Big Leagues Page 4

  Didn’t see that topic in Iss-Yous!

  “Hey, Cat.”

  Devon Jensen, a mediocre relief pitcher who was in no danger of being promoted to Vegas, tapped her on the shoulder. She whipped around and saw him eyeing her as if she was a catcher throwing down a sign for his best pitch.

  “Devon, hey. Thanks for coming.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He reached for the pitcher of beer across the table and filled her mug to the rim. “So, I was thinking that, after this, maybe we should go back to my place.”

  Cat stifled a laugh. “Were you now? You know there’s a strict policy about dating within the club, don’t ya?”

  He shrugged and adjusted his backwards cap over his long blond hair. “Yeah, but you’ll be moving on up, Jefferson-style. I’m pretty sure that rule just applies to each team individually.”

  She stifled a mock yawn, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m kinda sleepy.”

  “I’ve got coffee.”

  They paused, both sizing each other up.

  “I’ve still got a lot of packing to do.”

  “I could help.”

  “Oh no. I’d hate for you to strain your back lifting all my heavy boxes and wind up on the DL.” Cat watched his lips part, ready to dispense his next offer. “Thanks, though!”

  She reached up, gave him a quick pat on his tall shoulder, and darted toward the larger group at the bar before her true thoughts about dating ballplayers could slip out. A year ago, she wouldn’t have been able to resist the lure of a brawny ballplayer.

  The broad shoulders, the muscular arms, the form-fitting

  pants ...

  Cat shook the taboo images out of her head. Fast forward eight months and now she listed professional athletes in the turnoff category, right up there with smokers and litterbugs. She made her way across the sticky dance floor and hopped on the barstool next to Tamela, who greeted her with a disappointed shake of her head.

  “I’ll be the first to admit I’m no expert in this area, but how, in all that’s good and decent in this world, could you say no to that butt?” Tamela spun her stool halfway around and tilted her head toward the pool tables, where Devon was bending over to take a shot.

  Cat smiled at her. “Easy. That butt didn’t offer to make my dreams come true.”

  “You’re not seeing the same butt I am.”

  “The butt I’m seeing is against the rules, which you know.”

  “Oh please, no one would find out. It’s not like you’ll be seeing him in Vegas or anything. In fact, he gives up one more home run and he’ll be saying bye-bye to P-Ville.”

  “Tams, even if it weren’t against the rules, which it is …” Tamela’s eyes rolled on the emphasis. “I don’t date ballplayers.”

  “Neither do I. Mostly because they’re usually men. Shouldn’t one of these hunky slices of beefcake be right up your alley?”

  “Think of it this way. These guys have played this game all their lives, nonstop from T-ball to high school, and then some head off to college teams.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re talking fifteen years of life revolving around a game. The truly exceptional players are drafted into the minor league system, and they attempt to make their way up to the big leagues, where million dollar contracts await.”

  “I’m not seeing the bad here.”

  “They never grow up. Some have never even held what most of their fans would consider a real job. They’re just a bunch of big kids, and I have no desire to be their babysitter.”

  Tamela studied the group of players standing at the bar. She eyeballed Cat suspiciously. “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “No comment.”

  Tamela grinned. “Aha!”

  “I’m just saying, the prospect of dating a guy with the emotional maturity of Mr. Potato Head is more than enough to keep me completely in compliance with the team’s dating policy.”

  “Even with that butt?”

  “Even with those arms.” Tamela’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hey! I’m obedient, not blind.”

  “Uh-huh. We’ll see if that’s how you feel in Vegas, when you’re rubbing elbows, and Lord only knows what else, with the pros.”

  Cat’s jaw dropped, and she shook off a laugh. “Again, policy. Besides, you know I hate guys with money.”

  Tamela downed the rest of her margarita and slammed the glass on the bar. “Oh, yes. I forgot. Next you’ll tell me you don’t date guys with rock hard abs or, hey, guys with great butts.”

  Devon turned in their direction. They both ducked their heads and giggled. Cat checked to see if the coast was clear. “I’m telling you, the rich are just … different.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Pretty sure I’ll be ripping tickets for twelve bucks an hour ’til I die.”

  Cat raised her beer with a nod of agreement. Tamela clanged the empty margarita glass with her mug.

  “I’ll make you a deal: the next time some poor, fat, schlubby fan crosses through the gate, I know just the cute, rule-abiding sportswriter to set him up with.”

  “Hey, rules are rules.”

  Tamela raised an eyebrow. “Rules are made to be broken.”

  Cat leaned forward and set her beer on the bar. “Not this one. Short of betting on the games, rubbing what-elses with the players is the quickest way to the unemployment line.”

  “Fine, fine. So you’ll never be a Baseball Annie. What if you move on to basketball?”

  “Hoop Ho? Uh-uh.”

  “Hockey?”

  “Puck Bunny, no thanks.”

  “Football?”

  “Uh … Pigskin Polly, nope.”

  They burst out laughing. Devon walked up to the bar and strolled right in front of their section. As he passed, Cat and Tamela angled their heads and followed his path with their eyes. Their simultaneous movement sent them both into another fit of giggles. Tamela jumped off the stool and reached for Cat’s arm, giving it a playful shake.

  “Come on, they’re setting up karaoke. Sing ‘Penises, Penises’ with me.”

  Cat grinned at Tamela’s daring eyes. “You know, it’s ‘Promises, Promises.’ ”

  “Not when I sing it.”

  Tamela turned around and charged the DJ booth. Cat threw her head back and grudgingly followed her across the makeshift dance floor.

  9

  “That’s right. Las Vegas.”

  “The one in Nevada?”

  “Yes, the one in Nevada.”

  “The one with all the gambling and hookers.”

  “Actually, that’s a misnomer, Grams. Prostitution is illegal in the city limits and besides, they didn’t hire me to parade down the Strip in stilettos and leather.”

  “Catriona!”

  “Hey, you started it.”

  Cat switched the cell phone to her other ear and chuckled; her grandmother never threw the heat when she could lob a screwball into the conversation.

  “So this new team, will they be playing your old one in Porterville?”

  “No, that was their minor league team, Triple-A.”

  “Like the batteries in my remote control?”

  “Not exactly. Las Vegas is the big leagues, the real deal.”

  Cat gently wrapped her Andre Dawson bobblehead in tissue paper while trying to explain the intricate web of professional baseball to the woman who’d raised her. Ten minutes into the conversation and she was still trying to convince her grandmother Las Vegas wasn’t Spanish for Sodom & Gomorrah. Cat sat the box next to the door and placed her purse on top. The team was covering some of the costs of her promotion, including her very own set of moving men who were, at last count, already fifteen minutes late. Their aversion to punctuality confirmed for Cat that the men couldn’t be trusted with anything as precious as her bobblehead collection.

  “That’s pretty impressive, Catriona. Your dad will be so proud. When do you leave?”

  “In about an hour. I’ll call you as soon as I get there.”

&
nbsp; “Okay, tonight’s Canasta Night. I can’t wait to tell Gert about your new job, honey. That ought to shut her up about her grandson’s fancy dot-com business he started out of her garage.”

  Grams knew it too. Opportunities like this didn’t happen to women like them. Careers in sports writing fell into the laps of former athletes, beauty queens and daughters of families with stadiums named after them. Cat had notched strike one when her athletic prowess peaked in grade school, after she had suffered a concussion during a fateful game of Red Rover and had subsequently been forced to devote all recesses to Judy Blume instead. She was down in the count by puberty, the same time she had concluded beauty pageants must be a crock; no one who taped her breasts together and strutted in stilettos for three hours could possibly be wishing for world peace over a warm bubble bath. The crushing strike three: the only time the McDaniel name was seen by the public was in police blotters and court schedules. Cat was out in only three pitches, like a hapless rookie. A pampered princess lived in the castle of a fantasy career, and she had spent the last six years trying to sneak across the moat. A princess hopped from the graduation stage to the baseball field, trading one spotlight for another. While that same princess held up a microphone to the lips of a Gatorade-drenched hero in front of a full stadium, Cat held up hot dogs, chocolate malts and the occasional foam finger. Off days were spent manning the hostess pedestal at the Crab Slab, and her offseason paychecks were payment for various dead-end jobs that could be performed by a trained monkey. Most weeks Cat’s bank balance hovered just above the Mendoza line, the threshold only pennies away from a move back to her grandmother’s trailer. She had almost given up hope of any career not involving frankfurters in this dog-eat-dog business.

  Then the Porterville Bulldogs had thrown her a bone.

  “All right,” she told her grandmother, “have fun tonight. Don’t steal those poor old ladies’ money.”

  “I’ve never stolen anything in my life.”

  Cat giggled as her grandmother feigned innocence over the phone line, but she knew better. She had many years of experience on the other side of her grandmother’s card table.

  “Yeah, yeah. Somehow you’re always dealt five wild cards in one hand."

  "Next time we play I won't take a single one and I bet I'll still win."

  "We’ll see if you can back up that smack talk on my next visit."

  "Be careful, Catriona. Grandma loves you."

  "Love you, too. Take care. No cheating!”

  She hung up before her grandmother could protest and peeked out the window. An orange moving truck rounded the corner.

  Cat had arrived. Not just in the figurative dream-job sense, but literally in the five-hours-around-Death-Valley sense. Her clanging Jeep rolled off the I-15 exit and rattled in the final stretch toward her new home. The picturesque complex looked exactly the way it had online. Its six buildings sat a hundred feet off the road, shaded by palm trees, adorned with perfect landscaping and encased by a sandstone privacy fence. She slowed to snag a better look from the road. Although it translated to Seaside Estates, making it a ridiculous name in the desert, her one bedroom apartment—villa, the condescending leasing agent had reminded her twice during their telephone call—at Villa La Playa came with a reserved parking spot, walk-in closet, fitness room and heated pool. Besides, the complex was within walking distance of Hohenschwangau Stadium. For that short of a commute, they could call the place Villa La Cucaracha and Cat would sign the lease in blood.

  They wanted something a lot harder to make than blood—money. The security deposit alone had wiped what little she had to her name. Because the new gig was year-round, Cat’s new salary was triple what she’d made in Porterville, but she would not receive a paycheck for two weeks. This money would be gobbled up by the student loan payments and credit card bills that had subsidized her dream-chasing. The suffering had all been worthwhile, but that’s the thing they didn’t tell you about being a martyr. The pay sucks.

  She hesitated as the Jeep’s turn signal click-clacked through her thoughts. The movers had still been packing her other belongings when she’d exited Porterville, and she didn’t expect them to arrive for another hour. It turned out her perception of moving men as hunky stevedores with rippling biceps had been inspired by late night cable and proved about as accurate as her grandmother’s assessment of Sin City. Cat had expected at least one of the overweight men to keel over while moving her sofa, leaving her possessions in limbo while the ambulances or the morgue came to haul him away.

  She drummed her fingernails on the steering wheel. Since the Jeep was packed with nothing but forty-seven bobbleheads to unwrap in her new home, Cat took one more look at the luxurious apartments and hit the gas pedal. The roar of the rusty Wrangler spoke for her.

  Home sweet home can wait.

  10

  Hohenschwangau Stadium was home to more than just the Las Vegas Chips. The ballpark also housed the biggest JumboTron in Las Vegas, the longest concessions concourse in professional sports and more memorabilia shops than the Mall of America. Erich König had spared no expense in making the arena a showplace of glitz and glamour—the perfect embodiment of “Las Vegas.” The seats circled the playing field in alternating shades of red and black, so that from the sky the park looked like a roulette wheel. In the outfield, the scoreboard masqueraded as a giant slot machine. After a Chips’ player hit a home run, the screen flashed three cherries, and a whooping siren alerted every man, woman and dog within the stadium’s three block radius. Jackpots were common at Hohenschwangau Stadium; the team had led the league in the long ball for two years straight.

  The Chips didn’t have a mascot, unless you counted the Hohenschwangau Palace und Kasino’s showgirls. Each home game had four women on hand, and in between innings, they danced on the dugouts and tossed the crowd a variety of souvenirs, ranging from t-shirts to casino chips. The showgirls came clad in feathers, big smiles and little else.

  Today was an away game for the Las Vegas Chips. The team would fly back from San Francisco tonight. Cat had learned in Porterville that without spectators and players, baseball parks were as boring as any other office in America. Just the pencil-pushing staff, none of whom had to worry about persistent paparazzi, devoted fans or rabid autograph hounds waiting for them outside the gates.

  The giant coliseum wasn’t hard to find. She’d seen the unlit stadium lights towering over the palm trees as soon as she’d exited I-15. Cat pulled her Jeep up to the parking lot’s security booth.

  Ah, the moat.

  She thumbed through the package Lynette had sent her. The guard in the booth opened his window and smiled, revealing a pair of stained dentures. “What can I do for you, little lady?”

  “Uh, hi there. I’ve got a parking pass in here somewhere, just a sec.”

  “Oh! You must be our new reporter. You certainly are a lot prettier.” His face fell. “Sure was awful what happened to the last one, a damn shame. You don’t even listen to the rumors, you hear me?”

  “Oka— Wait, what rumors?”

  He waved his hand nonchalantly. “People like to stir up trouble. Got nothing better to do than turn a tragedy into a scandal. Maybe it helps them cope, I don’t know. But you don’t mind them none, just do your job and I’m sure you’ll be fine here.”

  “Oh uh, okay.”

  His face lightened up. “Now I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow. McDaniel something, wasn’t it?”

  Cat returned his kind smile. “Uh-huh. I’m Catriona McDaniel. I just got into town, and I was kinda anxious to see my new office. Is that okay?”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled again. “Of course, dearie. You can park anywhere in the lot. Do you know where you’re going?”

  Cat blushed. “Not really.”

  “Well, don’t fret none. That’s what I’m here for. Now what you’re gonna wanna do is go through those doors right there.” He pointed to a set of double steel doors. “Now those don’t open without a key code. You
have to punch in your employee number before they’ll unlock. Did they give you your employee number yet?”

  “Uh …” Cat fumbled through her pile of paperwork. “Ah, here we go.”

  He nodded. “Okay, good. Punch that in the keypad; then you’ll hear the door unlock. Follow the tunnel on through ’til you get to a hallway. You’ll go past, oh gee, I believe it’s four doors. They’re labeled ‘groundskeeper,’ ‘maintenance’ and so on. I’m sure you know the drill.”

  He stopped. She nodded confirmation, and he smiled.

  “Then you’ll come to the hallway. There’s a set of elevators to the left, just before the clubhouse and player areas. Take the elevator up to the fourth floor. That’s where you’ll find your office.”

  “Thank you so much, Mr., uh …”

  “Oh, dearie, you can call me Winston.”

  “Winston. Nice to meet you.”

  He hit a button in his booth and the striped gate lifted. They exchanged a wave as she passed through.

  The elevator doors opened with an echoing ding. Cat gingerly stepped into the fourth floor lobby. The lights were off and there wasn’t a single person in sight.

  Okay, kinda creepy.

  Her frazzled nerves welcomed the quiet, albeit ominous, calm of the vacant department. She strolled down the corridor and eyed the various cubicles and desks. Each space was stacked with papers and decorated with photos of loving spouses, adorable kids and happy pets. As she stepped into the back corner of the floor, her eyes were riveted to the nameplate on the mahogany door.

  Catriona McDaniel, Senior Reporter.

  A small smile formed on her lips, and she brought her fingers up to the door to caress the polished brass.

  My own office? I’ve never even had my own cubicle before.

  Truthfully, she’d written most of her Bulldogs articles at home in her pajamas with John Fogerty blaring in the background, but Cat wasn’t about to turn down a corner office. Her fingers squeezed the doorknob. Fumes of fresh paint emanated from the beige walls. She forgot about the chemical stink and dull shade of paint when she spotted the splendor on the right wall—a window with a view of the field. The possibilities that window presented flooded into her mind.