Stef Ann Holm (6 page)

D
rew made eight o’clock dinner reservations at Indigo in the Timberline Lodge for Jacquie’s birthday. After tryouts, he’d have enough time to leave the baseball field, go home, shower and put on a dress shirt and slacks. Given the uneasy state of their relationship lately, he hadn’t been sure what to buy her, so he went with a stock gift that any woman would like—a bottle of expensive perfume he picked up at Christina’s Boutique. It was a brand they sold at high-end department stores. The fragrance smelled good to him and it suited Jacquie. Spicy, not flowery.

The feminine scents of women’s perfume were forgotten as Drew walked across newly mown turf cut on the diagonal. Its freshly shorn blades crushed beneath his tennis shoes, filling his nose with the pungent mustiness of meadow and earth.

He loved the smell of baseball turf, especially when he wore spikes and was suited up. There was nothing better than digging his heels into the soft, red dirt of a field and sliding into home plate.

A new coat of green paint refreshed the Wood Ridge Memorial Clubhouse, its composite roof getting a few replacement shingles this year as well. Chalk lines marked the diamond, and the elevated pitcher’s mound was raked to perfection.

An upcoming season always got under Drew’s skin like a bottle of Tabasco sauce. He was so hot for the game, he felt on fire. He lived for baseball season.

He’d never been into football, not even in high school. He’d gone to the home games, only to see who’d hook up with whom and where the best parties were going to be that night.

Reflecting on his youth, he furrowed his brow, and the thrill of an expanse of turf was momentarily forgotten as memories took him back in time.

His parents had had to get married because his mom was pregnant. Drew wasn’t sure if they were ever in love with each other, even in the beginning. He’d been born in Alhambra, California, in 1960. They’d moved around a lot. His parents never got along, his dad going from one job to the next, always thinking that the new and improved place of employment would be the key to his happiness. Employment satisfaction was never there, and his mom would get so angry with him she’d sometimes disappear for a day or two, leaving the neighbors to watch Drew.

He’d always wished he had a big brother, someone he could look up to. But that wasn’t the case, and he’d had to learn early on to fend for himself.

Pop hadn’t instilled a hard work ethic in him, and the male-slanted values he’d learned held little weight. His dad had been a British Petroleum fire-fighter in Carson—a job that nobody ever quit from because firefighters were heroes. But Pop said the pay was lousy for having to smell oil refineries all day and being in one of the most dangerous jobs in L.A. County.

It had been true. A main pipe busted and the place practically blew the Port of Los Angeles into the ocean. But Pop had been long gone when that happened; he’d gotten excited about making more money at Union Oil—which made no sense, since he’d said he hated the smell of petroleum. He eventually quit that because he disliked working a long shift. Ending up at the Department of Water and Power, he spent more years working for them than any other company. In fact, he’d put in a good word for Drew, and reading water meters had been his first job.

Drew’s childhood had been pretty much just an existence. He was a body at the dinner table, a mouth to feed. Sometimes he was forgotten about, sometimes he stayed overnight with a neighbor when his mom took off and his dad was working the night shift. Not having a close family had never allowed him to warm up to people, to trust and to expose his emotions. He kept things locked inside, not one for sentimentalities.

But he’d known at a young age that he was special. Special in that he had a charm about him, and when he turned it on, that charm could get him pretty much anything he wanted.

Friends’ moms would have home-baked cookies fresh out of the oven on the days they knew he was coming over after school. If he needed to be somewhere, a ride was always available. When he had a question about homework, someone’s dad had the answer.

Puberty hit and he was the most popular boy in school. Never mind that he had no home life. He hid the fact that he was lonesome and didn’t have parents who cared. Frequently, he steered kids away from his house and went to theirs so nobody would see how he lived.

When Drew got his first girlfriend, he didn’t know what to do with her. He’d been eleven and she was thirteen. She’d already had sex and had hinted she wanted to experiment with him. One day they ended up under the crawl space of her house, on the dirt, and she took off her dungarees and let him look at her.

She’d had a patch of downy soft hair between her legs and he recalled being excited about it. Seeing her had given him a woody like he’d never experienced with his dad’s bathroom magazines. He never had sex with her, didn’t have the education to really go about it. Looking back, he thanked God he hadn’t; he’d been way too immature to consider it. He lost his virginity two years later, to Stacy Ritter, a middle school cheerleader who’d taken one look at him and said to her friends, “I’ve got to get me some of that.”

Ever since, women had been looking at him like he was the best eye candy on the block. And sometimes he felt like just another piece that was made to satisfy.

Early on, when he started dating, he never did stuff alone with a girlfriend unless it was to have sex in his car, or her bedroom when her parents weren’t home. He always made sure they went out with other couples. It saved him from dealing with being in a relationship and dealing with real stuff. He had no experience with forming an emotional bond.

Eventually, his mother left one night and never came back home. They figured out where she was some ten years later. She’d remarried, which was illegal, since she was still married to his dad. The details of exactly what had happened were never explained to Drew. Only his dad had the answers, and he’d died a couple of years later, just before Drew signed on with the minors.

If it hadn’t been for baseball, Drew would have had a lost life, drifting in and out of one thing for another—just like his dad.

Sports saved him.

The love of the game was what pulled him up, took him into a world he didn’t fully understand.

Baseball made him a man.

Some would debate just what kind of man. He’d done so many things he regretted while playing for the majors, but a person couldn’t reverse the clock and take everything back. It was a part of who he was, what had molded him.

If it hadn’t been for that steroid story breaking wide-open—

Drew’s cell phone rang, the melody making him grimace. He really had to change that ringer.

Pushing the talk button, he said, “Tolman.”

“Drew, it’s Lynette.”

Drew stopped heading for the stands, where the parents and kids had begun to arrive.

Every time Caroline’s sister called, his pulse slowed and felt thick in his veins. Lynette took in Mackenzie after Caroline died. He always wondered if this would be the call that would send his daughter to him, and he could try and make things up to her.

“Lynette, how’re you doing?”

“Fine. You?”

“Good enough. Starting Little League today.”

“That’s nice for ya’ll,” she drawled.

He switched the cell phone from one ear to the other. A pause lingered, Drew rubbing his jaw and feeling the grit of stubble. The dead span of time was more than he could take.

“Has she changed her mind?” he asked, his chest tight.

“I told her you have a ticket for her to fly to Idaho whenever she’s ready, but she doesn’t want to come. I’m sorry, Drew.”

Not the news he wanted, but he’d expected as much. He knew he’d really screwed this one up, and fixing it might never be an option. But he wasn’t going to stop trying.

“I sort of figured.”

“I wish I could make her, but I think that’s the wrong way to go.”

“Agree.”

“I’ll keep talking to her about it. I’ve tried to get her thoughts about your trip up here in February, but she doesn’t say much about it. I know getting you two together is what Caroline wanted, and that’s what I’ve been telling Mackenzie, but she’s head-strong, Drew. She’s a lot like you.”

He adjusted the bill of his ball cap. “Yep. No doubt.”

More boys were arriving, and Drew forced the emptiness from his heart. He was always surrounded by people, and needed that social company, but nobody would ever know how badly he missed family. He continued to hope his daughter would give him half a chance to be in her life. Only Jacquie knew about Mackenzie. Nobody else in Red Duck would have guessed he had a kid, a girl who looked like him.

Some secrets were easy to keep, especially when the secret wanted nothing to do with him. If Mackenzie would only give him a chance, maybe she could see he wasn’t such a shit.

He’d already set up a bank account for her, and had been giving Caroline and Lynette child support money for years.

“Keep on trying, Lynette.” Drew made another adjustment on the ball cap, flipping the bill forward and checking to make sure his polo shirt was tucked in. He hated dressing like this on the field, but he had to.

“I will.”

“’K. I gotta go.”

Drew cut the call and turned his mind onto autopilot, making Florida seem a distant memory.

It was time to play ball.

Lucy had had to insist Jason try out for Little League. All he’d done was complain about it. He hadn’t wanted to, even though he loved to play. She knew he just didn’t feel like making the effort to fit in. This was the last year he could even be on a team. He’d be on the Senior League again. She knew he’d make the cut.

She’d kept after him, finally giving him an ultimatum. No baseball, no replacement car. She hated to use leverage like that, but it had been the only way. She knew what was best for him and this was it.

Matt, on the other hand, had been dressed in his athletic gear before he’d come to the breakfast table.

They arrived at the field and parked along with the other SUVs and cars. She watched her sons head out on the grass. Because of their age differences, they had to try out on different parts of the field.

Draping a blanket over the cold metal riser, Lucy settled in.

The day was pleasant for the first week in June. Cool, but not too cold. A blue sky cupped the baseball field like a catcher’s glove.

Lucy wore a lightweight jean jacket, a pair of Levi’s and Doc Martens. She’d never been into fashion, preferring comfort and durability. Or course, she did have a feminine side that liked to put on a cocktail dress and heels. Only she hadn’t had any cause to do so in the past two years, except for a Christmas charity party she went to last year with one of her neighbors.

“Hi, I’m Susan Lawrence,” a woman said, introducing herself. She wore her hair in a crisp bob, parted in the middle. Its color was silver-gray, with some natural brown left. Interestingly, it looked quite flattering on her and not aging. Her eyes were a friendly blue, her lips frosted with lip gloss.

“Lucy Carpenter,” Lucy responded.

“Another season. I feel my wallet shrinking, but my son sure likes to play.” She nudged the man who took a seat next to her. “Honey, this is Lucy Carpenter. Lucy, this is my husband, Dave.”

“Nice to meet you,” he stated, shuffling a camcorder and binoculars.

Susan met Lucy’s eyes. “This is your first year here.”

“We’re new in town.”

“Well, you’ll like it. We’ll have to exchange phone numbers and use each other as backup to drive our sons to practice.” Susan’s personality was easy to warm up to. “How old is your son?”

“I have two. Twelve and sixteen.”

“I’ve got a sixteen-year-old. That’s him right there.”

Lucy followed Susan’s gaze. The young man was tall and skinny as a stick, and even from this distance, Lucy noticed he had a prominent Adam’s apple. The seat of his baseball pants drooped and his shirt seemed a size too large.

“Hi, Vince!” Susan waved, and her son slouched, half waved back, then turned to a group of boys his own age. “Where are your sons?”

“That’s Jason right there, almost next to your son. And that’s my Matt with those boys.”

“They’re nice looking.”

“Thank you.”

“Honey, did you charge the camcorder? I can’t get it to power up.” Susan’s husband got that helpless-man look on his face and handed over the equipment to his wife.

Susan made a few adjustments and the camera turned on.

Dave leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, honey.”

For some reason unexplainable to Lucy, observing the affectionate couple made her feel hollow. Empty. There was no reason to remotely have that pang of loneliness. She’d been doing great on her own, keeping busy and making a life for herself after Gary left. But strangely, since coming to Red Duck, she’d had a few bouts of single-blues. Maybe it was because the town was so small and intimate and, as a stranger, she sometimes felt like an outsider. Who was to say? And it was silly to waste time dwelling on it.

“There’s Drew!” Susan exclaimed. “He’s the best coach our sons have ever had. He’s doing seniors, and you’re just going to love him,” she repeated. “We all do.”

Lucy had gathered that all the inhabitants of Red Duck could see no wrong, find no flaw, in Andrew Tolman.

She still had his card in her purse, never having called him. She’d found out on her own when to sign Jason up for baseball at the high school, so she had no reason to contact Drew personally. Although that card had burned a hole through her wallet leather. She’d taken it out a few times, looked at the script and the phone number, then slid it back inside.

As he strode onto the field, she couldn’t help admiring him. He was a very handsome man, one who drew her undivided attention. Tall and broad, he filled out a polo shirt and khaki pants like nobody’s business. He wore a newer, blue baseball cap, his eyes unreadable beneath the shade the bill provided. But his lips were in full sunlight, looking soft and wide. Made to capture and settle over a woman’s mouth. It thrilled her to think about what they’d feel like next to her own.