The Hot Streak Read online

  Kim sighed and went to refill her water glass. “You should probably be telling him all these things, not me, you know.”

  “What, and give him a chance to make up some other story and make a fool out of me all over again?” She saw her tequila glass still had some in it and she reached for it, draining it, then set it back down on the coffee table.

  Kim put the water glass back in her hand and swept the others into the kitchen quickly. “You want me to call him? I’ll give him an earful for you, and he can’t fool me. I’m not in love with him.”

  “I’m not in love with him either!” Casey shouted, then burst into tears, because as she said it she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. It was patently not true. “Except that I am,” she said through sobs.

  “I know, hon, I know,” Kim said, sitting back down next to her and hugging her. “If you didn’t love him, it wouldn’t hurt like this.”

  “Stupid fucking idiot,” Casey said, without specifying whether she was talking about Tyler or herself.

  Her phone rang again. This time when Casey dug it out of her pocket, Kim took it from her. “Casey’s phone, Casey can’t talk right now, can I help you?”

  Casey heard the mumble of a male voice, but it didn’t sound like Tyler. She was half wishing it was him, half dreading it.

  “Well, you’ll probably have to ask her about that, but like I said, she’s in no shape to talk right now.”

  “Who is it?” Casey croaked, trying to stop crying.

  “Somebody named Mad Dog.”

  Casey grabbed the phone out of Kim’s hand. “Madison, you tell that no-good shit that the next girl he wants to declare eternal love to had better know about his goddamn wife and by the way ESPN is not a Valentine’s service and he can take his fucking winning streak and shove it up his ass!”

  A very small, tinny voice answered calmly. “You got it, Casey.”

  “Oh shit, Mad Dog, I didn’t mean to scream at you, but… ” But she burst into tears again.

  “Um, no apology necessary,” he said. “Hey, I’ll let you go, but, Missy really wants to call you, too. Should I tell her to wait until tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” Casey hung up and flung the phone aside. It disappeared into the couch.

  Kim sighed. “Valentine service?”

  “Tsk. Best I could come up with on short notice.”

  “If not for the whole wife thing, I thought his declaration of love on national television was actually kind of romantic.”

  Casey got shakily to her feet. “That’s the problem. The entire thing, everything he’s said to me has been romantic, until I look at it in light of what he hasn’t been saying.” She swore again. “Even all the ‘I really can’t wait to see you’ stuff… he always, always, always engineered our dates to be the night before he pitched. How did I miss that? People even kept saying, hey, don’t tire him out, don’t stay out too late, all that kind of stuff. But I believed it. I believed he just really wanted me, needed me.” She went unsteadily toward the bathroom. She was much drunker than she’d realized while sitting still. Walking was a bit of a challenge, but she made it to the door, then turned the water on and splashed her face.

  Kim followed her, standing in the doorway and watching her in the mirror as Casey looked at her own reflection. Her eyes were completely red and puffy. “I look like something from a NyQuil ad,” Casey said, miserable.

  “I’m so sorry, Case.”

  Casey looked at her. “You look like you want to say something else.”

  Kim shook her head. “I’m sure there’s more to the story. But I won’t argue with the fact that he made a huge mistake here, and you’re both paying for it.”

  Casey sat down on the lid of the toilet. “Oh, don’t say that.”

  “What, that he’s hurting, too? I’m sure he is, even if it’s all his own damn fault.”

  “Stop it!” Casey growled, balling her fists. “It is his fault. Just let me be angry at him right now.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick. I mean, really sick.”

  “I’ll just leave you to that, then.” Kim closed the door.

  * * * *

  The next day, Casey woke to a skull-crushing hangover and three text messages, two from Tyler and one from Missy. She deleted the ones from Tyler and looked at the one from Missy while Kim brewed some coffee and made some plain toast. Missy was offering to pick her up at the airport and wanted to know when her flight was getting in. She texted back with the time, then lay her head on Kim’s butcher block table. “This time yesterday, my life was perfect.”

  Kim set a mug down near her. “No, it wasn’t. You were all in a lather trying to figure out how much you loved him and how he felt about you. Well, now you know.”

  “Yeah, thanks, look on the bright side.” She sat up and took the coffee but didn’t drink it, just held the warm cup in her hands. “So, seriously, do you think I should give him a chance to defend himself?”

  Kim brought over the toast and some blackberry jelly, and sat down across from her at the breakfast nook table. “Well, if you’re planning to break up with him over this, it’s really hard to just walk away and never see him again, you know? That only happens in, like, movies. Usually there’s some messy post-processing.”

  “Ugh.” Casey nibbled at the crust of her toast. “I guess real adults would at least talk about it, huh? I really want to just change my phone number and move and pretend we never met. Quit my job, too. How’s that for an excuse, finally? Yeah, my ex-boyfriend turned into a stalker and so I’m moving to Seattle or something. Or Portland.” Portland was better. No baseball team.

  “I’m not saying you owe him a chance to defend himself or anything,” Kim said carefully, “but for your own sake, you need to say some stuff to him. Not to me, but right to him, and you ought to do that to his face instead of in e-mail. It feels great to write that ‘fuck you, Charlie’ letter, but it’s not the same.” She spread jam on her own toast and then bit into it. “When do I have to get you to the airport?”

  “Couple of hours. Ugh. My God. How much you want to bet half my office saw the declaration of love on ESPN? And they are going to be bugging me all day Monday about it and I’m going to have to t-tell them… that I… ” She felt ill all over again.

  “Hush, hon, one thing at a time. Let’s not stress over stuff that hasn’t even happened yet. Someone’s picking you up at the other end, is that what you said?”

  “Yeah. Missy Madison. I told you about her, the catcher’s wife?”

  Kim nodded. “She sounded like a nice person. I’m sure she’ll have something good to say.”

  As it turned out, the first thing Missy said after Casey got into the car and she’d hugged her was, as if it were all one long word: “GoddamnthatstupidassTylerHammondanyway.”

  “Yeah,” was all Casey could say as they pulled away from the curb.

  They drove in silence for a few minutes while Missy merged into traffic exiting the airport. Missy spoke first. “Okay, so, what exactly happened? Because you know I got it only in bits and pieces from Doggy.”

  Casey took a deep breath before starting. “Did you see the game yesterday?”

  “Yeah, I turned it on around the fifth when I heard it was a no-hitter.” Missy chanced a look at her. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Well, just, it was such a big game, Tyler was staying extra late doing more interviews and things. And you know how… how high he gets.”

  Missy nodded.

  “The bigger the game, the loopier he is after, right? Adrenaline or whatever. Anyway, so there he is, totally in love with the entire universe after a win like that, and he busts out on national television all about how it was love at first sight with me and how the winning streak has been ever since I’ve been going to his games.”

  “Yeah, I saw that, too.”

  Casey gritted her teeth. “So, okay, while watching that, I was totally with him, I was totally won over li
ke it was this huge, huge thing he was doing for me, because he loved me, winning the games, or like my love somehow was what gave him the extra oomph to win, or something, right? But then I’m thinking to myself, wait a sec, if it’s so damn important to him that I’m part of The Streak, then why didn’t he ever say so to me before? He’s never ever said anything to me. And that trip to Atlanta… ” She broke off, her cheeks flushing.

  “Oh, babe.”

  Casey forced herself to go on. “He totally talked me into skipping work and all that to meet him in Atlanta, to be there when he pitched, because he said he didn’t want to pitch in front of the hostile crowd.”

  “That fucker. I remember you saying that and thinking what the hell was up with that.”

  “I mean, was he afraid I’d be like, ‘your superstition is stupid, to hell with you?’”

  Missy craned her neck, trying to see if there was anyone in the exit lane, then horned her way in between two SUVs. She was driving a small sports car and the driver behind her honked angrily.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said to the driver, then to Casey, “Well, what do you think you would have said if he told you?”

  “I don’t know. But maybe if he’d told me he loved me sooner, the superstition wouldn’t seem so stupid.” She clutched her purse in her lap. “So then, on top of all that, I’m on the one hand just floating happy because of the I-love-you stuff on TV, even as I’m wondering what was up with not saying anything to me about The Streak— you know, like is it something like how you’re not supposed to say ‘no-hitter’ during a no-hitter— in comes Ken, to the bar where I’m watching.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. And he’s like ‘maybe this is personal, but… how do you feel about that, given that Tyler’s married to another woman?’”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  Neither of them spoke as Missy navigated through the city streets toward Casey’s apartment. Finally they had reached the building. “What a dumbass,” Missy said as she threw the car into park and hit the flashers. “I could kill him right now.”

  “Me too,” Casey said quietly.

  “Look, do you want to be alone? Or do you want to grab some coffee or something?”

  Casey looked up at her friend. “Did he put you up to talking to me?”

  Missy pursed her lips. “He begged me like a dying man in the desert for a sip of water,” she said. “But I was going to talk to you anyway. And he knows he’s on my shit list for more than one reason.”

  “Oh?” Now Casey was curious.

  “Yeah. John literally stayed up all night with him last night, pretty much talking him down off the ledge, although he didn’t actually climb out the window. You know what I mean. And the result is that John’s not playing today, and they are letting that hotshot kid catch, and I really am going to kill Tyler if his shenanigans end up losing my husband his job.”

  Casey put her hand over her mouth. “Holy crap.”

  “Yeah. So I’m not exactly feeling super charitable toward Mr. Ham and Cheese right now. So if everyone’s looking for someone to talk you into making up with him, I don’t know if I’m it right now.”

  Casey pointed to a car pulling out up ahead. “Go park up there and come upstairs. I’ve got coffee and tea and I think there’s half of a grocery store coffee cake I didn’t finish.”

  A few minutes later, they were sitting on Casey’s IKEA couch, with mugs of tea and the untouched cake sitting on a plate on the coffee table. “So should I have asked him about the whole wife thing?”

  Missy sipped her tea. “How would you know to? And honestly, I thought for sure they finalized the divorce during the off season, last off season! But even John doesn’t know why he didn’t say goodbye to her legally yet, even though they’ve been separated for more than a whole year. My guess is she’s been in no rush or wants more money or something.”

  Casey shivered. “Do you think they’re getting back together?”

  “Jeez, Casey, I don’t know. I doubt it, though.”

  “What’s her name? I don’t even know her name.”

  “Linda. Linda Maroni, I think.” Missy cut a tiny sliver of cake and shook her head slowly while eating it with her fingers. “What the hell was Tyler thinking? That you wouldn’t find out? Or was he so wrapped up in you that he forgot about her?”

  “Ugh, that’s almost more horrible than he just didn’t have the guts to tell me.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  They were quiet for a while, Casey trying to imagine what all went on in Tyler Hammond’s head. Her phone started to ring. She began digging it out of the bottom of her purse. “Did he really cry about me all night?”

  “He did. John doesn’t make that kind of stuff up.”

  It was a number she didn’t recognize. She showed it to Missy, whose eyes went wide. “That’s the assistant GM of the team. You better answer it.”

  “Maybe it’s about the cookbook?” Casey asked. It was due to be shipped directly to the ballpark some time this week. She should check on that, she thought as she flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

  “Um, Miss Branigan?” asked a tentative male voice. “This is Gene Billingham, the Robins’… ”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Oh, okay, sure, just checking. Um, I know you’ve, um, well, had some angst recently… ”

  Casey laughed, short and bitter. “And?”

  “And, well, I realize that this is a bit of an odd request, but… but we do take the mental and physical well being of our players very seriously. Mr. Hammond represents a multimillion dollar investment and, well, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that. But the Robins organization would like to know what it would take to convince you to come to Cincinnati in a few days.” He sounded nervous as hell.

  “They want me to go to Cincinnati,” she said to Missy, then to Billingham, “What do you mean, ‘what would it take’ to convince me?”

  “Well, we understand you and Mr. Hammond have had a falling out, but the team would very much like you to be there. Um, it may sound strange to you, but we take Hammond’s win streak very seriously, and well, we’d really, really like you to be there. We’ll arrange your flight, limo service, accommodations, everything, if you’ll say yes.”

  Missy leaned close to hear what he was saying. She made a motion with her hand, rubbing her thumb across her fingertips. Casey raised her eyebrows as if to ask if she was serious. Ask for money? Missy nodded.

  “Well, Mr. Billingham, I’m very busy. The service bureau I work for typically hires me out for off-site jobs for a hefty fee.”

  “How hefty?” The man was practically jumping at the chance that she might say yes. Casey was thinking it usually ran around five hundred dollars per day, around fifty dollars per hour, and she was considering asking for a thousand just to see what he’d say, when he blurted out, “Would five thousand dollars do it?”

  Missy was shaking her head. “What if you lose your job over this?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Casey said to him carefully. “I’ve been taking a lot of time off because of baseball lately, and my boss isn’t very happy about that. And she’ll be really unhappy at an impromptu trip on such short notice… ”

  “Miss Branigan. We’d be happy to pick up the rest of your salary for the year if that’s what it would take. Are we talking fifty thousand?”

  “Yes,” Casey said.

  “Great!” His voice brightened considerably. “I’ll pass you to my secretary to take your bank account information so that fifty thousand can be wired to you directly, and to get your address and so forth to set up your airport limousine.”

  “Wait… ” Casey hadn’t meant for them to pay her whole salary, just “the rest of the year.” But apparently he’d misunderstood her. “Um… I meant, which day is it? That I’m going?”

  “Wednesday,” he said. “Please hold for my secretary.”

  Casey squeezed the phone while she was on hold a
nd said to Missy, “Does everyone in baseball treat money like it’s Monopoly money?”

  “Pretty much,” Missy said. “See if she’ll book me on the same flight, too, if you want me to go along.”

  Casey nodded. “Yeah, I might need the moral support.”

  * * * *

  Casey realized how weak her geography was when she found out the Cincinnati airport was actually in Kentucky. “I had no idea Ohio bordered Kentucky,” she said to Missy as they rode to the hotel. “I think I’ve always assumed Kentucky was further south.”

  Missy laughed. “Failure of the American education system. So we’re at the Westin and they have a spa, and I thought I should let you know I took the liberty of booking a facial and a massage. For both of us, I mean. The team doesn’t want you at the ballpark until like five thirty, six o’clock, so we have plenty of time for it.”

  Casey smiled a little sadly at her friend. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

  “A massage?”

  “I don’t even know what a facial is, really. I’ve never had one.”

  Missy goggled at her. “You’re kidding, right? You never did a spa day when being someone’s bridesmaid or something?”

  Casey shook her head.

  “They basically massage your face and kind of steam-clean it. It feels really good and it’s relaxing, and combine it with a body massage and you’ll be completely relaxed by the time we go. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m getting it billed to the team, too.”

  Now Casey laughed. “Monopoly money again? I still can’t believe there’s fifty grand in my bank account right now.” Casey hadn’t gone to work on Monday. She had e-mailed her boss saying just, “family emergency” and let them think what they wanted. There was no chance they hadn’t seen that ESPN report, but she didn’t care what they thought. She had bigger worries right now.

  “Look, they’d happily spend fifty grand without blinking on a team psychologist, right? If flying you in and paying you to quit your job keeps Tyler from self-destructing, it’s a bargain.”

  “I didn’t actually quit the job. You think the team is going to want me to go to all his starts?”