Perfect Pitch (15 page)

A flush spread across DJ’s neck. His voice was deadly calm as he said, “Thanks for the support, Pop.”

Dan shot back, “If you’re looking for someone to tell you it’s okay to pitch like a blind, weak-armed sissy, then you know better than to talk to me. That’s what women are for, right? To take you in no matter how piss-poor you do your job? Buck up, boy. Throw some real pitches tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. That’s the only thing that’ll make you any better. You should know that by now.”

Dan flipped ash from his cigar and shoved the sodden end back in his mouth before he turned to the gawking press. “Come on, boys! I’ll show you what a real career gets a man! Check out this little beauty!” He guided the gaggle to his silver Lamborghini.

DJ’s eyes flashed as he turned back to Sam. “Go on,” he said. “Get in.” He reached around her and opened his car door.

Sam hesitated. She couldn’t afford to let the reporters see her drive off with DJ. But who was she kidding? The reporters had already seen a lot more than that. Meekly, she sank onto the leather seat, fastening her seatbelt out of blind habit.

DJ left the parking lot without looking back. He drove fast, pushing to make yellow lights, barely slowing for the handful of necessary turns. He kept his eyes on the road and his hand on the gear-shift. Sam might as well have been invisible.

She smoothed her skirt over her legs over and over again. She told herself to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of exposure that nagged at her. There was no one else in the car. No one to care that she wasn’t wearing panties.
 

Her mind kept going back to the photographers. How much had they seen? How quickly had DJ shoved that ridiculous thong into his pocket? Had they caught his hand up her skirt?

She blushed all over again, wanting to dissolve into the car’s leather seat.
 

DJ took an exit off the freeway, barely decelerating when he reached the bottom of the long ramp. He turned right at the flashing traffic light. A country road stretched before them, one lane in each direction. DJ flipped on the high beams and returned his foot to the accelerator, steady, driven, in command of the car, even if he had not yet reined in his temper.

Barely half an hour had gone by when DJ slowed the car. He peered into the shadows to their right, leaning close over the dashboard, as if the darkness could send him signals, could tell him what type of ball to throw to conquer the disaster this night had become.

There. A narrow driveway, covered in gravel. DJ braked to make the turn, and he bridled his speed as he drove to the end of the road.

A tiny farmhouse sat before them, its white clapboard siding gleaming in the car’s headlights. Tailored curtains blocked the double-sash windows. Two over-size rocking chairs sat on the porch. A gigantic oak tree filled half the yard, home to a tire swing that looked like it had hung there for decades.
 

The car engine started ticking as it cooled.

“Where are we?” Sam finally asked, nearly jumping at how loud her voice sounded inside the stuffy car.

“Zach Ormond lives here. When he’s not staying at his place in town.” DJ sounded angry. “There’s a key under the planter.”

He nodded toward an empty pot on the corner of the porch, but he didn’t make any motion to get out of the car. Trying to understand, she asked, “What are
we
doing here?”

He sighed and sank deeper into his seat. “Where else was I supposed to take you? Trey’s asleep back at my house, and Isabel too. The goddamn reporters would be camped out in front of your place before you got home. At least I could be sure they didn’t follow us all the way out here.”

“So?” she conceded. “What happens now?”

“Do I look like I have any answers?” His tone was sharp. The fingers of his right hand reached across his chest, rubbing absently at his left shoulder.

She had to ask another question, though. She had to release the words that had been swirling in her head since she’d seen Dan Thomas answer his first interview questions. “What was your father thinking? Why would he say such terrible things?”

DJ laughed without humor. “That’s just it. He’s my father.” She let his bitter words evaporate into the darkness, thinking he wasn’t going to elaborate. Finally, though, he shrugged. He caught himself short with the motion, hitching his left shoulder as if his arm hurt. He shook his head. “He wants me to succeed.”

“It didn’t sound that way.”

“This is how it’s always been. He’s the Big Man. Top dog. He’s the one who has every goddamn answer to every goddamn question. And the only way for me to learn the secret handshake is to toughen up. Faster, higher, stronger, and all that bullshit.”

She heard raw pain behind the words, and she tried to imagine what it would be like to spend her entire life trying to live up to her parents’ expectations and failing, always failing. That wasn’t all, though. DJ had disappointed his father on the most public of stages—a Friday night game in the major leagues—and in a field that both men held dear.

What had it been like, always hoping he would measure up? How had he felt as a boy, as a teenager, as a young man, making his way in the only profession that mattered to him?

Desperate to find words that would make everything all right, she spoke the sentence she’d vowed not to say back at the ballpark. “It was only one game. You’ll pitch again in five days.”

“I’m not pitching in five days.” He delivered his flat denial staring straight ahead.
 

“Of course you are. You’ll be back on track the next time you take the mound.”

“Listen to you. ‘Take the mound.’ Like you’re the expert.”

His tone stung, but she told herself he wasn’t truly angry with her. She concentrated on keeping her tone even. “Your manager’s going to understand, even if your father doesn’t. You blew one game.”

“It’s my arm, dammit!” His shout echoed inside the car. “Something’s not right. I don’t know if it’s a labrum tear, or dead arm, or what, but I blew it out tonight.”

She stared at him in horror. “Then what are we doing here? You should be back at the clubhouse! Aren’t there trainers there? Or the hospital. Let’s go there now. Let someone help you!”

“There isn’t any help.” He shook his head. “Don’t look at me that way. This is my job. I know what I’m talking about. They’ll do an MRI tomorrow, maybe the next day, and they’ll come up with a rehab program. Some combination of exercises and rest. Maybe talk about surgery if that doesn’t help.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell your father?”

DJ snorted. “No one tells the great Dan Thomas anything. They didn’t call him Iron Dan for nothing. I’m a candy-ass puss—” He cut himself off. “Um,
pushover
for not pulling on my uni and getting back out there.”

She dared to reach out, to settle her palm against his good arm. “DJ, be realistic. You’re a twenty-nine-year-old man. You make your own decisions now. You don’t have to do what he says, don’t have to pretend his expectations are reasonable.”

“He’s my
father
!”

“That doesn’t mean he’s right.”
 

“He is where baseball is concerned. He’s never been wrong a day in his life.”

“So that’s why you’re pushing Daniel so hard.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized she’d spoken out loud. Now that she saw his pain—the emotional agony that was infinitely worse than anything he felt in his pitching arm—she began to understand the baggage the ten-year-old boy was being forced to carry. Grandson of the almighty Dan Thomas, son of a professional pitcher… Daniel was going to be warped just as much as DJ had been.

“I’m pushing Trey so he can maximize his potential.”

“The same way you’ve maximized yours.”

“He can be ten times better than I am. He has that sort of ability.”

“But what if that’s not what he wants?”

“Of course it’s what he wants. He’s a ten-year-old boy.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“You don’t know anything about Trey.”

“I know he hates that stupid nickname! I know he wants to be called Daniel! And I know he was happy coming to Musicall, wanted it badly enough that he lied to you, when you’re the most important thing in his life!”

“Is
that
what this is all about?”

“What
what
is all about?” She matched the anger in his tone. She’d been unhappy when DJ forced Daniel out of Musicall and back to Little League, but she’d understood the logic. The boy
had
made a commitment to baseball before he’d latched on to her music program. Now, though, that decision seemed like a referendum on their entire relationship. Was she willing to step back and let DJ make every single decision? Was she going to let him say what was right for her, for them, forever?

“You’ve been pushing to keep
my son
in your little music club since you first met him. That would make great copy—‘Pitcher’s son has perfect pitch.’”

“Oh my God, DJ, is that what you think? That I’m using you to promote Musicall? You’re the biggest threat my music program has faced, since the Summer Fair finally got me into Polk Elementary!”

“That’s right.
I’m
the threat!”

“You know how the Summer Fair feels about my being seen in public with you! And after tonight—”

After tonight, their pictures would be plastered all over the newspaper. All over the Internet. After tonight, she’d be lucky if they’d let her shovel manure in the Summer Fair cattle barn, much less enter the beauty pageant offices.

“Fine, Sam. Just keep telling yourself I’m the big bad wolf here. Tell yourself that you didn’t want to come to the ballpark tonight. That you weren’t the one who came down to the parking lot. I bet you can even come up with a story where you didn’t let yourself into my house two weeks ago and seduce me on my own goddamn couch.”

She stared at him, shocked at the venom in his voice. “I’m not trying to come up with a story. I’m only telling you this craziness has to stop. Why should your son feel the same way you do? Why should he be forced to live with the same resentment?”

“I don’t resent my father!” His throat seemed to rip on the bellowed words. He swallowed hard before he continued in a carefully reasoned voice. “I do not resent my father. I wouldn’t be the man I am today, if he hadn’t pushed me. And I owe it to
Trey
to do the same for him.”

The words were simple. Transparent. DJ honestly believed them, honestly thought that his father’s system of tough love had been best for him. He could do no less for his own son.

There was no room for argument. No room for Sam to say anything at all.
 

She leaned against her door. “Fine,” she said. And when he remained silent, she added, “I’d like to go back to the ballpark, please. I need to pick up my car.”

“No. I’ll take you home, but I’m not going back to the park tonight. I’ll have one of the guys drive your car over tomorrow.”

One of the guys. He wasn’t offering to pick her up, wasn’t offering to help her out. He was adding to the barrier between them.

Tears stung beneath her eyelids, but she refused to acknowledge them. “Fine,” she said again, not trusting herself to add another word.

She barely heard him start the car’s engine. She scarcely noticed when they left the gravel driveway for the country road, when they merged onto the interstate. She stared out the window as he made efficient turns, keeping the car precisely at the speed limit until he pulled to a stop in front of her house.

She wasn’t surprised to see the cars parked on the street. An SUV, same as that first night that DJ had driven her home. A handful of other vehicles. A cluster of reporters were knotted on the sidewalk, holding cups of coffee, checking their phones.
 

They sprang to attention as DJ pushed his way into the driveway. A couple thrust out microphones, and a cameraman fought to the front of the pack.

Sam paused with her hand on the door handle. The wall DJ had put up was towering between them now. She couldn’t read any emotion in the set of his jaw, and he kept his eyes focused on the driveway in front of him. His hands were clenched around the steering wheel.

She thought of all the things she could say. She could apologize, tell him this entire fight was her fault. But it wasn’t. She could scream at him, demand that he listen to her, that he see that she was right. But she couldn’t do that either.

Instead, she could step out of the car. She could shiver as the cold air hit her bare legs. She could swallow her sudden nausea as she thought of her panties, crumpled inside his pocket.

She marched up the walk to her front door, ignoring the lights, the camera, the questions shouted over and over and over again. She refused to look back as DJ gunned the car, as he sped off into the night.
 

Her key turned easily in the lock. She closed the door and fastened the security chain. One by one, she went to the windows and pulled down the shades, cutting out the sight of the reporters, if not the sound.

Across the room, the Cyclops eye of her answering machine was blinking. By force of habit, she found the silver button and played back the message.

“Samantha Winger.” The voice belonged to Judith Burroughs. A Judith Burroughs who was clearly speaking through set teeth, past a crushed cigarette filter. “Report to the Summer Fair office tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp. Bring your tiara and your sash. You’re fired.”

Sam sank against the door and cried.

The first day was the worst. After sneaking out to the Summer Fair office and crawling back to her house, Sam hid inside, ignoring the knocks at the door from enterprising reporters who shouted that they just wanted to get her side of the story. She refused to answer the phone, no matter how many times it rang.
 

By the second day, there were newer stories, more interesting people for the press to buttonhole and harangue. Sam took advantage of the change to dash out to the grocery store. She stocked up on macaroni and cheese, kettle-cooked potato chips, and a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s. Curled up on her couch that night, she watched the Rockets lose to Florida. Tears leaked down her cheeks every time the camera caught a glimpse of DJ.