There is one word in America that says it all,
and that one word is, “You never know.”
— Joaquin Andujar, pitcher
“Brrrrrnnng—brrrrrnnng.”
“Damn it.”
“Brrrrrnnng—brrrrrnnng.”
Jack Trehan swore again, reached out blindly in the dark, snagged the phone on his second try. The first had knocked over the already tipsy lamp his Aunt Sadie had lent him out of the goodness of her heart. And Aunt Sadie had no heart.
His eyes still closed, Jack aimed the handset in the vicinity of his ear and mouth and grumbled, “Nobody’s home. At the sound of the tone, why don’t you go take a flying—”
“Jack? Jack, sweetie, is that you?”
Jack’s eyes opened all at once, sort of the way they would if someone had just crept into his darkened bedroom and dumped a bucket of icy Gatorade over his head. He transferred the phone to his “listening” ear, pushed up the pillows behind him, found the pull cord on the hula-dancer lamp with the neon pink fringed shade. Aunt Sadie also had no taste. “Cecily?”
“Oh, you remembered my voice, Jack. That’s so insightful of you. But, then, I always said you were a very old soul, with just gobs of intellect and earned wisdom. Oh, wait. I think that was Daddy. You’re the one I used to think was the reincarnation of Wyatt Earp. Strong, honest, but maybe just a tad sure of himself. Cocky, even. At least, that’s how both those actors played him in the movies. Kevin Costner was one of them—you know, that actor who made a movie about a mailman with webbed toes? Oh wait, that was something else, wasn’t it? Maybe two something else’s?”
“Two something else’s, Cecily. Definitely,” Jack said, grinning in spite of himself.
“Darn! Oh, well, back to Wyatt. I don’t remember the other actor, even though I liked him better. I’ve never figured out why they made two movies, Jack, did you? I mean, okay, so maybe he was Wyatt Big-whoop Earp. But two? I really think one would have covered it, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. Cecily?” Jack said—almost pleaded—his cousin’s childish, high–pitched voice making his ear itch as he blinked at the dial of his alarm clock. He hadn’t seen or heard from Cecily in over a year, but some people... well, they make an indelible impression. “Could we cut to the chase here? It’s two in the morning. And it was Kurt Russell. I liked him better, too.”
“Ah, thank you, Jack. I would have racked my brain half the night if you hadn’t told me. But why are you concerned about the time? Time isn’t relevant, Jack, you know that. It’s artificial, just something someone made up. Some neat freak who wanted to control everyone else. Probably anal retentive, too, don’t you think? And it’s two-fifteen here in Bayonne. Your clock must be wrong. That isn’t like you, Jack. Not that you’re anal retentive, of course. I’d never say that about you. I wish they’d find another description. That one’s so icky. Must we constantly use sex and body parts to describe things? Like male and female plugs—in electricity, you understand. I find that particularly disgusting. And calling cars she, and then smugly gassing her up by sticking a thing into her thing, and—”
“God almighty, Cecily, you’re killing me here,” Jack interrupted, holding a hand to his pounding head. “You’re back home in Bayonne, right? Same artificial time zone and everything. So can’t this wait for the morning? I’ll call you.”
“Oh, sorry, Jack. You know how I get carried away. I’m very intense. Blue Rainbow tells me that all the time. I jump in with both feet, try to feel the whole experience, and sometimes lose my way. It’s a great trial to me, but Blue Rainbow has promised, cross his heart, that he’ll teach me how to channel my energy flow, harness it, find my karmic center. Isn’t that sweet of him?”
“Yeah. Just darling.” Jack was out of bed now, pacing on the bare hardwood floor. Blue Rainbow was a man. He’d gathered that much. With Cecily, there was always a man. But he’d be damned if he’d ask about the guy, because then Cecily would tell him, and then he’d have to jump with both feet—out of his second-story window and kill himself. “Cecily,” he said when she ran down—or at least paused to take a breath. “Is there a reason you’ve called me in the middle of the night, or are we just being chatty?”
The small, chilly silence on the other end of the line told Jack that he’d insulted his cousin, which was next door to hurting her, and closer than he wanted to consider to making her cry. He hated when Cecily cried. She talked when she cried, and hiccuped, and it was pure hell to try to understand her.
“Cecily? I’m sorry, honey,” he said—and he really was. The last time Cecily had launched into a crying, talking, hiccuping jag, he’d ended up owning five hundred shares of stock in Creative Pyrotechnics, her boyfriend’s company. That had gone bust—or boom—six months later, along with the boyfriend, and one small town’s Fourth of July celebration. He’d heard later that Cecily had buried the boyfriend in a jar. A small jar.
“You’re sorry? Well, that’s easy enough for you to say, Jack,” Cecily said, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “You can be really hor-hic-rid, Jack, do you know that? And... and I always thought you li-hic-ked me, that you were the nice one. That’s why I called you. Because you always understand, and you always help. Just like... well, just like Wyatt-hic-Earp.”
Sitting down on the edge of his bed—nearly falling down, as he’d forgotten that his bed was no more than a king-size mattress and box spring, stacked on the floor—Jack took a deep breath and tried to control himself. “Okay, Cecily, honey, okay. Let’s just calm down now. Tell me what’s wrong. Let me help. Honest, honey, all I want to do is help.”
Because then you’ll go away and I can get some sleep. But he didn’t say that.
He waited as Cecily tried to compose herself. She hiccuped once more, blew her nose extremely close to the phone, then took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Jack could imagine just how she looked as she did this. She looked cute. Cecily always looked cute. Big blue eyes, soft blond hair, a petite package of curves. So much on the outside. So little on the inside. Still, he loved her. You’d have to be the kind of person who kicks puppies not to love Cecily Morretti.
“Okay,” she said at last, “here goes. It’s so embarrassing. You remember how last year I was living in that commune in Oregon? Reading all those self-help books? Trying to educate myself? Pull myself up by my own—is that bootstraps? Does anyone really wear those anymore? Oh, we wear boots, sure, but bootstraps? I don’t think we—”
“Cecily. Concentrate, baby. You can do this.”
“Well, no, Jack,” she answered, starting to cry once more. “That’s... that’s just it. I couldn’t do it. I thought I had it right, but then I realized I had it wrong. The books said get in touch with your inner child. But I thought that meant the child inside. I was so wrong, and then I was sort of stuck, you know. I mean, what do you do with the child inside, once she gets out? You do see the diff-hic-erence, don’t you, and how difficult that could-hic-be.”
“Sure,” Jack agreed quickly. Hell, he’d agree to anything his cousin said, if she’d just not start that hiccupping again. “Inner child, child inside. Inner child, child outside. There’s a difference. Got it. There. Does that help? Because I just want to help, Cecily. Anything I can do to help.”
She was crying again. Tears of joy, probably. But even tears of joy came with hiccups. “Oh, thank you, Jack! I knew you could understand, and I knew you’d help me. You’ve always been so kind. Blue Rainbow insists that I leave with him tomorrow, and Joey’s no help—why I came back to Bay-hic-onne to ask for his help I’ll never be able to tell you. My brother is a waste, Jack—a total waste!”
“Still trying to break into the local wise guys, is he?” Jack asked, but Cecily was on a roll and didn’t answer. She just kept talking.
Now Cecily’s words were tumbling over themselves as her mind (always a dangerous thing) seemed to go into third gear. “And how does one find one’s karmic center in Bayonne? I mean, really, Jack—New Jersey? So I was at my wit’s end. But you’re going to help. There’s time, if Blue Rainbow can just find the keys to our rental. Oh, wait. Here they are, in my pock-hic-et. Isn’t that always the last place you look? But this is wonderful! We can get there, get back to Jersey in time, and be on our way on the morning flight from Newark. You still get up real early, don’t you? You probably do. Oh... I can’t thank you enough, Jack. I just ca–hic–n’ t.”
“Then don’t try,” Jack said, feeling pretty smug. He didn’t know what he’d said, but obviously he’d given her the right answers. Not that he was going to push his luck and do something dumb, like ask where in blazes she and Blue Rainbow were going. Get there, get back? Go where, get back to where? Bayonne? No, not Bayonne. Newark. The airport was in Newark. The woman made no sense. Still, if he asked, she’d probably tell him they were taking a hot-air balloon to Jupiter, and he didn’t want to know that. He really didn’t. “Why don’t you call me when you get back?”
“It could be months. Years,” Cecily told him, but the smile was back in her voice—which meant she was once more sounding like Betty Boop on helium. “And you’re all right with that? Are you really sure you want to do this?”
Do what? What had he just agreed to do? Had he actually agreed to do anything? He hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. Still, ignorance was bliss, and with Cecily, very often ignorance was downright necessary to one’s sanity. “Honey, if it makes you happy, I’m just fine with... whatever,” Jack told her, already collapsing toward the pile of pillows, more than ready to go back to sleep.
He aimed the phone at the cardboard box he’d been using as a nightstand, saying through a yawn, “Just glad I could help.”
* * *
Keely McBride rolled over, punched her pillow, flopped her head down once more, moaning in mingled mental agony and frustration. She couldn’t sleep. She might never sleep again. Ever.
How did insomniacs do it? Why hadn’t they all just said the heck with this baloney, killed themselves, and gotten it over with? What did people do all night long, when they couldn’t sleep? Count sheep? Ridiculous. Besides, it didn’t work. Keely knew, because she’d tried it.
The portable television set in her bedroom hadn’t helped either, even though she’d kept it on until two in the morning, watching infomercials, then a “Gilligan’s Island” rerun that had never been one of her favorites. Nothing. Not even one heavy, drooping eyelid.
In fact, if she got any more wide awake, she could stop wasting time and go re-shingle the roof or something.
She was just too nervous to sleep, too scared. She had one shot, just one, and it was coming with one Sadie Trehan and the next sunrise. How was she supposed to sleep? Giving up on what had been a bad idea from the moment she’d crawled into bed some six hours earlier, Keely tossed back the covers and headed toward the bathroom to take a shower.
It wasn’t as if the running water would wake anyone else in the house, because there wasn’t anyone else in the house. She was alone. All alone. Aunt Mary didn’t have any living houseplants, let alone a tabby cat or nervous lapdog to keep her niece company while the older woman was off honeymooning in Greece. You’d think one’s only aunt would have more consideration, damn it, because Keely could do with a purring cat or a yapping dog. She’d settle for a hamster and its squeaky wheel—anything to break the silence, anything she could talk to, complain to. Bitch to.
Keely had a lot of bitching to do.
For starters, she was in Allentown—back in Allentown—because her fledgling interior design business in Manhattan had gone belly-up only fifteen months after she’d first opened the doors.
How Keely hated to fail, especially when her one and only lover had so smugly declared “You’ll never make it without me” when she’d left his bed, his employ, and set out to buck the odds that 70 percent of all new businesses fail in the first two years.
God, how she hated statistics, being a statistic. Almost as much as she’d hated Gregory Fontaine—which she didn’t anymore, because to hate somebody you’d actually have had to have liked him at some point—and she’d figured out that there had been nothing likable about Gregory Fontaine.
He was handsome, sure. And successful. And he’d hired her straight out of college, the ink on her diploma still wet (and her only work reference from Aunt Mary, who anybody with even a pea for a brain would know had to have given a glowing recommendation, even if Keely had been the worst interior designer since the first jerk had hung a moose head on his den wall).
Ah, yes, Gregory Fontaine. He’d been suave and debonair and dined in all the right restaurants and knew the right people and could quote lines from every Neil Simon play. He also bit his toenails. Keely liked to remember that Gregory Fontaine bit his toenails. It was so vindicating.
Keely stood under the stinging spray, her head bowed so that her honey blond hair turned darkly golden. She poured shampoo into her hand and worked up a thick, creamy lather in her hair, trying to wash away any bad thoughts.
It didn’t work. It never did. She never felt more awake, aware, or alive just because she’d washed her hair. She certainly had never had an orgasm courtesy of some nature-smelling shampoo.
There was so much of life she’d missed out on. Spraying room deodorizer had never turned her living room into a flower garden. Toothpaste had never put a blinking, diamondlike starburst in her smile. No genie had ever popped out of her all–purpose cleanser bottle and danced her around her sparkling-clean kitchen. And as for her sex life? Hell, nobody had “validated her tires” since she’d waved Gregory Fontaine ta-ta eighteen months ago.
Her life was one huge downward spiral, that’s what it was. Business, gone. Manhattan apartment, gone. Future, gone. Love life? Hell, it hadn’t been that good, but that, too, was gone. Way gone.
Here she was, back in Allentown, back to her roots, back to the beginning, to the same bedroom at Aunt Mary’s she’d slept in while growing up, dreaming of getting “out.” She had not passed Go, and she sure hadn’t collected any money. If it weren’t for Aunt Mary, she’d pretty much be on the streets, or selling furniture in some shopping mall department store for nine bucks an hour and every third Saturday off.
“So, okay,” Keely told herself—and maybe the towel rack, or the toilet, or anything that might be listening—“maybe I have had one piece of good luck. Aunt Mary’s in Greece, billing and cooing until late August, and I’m running the shop. I’m even getting fifty percent of any commissions. This is not bad. This is not nirvana, granted, but this is not bad. So lighten up, McBride. Brush your not-quite-diamond-white teeth, figure out what you’re going to wear, and get ready to dazzle your new big customer in...” she walked back into the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, “... precisely seven hours. Oh God, what do I do for the next seven hours?”
* * *
At six-thirty, Jack was already up, shaved and showered, dressed, and heading to the kitchen for his first cup of coffee. It was June, the sun was shining, the weather was already warm, and he should have been in even sunnier California, getting ready for tonight’s game between the Athletics and the Yankees.
Instead, he was here, in Whitehall, a stone’s throw from the larger city of Allentown, and he had nothing to do, nowhere to go... and precious little to sit down on, considering that his furniture consisted of the mattress and box spring, a couple of lamps, a flat-screen television set, and one lumpy chair.
Jack had mastered the coffeemaker his Aunt Sadie had lent him—hey, anything Joe DiMaggio could do, Jack Trehan could do, damn it—and his morning coffee was hot and waiting for him. He stood, leaning against the kitchen counter, and looked around the room. Big. Modern. Empty.
The whole house was empty, and smelled new, which it sort of was. There was an echo, thanks to the hardwood floors and the cathedral ceilings. There was sunlight pouring through huge, floor-to-ceiling windows.
There was no privacy, little comfort, and Jack was still kicking himself for allowing his agent, Mortimer “More and More” Moore talk him into buying the ridiculous mansion. A great tax write-off, Mort had told him at the time.
Yeah, well, maybe. And he could use the tax write-off, he supposed.
In truth, the house was already a year old, even if it was still empty. Jack had thought the place would remain empty until he retired from baseball. Instead, it had remained empty for only that one year, until he’d been forced out of the game.
Big damn difference, and now Jack looked at the house as if it were some sort of punishment he had to endure. Being home again, back in Pennsylvania, back in the Lehigh Valley. What a comedown.
He should have stayed in Manhattan, where he owned this own condo on the forty-seventh floor of one of the classiest addresses in the city. And he could have, too. Except that being in Manhattan reminded him that he wanted to be in the Bronx, at the ball field, working on his curve ball.
So he’d locked up the condo and run home, run to the house Mort had talked him into buying, even run to his Aunt Sadie, who lived above the four-car garage... five snug rooms she jokingly called “the dower house.”
Aunt Sadie had furniture. She had pots and pans. She had more than two towels.
She also had a guest room, but Jack would rather sleep on a park bench than in Sadie Trehan’s guest room, which was furnished in early kitsch. Hell, the Hawaiian hula-skirt girl lamp had been about the most normal thing in the entire room.
“Yeah, well,” Jack said, pushing himself away from the counter, “today, Jack old boy, is the first day of the rest of your life—whatever that means—so you’d better get on with it.”
Getting on with it meant meeting with the interior decorator Sadie had hired, and hoping the guy wasn’t a fan of Sadie’s decor. Getting on with it meant trying to figure out how he was going to fill his days, his nights, his weeks and years, now that he’d lost his first and only love, baseball.
Getting on with it, since he was feeling pretty down and small steps were probably all he could take at the moment, meant going to the front door and praying Sadie had kept her word and ordered the morning paper for him.
The Yankees were on a West Coast road trip, and Jack knew last night’s game stats probably hadn’t made the newspaper, so he grabbed the remote off the bar separating the kitchen and den, aimed it at the television. Nothing like a little morning ESPN to make him feel like going out in the backyard and wailing like a lost soul.
Auto racing. No scores, no stats. ESPN was running a frigging rerun of a frigging auto race. Jack hit the remote once more, shutting off the set. “Life just keeps getting better and better,” he grumbled, once more heading for the front door.
The phone on the bar rang, stopping him, reminding him that he’d heard the phone ring in the middle of the night, stupidly answered it, and found Cecily on the other end.
This time he’d be smarter. This time he’d check the Caller ID before he picked up.
“Mort,” Jack muttered out loud, then raised his eyes toward the ceiling, debating whether or not to answer. Last time Mort had called, it had been to try to talk him into doing a mouthwash ad for Japanese television. According to Mort, Jack had to strike now, while he was still relatively “hot,” before he became “yesterday’s news.”
Mort was a real brick. Supportive. A friend in need and a friend in deed.
Yeah. Right.
Jack pushed the button, lifted the cordless phone to his ear. “Morning, Mort,” he said, once more heading for the door. “What is it today? Hemorrhoid cream for the Netherlands? Erectile dysfunction medications for—oh, hell, I wouldn’t do one of those for anybody.”
Mort’s booming voice had Jack easing the phone away from his ear. “Good one, Jack. Good one! Hey, ever wonder why Bob Dole couldn’t have helped his fellow sufferers with a public service message instead of taking big bucks from a drug company? I have. Smart man, Dole. A man after my own heart. You can make bucks from anything if you just angle it right. Free for nothing is good for nothing, I say. Anyway, glad to hear you’ve got some of that old fight back.”
“A compliment, Mort?” Jack said warily. Mort Moore had all the sensitivity of a killer shark. “What do you want?”
“Want? Me? Want something? Jack, Jack, Jack. You know all I ever want is what’s best for you. I just wanted you to know I nixed that mouthwash ad. You were right on with that one. Not your thing, definitely.”
“Uh-huh,” Jack said, his right hand on the front door knob. “What is my thing, definitely?”
“Corvettes,” Mort said, and Jack could almost see the wicked grin on his agent’s face. “A two-day shoot in Arizona—lots of open space there, or something like that. You, the car, a beautiful girl in the seat beside you. Some drivel about the pitching ace and his new driving ace—lame, but they’re working on the copy. And you get to keep the car, Jack. So? What do you think?”
Jack removed his hand from the doorknob, rubbed at his chin. “A Corvette? Beats the hell out of mouthwash, Mort. Okay, but let me think about it. I’m still not so sure about going the endorsement route. My name on a glove is fine, but I wonder if it’s really honest to start putting my face and name out there, outside of sports.”
“Strike while the iron is hot, Jack,” Mort reminded him. “Not every ex-Yankee has a Mr. Coffee in his future. Now listen up—I’m heading South this morning. Gotta check out this kid from Florida State who’s thinking of coming out early for the NFL draft. Big, big boy. Hits the line like a ton of bricks, scares the crap out of the offense, but won’t take a step in any direction without his mama being there to watch out for him. So I’m going down to charm the mama, size up the kid. I wouldn’t want to see anybody take advantage of him, you know?”
“You’re a real prince, Mort,” Jack told him, shaking his head. “Your percentage of the kid’s contract means nothing to you, right?”
“And don’t forget the signing bonus,” the agent told him, chuckling. “Okay, that’s it from here, Jack. I’ll be in touch in a few days, sooner if I hear from the ad agency. Don’t get in any trouble while I’m gone.”
“Trouble? When did I ever get in—oh, forget it,” Jack muttered, hearing the dial tone in his ear. “Trouble,” he repeated, reaching for the doorknob yet again. “Mort’s thinking about the wrong Trehan. I’m not Tim. I’m Jack, the good twin.” He turned the knob, pulled open the front door, bent down to pick up the newspaper. “I never get in trouble. I just get injured and retired at twenty-eight, along with an empty house and an agent who’s letting me know I’m soon going to be yesterday’s—holy shit!”
Jack looked down at the huge wicker wash basket sitting at the base of the three steps leading to his front door. Looked at the pink plastic bits and pieces of luggage stuffed into it. Looked at the plastic seat or whatever it was wedged in the center of the basket. Looked at the thing inside the plastic seat.
Nah. Couldn’t be. He was hallucinating.
Jack closed his eyes, opened them again. Looked again. The thing in the seat looked back at him. Grinned at him, showing pink gums and one small tooth. Kicked at the blanket over its feet.
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
His first instinct was to run back into the house and slam the door. Lock it. But that wouldn’t work.
He gave a moment’s thought to the neighbors, but since his house was located on three acres and his nearest neighbor was at least two blocks away, there wasn’t much fear that anybody would see him standing outside, looking down at a baby in a basket.
A baby in a basket?
Whose baby?
His baby?
Jack repeatedly slapped his arms against his sides and looked around, trying to appear nonchalant.
His baby? Could that be possible? He’d never been a playboy, never really slept around with all the women who just about threw themselves at major league baseball players.
But he hadn’t been exactly celibate, either.
His baby?
Possible. Anything was possible, right? Oh God.
He tossed the newspaper and phone behind him, into the foyer, flapped his arms some more, swallowed hard, did a small, nervous dance on the top step.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
“Knock it off, knock it off,” he told himself. “Get a grip here, Trehan. This could be anybody’s baby. Doesn’t have to be your baby. But, just to be safe, go down the steps, pick it up, get it inside before anybody sees you.”
That all sounded good, except that Jack’s feet hadn’t been listening, so that he was still standing on the top step, and the baby was still sitting right there, out in the open, grinning up at him.
“Sadie,” Jack breathed at last. That was it; he’d call Sadie. His aunt would know what to do.
“No, no, not Sadie,” he corrected himself quickly, picturing his aunt and what she’d say. “Not until you know what the hell’s going on.”
That much decided, Jack finally went down the steps, bent over the basket. The baby reached up both arms, tried to grab at his nose as he lifted the heavy basket, carried it inside the house.
Kicking the door closed with one foot, he stood in the empty foyer, looking toward the empty living room. Where to put the basket? Like it mattered where he put it. What mattered was that it was there.
Jack carried the basket through the house, into the kitchen, finally depositing it on the tile floor, his head bent low over the basket because the baby had somehow gotten one hand into his mouth and was digging tiny fingernails into his gums behind his front teeth. He had to pry the little fingers away, one by one. The kid could probably bend iron, with a grip like that.
Running his tongue around his mouth, wondering if he now needed a tetanus shot—or if the kid did—Jack finally noticed a business-size white envelope tucked into the basket.
Ah, the obligatory note left with the baby in the basket. The note that would explain everything—just like in the movies. “Man, I hate when that happens,” Jack grumbled, only slightly hysterical as he gingerly picked up the envelope.
Written on the envelope were the first three nails in his coffin: To Darling Jack. He recognized the handwriting at once. Nobody but his cousin Cecily dotted her i’s with little hearts, crossed her t’s with small bows.
The note inside was short and not very informative, as Cecily wrote just as she spoke, in circles and as the spirit hit her:
Darling Jack,
Thank you so much for agreeing to take little Magenta Moon for me. You always were such a darling, as opposed to Joey, who’s such a jerk. She’s about six months old, I think, but hasn’t had her shots because I didn’t get around to it—Blue Rainbow tells me you should know this. He also said this letter must tell you that I give you all rights to take care of her. So you have all rights, okay? There’s also some official-looking papers stuffed in her diaper bag, in case you need them. Blue Rainbow once thought he wanted to be a lawyer, but that didn’t work. Something about his rap sheet, whatever that is? Oh, she’s probably going to be hungry soon. There’s some bottles for her in one of the bags. Well, gotta run. Just think, Jack—Katmandu!
Love,
Cecily (Moon Flower) Morretti
“Jesus H. Christ.” Jack sat down on the floor, still holding the note, and looked at Magenta Moon. The inner child, the child inside. It all made sense now. Too late, it all made sense. Well, Cecily kind of sense, anyway.
“You never could get anything right, could you, Cecily?” he asked as Magenta Moon began to cry; then he lowered his head into his hands. Given his druthers, he’d rather be in Tokyo... gargling.