One
“Hurry up, Marty. It’s not like we’ve got all the time in the world.” My best friend, Tim Unser, says that to me all the time. Tim’s one of those people who think five minutes early to wherever you’re going is equivalent to being ten minutes late. It’s just one of the umpteen zillion ways we’re polar opposites: Tim’s a neat freak and I’m a bit of slob. He works out all the time. I’m practically allergic to exercise. He’s a cop and prides himself on logical thinking. I, on the other hand, tend to send my imagination out on cross-country marathons.
Recently, though, I’ve had a little more trouble than usual reigning in my, er, let’s call it creativity. For the past couple of years I’ve been convinced that those whacked out Floozies of Fate – Chance, Destiny, and Lady Luck – have been up to no good, brewing up massive amounts of mischief and mayhem for sweet, little, ol’ me. However, things took a turn for the worse recently after a particularly traumatic series of events, and I started to imagine that I was actually seeing the devilish divas. In fact, for the past few weeks, they’ve been appearing everywhere, buzzing around me like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes.
Things have gotten so bad that I finally took Tim’s advice and scheduled an appointment to meet with a shrink this afternoon. I’m not looking forward to it either. What if the doc decides I’m bonkers and packs me off to the loony bin? Or talks my folks into springing for a lobotomy? They may be certifiable, but I’ve grown rather attached to my cute little crop of brain cells.
Okay, so I don’t really expect either one of those things to happen. The truth of the matter is, I think this whole therapy thing is a bunch of hooey. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. And boy, am I ever desperate. I’m starting to think that if I don’t hurry up and rid myself of the Doom Divas once and for all, Tim will be right and I’ll run completely out of time.
In fact, that’s what almost just happened. Last month I got involved in yet another situation that almost cost me my life.
The whole thing was, as usual, my sister, Charli’s, fault. While it’s true that I’d just barely escaped being sent to prison for a murder I didn’t commit because of Charli’s unreasonable fear of worms, never in a million years would I have expected a simple phone call from her on a lazy Sunday to lead to an unmitigated disaster like the one I’ve dealt with these last few weeks.
“Marty,” she said once I finally got my eyes unglued and answered the phone, “have I ever got the perfect man for you.”
I groaned and almost hung up on her, but I was so sleepy that I tucked the phone in next to my ear and dozed off instead. I don’t have a clue as to how long Charli yammered on, but the next thing I remember her saying was, “So we’ll pick you up at one thirty, okay?” And then she hung up.
One thirty? Why was she picking me up at one thirty? Had I actually agreed to go somewhere with Charli and this so-called perfect man she’d found for me? Surely not. I may moan and mumble in my sleep, but no one in his or her right mind would construe that to be a yes. Except for my sister, that is.
Charli thinks that there’s nothing wrong with my life that a walk down a church aisle, a six-tier coconut cream cake, and eighteen yards of white lace can’t cure. But, then, Charli’s the mother of three and married to the world’s greatest guy. I, on the other hand, having been stranded at the altar a mere three days before my carefully planned nuptials were scheduled to commence, have, shall we say, a slightly different opinion on the matter.
I tried calling back, but Charli’s line was busy. I punched redial over and over again for almost ten minutes and it was always busy. I gave up on her land-line and sent three texts, each one a bit more heated than the previous one. Finally, I dialed Mom and Dad’s number. Busy too. And Mom also ignored her cell. That most likely meant that Charli and Mom were working out who was going to line up the band and which one of them would order the invites. Needless to say, Mom’s opinions on fixing my life veer to the Charli side of the equation.
Delbert, my massive black and white tomcat, sandpapered the back of my hand with his tongue and let out a really pitiful sounding meow. I pulled on a pair of shorts and yanked my hair back into a ponytail, then went into the kitchen to rustle up a can of Kitty Gourmet for him and a chocolate doughnut for me. Ahh, chocolate: the breakfast of champions.
The clock on my beat-up microwave told me that it was twelve forty-five. I know, that sounds late, but a few weeks back, during my prior go round with the Doom Divas, I ended up in the hospital and, even though I was feeling much, much better, my body functions better on a good nine or ten hours of sleep a day. Plus, I was scheduled to go back to work the next day (I’m a DJ at a ‘hot country’ radio station) and since my new hours meant I’d have to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:00 A.M., I was trying to store up as much snooze time as I could.
I tried Charli’s number again before I hopped into the shower, but it was still busy. And she was evidently ignoring my texts, now totaling seven, which all basically just said, “call me”, but in slightly less g-rated language. Since I couldn’t reach her, I finally just gave up and decided not to fight it because, truthfully, even if I did, I’d most likely end up doing whatever the heck it was that Charli wanted me to do anyway. At least this way I wouldn’t have to listen to her whine and lecture for an hour before I gave in.
Because I didn’t have the foggiest where we were going, I dressed in my all-purpose denim skirt, a Mandy Barnett t-shirt, and a slightly scuffed pair of flip-flops.
It took me all of twelve minutes to get ready, so I ate another chocolate doughnut, drank a root beer, and brushed my teeth. Charli rang the doorbell just as I stuck my wallet in my pocket and gave Delbert a goodbye pat. Silly me. I actually spit into the wind and went to answer the damned thing.
“Baseball? But you hate baseball,” I said to Charli, who was dressed in one of her usual perfectly coordinated, looked-like-it-was-designed-just-for-her, ensembles. “In fact, your exact words were ‘I’ll roll in pig slop before I go to another baseball game’.” I settled into the backseat of my sister’s new silver MKX SUV and buckled up.
John, Charli’s husband, and my favorite (and only) brother-in-law, didn’t let me down. “Joe’s Farm Petting Zoo is on the way to the stadium. I called and told them to water down the hog trough.”
Charli took the high road and ignored us. “I can’t wait for you to meet Harry, Marty. He’s so interesting. He’s not good looking in that plastic Ricky Ray way. (That would be Ricky Ray Riley, country music heartthrob, recent Grammy nominee, and the man who abandoned me at the altar.) Harry’s what people call handsome. He’s got an angular face, really great sandy blonde hair, and the most amazing green eyes. Oh my gosh, those eyes of his are really something else. So soulful. The eyes of a poet.” She shifted around in her seat and looked back at me through the gap. “And seriously, Marty, the man has the best body I’ve ever seen!” She glanced toward her husband. “Well, next to John’s, of course.”
John smiled and gave Charli’s hand a squeeze before flicking the signal and turning onto Main Street. “Nice save, babe.”
“So he’s meeting us there?” I asked.
Charli turned back around, flipped down the visor, and checked her flawless makeup in the little lighted mirror. “Yes. Well, sort of. I thought I told you when I called. He’s a ball player. A pitcher. He was sent down to rehabilitate an injury or something.”
“How’d you meet him?” I asked through a yawn. I probably could have used another hour of two of sleep. The nine I’d had didn’t seem to have done the trick.
Charli stopped messing with her perfectly coiffed ash-blonde hair and peered at me in the gap again. “Geez, Marty! Don’t you ever listen to people? I told you all about it when I called. He’s staying at Kyle Zagle’s place. Kyle’s late wife was his cousin.”
My eyes misted over at the mention of Kyle Zagle. A romance that wasn’t meant to be, but I hadn’t quite adjusted to the loss yet. Not to mention the fact that just the thought of him sent me straight back to a memory of the horrors Charli and I had so recently endured; the ones that landed both Tim and me in the hospital. Horrors that still filled my dreams.
John parked the car in the quickly-filling-up parking lot of the beautiful new baseball stadium our city had just opened. (Minor league, single A. This is Glenvar, Virginia, population 20,000 give or take a couple of hundred, after all. We aren’t exactly overrun with major league sports franchises. Although, a group of businessman floated around the idea of applying for the Olympic games a couple of years back. Rumor has it they were under the heavy influence of a couple of jugs of locally produced moonshine at the time.)
The new stadium is a lovely facility with a magnificent view of the mountains. It sits between the high school football stadium and the Glenvar Civic Center just on the outskirts of town. I’d gone to a couple of games with Tim, who is a Glenvar police officer, and found myself so captivated by the vista that I forgot to watch the game. There are about 10,000 seats, plenty of snack bars and beer carts, and lots of tables and chairs dotting the concourse for those more interested in socializing and people watching than game-viewing. There’s also a kids’ play area with a bunch of those bouncy castles and slides, and a lot of green grass behind the stadium for picnics and kid rough-housing. A gang of little boys were already playing a spirited game of throw-back tackle when we walked by the fence separating the stadium from the parking lot.
“By the way, where are the kidlets?” I asked, referring to John and Charli’s three adorable rugrats, Kevin, Adam, and Jaelyn.
“Kevin and Adam are at a birthday party sleep-over and Jaelyn is spending the night with John’s folks,” Charli answered. “This is our first date night in so long. Maybe we can go out to dinner or something after the game. That way, you can get to know him, but without a lot of pressure.”
I mumbled a “we’ll see” and followed John to the will-call office, where Charli’s new friend had left the tickets. We found our seats, front row, just to the right of the home team dugout, and John went off to buy us some peanuts and beer. I squinted and studied the players warming up on the field, seeing if I could figure out which one was the mysterious Harry. The pitcher warming up was cute, but not at all the sort of man Charli had described, so I counted him out pretty quickly.
“Let me see those binoculars,” I told Charli.
She handed them to me, but, before I could get them adjusted, she poked me in the shoulder. “There,” she whispered. “He’s just coming out of the dugout.”
I dropped the binoculars in my lap, looked up, and locked eyes with him. Charli was right. The man was something else. If anything, she hadn’t done him enough justice. He was exceptionally handsome. He was dressed in uniform, complete with those tight baseball pants, and a dark green Bombers ball cap. He smiled at me, tipped his hat, and winked.
I’m not sure, but I might have gasped. I know I felt one of those tingles that burble up from deep inside and make you feel like you’re about to catch on fire. Talk about raging hormones. One look, that one tiny little look, and I knew right then and there that Harry Evans was a heartache waiting to happen. If I’d had a lick of sense, the tiniest shred of sanity, I’d have jumped up from that blue plastic seat and high-tailed it home.
But I didn’t. Even though I knew better, knew that I should be running as fast and as far away from him as I could get, I didn’t. Just a few seconds of gazing into those eyes and the next thing I knew, I was in way, way over my head. I fell in so deep, as a matter of fact that I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to completely recover from what happened.