“Jock-itch cream?” Rachel paused in forking up her salad and stared at him.
“I only have to memorize a couple of sentences,” Joe said. “It shouldn’t take more than a day in California for me to film the commercial.”
“Wearing nothing but your underwear?”
“Well…yes.”
“On television?”
Joe felt a little sick to his stomach at hearing the shock in her voice. It hadn’t sounded quite as bad when an agent in LA contacted him and said that the owner of the company was a big fan of his.
“It pays well, Rachel.” Joe took a bite of spaghetti and noted that the noodles could have used a few more minutes in boiling water. He chose not to point out this fact to her. “And a lot of other athletes would jump at the chance.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“No. I’m serious.”
“Are we really that bad off financially?”
“Yes, actually, we are.”
He had not wanted to give her the bad news on his first night back, but it was not easy to keep anything from her. This was one of the drawbacks of being married to a cop. He had thought he could cushion things by first telling her about the money he would make with the commercial. Obviously, that was a mistake.
“I know you were disappointed that you didn’t get a better price on the house,” she said, “but did something else happen in LA?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Okay.” She shoved her plate away. “I want details.”
He took a deep breath. Dinner had lost its appeal to him as well, and his lack of appetite had nothing to do with undercooked spaghetti.
“Do you remember how we divided up the household chores when we first got married? We decided that I would take on the job of banking and paying the bills?”
“I remember. Was that a mistake?”
“No,” he said. “I’m actually pretty good at it. I only wish I’d figured that out a lot sooner.”
She leaned against the back of her chair and crossed her arms. “What do you mean?”
“Back when I was playing ball and Grace’s acting career was skyrocketing, we had no idea how to handle our money. Grace came from nothing, and my parents subsisted on a missionary’s pay while my brother and I were growing up. I was signing million-dollar contracts and so was Grace. We didn’t trust ourselves to know how to deal with all that money. The busier we got, the more we allowed Henrietta, as our agent and manager, to handle things.”
“Oh no.” Rachel groaned. “Henrietta is part of this story?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“It’s truly amazing how much damage one toxic individual can do.”
“Tell me about it.” He sighed. “The more she took care of us, the more we let her. It was easy to turn over our lives to such a competent woman. At heart, we were still just a couple of kids who wanted the grown-ups to take care of things. Before long, Henrietta was managing everything, including our finances. We thought eliminating so many business decisions would make us more productive in our jobs.”
“Considering what that woman did to my aunts and to Grace, that was a mistake.”
“It was a terrible mistake. Henrietta was a disaster,” Joe said. “But Grace and I didn’t know that at the time. We were impressed with the fact that we were at a point in our careers where we needed someone to be a business manager and take care of all the PR. Henrietta hired an investment broker to look after our finances. It seemed like a great idea as long as we didn’t have to do anything about it.”
“I’m assuming it was not such a great idea.”
“No. But we thought we were being wise. Compared to other careers, an athlete’s is a short one. I had seen other ballplayers blow everything on crazy investments or high living. Grace knew that actresses could be the hottest thing in Hollywood one year and unemployable the next. We were determined to be smarter than that.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Henrietta chose the wrong man to handle our finances.”
“Did he simply make some unwise investment choices, or was it worse?”
“Much worse. I recently noticed my investments trending down, but I figured that was to be expected with all the fluctuations in the stock market. It was slow at first. A trickle. But the trickle got more aggressive. The reports I received started to get confusing. Numbers were not adding up. Finally, I called and questioned him. He was vague and did not give me solid answers. I told him I was coming out and wanted to personally go over my investments with him.”
“I’m guessing that was a mistake too,” Rachel said.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have given him any warning. When I arrived, the office was closed and it stayed closed. I got the police involved. It turns out I wasn’t the only client he had been stealing from, but I was the biggest. When he knew I was coming—that was the final straw. He’s probably enjoying a nice retirement now, some place from which we can’t extradite him even if we can manage to find him.”
“Aren’t investment brokers backed by their companies?”
“Not all of them. This guy ran his own company. The bottom line is that the police aren’t holding out a lot of hope that we’ll get any of it back.”
Rachel was quiet. She stared down at her hands and toyed with her wedding ring.
“I’m so sorry.” He reached over and grasped her hand. “I should have paid more attention.”
“I thought the only reason you flew out to California was to take care of some paperwork involved with selling the house.” Rachel glanced up at him. “At least that’s what you told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you until I knew for sure that my hunch was right,” Joe said. “He cleaned us out. That’s why I need to make this commercial—and several others, if I can get them. I can also do baseball signings, some personal appearances…”
“All the things you hate,” Rachel said.
“I won’t be the first man to do things he hates in order to support his family.”
“I’m sure that’s true.” Rachel blew out the candles and began to clear the table. She had created a romantic dinner and he regretted the fact that he had managed to ruin it.
“I’ll work extra hours,” Rachel said finally.
“Sweetheart, what you can make working a few more hours isn’t a drop in the bucket compared to the money I can make in an afternoon of telling the camera how well the jock-itch cream works.”
She covered the salad bowl with plastic wrap. “You’ve actually used the stuff?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Then how can you tell people how good it is?”
There it was again. That basic rock-hard honesty to which she and her Amish relatives held fast.
“The people who make commercials don’t necessarily use the product. The public knows that.”
She poured the leftover spaghetti sauce into a jar and stored it in the refrigerator. “They deliberately lie?”
“It’s not exactly lying,” Joe said. “It’s a gimmick, like an actor playing a part. It’s advertising. Everybody does it.”
“But you aren’t just anyone, are you?” she said. “You’re Bobby’s father. You’re my husband. For years, you were considered one of the finest athletes in the world. People trust you. How can you consider standing there in your underwear and lying to people on camera?”
“What if I wear a towel?” he asked. “I could try to talk the company into letting me wear a towel. It pays a quarter of a million dollars, Rachel.”
“That much?” She gave it some thought and then shook her head. “I don’t like you having to lie, and I don’t want other women looking at you while you’re wearing nothing but a towel.”
“Rachel, it’s just one commercial.” He was losing this argument and he knew it, but he was also surprised to discover relief and gratefulness that she felt this way. He’d had enough public attention to last him two lifetimes. The last thing he wanted to do was to appear in a commercial, but if that’s what he had to do to support his family…
He gave it one more try.
“Rachel, one of the biblical principles I learned at my father’s knee was Romans 13:8.”
“What does that have to do with advertising jock-itch cream?”
“It says to owe nothing to anyone.”
“Does that mean we’re in debt?”
“Not yet, but we will be soon if I don’t find a real job.”
“You have a real job. You love coaching those kids, and you’re good at it.”
“I also love the idea of being able to keep a roof over our head. I don’t want you to have to put on a uniform and a gun because I can’t support you. Samuel was already telling me that I should make you quit, now that you’re a mother.”
“But we’re okay for now, financially?” she insisted.
“If we continue to live in this house,” he said. “But I wanted to build you a new and bigger house. I wanted to give you nice vacations, like taking you and Bobby to Hawaii or Europe.”
“I have no desire to go to Hawaii or Europe.”
“Okay, Disney World, then. For Bobby.”
“Bobby won’t be scarred if he doesn’t go to Disney World.”
“That’s not the point, Rachel. You thought you were marrying a rich man. Instead, you are married to a man who allowed someone to steal everything he’d ever earned.”
She rinsed and loaded their few dishes into the dishwasher. Then she faced him, crossed her arms again, and leaned against the sink.
“Joe, look at me,” she said.
He did. Big brown eyes. Lovely hair. Perfect skin. A face and a figure that could make a man forget his own name…but compliments were not what she was after.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
If there was one person on the earth in whose hands he would place his life and the life of his son, it was this woman.
“When you came to Sugarcreek, you were searching for two things. Do you remember what they were?”
“Privacy and a normal life for Bobby.”
“I remember the exact words you used. You said you were sick of being in the spotlight. You said you wanted to go to a grocery store for a carton of milk without having to sign autographs in the checkout line. You said you wanted to be an ordinary guy with an ordinary life.”
“I did,” Joe agreed.
“Well, here it is—exactly what you asked for. A normal, ordinary life. You have a wife and a son and friends, and you’re living in a small town where both of us work ordinary jobs, earning just enough to pay our bills, and staying in a cramped house that’s hardly big enough for the three of us. This is what an ordinary life looks like, Joe. Congratulations. You’re finally living your dream.”
“But I want more for you than just getting by.”
“ ‘Getting by’ is enough for me if I get to live it with you. I can be happy with what we have. What worries me is whether it’s enough for you. Has living an ordinary life lost its appeal?”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair or unfair. Is wanting to do that commercial really about the money? Or are you, deep down, tired of being ordinary and want to feel like the great ‘Miracle Micah’ again?”
Her accusation stung.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said.
“That’s probably a good idea.” She turned and put the hardened candles into the cupboard.
At first, he simply strode the darkened streets of Sugarcreek, burning off hurt feelings and nervous energy. How could she accuse him of wanting to go back to the invasion of privacy he had endured for so many years? It was a relief to live below the radar of constant public interest. Hadn’t she noticed that he had chosen to live with her in this small Ohio town that rolled up the sidewalks at five o’clock each evening—when he could have lived anywhere?
Yet he was honest enough with himself to ponder her question. She knew him almost better than he knew himself. Did he miss all the attention he’d once had? Did he miss being the athlete known as Miracle Micah?
His missionary parents had optimistically named him after two minor biblical prophets as they lay side by side in a hut in Africa, holding hands and dreaming dreams for their newborn son, Micah Joel Mattias. None of those dreams had come true.
Instead, he had been given the gift of extraordinary athletic ability. He’d been recruited for the LA Dodgers during his junior year of college in the States and shot up through the farm teams. With two of his main pitchers sidelined by injuries during an important game, the coach stunned much of the ball-playing world by putting Joe, a rookie, on the mound. He’d seen enough of Joe’s skill and steady nerves under pressure to take a gamble. Neither the coach nor the fans had been disappointed.
Joe coolly threw a no-hitter under conditions that would have shaken the most confident of players and sent everyone in the sporting world into a frenzy. It was the kind of story baseball fans loved. The people in the press box had called it a “miracle,” and soon people were calling him “Miracle Micah.” It was a heady time.
He had strayed from his parents’ religious teachings for a while, but more and more Joe saw the validity of those principles and realized how deeply their teachings were imbedded within him.
One of the principles he saw played out was that pride could ruin a man.
This, he knew firsthand to be true. Too many top athletes had been destroyed by being treated like young gods. Too many broken marriages because of inflated egos. Too many bankruptcies by those who refused to acknowledge that prowess as a ballplayer was not a permanent state.
That’s why he despised the nickname “Miracle Micah.” He was a skilled ballplayer—perhaps even a great one—but he was also aware of his limitations. He reminded himself of that whenever fans acted awestruck over meeting him.
When his first wife was murdered and the press wouldn’t stop hounding him at a time when he most needed to be left alone, he started calling himself “Joe” and tried to disappear from the scrutiny until both he and his little son could begin to recover from Grace’s death.
Discovering the Village of Sugarcreek and the gentle people within it had been a gift from God.
No, he did not have some deep-seated wish to ever become Miracle Micah again. He did not need the adoration of fans to feel whole. The only miracle in his life, in addition to Bobby, was finding himself married to a woman who could absorb such devastating financial news and not fall apart or want to leave him. He’d seen too many of his ball-playing buddies deserted by spouses and significant others when they could no longer bring home multimillion-dollar contracts—to not value Rachel’s reaction.
If she would rather live on a reduced income than allow him to advertise jock-itch cream on TV…then so be it. His steps turned toward home—where the woman he loved most in this world waited.
Rachel was wiping down the kitchen counters when he came through the door. She glanced up, and her gaze was steady as she waited for his answer.
“No.” He continued the conversation as if there had been no break in it. “I have no desire to be ‘Miracle Micah’ again, but you and Bobby deserve better than what I can provide on my part-time coaching salary alone.”
“We’ll be okay.” Rachel folded the dish towel and laid it on the counter. “We’re young and strong. We won’t go hungry, and we won’t be homeless. We’ll figure things out…and we’ll make a good life for our son.”
Joe felt the quarter-of-a-million-dollar contract fade from his future as he pulled his wife close. His woman had beauty, brains, and heart. He had definitely won the wife lottery. Although he was pretty much broke, he had never felt richer.