Curveball, p.8
Curveball, page 8
Joe glanced at Frannie, who smiled. She looked great, he thought; she wasn’t even breathing hard. And Joe looked, he hoped, now that he’d lost some weight, like an athlete again, which was all he’d ever wanted to be.
They arranged to eat dinner that night, their last in Portugal, with Avi Bernstein, who met them at the hotel restaurant dressed all in white: shirt, pants, and shoes. His tanned face glowed above the white garments and below his mostly white hair, which, Joe noted, was thicker than his own. Avi ordered a bottle of vinho verde, which, he explained, meant the wine was released young, three to six months after harvest.
“Like a rookie,” Joe quipped, and Avi laughed.
They were seated at the front corner of the restaurant balcony. The weather was perfect. The sky blazed with stars. It was past nine, later than Joe and Frannie had wanted to eat the night before a long flight, but Avi assured them everyone in Portugal ate late. Restaurants didn’t open until eight, and only Americans ate that early.
“Avi,” Frannie asked. “I hope you don’t mind my asking.”
“Ask anything.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighty-two.”
“And still working full time?”
Avi smiled proudly. “More than full time.”
He sipped his vinho verde. So did Joe. The wine tasted more like alcoholic grape juice than the Chardonnays he drank with Frannie, and it went down easy with the seafood Avi had ordered for the table. They were on their second bottle.
“I like to work, always have,” Avi continued. “And when my wife died six years ago?” Instead of looking away as Joe would have, Avi looked straight at Frannie. “Work kept me going. A recurrence of breast cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” Frannie said. “How old was she?”
“Seventy-three.” Avi cut an inch of grilled octopus and consumed it. “We were married forty-eight years.”
“I’m sorry,” Joe said, echoing Frannie. And then, perhaps because of all the vinho verde, he asked, “You think I’ll live that long?”
“Your father’s going strong and from what I hear, remains quite vital.”
“Nothing,” Joe replied bitterly, “happens to Jack.”
“Ah.” Avi refilled their glasses. “You are asking for your prognosis.”
“I guess I am.”
Avi stalled, Joe thought, by spooning a second helping of seafood rice onto everyone’s plate. He took a bite, chewed, and cleared his mouth, then asked, “Do you remember what I told you in New York?”
Joe laid into the rice and seafood, stalling like their host. The dish tasted like paella, but not like paella. It was hard to explain. “No.” He felt a rush of shame. “Not a word.”
Avi smiled at Frannie. “Joe’s very honest, isn’t he? That’s a rare quality.”
Frannie returned Avi’s smile. “Yes, it is.”
“Or maybe just not very smart,” Joe admitted. “Medical stuff just won’t stick in my head.”
A cloud shifted over the bright moon suspended over the dark ocean, and for a moment, Avi’s face was swallowed in shadow. Then the moon reemerged. “Many years ago,” he began, “before there were many good outcomes for the kind of cancer Joe has, we conducted a study in which I told patients and a family member in great detail the truth of their condition. Two weeks later, when the patient and family member returned, we’d ask if they remembered. Overwhelmingly, the family member did, but the patient? The patient denied and denied.”
Joe wondered what Avi was trying to say, and as often happened when Joe felt confused, he felt even more confused. “I promise, this time I’ll remember.”
“You probably won’t. It’s only human.”
I’m more human than most, Joe thought.
“But I bet Frannie will.”
“I will,” Frannie said, “don’t worry.” She squeezed Joe’s hand.
“There’s a slight chance, Joe,” Avi began, looking mostly at Frannie, “that when Joe’s tumor was biopsied, one of his lesions was higher than Gleason seven, and we missed it. A very slight chance, because we repeated the biopsy you brought from California. But because of his high PSA, we can’t rule it out, you see.”
Joe didn’t see.
“It’s important,” Avi continued, “to monitor Joe’s PSA carefully post-surgery. It should gradually go down and not go back up.”
Joe took another bite of seafood rice. Squid, he thought. And scallop. Two Jews and a shiksa eat in Portugal, and every bite more traif than the next.
“So,” Joe said, feeling like a small dog attempting to chew the same rather large bone. “You think I’ll be okay?”
Avi shot him a strange, not entirely benevolent look. He set his knife and fork down and looked out towards the ocean and the black night sky before turning again towards Joe. “In all likelihood, you’ll be okay.”
Good, Joe thought. I’ll be okay.
Chapter Thirteen
Jess’s final Florida start was a semi-stinker. He’d get ahead but couldn’t put batters away. Lefties and righties kept fouling off pitches. It was all about location, location, location, as he remembered his mom’s best friend, Laura, a Santa Monica realtor, saying about her business. Instead of painting with heat, he’d miss by two inches; not middle-middle, but enough plate to produce a crop of foul balls. Instead of swings and misses, or soft contact with his curve and change-up, he’d leave the ball up, or bounce it too far in the front of the plate. The result? Seven or eight pitch marathons with hitters he should have put away easily. He was pulled with one out in the fourth instead of finishing five, which he’d needed to make a final good impression before shuffling off to Syracuse.
And now it was moving day. Jess felt sour and pissed at himself, but also excited because he’d be rooming with Rah, who felt REALLY excited about being promoted to Triple-A, just one level below the Show. Of course, it was Rah’s nature to be excited.
That was good because when they landed at Hancock International it was forty-two degrees and raining. The Syracuse forecast for the entire week was high forties, nighttime lows in the thirties, snow flurries possible Opening Day. Four or five other players were on the same flight, and not one was appropriately dressed for Syracuse; West Palm was eighty and sunny when they left. Mucho laughter and pendejos, directed at Rah, who’d flown in shorts and sandals. None of the other guys were staying at Applewood Suites, so they’d said goodbye at baggage claim. Jess rented the same SUV he always rented. Rah, who didn’t have an American license, offered to share expenses, since Jess would be doing all the driving.
Applewood Suites looked like one of the dozens, or maybe hundreds, of motels Jess had slept in during his four professional seasons. Their suite consisted of two small bedrooms (each with a queen bed) and a functional kitchen. Jess selected the bedroom on the left side of the living room/kitchenette, and let Rah have the slightly larger bedroom on the right. Each had its own television and bathroom. They unpacked, and Rah changed into sweats. Team meeting was 8:30 in the morning—the stadium was ten minutes south—but they were free until then.
“What do you want to do for dinner?” Jess asked. It was past six, and they hadn’t eaten since lunch. “I’m starving.”
“How about Mexican?”
“Man,” Jess said. “You always want Mexican.”
“Dude, soy Mexicano.”
“You know it’s gonna suck, right?”
Rah smiled his sexy Cuernavacan smile. “How bad could a taco suck?”
Man, Jess thought, I love this guy. “Okay, Mexican, long as they serve margaritas.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were sliding into a booth in Otro Cuatro, a hip-establishment with Southwestern-themed murals on its brick facade and three different margaritas on the drink menu. Jess ordered a pitcher of the Cuatro, made with reposado Herradura, poured them each a large one in a salted-rim glass, and thought about the last time he’d been drinking margaritas: the night he came out to Grandpa Jack. He still couldn’t believe he’d done it, although he’d been fantasizing about telling someone for years. And now? Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. They hadn’t spoken since, and he wondered if Jack would really keep his secret.
Jess sipped his margarita, dipped chips in fresh salsa, and gazed happily at Rah, who was studying the menu as if there was going to be a test.
“Jess,” Rah said, pronouncing it as he always did, somewhere between Yess and Jess, “this ain’t Mexican. I mean some. What is this shit?”
Jess grudgingly shifted his eyes from Rah to the menu. “It says, Mexican and Spanish.”
“Oh.” Rah grinned. “That explains it.”
Rah ordered enchiladas with salsa verde, and Jess, though he was tempted by the paella—which he’d learned to eat in his parents’ favorite Spanish restaurant in West Hollywood—chose his go-to Mexican: carnitas, out of loyalty to his best friend, Rah. After half a margarita and a full basket of chips and salsa, Rah said, “I bet you ain’t gonna be here long.”
“I hope not too long. But it’s going to be fun, you know, rooming together.”
“I think so too.” Rah grinned. “You know how to cook?”
“Call Grubhub. What about you?”
“I’m pretty good. My big sisters taught me.”
“You got brothers?”
“Only girls.” His eyes came to Jess. “Except for me.”
“I’m an only.” And then, imagining them sitting around their apartment some evening without a game, he said, “Maybe you can cook for us sometime? I’ll do the dishes.”
Later, back at Applewood, perhaps influenced by the pitcher of top-shelf Otro margaritas, Jess dried off after his shower, changed into the boxers and Rumble Ponies t-shirt he slept in, and went looking for Rah to say goodnight. Found him in his bedroom, wearing nothing but boxers, doing curls with the forty-pound free weight he’d borrowed from the motel gym. His hairless chest and bulging biceps were the color of creamed coffee. The image of Rah half-naked and working out so seared Jess’s retinae he started getting hard. What if Rah sees? Jess backed out, calling, “Night, Rah, see you in the morning.”
“Hasta mañana, man,” Rah answered.
Oh God, Jess thought, lying in bed, touching himself. What now?
Jack was walking, as had become his morning routine, around the ring road inside Huntington Pointe. It was half past ten: post-breakfast, early for lunch. With spring training over, he had nothing going until televised sports came on after dinner. Opening Day tomorrow would change that, but with so few day games, he’d already decided to keep up the walking, which in turn would keep down his gut. The past month, especially the last five days since he saw Two-J’s, he’d been falling pretty damn shy of his resolution to limit the hooch. Once he got started, and he’d been getting started every afternoon, he couldn’t seem to stop. All he had to do was remember the look on Two-J’s face and the ugly words coming from the kid’s mouth, I’m a faggot, and he’d need another drink and then another. His gut was bigger, his ass wider. He was caught in a real condumbdrum. He needed to tell someone, only he’d promised up, down, and sideways he wouldn’t.
Instead, Jack circled Huntington Pointe in his Panama, madras Bermudas, and dark glasses. Funny how fast what he thought he knew became what he didn’t. What he believed was stable ground had shifted. He’d been certain Jess’s life was golden: 1.8-million-dollar bonus; movie-star looks; best curve since Kershaw. But now, like it often did, life had chomped him on the tuchas.
Jack looked up at the Florida sun dripping orange juice out of the pale blue sky. The vision so disoriented him he didn’t know which end was up, then he snapped back into himself in the no-bullshit way that had gotten him through hard times before. Jack knew exactly who and where he was: across from a palm-tree-lined side street of villas, which was Huntington Pointe’s pompous word for houses. Third one in was Glad’s, who had her reasons, he supposed, for never inviting him over. She showed up at his place with a casserole, or they went out to eat. But even when he dropped her off, she never asked him in. He used to think it was cute, and he’d tease her about the skeleton she was hiding, but now he wasn’t sure.
Jack raised Glad’s knocker and let it klunk once then again. He heard movement, and maybe the curtain twitched, but no Glad. He leaned on the bell as if it were the only thing keeping him from falling off the planet. A moment later, she cracked the door and peered out, hair tucked under a straw hat with embroidered purple flowers on the brim. This was Glad unadorned: no shadow, mascara, or lashes; no powder, lipstick, or blush. She looked like a much older woman.
“This better be good, Jack.”
“You want I should come back?”
“Too late,” Glad growled and opened the door.
She parked him on the couch and went off to become the Glad he knew. During his wait, Jack considered making himself a Bloody Mary to settle his nerves, but no, she hadn’t offered. Besides, it wasn’t even noon. He sat on the uncomfortable couch, studying family photos of people he didn’t recognize, except for what was likely a much younger Glad standing beside the original Mister Goldberg, their arms around a boy and a girl, maybe twelve and ten years old. There was another one just the son, likely the future Dr. Goldberg, in a yarmulke and tallis, smiling like the precocious Bar Mitzvah boy he must have been.
Joey hadn’t been Bar Mitzvahed, not officially. Jack didn’t have the money for a reception, or maybe the focus, not with his first wife in the nut house. Looking at Glad’s boychikel, all dolled up in his tallis, Jack felt the pang he always felt for being such a shitty dad.
There were other pictures of the future Dr. Goldberg, and pictures of grandchildren too, but no other ones, Jack realized, getting up for a closer inspection of the shelves of family photos, of the daughter. Just then, Glad appeared looking very much like herself.
“So, what was so damn important? And don’t say you missed me.”
“I’m not supposed to tell no one.”
“Too late for that, Jack.”
“My grandson Jess, the pitcher?”
“Yeah?”
“Before he went north with his team, to Syracuse?” Jack looked into Glad’s perfectly made-up eyes. Blue shadow, false lashes, mascara, the whole she-bang. “He came over to tell me he’s gay.”
Glad didn’t bat a false eyelash. “What’s the big deal? It’s the twenty-first century, Jack.”
“Trust me, in baseball, it’s the 1950s. You know how good Jess is, right? Likely to reach the majors soon? Well, there’s never been a gay player in the majors. At least not one who admitted it.”
“If you say so.”
“Hell,” Jack said, “he hasn’t even told his parents.”
Glad’s features softened for the first time since he’d barged in. “So why’d he tell you?”
“Me and Jess, we always been like this.” He held up his second and third fingers, pressed together.
Glad stepped towards him. “If you weren’t supposed to tell anyone, why’d you tell me?”
Suddenly Jack was fighting tears, which had not fallen in decades. “I’m so worried for him, Glad.” He stepped into his lover’s arms and allowed himself to be comforted. After a moment he asked, “You think I could have a drink, like a Bloody Mary or something?”
“So, why’d you tell me?”
He started to say, I had to tell someone. He almost said, Who else would I tell? But that wasn’t it. Instead, he told the truth. “Because I trust you.”
“I’ll get you that drink now.” She kissed him on the mouth. “And I’ll have one with you.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was so cold at their first practice, the players kept handwarmers in their boxers. So cold, frost glistened in the outfield grass. So cold, the bases were frozen. When Raul Valdez slid into third, he slid right off, crashed into the stands, and had to be helped off the field. So effing cold, the guys told It was so cold/Tanto frio jokes for days, like the Yo Momma’s so fat jokes Jess recalled from middle school—although everyone knew his momma was tall and beautiful.
The night after the third frozen day was what Jack called Erev Opening Day, as if Opening Day was a Jewish holiday, which in the Singer household, it was. Jess and Rah were sitting around Applewood Suites knocking back beers when Jess’s cell rang and a vaguely familiar voice asked, “Hiya, is this Jess the pitcher?”
“It is.” The voice was neither high nor low. “Who’s this?”
“Emmy Williams?” The girl’s voice went up at the end, as if she didn’t know her own name, but that couldn’t be the explanation and it wasn’t. The question mark pertained to what came next. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m, like, hoping you do?”
“Give me a hint.”
“Tiff and I met you and your friends Rah and Big, and I can’t remember the shortstop’s name—”
Bingo, Jess remembered: Emmy, the long-stemmed American beauty, corn silk hair, blue eyes, rising on her toes to kiss him. “Of course, I remember you.”
Through the phone line he could feel her smile, such a pretty girl, with that Pretty Girl shrug. Oh man, he thought, are you barking up the wrong tree.
“Anyway, me and Tiff, our school’s less than an hour away. We thought maybe this weekend we could drive over and watch a game if you’re pitching. We just love baseball, like we told you. Maybe afterwards, we can hang out? If you want to.”
