on Fairfax Ave and ordered the full-on Jewish deli New York spread.

  Maybe I couldn’t make Dash happy, but I sure as hell could make my dad happy.

  thirty-two

  Dash

  Hey, bat boy

  Janice texted a few hours after I got in. I was barely at the hotel when she tapped me. She understood me. She followed all the rules. She knew what happened when the rules were broken.

  But the next line. The one I had to text…

  Hello, ball girl

  And that was it. There would be no more communication until the next day. First day of spring training. I went to the practice field with Youder and a couple of the guys. It was a full-size field with bleachers and dugouts that hadn’t been dug. The locker room smelled of feet and asshole, and we snapped towels and joked around.

  I didn’t think about Vivian.

  There’s only one ball girl.

  Not once.

  That was over.

  Vivian. She was the ball girl. A real one.

  I was back to normal. So there was no reason to think of her or regret my decision.

  At all.

  This is going to be weird.

  Right?

  Day one was the usual clown show. Pitchers and catchers had been there a week a
nd were a little better organized, but the rest of us were just a bunch of fat assholes who had forgotten how to think. We played like Little League for the morning, and in the afternoon, we signed balls for fans at the bottom of the bleachers. A few dozen diehards and locals, and at the end of the line, a pretty woman with dark hair and brown eyes.

  I took her ball. “Hi, ball girl.”

  Yeah. That’s not going to work anymore.

  What was I supposed to replace it with? And could I replace it?

  “Hey, number nineteen. I got us at the Westin.”

  I signed the ball. It was the right hotel. Was the hotel or the girl the thing that kept me out of the slumps? Maybe. I hoped so. “Our room?”

  She winked. “Yep.”

  I handed her the ball, signed. She beamed every time. I liked that.

  “See you at seven. Be ready.”

  Her eyes twinkled. Ready meant one thing. Naked. One time she’d been clothed, and that had been my worst opening. It had taken a month to fix it. Not until I fucked Rose in New York did I start playing like I should have.

  “You coming to dinner tonight, Wallace?” asked Randy. He was already after-shaved and clean-pressed.

  I was still in a towel. I felt slow. “Nah, got someplace to be.”

  “That girl?” He raised an eyebrow. “The one you brought to Westlake’s place?”

  The locker room was loud and boisterous. I barely heard him.

  “Nope,” I said.

  “She was fuckhot.”

  “Shut up, Randy.”

  “She going to be your Los Angeles fuck or what?”

  “Stop talking.”

  “Because if not, I love to tap fans. They’re—”

  I wasn’t as slow as I’d thought. Not with my hand completely bypassing my brain and grabbing his throat or my arm getting in on the action and slamming him against the lockers.

  “Fuck—?” he choked out. He grabbed my arm, clutching, fingernails digging.

  I didn’t even feel it. “I said to stop talking.”

  A little gack escaped him, and he swung at me. The upbeat noise of the locker room was shut off as if it had a switch. I wanted to choke the fucking life out of him, and I squeezed.

  I didn’t squeeze. My hand had a life of its own. Dashiell Wallace didn’t choke people.

  I’d warned him.

  Little fuck.

  “Dash!”

  A voice behind me. An older, wiser voice. Youder.

  “Let go before I clock you.”

  I glanced at him. He had a bat over his shoulder. The entire team stood behind him.

  What the hell was I doing?

  I let the little fuck drop. He pushed me. Ran at me. Forty guys rushed in to keep us apart.

  Part of me wanted to kill him. Part of me wondered what had just happened. I was still wrestling with wanting to wring out that little bitch, and I was watching myself act like a fucking animal.

  I was pulled into the showers. Dropped on a wood bench.

  “All right, all right!” Youder shouted, arms out, body between me and the guys who had dragged me off that asshole. “Everyone out!”

  Grumbling. Hand-slapping.

  Randy’s a dick.

  First day. Always fucked up.

  See you out there.

  When it was just him and me, Youder sat next to me.

  “I lost control,” I said. “I’ll write him a fucking note.”

  “He’s a moron.”

  “I’m going to get fined.”

  “Yup. And you’ll pay it.”

  “Do my penance.”

  “You got a real control problem, Shortie.”

  I faced him. I was in a towel, and he looked spit-shined.

  “Winnie was born in March,” he continued, mentioning his daughter. “I had this adjustment period. A full fucking season with my head in my ass.”

  “That was three years ago.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Man, I practically had to play the bag for you.”

  “I know. And fuck you. Because we cover for each other. I had a new baby, shithead. I wasn’t sleeping. Dana wasn’t taking care of her usual because she had the baby. I wasn’t eating what I usually did. Wasn’t working out at the regular time. I wasn’t doing any shit I was supposed to. Worst batting average in my career. And the errors? Well, you know about those.”

  Every word he said wound me up. My heart was inside a wire coil, and he was twisting it.

  “I’m not changing anything, all right?” I said.

  “That’s not what I’m saying—”

  “Everything is the same.” I wasn’t shouting, but my voice couldn’t have been more definite. He had to believe me. Had to. “I’m not doing anything different than any good year I’ve had.”

  “How long can you keep that up?”

  I stood. This was the shittiest day on record. “Forever, all right? Until I retire. Whichever comes first.”

  I went out to the dressing room, snapping off my towel.

  Fuck him and his shitty story.

  Fuck Randy and his mouth.

  Fuck Vivian’s sweet cunt and that laugh and her goddamned kindness.

  I wrestled myself into my clothes. I had a date tonight. The same date I always had. And I had to replace the girls I’d lost in Oakland and New York because change was an error. It was a swing and a miss. It was a failure of effort.

  I didn’t have room to fail.

  thirty-three

  Dash

  The Westin was nice. It was always nice. They’d changed a couple of the couches, but otherwise it was the same lobby I’d crossed at 6:58 p.m. on the first day of spring training every year since year two of my pro career. That was when everything had clicked into place. When being celibate stopped working and having pussy on me made me play better.

  Pussy was the antidote to miscalculation.

  Suite #19. My number. The door was ajar. That was part of Janice’s turn-on. She was on the bed with her legs spread, wearing nothing but a smile. Someone could come in and see her naked.

  I locked the door and turned the corner of the suite. I made sure she could hear me. I whistled as I dropped my stuff, took off my jacket. I made sure my buckle clacked when I undid it. Opened my fly and untucked my shirt on the way to the bedroom.

  A single yellow nightstand light was on.

  She was there, all smiles. Legs spread. Tits pointing up. Hands grasping the headboard. I slipped my belt out of the loops and threw it on the end of the bed. I’d use that later.

  “Hi,” she said. Her knees dropped another quarter inch as she relaxed.

  I could see how wet she was, and I had a raging boner to match. “Hey.”

  “Wanna fuck?” she purred.

  I approached the side of the bed.

  The answer was yes. Yes, I wanted to fuck. Yes, I wanted to have another .400. Yes, I wanted to lead the league in double plays, and yes, I wanted to come inside and all over her.

  But not really.

  She turned and made a pouty duckface, and the first thought that came to mind wasn’t anything like, “I’m going to put my cock right between those lips,” but, “Vivian doesn’t make stupid fake faces like that.”

  And when she said, “Feed my pussy,” and bit her lip, I didn’t want to come back with more dirty talk. I wanted to laugh.

  Janice and I didn’t laugh.

  If Vivian ever told me to feed her pussy, I’d laugh. She’d laugh. We’d fuck. I’d feed her pussy all night, laughing.

  If I fucked Janice, there was no more laughing with Vivian. I couldn’t go back to her with or without an apology.

  If I fucked Janice or anyone else, the door back to Vivian was closed.

  Everyone’s going to laugh at you.

  They’re going to talk about you.

  Feel sorry for you.

  Are you ready to bat .200?

  Are you ready to fuck up?

  Are you ready for the slump?

  I seized. I was
n’t ready for that. I reached for Janice’s knee to open her legs and stopped before I touched her, leaving my hand hovering.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Not yet, baby.”

  “Thank you for all the good years. We had some great times.”

  She looked at me with big brown eyes and lips that didn’t pout anymore. They were tight and defensive.

  “I’ll take care of the room, as always. But I can’t this time.” I zipped my fly.

  She took her hands off the headboard and closed her legs. Sighed. I got ready for recriminations and a fight. But not too many. I had to get up in the morning. Even if I fucked her raw, I’d have left by eleven.

  “You could have told me before I hired a sitter,” she groused.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I can cover it.”

  “I’m not a whore.”

  “I never treated you like one.”

  She looked at her watch but never made eye contact with me. “Whatever. Just get out.”

  I got out. I put on my jacket, paid the bill, got her room service, and sat in the rental car, shaking.

  Jesus Christ. What had I done?

  thirty-four

  Vivian

  The decorations were up. We were crouched behind sofas and chairs. My friends. Dad’s friends. His brother and sister and their kids and grandkids. The house was alive, holding its collective breath as Dad’s car pulled into the drive. He’d gone out for pre-latke-and-soup coffee with Sylvia, the lady from the deli counter at Ralph’s. He’d changed his medication, and the rheumatoid arthritis pain had become less and less severe. He hadn’t used a walker in weeks and only occasionally needed his cane. When he’d told me he’d had the confidence to ask Sylvia out instead of just asking her to peel the potatoes, my eyes stung with happy tears.

  I hadn’t wanted to meet Sylvia at a surprise party, but seeing as I couldn’t change the party, I went to Ralph’s to meet her on my own. Then I told Dad when I got home. Pretending she and I were just meeting at the party wasn’t fair.

  He looked stricken. “Peanut, I wanted to have a dinner.”

  “I needed pickles, and I know you don’t like the ones in the jar,” I lied. “She had a name tag. I said hi. She’s very nice, Dad. And not just to me. To everyone. The lady in front of me was being a complete bitch, and she was still nice. Real nice. Not fake nice.”