Julia London (11 page)

Parker made
himself eat, but he’d lost his appetite. He wasn’t sure why he had such a bad sense of
foreboding, but he did—a feeling that was based on absolutely nothing and bordered on
highly selfish. Nevertheless, he couldn’t seem to shake it.

And as the
evening progressed, nothing could make it go away. Not fabulous love-making, not Kelly’s
show the next day, not batting practice where he was knocking them out of the park. He
just couldn’t shake that quiet, persistent unease that he couldn’t be the same without
her.

And when he left a few days later, bound for St. Louis and then Houston, he
held a bubbly Kelly tightly to him, reluctant to let go,
because if he
did, he feared everything he’d only just found would be lost. But Kelly laughingly assured
him, “It’s okay, Parker. Everything is going to be just fine.”

He honestly
wanted to believe her. He honestly tried to believe her.

The first couple weeks she was in L.A., Kelly woke up every morning and
pinched herself. And though she left a trail of bruises, she kept doing it because she
couldn’t imagine what in the hell she’d ever done to deserve this fabulous new
life.

First came her makeover: new haircut by Frankie Petronova,
the
hairdresser to the stars; thread lift on her brows to make her green eyes really pop; and
microdermabrasion to rid her face of a couple freckles, which were not, apparently, what
America wanted to see in their talk show hosts.
Plus
she was presented a hip new
wardrobe from all the best designers, put together just for her by Melania Chenowith, the
woman who dressed anyone who was anyone in Hollywood.

And last but not least, she got
shoes.
Shoes
! Boxes and boxes of really cool high-heeled shoes to go with each
outfit, even though there was no plan for the viewing audience to see her feet. But
she’d
see them, because every day she would look down at those puppies and sigh
with happiness.

Kelly O’Shay had died and gone to heaven. This was
heaven, the stuff of dreams. The pilot tests went great—of course they did—with the
makeover and the clothes, she was practically singing her way through it, dishing the
upcoming football season so well she had the crew laughing. Better yet, she had a couple
of past greats to interview: Troy Aikman and Joe Montana, two very charming men who made
some fun predictions and laughed at her jokes.

It just didn’t get any better than
that: sitting in a studio behind a desk, wearing
haute couture
with a fab new ’do,
and having Troy Aikman and Joe Montana laugh at your jokes.

Frankly, the
only thing missing from the fairy tale was Parker. She wished he could be here, could see
her fabulous new look and watch her work.

As it was, she hardly ever spoke to
him. With the time difference and the Mets’ grueling season, it was difficult to catch
each other on the phone. When they did connect, she told him everything—how great everyone
was, how fabulous the show was going to be, how fun it was to talk to two football greats,
how they were hoping to move her to Connecticut in a few days to tape some segments they
would have ready to go if ESPN picked up her show.

“That’s great,” Parker would say,
listening attentively as he always did and seeming excited right along with her. “But when
are you coming home?”

It was a good question and one Kelly had no answer for. They
had sent the pilot segment to Connecticut, and her agent and ESPN management told her to
sit tight—they’d tell her something in the next few days.

When the call finally came—ESPN
wanted six segments for the fall—Kelly was ecstatic. Unfortunately, she had no one to
celebrate the news with. Her mom and sister were on the East Coast, and while they were
supportive and wanted this for her, neither could take time from their jobs to come out.
Parker was on the road again. So she had a split of champagne by herself, packed her bags,
and flew to Bristol, Connecticut, where they put her up in a tiny
corporate apartment, and got to work on her show.

Kelly was so busy writing and
working with the producers that she didn’t know they’d begun to air teasers for her show.
Nor did she know that Parker was hitting another slump. She’d come home at night
completely exhausted and go straight to bed. In the mornings, she got up with the dawn,
tried at least to get a run in, and then returned to the studio. She was disconnected from
everything in the here and now, connected only with her future.

In those rare
moments she actually had time to phone Parker, she could never seem to reach him. She
figured he was traveling and resting between games and thought little of it, but she
missed talking to him very much. She assumed he would call her in a few days to tell her
how much he missed her and needed to see her, too. Of that, she was
confident.

Parker was on the road a lot, but he wasn’t resting. He was pacing every
floor he could find, trying to stay away from TV and trying to figure out what was really
in his head. Both things were difficult to achieve, because with twenty-eight guys on the
active roster, someone was sure to be tuned into ESPN, and he’d be forced to endure the
agony of hearing it all over again.

He just couldn’t seem to think. He just couldn’t seem to
breathe.

The teasers ESPN ran for Kelly’s upcoming talk show were all about him. He
still couldn’t wrap his heart and mind around the idea that Kelly had done this, couldn’t
believe she would use him so blatantly just to get a gig. He began to question if he’d
ever meant anything to her, or if he was nothing but a stepping-stone on her way up the
ladder.

God help him, but he was humiliated—they had flashed her picture across the
big Jumbotrons in the stadium while broadcasters everywhere announced she was his
girlfriend. Now, the whole world now knew what a colossal fool he was.

It didn’t help
that his teammates found phrases like
“Couldn’t steal a base with a gun and a
mask,”
and
“Hasn’t had a hit in so
long that they’ve gone ahead
and dug the grave,”
and
“The man couldn’t catch a beach ball if they
rolled
it to him”
hilarious and made them locker-room jokes.

Even worse, it
seemed to him like ESPN aired the clip every couple minutes, which meant that every couple
minutes, he would hear that sexy voice he had so longed to hear from somewhere in the
locker room, singing out,
“Parker Price couldn’t catch a beach ball if they
rolled
it to him!”

Was it any wonder, then, in a series against the Dodgers that
he missed a double play? Or the game after that, when he tried to steal base and was
tagged out several feet short of his mark? Or that his batting average began to slip? Who
the hell could blame him?

He didn’t answer her calls. He couldn’t bear to hear her
bubbly, laughing voice just now, not even to ask her what the hell she had
done.

Frank, his agent, thought he had lost his mind. Sports commentators around
the country were beginning to talk about his slide, and Frank was fending questions from
the press. “She’s just a girl!” he bellowed at Parker after one particularly horrendous
game. “When are ya gonna snap out of it?”

Parker just shrugged and drank his
beer.

His lackluster play in Los Angeles prompted a call from his older brother,
Jack, who had brought his partners to see the game. “What the hell?” Jack demanded. “You
were playing so great! What the
hell
?”

“Dunno,” Parker muttered into the
phone.

“Hey,” Jack said, “you’re not sick or something, are you?”

“No. Yes. Sick
at heart, Jack. Sick at heart.”

“Oh
God
,” Jack moaned. “It’s not
her
again, is it? When are ya gonna snap out of it?”

Even Parker’s manager pulled him in
one day to ask him what the hell he was doing—or not doing—out there. “I’m having a slump,
Willie. I don’t know what else to say,” Parker said with a sigh.

His manager
glared at him through tiny little slits of eyes. “It’s
not that damn
ESPN talk show, is it? We’re not blaming this slump on a
girl
again, are we,
Price?”

“Hell no,” Parker said, insulted he would even ask.

But it
was
her. He felt so betrayed, so used, so foolish, so stupid. But as the week
passed, and he got over the numbing shock of it, he began to get angry. Very angry. So
angry, in fact, that he couldn’t wait for Kelly to come home so he could explain just how
angry he was.

 Kelly finally got
through to Parker one morning after catching the news and learning that the Mets had not
done so well in the series against Milwaukee the night before. “Ouch,” she muttered to
herself when they flashed the final score up on the screen. When they flashed Parker’s
handsome mug up on the screen and remarked on his batting average, she winced—she hadn’t
realized he was slipping again. Well hell, if the guy would just answer the phone once in
a while.

As soon as the sports segment ended and the morning program went back to the
talking heads with giant coffee mugs, Kelly picked up her cell and dialed. Miracle of
miracles, Parker actually answered. “Hey!” she cried happily, tossing aside the bagel
she’d been munching. “I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get to speak to you
again!”

“Hi, Kelly,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Wow. That was the most lackluster
greeting she’d ever gotten. But okay, he wasn’t playing well, and he was probably down in
the dumps. “It’s going great,” she said. “But I’ve really missed you.”

“Have
you?”

“I have! And the good news is, I’m coming home Thursday!”

“Great,” he
said. But he didn’t sound like he thought that was great at all. Frankly, he sounded like
he couldn’t be less interested.

Kelly frowned at the phone. “Parker? Is there something
the matter?”

“Nope. Just eager to see you, that’s all.”

“You could have
fooled me.”

“No, no, I really want to see you, Kelly. I
really
do. What time are
you getting in? What time will you be here?”

He sounded so odd, her internal red
flags popped up. “Around five,” she said uncertainly.

“That’s perfect. I’ve got an
afternoon game that day. Why don’t I come by your place afterward?”

“Okay,” she
said. “Is everything okay, Tex?”

“I’m just tired. So great, I’ll see you then,” he said
and promptly hung up.

She gaped at her cell phone. What was the
matter
with
him? Was he miffed she hadn’t been able to contact him in the last several days? That was
hardly her fault—his schedule wasn’t exactly conducive to phone chats, either. She
couldn’t imagine what else would prompt him to serve up a dish of cold shoulder like he’d
just done. She glanced at the clock—she had to be at the studio in an hour. She’d think
about Grump later.

But Kelly didn’t think about that phone call again until
Thursday at the station, waiting for her train to New York. She was sitting with a cup of
coffee at a bakery, reading the paper, when some guy tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey,” he
said, his face lighting up. “You’re her!” And he pointed at a television screen above the
cash register.

Kelly gasped. That was her all right—ESPN was playing a snippet from her
audition tape, promoting her new show. She had no idea they were already promoting it and
smiled brightly at the guy. “That
is
me! I’m Kelly O’Shay, and I have a new show
starting on ESPN next month.”

“Yeah, they’ve been playing that over and over,” the guy’s
companion said. “So you’re the same one who does the radio show, right?”

“Right,” Kelly
said, turning her attention to the TV. “Really? They’ve been playing that clip? They
didn’t tell me,” she said,
staring curiously at it now.
“The sad
truth is, folks, that Parker Price couldn’t steal a base if he had a gun and a mask,”
she said, holding up a toy gun and a frilly pink sleeping mask.

“Oh
shit
,” she muttered. Suddenly, everything was crystal clear to her. Parker had seen
this. Parker had probably seen this a
lot.
Parker probably thought she’d been in
L.A. taping
that.