Fireside

She exhaled slowly, sitting up in bed and holding the quilt under her chin. Maybe she was spoiled. Maybe someone should kick her to the curb.

Come to think of it, that was exactly what Lloyd had done. She tugged her mind away from him. The truth was, she was sick of thinking about him. She was sick of herself. Sick of her problems, her dilemma, her life. Stewing about it was simply depressing and got her nowhere.

She darted a suspicious look at her cell phone. Its battery was dead and would not be revived until she bought a replacement charger and plugged it in. She was in no hurry to do so, knowing she’d discover a world of unpleasant voice mails. Maybe she’d simply get rid of the phone for good, start fresh with a new one. Did people do that? Did they dump their dead phones, never bothering to retrieve the messages? She found the notion deeply appealing. Maybe there was an invisible cloud of unheard messages hovering out there in the digital ether somewhere, never to reach their intended recipients.

The sound of antique plumbing groaned in the walls of the old house, reminding Kim that she was far from alone. In addition to Mr. Dino Carminucci, there were two other houseguests, and the house had room for two more on the top floor. She could barely get her mind around her mother’s surprise “project.” Unbelievable. Her mother ran a boardinghouse. Kim hadn’t even known people still did such a thing.

She wondered what her grandparents would think of Penelope’s enterprise. She turned in bed, resting her cheek on her elbow as she studied an old photograph of Grandpa and Grandma Fairfield. It was a studio portrait from the mid-’70s, the colors fading but the smiles as bright as the day it was taken.

“I wish you were here,” she whispered to them. Both had died too young; her grandmother had succumbed to cancer a year and a half ago. Since it was in the summer, Lloyd had come along for the funeral. Foolishly, she’d thought he would be a comfort to her. Instead, he’d insisted on staying at the Inn at Willow Lake instead of with Kim’s mother, claiming he didn’t want to impose. What Kim should have realized back then was how selfish Lloyd was, and how foolish she’d been to let him create distance between her and her mother.

“I’m back now,” she said to the memory of her grandparents. “I just hope I’m not too late.”

Closing her eyes, she sank into memories of the past. She always thought her love of sports had come from her grandfather. He’d been a huge fan and he didn’t discriminate; he loved all kinds of sports. As his sole grandchild, Kim became his favorite companion at games, both professional and amateur. She loved the excitement of the crowd and the elemental struggle of the contest, whether it was on a baseball diamond, basketball court or hockey rink. Mostly, she’d loved the feeling of sharing the experience with her grandfather, who adored her.

When she was twelve, he visited her in the city and gave her season tickets to the Mets, promising her a winning season. The next day, he had kissed her goodbye and gone home. There was no way she could have known she’d never see him again.

The chances of a golfer being killed by lightning were one in a million. The thing no one thought about was that one fatality. For him, the odds were overwhelming.

People said it was a blessing that her grandfather had died doing something he loved, and that it was a blessing to go instantly, feeling no pain, no fear. Just a quick cosmic wink, and no more Grandpa. Kim understood that they were only trying to make her feel better. She even tried to accept the blessing explanation. But for the life of her, she couldn’t buy into the concept.

After that, she used to beg her father to take her to games, but he was always too busy. She went on her own, taking the bus or subway to Shea Stadium or Madison Square Garden. Going to a game made her feel closer to her grandfather, even when she was on her own. Caught up in the high excitement of the contest, she missed him just a tiny bit less. Sometimes it even made the terrible ache of loss ease up, if only for a few minutes.

Lying there, remembering, she made a vow. Her love of sports was a gift from her grandfather, and there was no way she’d let Lloyd Johnson or anyone take it away.

It was tempting to turn her back on the light trickling in through the bedroom window, to pull the covers over her head and fall asleep. For days or months. Forever.

Unfortunately, every time she shut her eyes, she caught herself thinking about the night in L.A. Intellectually, she knew the problem was Lloyd, not her. Yet when she replayed the scene over and over in her head, she kept wondering if she might have done something differently, if she could have said the right thing, maybe the disaster would have been averted. As soon as she felt her thoughts heading in that direction, she gave herself a mental shake. She was not to blame for Lloyd’s ego and his nasty temper.

“All righty, then,” she said, flinging back the quilt. She caught a glimpse of her long red hair in the mirror over the dresser. Yikes. “On that note, we’ll get up and see what the day brings.”

She went downstairs to find a stranger in the kitchen, with the countertop TV playing cartoons. Well, not exactly a stranger. One of her mother’s boarders, Daphne McDaniel. Kim would have to get used to seeing strangers around the house.

“Wow, that takes me back,” said Daphne, turning down the volume as she eyed Kim’s Camp Kioga sweatshirt. “Coffee?”

“Thanks.” Kim accepted the steaming mug and took a grateful sip. She was wearing the ancient jeans and camp hoodie, thick socks and Crocs her mother had given her yesterday. Prior to coming downstairs, she’d hastily washed the sleep from her face and pulled her long red hair into a ponytail. “These clothes are left over from … a hundred years ago. That’s what it feels like, anyway. I, um, traveled light, coming here.” All her worldly possessions were in L.A., most of them in a storage unit off Manhattan Beach Boulevard. She’d given up her apartment in order to be with Lloyd. She would have everything shipped to her eventually, but she didn’t want to think about that just now.

She had a funny urge to unload on Daphne, although they’d only just met. A girl needed her girlfriends. In her world—former world—friends and enemies blended together and morphed from one role to the other. There was even a word for it—frenemies. You couldn’t always trust them. It struck Kim that she didn’t have many friends. There were coworkers, sure. But there was no one she could point to and say, this is my friend. She hoped Daphne would turn out to be more genuine.

“I’m going to need to run into town to grab a few things,” she said.

“Try Zuzu’s Petals in the town square. Best shop there is.”

Kim used to shop in boutiques haunted by movie stars in floppy hats, and women with more money than common sense. She now counted herself a member of that group and vowed to change. “Thanks. Did you go to Camp Kioga when you were younger?”

Daphne laughed, but not with humor. “Honey, I was never younger. FYI, I’m having my childhood now, because I missed it the first time around.”

Kim stirred a partial packet of Splenda into the coffee. She sneaked a peek at Daphne, who was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen island, eating FrankenBerry cereal from a bright yellow bowl. With daring facial piercings and pink-streaked hair, she looked like a punk rocker. In contrast to Kim’s buffed-and-polished L.A. friends, Daphne was refreshing—quirky, but genuine.

Daphne fished a clear plastic packet out of her cereal bowl. “Yes,” she said. “I got the prize. I love when I get the prize.”

Given the type of cereal she was eating, she wasn’t likely to have much competition.

She wiped the toy on a napkin. “Troll doll,” she said, holding it up like a tiny trophy. “God, I love these things.”

Kim touched her hair, feeling an uneasy kinship with the troll. Then she lifted her coffee mug in salute. “Here’s to enjoying your childhood.”

“On the weekends, at least.”

“What do you do during the week?” She pictured Daphne working at a roller rink or surfing the internet, bookmarking anime sites.

“I work in a local law office. It’s up over the bookstore in town. It’s okay. I prefer Saturdays, though. Back-to-back Looney Tunes, you know?”

Kim offered a bright smile. “My fave. So, a law office?”

“Parkington, Waltham & Shepherd. A full-service firm. I’m the receptionist and office manager.” Daphne lifted the bowl to her mouth and took a sip, leaving a milk mustache. “So, really, you can relax. Your mom’s not running a group home for wackos here. The tenants are just regular folks, who happen to want to live simply.”

“I’m relaxed,” Kim protested.

“Nah, I saw your face when your mom introduced us. You were worried I’d turn out to be a one-woman freak show,” Daphne said easily. “Most people do, when they first meet me. Trust me, I’m totally normal. Just—like I said—having a late childhood. In my family, I was the eldest of five siblings. My mom got sick and my dad took off, so I ended up raising my brothers and sisters. I did a lousy job, too, seeing as I was all of eleven years old when it started. That’s why I never want to have kids. Heck, I don’t even want to have a place of my own.”

“Because you missed out on your childhood?”

“Yeah.” Daphne took her bowl and spoon to the sink, and grabbed a pitcher of orange juice. “I decided to have my childhood now, and that means living here, where I don’t need to worry about adult responsibilities. Those responsibilities include, but are not limited to, property taxes, utility bills, meal preparation and long-term commitments.”

Kim stared at her for a few seconds. She studied the black wool leggings, the snug leather skirt and Doc Martens, the black manicure. Daphne just looked so comfortable, being herself.

“Good plan,” she said. “Is there any orange juice left?”

Daphne poured her a glass. “Cereal?” she asked, offering the box.

“No, thanks. Without the prize, what’s the point?”

Daphne grinned. “I like the way you think.”

Kim grinned back, liking the ease she felt with this girl.

“Good morning,” said her mother, bustling into the kitchen. She looked fresh and younger than her age in a Fair Isle sweater, jeans and Ugg boots. In fact, she looked younger than her old self, the upper Manhattan maven in St. John’s suits and pearls. Tying on an apron, she said, “Did you sleep all right?”

“Well enough.” Kim sipped her coffee. “I was fired. By email.”

“Harsh,” said Daphne.

“Cowardly,” her mother said.

“They’re not being cowardly. I’m not important enough to scare them. It’s just more convenient.”

“I’m so sorry,” her mother said.

“Don’t be. It was the worst job ever.” Not really, but she felt better, saying it.

“And here I thought you enjoyed it,” her mother said.

“What do you do?” Daphne asked. “Or—past tense. What did you used to do?”

Kim took a seat across from Daphne and peeled a satsuma for herself. “Sports media relations. It seemed like a good career for me. I was always into sports, all through school and college. After graduation, I went to L.A. to look for a job. On a whim, I tried out to be a Laker girl. I was completely shocked when they chose me as an alternate. It was probably the most grueling three months of my life. And the steepest learning curve. The training I could handle. Even the politics—I watched other girls crumble, but I got along fine. It turned out what I was best at was PR. When I was injured—”

“You were injured?” Daphne asked.

“Tore my rotator cuff.” Unconsciously her hand went to her right shoulder. “It put an end to a very short, inauspicious career as a Laker girl. Going into sports PR seemed like the obvious next step for me. Clearly I didn’t have the chops to be a top athlete, but I knew what it took to represent them.”

She’d been assigned to look after a second-string rookie, Calvin Graham. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he was being hounded by the press about the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood of New Orleans, where he’d been born and raised. Seeing him floundering, she’d stepped in. Within a week, Calvin Graham was serving as honorary chairman of a relief effort, raising money to help people rebuild. He’d never had much of a career in the NBA but he’d gone on to create a foundation that, to this day, provided low-interest loans to Katrina victims. Kim had found her role incredibly gratifying.

In time, however, she forgot how much she liked her work. Well, not forgot, exactly. The role of mentor got lost as she was assigned to other players. She found herself saying things like “Get your drunk ass out of bed” and “Learn to verify a girl’s age before you sleep with her.” She missed guys like Calvin. She missed the good guys.

“Sounds like a cool job,” Daphne remarked.

“Sometimes, I have to admit, the work was so satisfying. A lot of people with a God-given athletic talent are brilliant to work with. It was my job to smooth the rough edges.”

“How rough?” asked Daphne.

“I worked with guys who were fearless at facing a wall of defensive linebackers out for blood, but who tended to crumble in front of a microphone. I helped them with that part of their career. It went well most of the time. But something happens when you work with people like that. It’s hard to describe. You’re working with clients on a strangely intimate level, even though it’s just a job. I never let things get too personal—until Lloyd.” She shook her head, remembering. “The two of us just clicked—at first, anyway.” She felt again the bittersweet joy of falling for a guy while doing media training with him. It was like a second-rate romantic movie—if she succeeded in grooming him, then that meant losing him, because once he had mastered the art of handling the press, he would move on.

Except that didn’t happen with Lloyd. Her mistake was in letting herself believe it could work out for them. She wouldn’t be that stupid again.

Six

Bo woke up early, shivering from the cold as he groped for his comforter. Then he remembered he’d given it to AJ last night, and that thought caused him to sit up instantly, squinting through the morning light.

There, the lump on the sofa confirmed it. His kid was staying with him. His son. Bo waited to feel … what? Paternal? Not happening. The kid was his flesh and blood, and Bo was going to do everything in his power to reunite AJ with Yolanda. But fatherly feelings eluded him.

He yawned and stretched, tried not to make any noise as he got out of bed and headed for the john. He never got up this early unless he was in training. It was funny, how easy it was to get up in the morning when he hadn’t sucked down a bunch of beers the night before. Well, not funny ha-ha, but funny as in, he might ought to consider doing it more often.

Call me, read a message scribbled on a Post-it note stuck to the bathroom mirror. Chardonnay—and her phone number. The message was punctuated by a lipstick kiss. It was kind of depressing to realize he had actually dated a woman named Chardonnay. That was really all he remembered about her.

Bo snatched the note and stuck it in a drawer. Then he changed his mind and stuck it in his pocket. In the drawer, he spotted a box of rubbers. Whoa. He shoved the box in the cabinet under the sink, back behind the pipes, then gave the place a once-over to make sure there weren’t any other sketchy things lying around.

He didn’t consider himself the kind of person who kept secrets, but for the time being, there was a kid in his life, and he had to make room for that. The sudden responsibility felt crushing, but what was he going to do? Clean up his act, for one thing.

When Bo himself was a young boy, his mother had shielded him from nothing—not the late-night visitors, not the laughter or the fighting, not the strangers he encountered in the house when he got up in the night to take a leak. Things like that had taken a toll on him, made him a distrustful and cautious child, who had grown into a distrustful and reckless man.

He had enough sense to know there were some things a kid just didn’t need to see. At least until someone other than Bo could explain them.

Although Bo and his brother, Stoney, had grown up without a father, they’d had a lot of uncles. Not uncles by blood, of course. “Uncles” was a euphemism for whatever shitkicker or oilfield trash happened to be banging his mother.

So even though he didn’t know a damn thing about raising a kid, he understood that you didn’t put stuff in their face before they were ready to deal with it. He remembered lying awake too many nights, feeling sick to his stomach as he listened to the low voice of a stranger through the thin walls of the trailer where they lived. One of his earliest memories was hearing his brother say, “I swear, if you piss the bed again, I’ll pound your face. Swear to God, I will.”

He and Stoney had taken to peeing in empty Coke bottles rather than getting up in the night and risking an encounter with Uncle Terrell or Uncle Dwayne, or whoever else was keeping their mama from getting lonely that night.

That was how she explained the visitors to her boys. “It keeps me from feeling too lonely.”

“I can do that,” Bo used to tell her, when he was really little and didn’t understand. “I can keep you from getting lonely. I’ll sing to you, Mama. I’ll play the guitar.” He wasn’t very good, but he knew all the words to “Mr. Bojangles,” his namesake song.

His mama had tousled his hair, offered a sad smile. “This is a different kind of lonely, baby boy. It’s the kind you can’t help me with.”

In time, Bo had grown into an understanding of what she meant, but he never forgot the feeling of being a scared kid. He would never subject AJ to that. For the rest of the weekend—or however long the boy was with him—Bo Crutcher would be a monk.

Yeah, right. He could just hear his friends now. People who knew him had never seen him go more than a week or two without a date.

He tried to be as quiet as possible as he moved around the apartment. Until last night, he had considered it a luxury to live in a place that didn’t require him to get behind the wheel at the end of the night. Situated above his favorite bar, where he worked most nights, it allowed him the world’s shortest commute after work. He simply went upstairs and did a face-plant in the bed.

Unless, of course, he got lucky, which he did with decent frequency. It was always a pleasant feeling, waking up with a woman in his bed. He loved everything about women. He loved their soft skin and all the good-smelling preparations they used to keep it that way. He loved the sound of their sweet voices, laughing at something he’d said or sighing with pleasure in his ear when he held them close. He’d had a lot of girlfriends over the years and he’d loved each and every one of them as thoroughly as he knew how.

And when each one left him, she always walked away with a piece of his heart. He never told them, though. Never complained. He was grateful for whatever time and whatever loving they’d given him.

Most of his girlfriends left believing he’d forget them the moment they were out of sight. They couldn’t be more wrong, though. The women he’d loved and lost were etched in his mind like beautiful dreams that never quite vanished with the morning.

Knowing how to love a woman had never been a problem for Bo. Knowing how to keep her, now, that was a different story. A lot of them left as soon as they realized he didn’t know shit about sharing his life, planning a future, keeping a bond strong enough for a lifetime. Others took off when they discovered that all professional ballplayers were not created equal. Yes, the Can-Am League was an organization of professionals. But the players were in it because they purely loved the game, not because they were being paid a fortune. To some women, this was a bit of a rude awakening.

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