Authors: Jj Rossum
“Yeah, I mean as far as I can tell things went just fine. I talked to her a few times throughout the day, and she never made mention of any trouble or anything.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said, stroking his stubbled chin with his hand. His eyes looked tired and he seemed perplexed.
“I certainly think she will do just fine while Robin is out. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to worry.”
“I hope so,” he said. “I haven’t heard anything from Robin or Walt. I’m going to assume no news is good news.”
I could hear the door open and then shut next door. April.
“That must be her,” he said, standing up. “I think I will go see if there is anything she might need today. Just keep an eye on her, will you? If she does well, I think we might have to find a place here for her.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. With her qualifications, we would be idiots to let her go.”
And with that, he was out the door and quickly into the next room. Within minutes, the bell chimed.
I didn’t get to see her before classes started, and the periods seemed to go by extra slowly. I was hopeful she would join my third period class again during her break, but as American Lit began, April was nowhere to be seen. This made the period drag by even more. I think even the kids picked up on how my mind was preoccupied. Preoccupied by a long-legged teacher who used big words and had a plump bottom lip.
It’s all physical,
I told myself.
You’re a shallow ass.
Finally, lunchtime rolled around and the kids made their way downstairs to the lunchroom. I paused outside my door, wondering whether I should go into her classroom and see if she was coming to lunch, or just head down myself and let her do as she pleased. I opted for the latter.
I was halfway down the hall when I heard a door close behind me. I instinctively looked back, and there she was.
Blue was her color of choice today, and as much as I thought it was impossible to top the green from the day before, she had. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which almost seemed like a travesty considering how incredible her hair was, but it managed to looked sophisticated, sexy, and playful.
“You heading down to lunch?” I asked. I was trying not to overly ogle her. ”Or, another hot date today?”
She smiled, but it seemed forced a bit, almost weary.
“No, no date today. Guess I will be enjoying the spread here.”
“Oh, it isn’t so bad. They sometimes surprise us with something edible.”
She caught up with me and we began walking in silence toward the stairs. I suddenly found myself wondering if my cologne was still discernible, or if my tie looked absolutely ridiculous.
We reached the stairs, and I couldn’t stay quiet.
“How were your classes this morning?”
She took a moment to answer. It seemed like I had pulled her out of some other thought she was having.
“Oh, they were fine. Got to teach participles.”
“Fun stuff
.
”
She didn’t offer up anything else, so we made our way in silence to the lunchroom. I pointed her in the direction of the teachers line and made my way to the table. A few of the other teachers had already seated themselves in their regular spots, and I threw my keys down on to the table in front of a chair with open chairs on either side. This wasn’t my usual spot, but I was hoping no one would say anything.
I met up with her in line and we walked back to the table together. Baked Ziti was the special for the day, and we both were given a heaping mound of it.
We sat at the table, and I introduced her to the other teachers. Everyone exchanged pleasantries and got back to their food.
“So, are you from the area?” Kenneth Maxwell, the 9th grade history teacher asked, between bites from his salad.
“No, actually. We just moved here over the summer. July, to be exact.”
Oh okays
and
Oh wows
went up around the table.
“How do you like the humidity?”
“My skin likes it,” she laughed, along with the other ladies at the table, “but my hair is still not convinced.”
“Where did you move here from?”
The nice thing about sitting here amongst all the other teachers was all the questions they were asking were questions that I had wanted to ask myself. But, if I had come out and asked all of them to her it would have certainly come across as creepy.
“We lived in Denver.”
More
Oh wows
.
“I love Denver, such a lovely city,” Jessica Lamb, the 10th grade history teacher said. “Beautiful sunsets, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah, it was a really pretty place to live.”
“So, what brought you guys out here?”
She squirmed a little. “My husband got a job here.”
“Oh really? What does he do?”
There was silence at the table, and I wasn’t sure if she had heard the question or was avoiding it.
Finally, she said, “He works for the Rays.”
More
Oh wows
.
“What does he do with them? Marketing? My friend’s husband is one of the guys who calls people asking if they want to renew their season tickets.”
“No, he isn’t in marketing.”
“Well?” I asked, “What does he do? If he’s one of the cotton candy vendors, I will be sure to find his section.”
Everyone laughed and she cracked a smile.
“He’s a pitcher.”
The table got silent, and the teachers all exchanged glances. Then more
Oh wows
.
“Really? Your husband is a pitcher for the Rays?”
“Yeah, he got traded here over the summer.”
“So, he played for the Rockies before you moved?”
She nodded.
“What’s his name?” Kenneth asked.
“Marco Batista.”
I was pretty sure that nobody else at the table knew anything about baseball and wouldn’t have had a clue who Marco Batista was. But they all nodded and smiled and acted like they did and like he was the most famous player around. I knew who he was and felt sick to my stomach.
Marco had been in the league for a while, and I was pretty sure he started in Detroit. He had been one of the league’s best relief men for quite a few seasons, a left-handed specialist who was brought in to get guys out before the team’s closer would come in to shut it down. But, he was a hothead. Notoriously so. Now, he wasn’t the pitcher he had once been, and when the Rays had traded for him, sports writers in the area had been pissed. All the sports talk radio shows had been bitching about it for days, wondering why we needed someone like him on our team. He had a fiery temper, which had served him well when he was younger and throwing hard. But now that his velocity had diminished and he was getting hit a lot more, his temper turned into tirades on the mound. People often referred to him as
The Headhunter
, a pitcher who purposely threw at the batters’ heads. Everyone who followed baseball had players they automatically liked and disliked, and I had always severely disliked Marco Batista. God, I was feeling nauseous.
“Well, that’s really neat,” Kenneth said. “We are really glad you are here with us, and maybe we can meet your husband sometime.”
She said thank you and smiled, before returning to her lunch.
Now, It made sense to me why she had lunch by the stadium yesterday, and why she said her husband was going to be leaving town. The last game of the Rays’ nine-game homestand had been the night before, and after the game they had flown to Boston, where they would be for a couple of nights. I didn’t usually make a habit of watching Rays’ games while they were on the road (my team has always been, and will always be, the Atlanta Braves), but I had a feeling I’d find myself watching tonight.
The rest of the conversation turned to other topics as the teachers finished their meals. Occasionally one of us would yell across the lunchroom for a certain table to settle down, but for the most part we ate in peace. When lunch was over, April and I walked together out of the lunchroom as the students stormed out, seeming eager to get back to class, which I knew wasn’t the case.
“Hey, let’s take the elevator,” I said, almost dragging her in the opposite direction of the stairs, which were going to be crowded and chaotic with kids returning to class from lunch, and the other group of classes heading down for their lunch.
“I didn’t even know there was an elevator,” she mused.
We beat the kids upstairs and the hallway was thankfully less loud.
“Listen, Luke,” she said as we walked. “I could tell by the things on your desk and by your keychain that you seem to be a pretty serious baseball fan.”
I nodded.
“So, I am guessing you know who my husband is?”
I nodded again.
She stopped walking and turned toward me, forcing me to stop too. She had a pained look on her face.
“Look, I am sure those teachers are probably all going to go home and Google my husband, or try to tell other people that the new sub is married to a professional athlete. Do you think there is any way you could mention to them that I might prefer it be kept under wraps?”
“Of course. Sure. I mean, I don’t think they have a clue who he is, and I’m not sure who they would even tell.”
“People treat you differently when they find out. It always happens. Plus, if they read anything about him, they’ll...”
Her voice trailed off and she didn’t have to finish what she was going to say for me to know what she was thinking.
“I understand. Really. I have all their phone numbers in my phone. I will text them when I get back to the classroom.”
“God, thank you.”
She looked relieved, and for a second I thought she might actually hug me. But maybe I imagined it, because we resumed walking back to our classes. I wondered why she hadn’t bothered lying, telling everyone that her husband was a pilot or something else that would give him an excuse for being gone as often as he must be. But, I imagine it would have come out eventually, like all lies do.
We wished each other a pleasant afternoon and went to our respective rooms. I texted the teachers, advising them to keep everything on the down low for her sake, and got responses back surprisingly quickly from everyone saying that of course they understood and would respect her privacy.
When that was out of the way, I turned on my computer screen, and went about reading up on Marco Batista. He was thirty-eight years old, which made him one of the older pitchers in the league. He had been playing in the big leagues since he was twenty-two, and although I knew he had been playing for a while, I didn’t realize he had been playing since I was twelve. Being a hard-throwing left hander was not particularly common, which was a big reason why his career had lasted as long as it had. There was always going to be at least one team willing to pay a lefty who could throw hard.
I could hit him
, I thought to myself. He couldn’t throw one past me.
That might actually have been true now, but it
wouldn’t have been true in his heyday. He had been to six All Star games in his career, was on two World Series champions, and had played in another two but had been on the losing end.
I felt a twinge of jealousy. I always wondered what would have happened if I had been able to keep playing after college. I knew I had been good enough to go pro, but life happened and kept me from it. I was good at not sitting around dwelling on it much anymore, but occasions like this brought the feelings back. I loved baseball too much to not be able to sit and watch it, but there had been a time when I couldn’t even do that. Now, I found myself wishing I had gone pro, just so I could have hit a home run off of April’s hard-throwing, hot-tempered husband.
I went home after work and found Holly lounging on my couch in her underwear, my computer on her lap.
“Doesn’t it burn your legs when you sit like that?” I asked.
“No, I barely even notice it,” she replied, and then turned back to her computer.
She was twenty-six and had spent her post-high school years working odd jobs to support her siblings. Both of her parents were alcoholics and she ended up raising them on her own. I think that’s why she normally gravitated toward needy men in relationships—she liked to help people and fix things. Once her youngest brother had finished high school, she decided to go back to college, and now did online classes while working as a bartender on weekends. The irony of her being a bartender wasn’t lost on her, but she liked the money.
“Did you get out of the house today?” I asked, sitting down next to her. She leaned over and kissed me.
“I walked down to the beach this morning. I was going to jog but my tennis shoes and sports bra weren’t here. Remind me to bring some over next time.”
“Are you going to stay here tonight?”
“Yeah, I think so. If that’s cool.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “I think I am just going to hang out here and watch the Rays game.”
I was hoping to see Marco get rocked by the Red Sox.
“I saw some chicken in the freezer. I can make some later if you want.”
This was normal for us. She would come over, spend a few days with me, re-energize, and then go back to her life. We were like a couple for 48-72 hours, which was about as long as we could manage.
“Okay. I’ll drive you by your place later to pick up your car so you’ll have it tomorrow. Unless you want me to take you now.”
She closed the laptop and set it down on the floor. She stood up and stretched her arms over her head. Her breasts bounced underneath her pink bra as she lowered her arms back down.
“Actually,” she said, lowering herself down on my lap, straddling me. “I do want you to take me. Right now.”
After sex, I took her to get her car and we came back. She was making dinner while I watched the game.
The Rays were actually winning 4-1 in the bottom of the third inning, thanks to a three-run home run in the second inning. I was hoping the Rays would be able to maintain the lead, which would mean Marco would probably get to come in to face a batter or two in the seventh or eighth inning.
I was wondering if April watched many of the games. I imagined with two kids, the best she could do was have it playing in the background while running after her children. Being the wife of a professional athlete couldn’t be easy. Plus, their husbands were on the road half of the year, doing God only knew what, or whom, in their spare time. Her husband was Latino, obviously, and those guys could never seem to keep it in their pants. Maybe he was fucking around.