Читать книгу The Comeback of Roy Walker - Stephanie Doyle - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you didn’t tell me about Roy,” Lane said to her sister as soon they were alone. Scout and Duff had just gotten home and he’d immediately sought his favorite chair in the living room.

As for Lane, following her confrontation with Roy, she had left the stadium and headed to Duff’s house for some alone time. While she’d agreed to work on Roy’s arm, she needed at least twenty-four hours to process seeing him again before she could work up the courage to actually touch him.

And yes, she would have to touch Roy Walker. The reality of that was hitting her.

After she’d left the stadium, Duff had apparently decided he wanted to make his famous burgers for dinner, which translated into Scout putting the ingredients together and making the raw patties, then Duff slapping them on the grill, adding cheese and calling it a cooking miracle.

It was a time-honored tradition in the Baker household.

“Shh, Duff’s sleeping,” Scout hissed as they unpacked groceries she and Duff had picked up.

It wasn’t beyond Lane’s notice that Duff slept a lot. As if that trip to the grocery store had expended all the energy he had so he needed to refuel for dinner. How the hell did he think he was going to manage the club this year? That was a conversation for tomorrow.

Scout not telling her about Roy was a like a slap in the face. Lane felt blindsided and more than a little betrayed. Which were not feelings she wanted from her family.

Her sisters were her core. Her sense of safety in the world, along with Duff. When she’d gone through her long and bitter divorce from Danny they had been her rocks. Sitting with her when she cried. Laughing with her when they knew she needed to be pulled out of a mood. Supporting her when she struggled with the pain of the breakup. True, she’d stopped loving Danny before the actual breakup, but that didn’t mean separating their lives hadn’t been hard.

The worst part of the divorce had been dealing with her own sense of failure. The acknowledgment that she couldn’t make her marriage work. That she had been unable to see Danny for who he really was before she married him. That her love for him had been a fleeting thing at best.

Whether Danny had ever returned that love was hard to know. The awful truth was that his infidelities had started months after they were first married.

How could she have not known? That cluelessness alone had rocked her to her core until her sisters made her see that Danny’s behavior wasn’t about anything lacking in Lane. It was just who Danny was.

A character flaw Lane had failed to identify in her mission to find a person she could build a life with. How the hell could she screw it up so badly? How could she be totally unsuccessful at the one thing she’d been so committed to doing right?

That was why Lane hadn’t once, in the five years since leaving Danny, ever considered taking the chance on love and long-term commitment again. Which didn’t make dating easy. The one time she’d gotten remotely close to someone she had felt honor bound to tell him their relationship could never go anywhere. She wasn’t getting married. Ever. She wasn’t repeating that mistake. She didn’t trust herself.

If she was to have kids someday, she would do it on her own.

The guy had said goodbye. And Lane realized that men in their late twenties and early thirties who were looking for a wife were not people she should be dating. Unfortunately, the other kind—who wanted no-strings-attached sex—usually turned her off completely because they reminded her too much of Danny.

Which meant she hadn’t had sex in a really long time. Which meant seeing Roy Walker again, and having that same feeling creep over her body as the last time she’d seen him, made her want to throw something across the room.

She was going to have to touch him. His body. What in the hell was she thinking agreeing to that?

“You should have told me,” Lane said again, having no problem taking out her annoyance on her little sister.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“You honestly think I would let someone like Roy stop me from seeing my father if I was concerned about his health?”

Scout took a moment to consider the question. “Anyone else, no. Roy? He’s different for you.”

“He’s not different. He’s just someone I...I hate. That’s all.”

“Yep. Lane hates Roy. You really should get a tattoo of that so you can assure yourself you’ll never forget it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Scout sighed and put down a head of broccoli that Lane knew their father wouldn’t eat. She also knew Scout kept buying it and other vegetables in a vain attempt to keep him healthy. She looked long and hard at Lane.

“What really happened between you two the night of that party?”

Lane felt her whole body flush. “You mean other than finding my husband with his tongue down another woman’s throat?”

“You know damn well I mean other than that. You were so mad at Roy over that whole episode—”

“He set me up! He purposefully staged an entire party to make me look like a fool in front of everyone I knew. Everyone who knew Danny was cheating on me!”

Just reliving that walk down the long hallway made her want to inflict physical damage on Roy. She’d never wanted an apology from him. Frankly, given the man he’d been then, so confident in his decisions, she’d never expected one. He probably thought the same as Duff had thought—that he’d done her a favor. That’s why it had shocked her when he’d sent the letter. Maybe she hadn’t read it because it was better to think about what he might have said than to know what he did.

“Why did he do that?” Scout mused. “I mean, seriously, you couldn’t have been the first wife Roy knew was being cheated on. He’d been in the league for ten years before he met you. He probably knew every sordid story in the book. Yet he puts this plot together to expose Danny’s cheating. That’s a lot of effort from a man who you said never took much interest in the team or anyone else.”

Lane didn’t want to think about the events leading up to that party. She didn’t want to think about the weird outings she and Roy took together. They both had a thing for hot dogs, so they would try new places around town, or new stands in the ballpark. Always in search of the perfect dog. It had been completely innocent, of course. Mostly they ate and argued about whatever the topic of the day was.

But what Lane had told him that night was true. She had considered them friends.

And as far as she knew, theirs was the only relationship Roy had.

Yes, he could be an ass. But as time had passed, there were things she’d learned about him that made him seem more human. Like when she discovered the reason for his isolation from the team. Or when she’d found out that his claim to not do charity really meant that he didn’t do charity for show.

Because the one time Lane had asked him to help her out, he’d spent hours in a dunk tank making kids and adults happy.

“I don’t know why he did it,” Lane lied now. She couldn’t admit the truth without remembering the moment he’d told her to get unmarried. When he’d leaned into her and kissed her.

When she’d kissed him back.

She couldn’t imagine what Scout would say if she knew. All that fuss about breaking up with a cheating scumbag of a husband and the truth was, in her heart, Lane had also felt desire for someone other than the person to whom she was married.

The thought made her that much angrier at Roy.

“If you ask me, your story—the Roy-and-Lane story—is not done yet.”

“There is no story. There is just me getting through these next few weeks. I’ll get Duff to see a doctor. We’ll make sure he’s okay and then I’m gone. As far away from baseball as I can get.”

“And the hospital was okay with letting you go for a few weeks?”

“Yep,” Lane said quickly. Maybe too quickly because she could feel Scout’s gaze on her. Regardless, Lane wasn’t talking about that now. It was just too much to deal with. Stephen’s death, leaving her job. Those things were behind her. Duff and Roy were in front of her. She needed to focus on that.

Scout had put away the last of the groceries and was leaning against the fridge. “What if we can’t just make sure he’s okay? What if something is wrong? Isn’t that what you said we might need to get prepared for?”

“Well, I changed my mind.” Lane said definitively. “We’re not borrowing trouble. Duff’s perfectly fine until a doctor says otherwise. You know what Duff always says—worrying about nothing gets us nothing.”

Scout nodded but Lane could see the fear in her sister’s eyes, which coincidentally made Lane feel it in her heart.

“He’s going to be fine,” Lane said. “Everything is going to be fine.”

She only wished she could believe it.

* * *

ROY FELT THE rush of adrenaline when he saw where the ball ended up. Exactly where he wanted it to, a little low and outside, but definitely a strike. Javier bounced up and tossed the ball to Roy.

After a week in the Falls, he was in shape enough to throw from the mound. A slightly elevated hill with a pitch to plant his feet. He wore cleats, workout shorts and a long sleeved T-shirt, which helped to keep his arm warm. A standard bullpen session routine, and he could feel his body changing with each pitch he threw.

It was like there was all this dried-up, crusty stuff around his shoulder and arm, and with each throw it cracked a little more, and the dust blew away, taking time with it. When he’d left the game he’d promised himself he would never miss it and he’d kept that promise.

Until now.

Strange that he was becoming sentimental. Now that he was in a stadium again he missed the sounds of the crowds cheering and sometimes jeering. He missed the adrenaline rush of facing the best batter in the league and watching as he swung helplessly at a ball that was sinking before it ever got across the plate.

He missed the feeling of winning. Of dominating. And now he had enough humility to know that he might not get back there. Yes, he could still throw. But could he still be Roy Walker?

That was an unknown.

What would it feel like to sit in the bullpen watching the game with a bunch of other guys, probably younger, waiting for the phone to ring so he could go out to the mound to pitch for just one inning. Hoping he didn’t do any damage in that inning. Hoping he got the guys out he was supposed to get out.

Roy never used to hope. He just did. He’d always been a starter. He’d always been the first starter in the five-man rotation. For every season he’d played.

What he was going to be was anyone’s guess. Duff had him slated to start in the minors, but that was to improve his arm strength. What he became in the majors, if he even made it that far, was a complete unknown.

As long as it came with a paycheck, he would have to accept it.

Trying to get out of his head, Roy got into his windup and threw again. The ball sailed over Javier’s head and the catcher had to hop up and scramble to find it.

“Sorry, Javier!” Roy waved.

“Juusssst a little outside.”

Roy turned and saw Lane walking toward him. She wore jeans with a T-shirt and cardigan, her hair loose around her shoulders. He was struck again by the awareness that he was seeing her again. When he thought he never would.

Damn, he’d missed her. He wondered what she would say if he told her that. Probably that he didn’t get to say that, either.

“Quoting Major League. That’s not a good sign,” he said, smiling.

Lane knew Major League was one of Roy’s all-time favorite baseball movies. The fact that she lumped him in with the Wild Thing didn’t bode well for what she saw in his pitching.

She didn’t return his smile.

“You should have been here earlier,” he said. “I missed Javier by three feet on my first pitch. The ball hit the brick backstop, shot down into the dugout and ran all the way into the lockers. Not exactly where I wanted that pitch to go.”

Lane crossed her arms under her breasts and looked toward the outfield.

“Look, I get it, Lane. You hate me and just because you’re here doesn’t mean you’ve forgiven me. Point made. But you are here and if we are going to work together, we have to at least talk to each other. We could always do that. Talk to each other.”

She looked at him then as if his words had served to remind her of what they had been. He couldn’t tell if that made her angrier or if maybe she had missed him, too. Because the look on her face just then...it was wistful.

“Did I actually hear you apologize to Javier?”

Roy knew where she was going with the question. In his heyday he never would have considered apologizing to a catcher on a wild pitch. But those days were over and it seemed a man who was coming back to the game with his head between his knees could show a little humility now and then.

“Don’t make too much of it. It’s not like he understands a word I say.”

“Session done?” Javier called out to the mound.

Roy nodded. “Session done. Thanks again, Javier.”

“It’s good. It’s good.” The catcher smiled, then jogged toward the dugout and the showers underneath the stadium.

“Does your father know you’re here?” Lane asked.

It was another question Roy understood the reason why she asked. He really didn’t want to talk about his father, but he had to take the fact that she was talking to him as a positive sign so he answered her.

“No.” Roy wanted to avoid that conversation as long as he could. He could just imagine how it would go down. He would have to explain how he lost all his money. Instead of being worried about that or sorry it happened, his father would no doubt be thrilled to fly out and see him at his next game. His father would instantly revert to his old ways, thinking that he and Roy could be a team again.

When Roy left the game his relationship with his father had all but dried up. A lot of that distance had to do with losing his mother the year before. Once she was gone, he and his father realized the only thing that connected them was baseball. The reality of it after he’d left the game was even worse than he could imagine. It was as if his father didn’t know how to speak to him anymore. Like all Roy had ever been to him was a star player instead of a son.

Now that he was back in the game his father would want to be in his life and the pain of that, knowing he would only take an interest because Roy was playing ball again, was something Roy really didn’t want to deal with.

It was something he could have talked about with his mom. Six years gone and there wasn’t a day he didn’t wish he could pick up the phone and call her. Let her explain why Dad was the way he was and how baseball was his way of showing his affection. She had always made Roy feel better about himself, his dad and their relationship.

He should call his dad. He would call him. He just wasn’t ready yet.

“How long do you think you can stay hidden? The season starts in three weeks. You’re going to be on the team—”

“You don’t know that. It’s not official.”

“I saw the five pitches you threw before that last one. You’re going to be on the team. The world will know Roy Walker is back.”

There would be press, there were would be stories and assumptions and investigations. News of his colossal business implosion would be everywhere. Mike and Mike on ESPN radio would no doubt discuss it and his return for a solid week.

Forget the field day Roy would have with the local press, who would be jumping at the chance to beef up their distribution of newspapers with the story of Roy’s return and being part of the Minotaurs. He’d met the owner of the team, Jocelyn Taft-Wright, who seemed ready to pounce on any publicity that Roy might generate that could translate into ticket sales. Considering she was married to a local sportswriter, Roy imagined she would have some influence over the volume of stories produced.

All of it would suck for someone who never craved the media spotlight. It wasn’t as if Roy didn’t love attention. But only when he was on the mound. There he craved it. Soaked it in like sun on a beach. He always wanted everyone to see what he could do.

Off the mound, he always felt like the less people knew about him, the better.

It would be something Lane might have teased him about when they were friends and say it was because he didn’t want everyone to know what an ass he was. Maybe that was true. But he also didn’t want everyone to realize how shallow he was.

What had he been other than a ballplayer? Nothing. Not husband or father. Not a person with interests or hobbies. Roy threw the ball. That’s who he was. An interviewer could ask only so many questions about that. A player could give only so many answers.

Now those questions would be about whether he could still throw the ball.

The jury was still out. The throwing didn’t feel like it used to feel. But he wasn’t as bad as he might have thought after so long away.

“The plan is to hide for as long as possible,” he eventually said. “When the storm shows up, I’ll see how it goes. You know me and my love of the press.”

“They used to call you One-Word-Answer Roy.”

“They ask a question, I give them an answer. They don’t like it, that’s their problem.”

“Right, but it was one of the things that fed in to your whole alter ego.”

“Alter ego? I wasn’t a superhero, Lane.”

“No, Roy, you weren’t. Hate to tell you but you were the bad guy.”

It wasn’t exactly news to Roy. He had always understood how he was perceived. He hadn’t done it on purpose. He hadn’t deliberately cultivated the image as the loner. The team villain. The guy who everyone wanted to hate but couldn’t because he was too damn talented.

His reputation developed because of his nature and how he was brought up in the game. Maybe there had been a time when he thought about changing people’s perception of him. Then he thought about taking time away from his regimented training schedule to do more interviews. Or spend more of his off time with his teammates. The extra effort it would take to show up at some swanky event just to get his face on camera.

The return on that effort hadn’t seemed worth it. Only the pitching mattered to him.

Roy started his career with two, and only two, objectives: a World Series victory and the Hall of Fame. The level of commitment it took to achieve those goals was something that probably only twenty of the three hundred plus pitchers in the major leagues understood. The commitment—the work—was all he was. All he knew. And he’d accomplished one of his objectives.

His objectives this time around were even simpler. He needed money. A mercenary reason that didn’t require him to be the best there was, because there was no way he could ever be better than his younger self. But he did have to be good enough.

Good enough. A heck of a lowly ambition for Roy Walker, but the best he could hope for.

“Maybe I’ll try to do things a little differently this time,” he said, thinking that his capitulation might gain him some goodwill with Lane.

“Don’t do it on my account.”

Or not.

“So you’re going to tell the press the whole story?” she asked.

He laughed then. “There’s no getting around what happened, Lane. I can’t shake it, or dodge it, or pretend it didn’t happen. So, I have to man up. I reached for something and missed and it cost me everything. All I can do is hope I have some gas left in the tank to give myself another shot.”

“People love a good comeback story,” Lane said. “And you’ll be one hell of a comeback to baseball.”

“Can I ask you something? Honestly.”

“Have I ever been dishonest with you?”

Roy thought about that but didn’t necessarily want to go to the past. The answer to that question wasn’t as black-and-white as she wanted it to be. Maybe she hadn’t been dishonest with him, but she’d damn sure lied to herself. It was the only reason her marriage to Danny lasted as long as it did.

“Do you really think I’m pathetic? A thirty-seven-year-old, has-been pitcher. Are they going to pity me?”

It felt like he was exposing himself. Like he’d ripped apart his T-shirt, shown her his bare chest and asked her if she wanted to take a stab at his heart. Except she was Lane Baker, and she used to be the princess of baseball. Before her breakup no one respected the game more, except maybe Roy, so he knew he could trust her to tell him the truth even if she did hate him.

Was he blowing up his reputation, his history in the game and everything he ever worked toward for a damn paycheck? Lane would understand, even through her anger, what it would do to him to shit on his own legacy.

She bit her lower lip. Five years ago that habit would have been enough to give him a hard-on and have him thinking about other places he wanted her lips.

But not now, in this moment. This was too real. Lane Baker had hated him for five years. Had walked away not just from her husband, but also from the game she loved because of what Roy had done to her. There was no reason to think she should give him anything other than a crushing, devastating blow.

He really hoped to hell she didn’t.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did. Yesterday. About you being pathetic. You were the last person I expected to see and I lashed out.”

“You were being honest,” he reminded her.

“I was angry. But I know what you’re asking and I think it depends,” she said. “Do you think you can do this? Do you really think you can throw again in The Show?”

Honesty. It’s what he promised. “I don’t know. Lanie—sorry, Lane. Help me.”

Her arms closed around her body more tightly. “I already agreed to do your physical therapy. That’s all I’m offering.”

“No,” he said, reaching for her upper arm, circling it with his left hand. It was strange to touch her again. Like suddenly she was even more tangible to him now than she had been standing in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest. “I need to find me again. Because right now I’m so lost I have no sense of what’s up or down. And as crazy as it seems, you were one of the people who knew me best back then.”

“You’re asking me? For that kind of help? You don’t think it was enough to ask for my skills, now you want more? That’s a lot of nerve, Roy.”

“I know it is. But I also know you were the most generous person around.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not that person anymore,” she said. “I don’t give anymore, because I don’t trust anymore. You did that to me. You and Danny.”

To be lumped in with Danny Worthless felt like someone had shoved a knife through Roy’s stomach and twisted it all around. But was she wrong? They had both betrayed her.

Roy dropped his hand and could feel that some heavy clouds had blocked out the sun. Cool air had rolled into the stadium and his arm felt all of it. Definitely the start of spring, where one minute it could be balmy and beautiful and the next minute a person could be shivering and cold.

His shoulder started to stiffen and he knew he needed to get to a hot shower fast if he was going keep it loose enough to take another session tomorrow.

“I gotta...” He pointed to his arm and Lane nodded, totally familiar with what was happening to his body in the cool air. That shared knowledge created a sense of intimacy between them. Just like it had back then when she used to work on him. There had been times when he believed she understood his body more than he did. It had always been an unsettling thought.

“Yeah. Right. Take your shower and then meet me in the therapy room. We’ll get to work.”

Therapy. That was more than he should have asked for. To ask for even more from her probably had been a dick move.

“Okay.”

She walked away from him but then stopped a few feet away and turned back. “I don’t know if it helps or not, but the Roy I knew back then had a lot of nerve, too.”

Roy smiled at that. “Yes, he did.”

Lane shrugged. “Maybe that’s where you start looking for yourself again. See you in a few.”