Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) (19 page)

The man removed the paper covering the flooring sample and held it out to her. She turned it over, fingered it. It was high-grade industrial, top of the line. Even a small piece would cost a week’s worth of seal food. At least Alex’s donation kept her from having to prioritize funds. Likely she’d have lived with the floor as it was, but the USDA could come down on them. Alex’s sturdy and functional patch job had barely passed their inspection the first time. But still, he could’ve told her about his plan. She’d check her emails; maybe he’d sent one that she missed.

She handed the sample back.

“Sixteen inches should be fine,” she said, giving him a nod and trying to smile. He had a job to do, so no need to bust his chops, even if she needed to get in there and work.

In the past week, with Bradley’s help, she’d come close, real close, to identifying the source of the runoff. She could feel it. But feelings weren’t enough. She still needed the test results before she could take any next steps. She’d just have to wait until later that afternoon to prep the rest of the samples.

She decided to check on the juvenile sea otter that had been rescued the week before. The little rascal was clever; he’d already figured out how to undo the double latches on the special enclosure they reserved for otters. Gage had come in one morning to find him scooting around on the kitchen floor.

She found the otter floating on his back with one of Gage’s hockey pucks tucked onto his tummy.

“I wondered where that was,” Gage said as he came up beside her.

“Recruiting him already?”

“He must've stolen it from my gear bag on his last visit to the kitchen. Won't give it up. He uses it to crack clams.”

“I hope that’s regulation equipment,” Michael Albright chided when he joined them. “That’d make a good press story: Clever otter signs with the San Jose Sharks.”

“
No
, Michael,” Jackie said. “Don’t even think about it. We are trying to reduce human interaction with marine mammals, not encourage it, remember? Mission point number one?”

Michael started to protest, but evidently thought better of it. “I came by on my way to the city to see our latest star." He nodded at the otter. "Even I can't resist them. ”

Jackie showed Michael how to separate the frozen lobster and shrimp pieces and toss them in the water from behind the screen at the end of the pool. They didn’t want the otter associating food with humans. Already kayakers in Monterey Bay had complained of sixty-five-pound otters crawling up onto their boats. Otters were cute at a distance, but it was best to keep them there.

“He eats better than I do,” Gage said.

“He’s cuter than you are,” Michael said with a grin. He pulled Jackie aside.

“I heard about Alex Tavonesi’s growing interest in the Center’s work,” he said smoothly.

“
Ipso facto
our floor.” She jerked her head back toward the necropsy lab. “But maybe you haven’t heard that he quit volunteering.”

“Minor detail. We’d like him to be honorary chair of the gala.”

She hadn’t forgotten about the formal party that Michael insisted they throw each year; she’d just tried to put it out of her mind. Fussing over menus and music and guest lists just wasn’t her thing. And asking Alex to chair such an event was overreaching, even for Michael’s loose standards.

She took in a breath to protest.

“We don’t have any other draw,” he added before she could respond, “at least not like him. He’s baseball’s golden boy right now and we need a star.”

“He does Nike ads, Michael. We’re nothing to him.”

“He gives the money from those ads to charity, my dear.” He leveled his businessman-of-the-galaxy stare at her. “We need this, Jackie. The Center needs this.”

She held her face impassive, considering.

“The
animals
need this,” he added.

“That’s low, Michael.”

“Do I have to grovel?”

“For God’s sake, pull out all the stops, why don’t you?” She had to smile. He was devoted to moving the Center and its mission forward, and he did what it took. “All right. But
you
ask him.”

When Michael raised a brow, she just stood there. She wasn’t about to try to explain to him what she couldn’t explain to herself.

“No deal,” Michael said. “He couldn't care less about me.
You
ask him. Today would be good—and since it didn’t make the printed invite, we’ll have to use my publicity people to get the word out.”

He nudged her on the shoulder as if she were a child reluctant to enter a game. “Here’s his cell number. You can do it.”

Michael headed for his Porsche, then turned back. “By the way, I got you a great printing deal for the membership brochures. A business associate of Volkov's, some friend of his from Russia who has a print business, among others. He’s doing it for free.” He saluted her and stepped into his car. “You know, Volkov might make a great board member.”

She hadn’t imagined a man like Volkov having business associates in Russia. In fact, she knew little about him and wondered how much any of the board knew. Next time she spoke with Michael, she’d ask.

She spent the next three hours on a report for the Marine Mammal Commission on the Hawaii project. She sent it off and walked to the door of the lab.

“Just finishing up,” the flooring guy said as he held out a clipboard. “Sign here.”

The number at the bottom of the page shocked her. The floor had been ten times more expensive than she’d imagined.

“My name’s Barry.” He handed her his card. “Call me if there are any problems.” He glanced around the lab. “But if you ask me, this floor will outlast the building.”

The vapors from the floor adhesive mixed with the pungent smells of the lab, and Jackie knew better than to work in there until the vapors had dissipated. She went to the hospital instead and found Gage finishing up an arthroscopic surgery, expertly repairing a torn shoulder tendon on a female harbor seal that had been hit by a boat.

“Nice work,” she said as she helped him load the still groggy animal onto a gurney.

“High praise. Don’t think you’re going to get
me
to make that call.” He pulled his surgical mask off his face. “Michael mentioned it yesterday. It’s a good idea, Jackie.”

“I rescind my praise.”

“Too late,” Gage said with a lopsided grin. “It already registered with my ego.”

Later that afternoon Jackie sat in her tiny office, unable to focus. She stared out her window and watched the dusk creep along the headland cliffs and the last of the surfers paddle in and head home.

She’d read the same lines in the report that Bradley had sent from UC Davis four times. Even in her fuzzy state it was pretty clear that the results of the water sample tests showed there had to be more than one source for the fertilizer runoff. The highest concentrations were at the mouth of the river, but the samples she took in the north stretch showed the same radioactive fingerprint.

Yet there was little or none in the samples she’d taken in between. Someone must be using the fertilizer heavily upstream and someone, probably the same someone, must be dumping the remainder in the bay. But why? She rubbed at her eyes. Conjecture wasn’t helping her or the seals.

In the face of such important findings, why it bothered her to call Alex about the gala stumped her. She’d called senators to get them to support marine mammal protection measures, called stubborn scientists to enlist their help investigating diseases, made calls to prickly fishermen to get help with rescues. The prospect of calling Alex for a very legitimate reason shouldn’t shake her.

Perhaps it was because she would be asking him to put himself on the line for the Center, asking him to be a show pony.
She
never liked being a show pony, but sometimes the work required it. And sometimes to reach the public you had to have a star. Right now, Alex was that star. Yet it was one thing to put yourself on the line, entirely another to ask somebody else to do it.

But the feeling that squeezed into her chest told her that it wasn’t just that. The morning of the water rescue, when she’d really gotten the measure of him, she knew in her heart that he was the kind of man she could imagine loving. Well, except for the ladies’ man, ballplayer part. And the knowledge that she was even thinking about needing a man at all shocked her. Shocked her so much that she was gazing out a window, mooning about the man, rather than working.

She gave up.

She loaded an armful of books and her laptop into her truck and headed home. Maybe she could concentrate better there.

When she reached the house, neither the hummingbirds hurrying to gather sips of nectar from her overgrown garden nor the soft breeze drifting across her patio and out to the rolling hills eased her.

She grabbed a pint of Ben & Jerry’s from the freezer and paced the perimeter of her tiny patio, waving her spoon in the air as she ran possible scripts in her mind and cursed Michael Albright under her breath.

Frustrated, she picked up the portable phone from her patio table and punched in Alex’s number. Feedback and an echo said she had a bad connection—she kept meaning to call the phone company—so she hung up and dialed again. The echo didn’t go away, but it wasn’t as bad.

With the first ring it occurred to her that she’d probably end up talking to an answering service. That would be just fine. She’d leave a detailed message and tell him to call Michael.

“Tavonesi here.”

No such luck.

She took in a breath.

“Hello. It’s Jackie Brandon. From the California Marine Mammal Center.”

He laughed. “I do recognize your voice and I happen to remember where you work. My basic brain skills are still operative.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy. She realized she had no idea what time zone he was in. She glanced at her watch. Four thirty.

“You’re not at a game, are you? I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

He laughed again. “I can assure you we don’t take calls during games. We had a day game today. We won.”

“Oh.” She paused. She’d rehearsed this, but it wasn’t going as planned. “That’s wonderful.” Another pause. Butterflies danced in her stomach. Something about his voice made her traitorous body override her mind, as if the sound went directly into her skin and skipped her brain entirely.

“I imagine you didn’t call to check on the final score,” he prompted.

Perhaps she should ask about the game. Likely that’s what one did in a situation like this.

“What was it?”

“Five to two,” he said.

She heard the playful tone in his voice.

She could talk about the weather. One could always rely on it as an icebreaker. Then she could quickly ask him to chair the gala and hang up.

“We’ve had another freak storm here,” she said. “What’s the weather like there?” Where
there
was, she had no idea. Worse, he probably knew she had no idea where he was. She should’ve Googled the team’s schedule. She hadn’t been thinking.

“It’s always a steam bath in Atlanta at this time of year,” he said. “I think even the bats sweat, it’s so hot.” He paused, then added, “Sorry to hear about the storm. More casualties?”

Ah, something she could talk about.

“Not yet. Likely we’ll see more toward the end of the week. It’s going to be a warm weekend, so there’ll be many more people on the beaches. We’ll have lots of stranding calls.” She paused, sorting out what to say next.

“Sorry I can’t be there to help.”

He sounded like he meant it. It was the perfect segue.

“There is something you could do.” She stopped. Should she put it on Michael or leverage her relationship with Alex? She settled on telling him the truth.

“Michael Albright asked me to call and ask if you’d be Honorary Chair for the gala on September fourteenth. You wouldn’t have to do anything. Well, except show up. And talk to people. And—”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” she repeated. She sounded like a parrot. She’d expected to have to pitch him.

“Yup. Hold on.” There was a moment of silence. “It’s now on my calendar. It happens to be a night when I’ll be around. We fly in that afternoon. But I do have one stipulation—have a glass of champagne with me after?”

Harmless enough, but the idea—and the images running through her head—sent the butterflies in her stomach leaping once again.

“Okay,” she said.

“Seems to be the word of the night,” he said with a light tone. She heard commotion in the background, a man’s voice calling out to him.

“I have to go,” he said. “I promised my winning pitcher I’d buy him dinner and a cheesecake. See you on the fourteenth. I’m looking forward to it. Hold on—”

His voice was muffled, as though he’d covered the phone.

“My buddy Scotty wants to come, would that be okay? You can charge him double.”

“It’s fine, well, yes, of course.” Heat rose in her cheeks—she was stammering like a schoolgirl. It was ridiculous. “Okay. See you then.”

She pressed the button and ended the call, then sat staring at the phone.

There. That wasn’t so hard. Not if she didn’t count the jitters, the pint of ice cream she’d eaten while she rehearsed what she’d say and the pacing as she’d practiced.