“Then don’t.”
I shook my head. He’d never get it.
“Vic, you’re seventeen. Stand up to them.” He lifted my chin so I couldn’t look anywhere other than in his eyes. “For once in your life, tell them how you feel.”
He leaned closer and I tilted my head higher.
“Victoria, could you please come back in here,” my mother demanded with no hint of the anger seething inside her.
“In a minute,” I responded, not holding back any ounce of hostility. But Daniel had already let go and stepped away from me. I dropped my arms to my sides. “Okay, fine.”
I didn’t try to hide my frustrations as Daniel and his family left. Grandma and Charles were still there, so at least I had some allies. Anything to delay the inevitable was welcome. No way would this battle begin with Charles here. Grandma took down all the white flags when she sent Charles on a tour of the house and grounds with Lilly.
“Okay, Warren, get it off your chest,” Grandma said as soon as she was certain Charles was out of earshot. She sat on the couch and smoothed her long skirt.
My father sighed and fell back into his usual wingback. “What do you mean, Mother?”
“About Charles. About Daniel. About the Chos. Just lay it all out in the open.”
“Charles seems like a nice man.” He looked up at my mother as she handed him a scotch on the rocks. “Thank you, Meredith.”
“And Daniel?” I asked, dropping my head to deflect any blow his words might cause.
He adjusted in the chair and took a sip of his scotch. “Daniel … he’s very different from the boys you normally date.”
“Because he’s Korean?” I asked.
Grandma let out a little gasp of air. Whether that was directed at me or my father, I couldn’t be sure.
“No.” My father sat his drink down and got out his chair. He knelt in front of me, putting his heavy hands on my shoulders. “That has nothing to do with it, Victoria. He’s just not good enough for you.”
I searched his face for any hint that would tell me what he was thinking. As usual, there wasn’t anything there.
“No boy will ever be good enough for my daughter.” He kissed my forehead then went back to his seat. “Now is that all, Mother?”
“And the Chos?” Grandma asked. She was not about to let one detail slide.
“They seem like a respectable family. I’ll know more about them later.”
“My God, Warren, you didn’t have Robert create a file on them, did you?” Grandma shrieked.
“Mother, you know what my future looks like. I need to be careful about who my family associates with. I need to make sure there aren’t ulterior motives –”
“Daniel is not dating me because of some political cause!” I jumped up and shouted.
“Calm down.” My father put one hand in the air as if that would repel my attack. “I’m not saying that is the case. But someone in his family could be poised to exploit the situation. I need to be cautious. Not just for the safety of my political career, but for the safety of this country.”
“Don’t pull this crap with me, Senator,” I snapped. “They didn’t even know who I was until the damned reporter showed up.”
“Victoria, watch your mouth,” Grandma said. “Warren, you’re being unreasonable. Victoria’s personal life and your political goals are two separate things.”
“But they will always be intertwined. Surely you can see that, Mary,” my mother interceded.
“We’ll deal with this after I read what Robert compiled.” He raised his hands to stop the argument and leaned forward in the chair. Mom perched on the arm of the wingback. “Now we need to talk about this baseball thing.”
“I’m not quitting,” I said as I plopped on the couch.
“I’m not asking you to. But we need to be prepared for people to jump on this story. Once it gets out, reporters will swarm the fields.” He looked at Grandma then at me. “How are we going to handle this?”
I didn’t say a word.
“They are going to ask a lot of questions. We need to give them an answer,” he pushed.
“No, we don’t.” I glared at him with determination I usually only had on the field. “We don’t have to say anything.”
“Yes, we do,” Mom said. “You aren’t just some girl playing baseball. You’re the potential First Daughter. That alone requires a statement of some kind.”
“No, it doesn’t.” I’d said this before but not with the passion I felt now. They needed to understand. “There is nothing other than the fact that I wanted to play competitive baseball one last time.”
“Well, that’s all fine and dandy,” Mom said after a brief pause in the conversation. “But your father’s goals are bigger than you.”
“Don’t even talk to me, Mother.” I felt the steam coming out of my ears.
“Victoria,” Grandma said, sounding both shocked and impressed.
I turned to her. “You have no idea what she said to me about Daniel.”
“Whatever it was, you should still treat your mother with respect,” my father said. “And I will hold a press conference about your baseball games. I will tell them what you just told me. I’ll have Robert arrange for a security detail. Okay?”
“No! No press conferences. No reporters. No campaign managers. And absolutely no security.” My hands shook. “This is my life, not some campaign strategy.”
“Honey,” he said as if I was still in diapers, “if I don’t say anything, then this will get blown out of proportion.”
This was too much. It didn’t matter if I begged, he was going to the press. He was going to do it all over again. “Whatever.”
Grandma stood when she heard Charles and Lilly in the foyer. “Let’s go, Vicky. You can ride with us.”
I stood, and Grandma put her arm around me.
“No, she can spend the night here,” Mom said. She looked at me then Grandma. “Where she belongs.”
“I’m going home,” I replied.
“You are home,” my father said.
“No.” I looked up at Grandma. “No, I’m not.”
BOTTOM OF THE 8TH
Exhaustion kicked in when I parked in front of Daniel’s house. I sat in my car and stared at the steering wheel. It was still early, only ten in the evening. Daniel rapped on the passenger window. Mindlessly, I unlocked the door to let him in. As soon as he shut the door, I collapsed into his arms in tears. He let me cry and held me close.
After a few minutes, he broke the silence. “Tell me. What happened?”
“Everything I told you would happen,” I spit out between sobs.
“So let it.”
I whipped my head up. “What?”
“Just let them have it their way. It’s not worth it, Vic.” He ran his finger down the length of my jaw.
I stared at him then blurted, “My mother’s a racist.”
That caught him off guard. “Your mother?”
“She doesn’t like you because you’re Korean.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care what your mom thinks. Or your dad. As long as you like me, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
“I hate this,” I said as I buried my face in his chest. His heart held a steady rhythm that tried to lull me to sleep.
“I know. Me too. You know, I asked my mom if she had to deal with any of that kind of stuff. She didn’t talk to her parents for three years after she married Dad. They only reconciled after I was born.” He kissed the back of my head. “Vic, I can’t change who I am anymore than you can. They’ll just have to accept me as is.”
“I can go three years without talking to my parents.”
Daniel laughed. “No, you can’t. And you wouldn’t want to even try, no matter how mad you are at them right now.” He stroked my hair and I felt myself drifting again. “You going to be okay?”
I nodded and wiggled to get closer.
“Come on. Let’s go inside.”
I called Grandma
and left her a message so she wouldn’t worry. Daniel’s parents were polite even though they had every reason to be cold. I couldn’t have hoped for much more. Becca hid in her room. She’d found the rejection from Xavier when they got home. Apparently, it wasn’t pretty.
Daniel and I headed up to the attic room. As we walked by Becca’s room, I heard her sobbing. I put my hand on the door, but Daniel pulled me away with a shake of his head. I wouldn’t have known what to say anyway.
I collapsed onto the couch as Daniel put on a movie. I fell asleep in his arms, listening to his heart grow faster as mine slowed into sleep.
It was the final stretch of the regular season. I hadn’t seen or heard from my parents since Saturday night. We arrived at the field as a team after meeting at Coach’s house. I felt more at ease than I had in weeks. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and I didn’t have to hide anymore. Everyone knew.
The game was a blowout. Coach heard a few choice words from the stands when he sat me after the third inning. Wakefield clucked and bristled while scribbling into his notepad.
We needed one more win to take the district. And we had one more game left. If we lost, we were through.
Wednesday’s paper had a brief article and a shot of me playing third. And a picture of Daniel beside me in my car. I had no clue why Wakefield thought my boyfriend was a story. I didn’t bother to read it as I readied myself for a day at the local homeless shelter. At first, I hated going there, but I didn’t tell Grandma that. Volunteering was a condition of living with her.
And my big mouth mentioned this to Adam, who told Heather, who decided she wanted to come with. I couldn’t say no.
The shelter was in an old church that had sat vacant for almost a decade before becoming useful again. The residents were basically kicked out every morning at seven to do whatever they wanted. Off site, the charity that ran this shelter provided employment counseling, health evaluations, and some job training.
Heather and I were in the laundry room sorting and folding donated clothes. Grandma left us for the kitchen after making sure we knew what to do. Like it was so hard.
“Can I tell you something?” Heather asked after we made it through the first bag. It amazed me that so many people threw away good clothes. It also amazed me that they never washed them before donating.
I pulled out a long wool coat. “Sure, what?”
“Well, I didn’t know Daniel last summer, but Adam said he’s a totally different guy now.” She rolled her eyes. “I just thought you’d wanna know.”
“I wonder what he was like before,” I said as I tossed the coat in the trash pile. It had a hole in the back that wasn’t fixable. I’d seen people wear stuff like that before, but it didn’t seem like they should. “I mean, I know they said he was pretty miserable after the whole Shelby thing, but no one told me what he was like when he was with her.”
“Adam said he was a real jerk. Daniel and Shelby were always fighting and she walked all over him.” She held up a white dress shirt with a stain on the front then tossed it into the trash pile. “Shelby’s a big dope head. I’ve heard she’s into meth more now.”
I nodded as I folded a thick gray sweatshirt that looked almost new. That info wasn’t anything new.
Heather held up two shirts that were stuck together then threw them toward the washer. “Gross. Anyway, I’ve smoked a joint here and there, but Shelby did it like every day. Then she’d beg Daniel for cash and tell him that it was for milk or whatever.”
“I’m surprised Daniel got taken in by her.”
“Sex will do that to you.”
“That is something I did not need to hear.” The smell coming from the trash bag in front of me made me cringe almost as much as Heather’s comment did.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just mean that it’s like a drug, you know? You guys have hooked up, right?”
I didn’t answer. I liked Heather and all, but we weren’t that close. I hoped we could become good friends later. After the media frenzy died down. Right now, I couldn’t trust anybody.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” She stopped smiling. “I mean, Daniel told Adam you guys had, but guys talk big like that all the time.”
“What?” I didn’t like the thought of Daniel sharing any of our intimate details with anyone, even Adam.
“God, Vic, Daniel is so gaga over you. I think he just needed to talk to someone, you know?” She sighed. “Adam’s great. I mean, my last boyfriend just didn’t get that sex is about more than him. Adam likes to take it slow.”
“Why are you telling this?” Honestly, I didn’t want to hear about her sex life.
She smiled, and if I didn’t know her at all, I would’ve thought there was malice there. “Just girl talk.”
The “just girl talk” ended up in the newspaper on Thursday. I had never felt more humiliated in my life.
An anonymous source informed this reporter that Senator Warren Hudson’s only daughter, Victoria Hudson, is involved in a sexual relationship with her teammate Daniel Cho. Senator Hudson’s office issued the following statement when contacted about this scandal:
Victoria Hudson is an intelligent young woman. The allegations from this anonymous source are outrageous. How can Miss Hudson defend herself from a coward that refuses to be named? Unless Miss Hudson or Mr. Cho state to the media that they are involved in an intimate relationship, any anonymous information must be considered libelous and without merit.
Victoria Hudson and Daniel Cho could not be reached for comment.
“I’m not going,” I said to Grandma. We sat at the table together, coffee in hand. “How can I show my face there?”
“You have to go, Vicky. If you don’t, then they will know that it’s true. If you show up, there will be doubts.” She reached across the table and put her hand over mine. “It is, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t hold back the tears. My most intimate relationship, my only intimate relationship, was in the newspaper.
She sighed. “You need to be the bigger person here. You need to stand tall and not let it get to you. You need to be your father.”
I snorted. Not the person that needed to be mentioned at that moment.
“Who do you think called Wakefield?”
“Who else?” I said through my waning tears. “That rat Heather.”
“Why do you think it was her?”
“Yesterday, she kept asking me questions about it. She said Daniel told Adam, who told her.” I felt so stupid. “She wanted to hear it from me, but I didn’t say anything about it.”
“Then you still have deniability.” She patted my hand. “Do you think Daniel will say anything?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” Sobbing harder, I buried my face in my hands. “Grandma, what am I going to do?”
“Oh, baby,” she said, pulling me into a bear hug. “Everything will turn out okay. You’re going to do what any good politician does: deny, deny, deny. And you’ll do it with the same finesse as your father. Just take a page from his book, and you’ll be fine.”
“I just wanted to do one thing. Just one little thing. That’s all.” I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my t-shirt and drew away from her. “Why can’t they leave me alone?”
We sat in the kitchen for at least twenty minutes until I cried myself out. Then I felt like an even bigger ass for letting it bother me so much. Grandma was right, I had the upper hand. Wakefield wouldn’t expose his “source”, aka Heather the Rat, without exposing her to my father’s lawyers.
I hid in my room until it was time to leave for the game.
The first blow came at Daniel’s house. He wasn’t there. In fact, no one answered the door when I knocked. When I got to Coach’s house, Reggie and Calvin stood outside. They didn’t say anything right away, but I could tell by the look on their faces that something was wrong.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I stopped in front of them.
“Daniel’s parents came over here,
” Reggie said with a grimace. “They want him to quit.”
“Yeah, Coach talked them out of it. They took him to the field and the rest of the guys left too.” Calvin glanced at Reggie. “We couldn’t leave you hanging so we waited.”
“This is freaking ridiculous.” I leaned against the car for support. “They want him to quit because of some stupid article in some stupid paper? They don’t even know if it’s true or not.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You know that.” Reggie shook his head. “They don’t like the media poking into their lives. They don’t like your parents. They don’t like the politics.”
“Politics?” I looked back and forth between them. “What does my father have to do with any of this?”
“Everything,” Calvin snapped. “He’s the only reason you weren’t honest with us to begin with.”
Reggie smacked Calvin on the back of the head. “They don’t want Daniel’s life dragged through the mud, Vic. Most of us, we don’t care about the reporters. No one else has met your dad. My mom thinks your mom’s alright. But your dad’s a different deal. A lot of people in our neighborhood don’t like him.”
I fought back another round of tears. “This is such bull.”
Reggie leaned on the car to my right. “Yeah, it is. But you knew this could happen, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, Vic,” Calvin said, sitting on my left. “You had to know this was gonna happen.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said just as the tears escaped. “I’m gonna quit. I have no choice. You guys can win without me. It’ll be easier without the damned reporters.”
“You aren’t quitting,” Calvin said, smacking me on the shoulder.
“Why not? I’ve brought nothing but misery –”
Reggie stood up and glared at me. “Man, if you want a pity party, I don’t want an invite. You started this, you’re gonna finish it. Stop being such a girl.”
I laughed without meaning to. Calvin tossed his and Reggie’s bags into the trunk. They got into the car without asking if I was driving or not. I didn’t have a choice. I drove to the park, still believing that my only option was to quit the team.
Extra Innings Page 18
