Authors: Chamein Canton
The Yankees were in their designated exercise room for
the morning. Some players weight trained with free
weights while others used the Nautilus equipment or got
their cardio in on the treadmills. Marcus spotted Mark
while he did some old-fashioned crunches on the floor.
“Come on, man. You’re almost there, just two more.”
Marcus sounded more like a drill sergeant than a teammate.
Mark groaned but managed to crank out the
remaining two sit-ups.
Marcus clapped. “That’s the way you do it!”
Arm over his face Mark lay on the floor. “Easy for you
to say, you’re not chasing a two-year-old all over the
house.”
Marcus helped him to his feet. “I guess energy is
boundless at his age.”
Mark wiped his face. “Are you kidding? When he goes
to sleep Pam and I look for the energy outlet he’s plugged
into. The way we see it, we can either disconnect it or see
if we can plug in, too.”
Marcus laughed. “Let’s get some water.”
They grabbed a couple of bottles from the cooler and
sat down.
Mark guzzled half the bottle. “That hit the spot.”
Marcus looked up at the television. “Good, it’s
supposed to cool down here tonight.”
Mark wiped his brow. “That’s good. Baltimore isn’t any
fun in the heat. Camden Yards is a nice ballpark, but you
would think someone would have suggested a dome.”
“Somebody probably did but got shot down.”
Mark nodded his head and changed the subject. “So. I
didn’t have a chance to ask you how Cathy is doing?”
“She’s good now. She wasn’t yesterday.”
“I can imagine. I saw the paper.”
“Can you believe what they print?”
“Actually I do. Nothing surprises me anymore.”
“The woman is amazing; she raised her sons as a single
parent and helped build a successful literary agency.”
“True, but she’s not made of steel.”
“Sometimes you can forget that.” Marcus sighed. “But
when I saw how upset she was I really thought she was
going to collapse.”
“You handled it, right?”
“Got it straightened out before we got to the game.”
“I was going to ask you how but I know the answer,
Ben.”
Ben had just entered the exercise room.
“Somebody say my name?” he smiled.
“Your ears must be burning. We were just talking
about you,” Mark said.
“Well, I just came by to deliver the New York and local
papers personally.”
He gave them to Marcus, who immediately opened to
the gossip column.
Club Goers Fabricated Story About Marcus’s Girl
The two women who reported they were verbally accosted
by Marcus Fox’s ladylove Catherine Chambers fabricated the
story, according to a witness who overheard what actually
transpired in the ladies room. The two club goers were arrested
on drug possession charges Sunday evening and are awaiting
arraignment. We at
The Journal
wish to apologize for any
grief the erroneous story caused Ms. Chambers, Mr. Fox and
their respective families.
“It’s a retraction kicked up a notch. Bam!” Ben joked.
“Thanks again, Ben.”
“I bet Cathy’s happy about it,” Mark said.
“Yeah.” Marcus reached into his pocket. “I think I’ll
give her a call. Excuse me.”
“Don’t mind us,” Mark joked.
He went into the hallway and dialed Cathy.
For Cathy there was no such thing as a light day. She
delayed booting her computer up to see how many new
emails she had. Normally Cathy got ninety emails or more
a day but since she hadn’t been online in a few days she
knew there would be an electronic avalanche. Just as she
was about to assess the damage, the phone rang.
“Hey, baby.” Marcus’s tone was so low and sexy Cathy
felt a chill run down her spine.
“Hi. I was just thinking about you.”
“You were? Did you see the paper?” he asked.
“Yes, and thank you again. I can’t tell you how relieved
I am.”
“I know, honey.” He paused and absorbed the sound of
her voice. “I miss you, honey. I wish you could come down
now.”
Cathy smiled from ear to ear. “Me, too, sweetie but I
have a lot of things to wrap up here. I’ll be in Tampa on
Friday.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Neither can I.” She paused. “I don’t want to change
the subject, Marcus, but does the name Lisa Spellman
sound familiar to you?”
He groaned. “She’s a freelance supermarket tabloid
writer. Why? Wait a minute, is she snooping around you?”
“Apparently so. She’s been coming to my gym for the
past few mornings asking a lot of questions about me.
Should I confront her?”
“Don’t get in her face. You won’t come off well when
she writes about it.”
“I don’t want to have to worry about this kind of thing
at the gym. I go there so I can work out and decompress
before my day gets going.”
“Ignore her. She will eventually go away when she
figures out there is no story.”
“If you say so, honey.” Another thought came to her.
“Oh, before I forget, I have to tell you my sister and cousin
have decided to come with me. Is that a problem?”
“No, of course not.”
“I’m glad. They won’t cramp our style. Anna’s bringing
her fiancé and Madison is on the hunt for women.”
“It’s all good, baby.”
“It really is.”
“Well, sweetie, I’d better get back to the exercise room.
I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, honey. Later.”
Marcus was about to go back in when he stopped mid
step.
He dialed his cell phone.
“Information.”
“Yes. Can you give me a listing for a florist in
Amityville, New York?”
“Sure. I show three listings for Amityville. Country
Petals, Johnson’s Florist and Wee Bee Country Florists.”
“Can you connect me with Wee Bee?”
“Sure.”
Even though her accident had happened nearly 12
years earlier, Cathy’s back acted up every now and then.
She even referred to herself as a barometer with legs since
she seemed to be able to predict changes in the weather.
However, today was a perfectly sunny and cloudless day
and her back hurt anyway. She waited a few minutes and
tried to get up again with the same result.
This isn’t good
.
I
can’t have my back acting up this weekend,
she thought. She
picked up the phone to see if Dr. Adams could see her
sooner; thankfully he could.
My back hurts too much to
drive. I’ll call Dad.
“Hello?”
“Hi Dad. How was your trip?”
“Not bad. I had a good time.” He sounded chipper.
“Good. Are you doing anything special this morning
dad?”
“No. Just leafing through all the newspapers and mail.
Why? What’s wrong?”
“I need to get to Dr. Adams and I can’t drive.”
“Your back again, huh? I’ll be right over.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Despite being in the path of Elizabeth’s wrath, Cathy
and Anna’s dad, Ted Chambers, didn’t live too far from
them. Always an active man, he’d played a major role in
raising his grandsons and with the boys in school, at 64 he
was making up for lost time traveling. He still maintained
a CPA office and a roster of clients but he made time for
charity events, political fundraisers and appropriately-aged
ladies. Anna and Cathy had friends whose fathers and
mothers pranced around with younger men and women.
They were really pleased that their Dad stuck to appropriately-aged ladies.
Cathy’s dad made it to Dr. Adams’s office in 20
minutes. It was a light late morning so they took her into
the examining room immediately. The nurse took her
blood pressure and temperature before Dr. Adams came in
and did a full examination. Still not crazy about being
naked in front of anyone, Cathy was happy to get dressed
again.
“Knock, knock?” Dr. Adams was his jovial self as
always.
“Hey, Dr. Adams.”
He sat down on the stool.” I’m only going to confirm
what you already know. You’re having intermittent back
trouble.” He put on his serious doctor face. “I read the
paper and I know you’ve been under a lot of stress
recently.”
God, even my doctor reads the gossip page.
Cathy
groaned. “Basically I’m falling apart and I need to get back
on track.”
“So all of the symptoms seem to correspond to the
upheaval in your life.”
“Yes.”
“The back problem might seem sudden but your back
has probably bothered you for a while.”
She thought for a moment. “I think you might be right
about that. So what can I do? I’m planning to go away this
coming weekend and I need this to go away.”
“I know you are not one for the steroid course, so that
will always be a last resort.”
“Good.”
“You’re going to take pills. I think the medications
combined with a lighter schedule this week might do the
trick. I’ll write the prescriptions but I want to see you back
here on Thursday before you go away. Is that clear, young
lady?”
“Crystal clear. I promise I’ll follow doctor’s orders.”
“That’s my girl.”
He wrote three prescriptions and sent her home. Cathy
had been with Dr. Adams since her accident and felt confidence in him. After leaving the office, they filled the
prescriptions and went straight home.
While Cathy settled herself on the downstairs living
room sofa for a while, her dad started pacing.
Cathy watched. She knew he was leading up to something.
“So what’s going on, Cathy?”
“A whole lot, Dad. What do you want to hear about
first?”
“You can start with what led to this emergency doctor’s
visit.”
Her dad was a firm believer in the connection between
the body and mind. Cathy decided it would be way too
much information to talk about sleeping with Marcus. She
simply answered, “Basically, Dad, I’m dating Marcus Fox.”
“When did this happen?” He was taken aback. When
he left for Virginia Cathy had been dating her computer.
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“So far that doesn’t sound all that bad to me.”
“Not until the gossip columnists entered the picture.
They got a quote from his ex who called him a chubby
chaser. I’m not exactly the type of woman Marcus Fox
usually dates.”
“He can’t date who he wants? He has to please the
public?”
“I know, Dad, but that wasn’t the worst of it.” She took
a deep breath. “The gossip column reported an incident
that supposedly took place in the ladies’ room of Club Z
between two women and me. They accused me of verbally
accosting them and chasing them from the bathroom.”
He looked completely baffled. “Wait a minute. They
accused you of what?”
“You heard it right, Dad. My name was dragged
through the mud Sunday morning.”
He was alarmed. “Did you get it straightened out?”
“Actually Marcus did. There’s a retraction in today’s
paper.”
“Good. And that’s what got you all stressed out?”
“That and a lot of other things.”
“Like what?”
“It brought back a lot of stuff about growing up in
Mom’s religion and how I feel about myself in general.”
“What does that mean?” He was perplexed.
Cathy’s experience with the paper emboldened her to
say what was on her mind. “Listen, Dad, I know you didn’t
want to have anything to do with her church so you got
out. Anna and I didn’t, we couldn’t.”
Her father’s countenance changed. “I told your mother
she was raising you two to live in a box.”
“The box might as well have been a coffin. Any chance
for a real life went out the window. We didn’t have a
choice. We had to conform or face the fallout.”
“I’ve always said I take 99.9% of the blame for what
happened between your mother and me. I shouldn’t have
done what I did.”
“Once you left, Mom needed to be right more than
ever. “
“I never knew any of this before. Why didn’t you tell
me how you felt?” Her father looked confused.
“I wanted to be a good daughter to both parents. I put
on a happy face and got on with it until I couldn’t take it
anymore. Once I was an adult the decision was mine but
by then I was afraid to leave. Alex and Andrew are the
reasons I broke out of the box; I never wanted them to feel
out of place like I do.” Tears poured down her face. ”God,
I don’t think I’ve cried this much in my life.”
Her father hugged her even though they’d never been a
touchy feely family.
“I’m sorry. This dating stuff must be bringing the past
to the surface.” She wiped her eyes. “Suddenly I have to
confront things I’ve kept bottled up.”
“I see what you mean. You have to come to terms with
yourself. Dating these high profile types you can’t afford to
wear your heart or your insecurities on your sleeve.”
“I have to be a Teflon bombshell.” She laughed a little.
Her father laughed. “That’s true.” He paused. “I don’t
know Marcus apart from his baseball stats. Is he a stand up
guy?”
Cathy smiled. “He is, Dad. He’s really good to me.”
“Good enough to seat you in a luxury suite?”
“Twice.”
Her father laughed. “Now you know how the other
half lives. All the big muckity mucks sit there.”
“You know who I met there, Dad? Jerry La Fontaine
and his wife Phyllis.”
He was impressed. “Third baseman for the Kansas City
Royals.”
“They were really nice. I exchanged numbers with Fil.
She’s a Southern pistol.”
“That’s great.” He nodded. “So you’re really dating
again.”
“Yes, I am actually dating again after a two-year
hiatus.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’m also going to Tampa for the series at Tropicana
Field.”
“Good. You know, Cathy, you kicked the walls of the
box down a long time ago. Now all you have to do is let go
of the guilt trip you feel for actually living your own life.”
“I know, Dad.”
“Maybe this weekend getaway is just what you need.”
“I can’t wait. Anna, Roger and Madison are coming
too.”
He stood up. “You’ll have a good time.”
“I think so too. It’s the main reason I asked you to take
me to Dr. Adams. I wanted to get checked out before the
trip.”
“You have to follow the doctor’s orders.”
“I will, Dad.”
“Good. Oh, I almost forgot. I might need you to book
a flight online for me.”
“All right, Dad, whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks. I’ll give you the details either before the
weekend or early next week.”
He kissed her forehead. “Feel better. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Unlike Marcus, Cathy had never expected to live life in
the spotlight. As his talent for baseball grew, the talent
scouts began showing up in junior high and with them
came the media. He went into the Yankee farm system
with a star’s aura everyone could see.
Things had been quite different for Cathy. She’d had a
few friends in high school but was more focused on school
work; it was a convenient cover for her lack of social life.
Once she became a parent she hid behind Alex and
Andrew, staying as involved in their activities as much and
as often as possible. As a writer she hid behind her words.
E.D. had practically had to force her to take a head shot
for the book. Then she’d become an agent. Being a parent
and agent had given her an invisible cloak of sorts.
Now her sons had gone off to college and out of
nowhere she’d fallen in love with a superstar. She was no
longer invisible. She had to learn to deal with it.