Someone Else’s Life
Lacey Ann Carrigan
Copyright 2014 Lacey Ann Carrigan
Chapter One
June 2015
When she glanced up at him, she thought, now there’s a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Several young men just like him, dressed in crisp black, flitted about from table to table, like butterflies. A chandelier twinkled overhead. All around her, animated conversation among the other women flowed like the fine wine into the crystal goblets before them. Suella glanced around at the other wives and would wonder how many thousands of dollars went into the upkeep of the hair and manicures, the designer sundresses and the brand new shoes. Yet, if she turned around the corner, she would see the glass partition and the doorway. When she opened the doorway she would find steps, stadium style plush seats and she would hear the crowd noise drift up from below, of a bat hitting a ball or the umpire shrieking a “strike” call.
Suella looked at Julie Veragones, sitting beside her. A former model, Julie stood about six feet tall yet probably weighed less than most Rottweilers. She’d worn her glossy, dark brown hair in an upswept style, curls cascading down her back and lightly framing the sides of her face. To Suella and anyone else within earshot, she said “I dread this time of year. School’s out, the kids are home saying “There’s nothing to do, mom!”
Trenna Kyle, a much shorter and curvier woman giggled. “So what’s it to you? Just put ‘em out in the pool and tell the nanny you’ll pay her an extra hundred bucks if they don’t drown.”
They all laughed.
“My brats are gonna be up in Maine until the All-Star break,” Kaitlyn Vogel, another tall, coltish looking woman said. Kaitlyn had also modeled, referring to it as “good training” for becoming a trophy wife. “It’s Jeff’s yearly mother’s day present to me. We send them off to be with grandma and grandpa for a month.”
“That’s so neat,” Maribel Aviles said, speaking for the first time since she’d arrived. “I thought I’d be the only one with kids. Cincinnati is such a young team.” Her husband Miguel had arrived in a trade during the winter. Maribel turned to Suella. “What about you, Sula? How old are your kids?”
All of the women except Maribel looked down at the drinks they cradled between their fingers. Suella shifted from side to side on her high-heeled sandals. “I don’t have any children.”
Still smiling, Maribel said “Well, you’re young. There’s still time.”
Suella decided she was going to like the new girl.
Some shouts erupted from around the corner. They all glanced in that direction.
An oriental waiter with a dispassionate expression on his face passed by, carrying a tray of empty glasses and plates. Julie stopped him. “What’s going on?”
The waiter shrugged. “Perez is getting bombed. Someone on the Cardinals just hit one into the River.” Gilberto Perez was a young star pitcher who’d remained a bachelor so far.
“Oh, no,’ Maribel said. “We’re going to have to come back.”
“They can do it,” Kaitlyn announced with confidence. “Let’s go check it out for awhile.” The four of them started for the corner and the seats in the press area, but Kaitlyn had set her drink down and started for the rear door.
“What are you doing?” Julie asked, with an incredulous tone.
“Let’s go to our field boxes for once,” Kaitlyn said. “In there, it still feels like you’re watching the game from your living room.”
Their heels click-clacked through the cavernous concourse. When they left the luxury boxes, they approached the regular gates and plazas. The smells of hot dogs, mustard and tap beer drifted around them. Two guys who wore jerseys with ripped jeans and backwards-facing baseball caps approached them “Wow!” one of them said, looking at Julie. “Supermodels! We must be in Heaven, man!”
Julie strode confidently on, toward the field level corridor. She reached the aisles first and called back to Suella. “Wow, you’re not going to believe this, Susie. They’re bringing your hubby in.”
Suella couldn’t believe it. “What? It’s too early! It’s not even dark yet!”
Their seats were in the noisy scout and VIP area. When Suella settled herself in, she took in the entire field. Her husband, Nathan Worthy, emerged from the bullpen door. While he walked toward the field, as casually as if he’d been on a beach somewhere, the crowd buzzed expectantly. The noise increased in volume as Nathan reached the mound. He tucked his head down. To the uninformed viewer, Suella knew that Nathan would have appeared casual and carefree. She knew his deep pitching trance, however.
A noisy scout wearing a golf hat lifted his arms in exasperation. “Oh great, they’re bringing in Worthy.” He shook his head. “When the hell are they going to get rid of that old piece of shit?”
Julie, who was sitting directly beside Suella, suddenly stiffened, and swung her neck in the man’s direction. “Sir, for your information, that piece of shit’s WIFE is sitting right here.”
He glanced over at them with glazed eyes to complement his mottled skin. “Well then I guess I should get on my knees and apologize, right?” A few male voices laughed along with the elderly scout.
“You know, you’re really rude!” Julie snapped at him.
Suella touched her on her wrist, leaning in to whisper into her ear. “It’s okay, Jewel. People have been saying that since he turned thirty-five.”
Julie relaxed. “Well it bothers me! It’s exactly the reason I like to stay up there.”
“Let’s have some beers,” Kaitlyn said. “I’m buying!” She excused herself for the concession stand and Maribel followed along after her. Suella watched her husband warm up. For the first couple of throws, he lobbed the ball plateward, as if he was throwing to a five-year-old. Some people laughed. Suella shook her head, wondering when they locals would get used to his quirks. He’d been with the team for two whole seasons. Gradually, Nathan whipped his arm forward with more force, causing the ball to zip and snap as it arced toward the catcher. He was throwing at full speed by the time the umpire called for the game to resume.
The scoreboard read 4-0 and it was only the third inning. Suella remembered something Nathan had told her a couple of weeks before, as they lie awake in bed. “They’re going to make me fight, start me off in the pen.”
Finally, the crowd quieted down and the next batter appeared at the plate, flexing his muscles as he set himself in the batter’s box to face Nathan. Her husband brought his hands high over his head while still facing the plate. He twisted, shrunk down, brought his left arm back and swung it around like a whip, slinging the ball toward the catcher. His first pitch sailed high, causing Suella to remember another one of their conversations about what he did. “My riser looks just like a fat fastball coming toward the plate. Those greedy assholes usually can’t lay off it. They pop it straight up. And to see that ball going into a pop up, well, it’s a great feeling. Almost as good as you sucking me off.”
The batter fouled off the next pitch, while Suella, Julie, and Trenna waited for the other two to get back with the beer. Julie poked Suella in her arm. “You’re so quiet tonight,” she said. “You’re not still bumming over what that new girl said, are you?”
“No, no it doesn’t bother me.” Even as Suella said the words, she knew she’d said them too quickly. And she wasn’t that good of an actress. Yes, Maribel’s words bothered her because it was about the thousandth time in the past fifteen years that someone looked on her childless status with pity.
The batter hit a sharp ground ball to the shortstop, Julie’s husband. She pumped her fist triumphant
ly as she watched him smoothly field the ball and fire a strike over to first base. “Way to go, Tony baby!”
Maribel and Kaitlyn returned with the beers. Suella sipped and watched, coaxing her husband on for more and more success. The second batter greedily swung at the riser pitch Nathan threw and it hit his bat with a feeble click, sending the ball straight skyward. She heard a radio announcer’s voice as he described the scene unfolding before her: “There’s a high, high fly ball toward shallow left. Wow, that thing is a major league pop up. Veragones goes back, Calderon calls him off and catches it like a can of corn. Two down!”
Another rough looking character strutted up to the batter’s box. Nathan stared the black man down for a few moments before swirling into his windup and hurling his first pitch to him. It landed in the dirt. So did the next one. The batter hit a foul. The next pitch looped way outside, causing the catcher to scramble for the ball. She suddenly realized what he was doing and rolled her eyes. “Oh, good god.”
Julie flashed her a quizzical look. “What’s the matter?”
“He’s putting the guy on.”
They both watched Nathan’s next pitch sail way outside of the batter’s box. Julie said “Doesn’t the catcher have to put his arm out to the side and call an intentional walk?”
“Not the way Nathan does it.”
While they both watched the batter trot toward first base, the same loud man from before barked: “See that? Chickenshit. Get him out of there.”
Suella could sense Julie tense up beside her and she reached out to still her. “Don’t say anything. You’d only be dignifying him.”
Julie snorted in disgust, glaring at the old man with the bulbous nose. “Doesn’t it make you mad when idiots say things like that?”
“No, because I know they’re not true.” She watched him go to work on the next batter, imagining that she was seeing him for the first time. Nathan was tall, standing just over six feet tall but quite reedy. He may have weighed a hundred-seventy pounds if he carried two dumbbells in his pockets. He wore his copper colored hair in a short, feathered style and with his smooth skin and delicate features, people were often shocked to discover he was thirty-eight years old. Yet people like this idiot scout still commented about his age.
The crowd around her buzzed expectantly. Nathan had walked a guy who looked like he relished the opportunity to steal bases. He juked and jumped around the first base bag, taunting him. Suella watched her husband’s expressions. After a stern scowl, the batter retreated. Nathan whipped around and threw as hard as he could to home plate and the umpire yelled “Strike one!”
After the catcher threw the ball to him, things got more complicated.
Nathan would grip the ball with the tips of his fingers and revolve the ball quickly through them, reminding her of a Las Vegas sharpie shuffling cards or a magician playing tricks with a rope. In the middle of this action, he suddenly picked the ball up and threw it hard toward Greg Thierry at first base. Greg caught it with a pop in his mitt and slapped the runner’s shoulder as he dived back toward the bag. A chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” drifted up from the crowd.
“Almost caught him napping,” Julie said.
Nathan went into another quick set, glanced at the runner and arced a pitch toward home plate, the pitch Suella recognized as his rainbow curve. The batter lunged at it and sprayed a foul ball into the seats behind the visiting team’s dugout. Suella and Julie giggled at watching kids and grown men fighting over the ball as it bounced around through the crowd. The umpire fished a new ball out of the sack dangling from his leg and Nathan went back to work again. He flipped the ball back and forth and in circles between his fingers, while glancing at the plate for the signal and at first base for the runner. He brought his glove up, for the wind up.
The runner put his head down and started to race for second base. Nathan, who looked like he was going to uncork for another pitch home, instead snapped his wrist and flung the ball to Greg, who caught it and side stepped away from first base. Greg fired a strike to Mick Bell at second. Mick crouched down and grinned, waiting for the doomed runner. A cloud rose from his head-first slide. The second base umpire yelled “Yer out!” Mick casually tossed the ball toward the pitcher’s mound and jogged off toward the dugout in one fluid motion, while the crowed roared in approval.
Julie said “Wow, that was cool!” as they both watched Nathan shake Mick’s and Greg’s hand on the way into the dugout.
Suella shrugged. “I’ve seen him do it a million times.”
The ladies watched two more innings from the field level seats as Nathan held the other team from scoring any further runs. The loud, drunk scout kept quiet for the rest of the time they sat there. Suella wondered if the pickoff play had shut him up. When they all arrived at the posh luxury box the waiters had brought out a fresh round of hors d’ouevres and drinks. Suella suffered through another round of talk about parenting and discussions about children’s grades and futures.
“Hey, your guy did quite a job out there today,” Kaitlyn said at one point, smiling, trying to get Suella involved in the conversation somehow.
“Yes, he did,” Suella replied, smiling, thanking Kaitlyn silently.
After a blur of passing trays and raised glasses, the game soon ended, loyal fans trudging up from the theater seats with disgusted and disappointed looks on their faces. “They gotta trade for another hitter,” someone said.
The activity after a game was always the same. Suella and the other wives would take the elevator down to the clubhouse where most of them would wait in the lounge just outside of it, what someone called “The Green Room.” Most times the players would have showered and changed by the time they made it down there. Some of them greeted their wives there with hugs and sweet, smooth talk. Suella knew that Nathan took a little bit longer so she waited patiently for him.
Soon, Nathan popped out of the door and looked around for her. He smiled when their eyes met, the kind of smile that made her fall in love again. They hugged and kissed. Suella always let Nathan speak first. He made a mock annoyed face and said “Hey, didn’t I tell you never to come here?”
“But I need a ride, mister. I figured a big strong pitcher like you would be able to help me.”
Nathan nodded, holding an arm around her. “Well, you’re pretty cute. I’ll see what I can do.” He handed her a set of car keys.
Suella groaned inwardly with disappointment. “But we have such a beautiful little condo. Sometimes I don’t think you like to spend much time in it.”
Nathan winked. “It’s even more beautiful when you’re there. I won’t be long. Stay up! Surprise me.” He leaned forward and gave her a long, slow, passionate kiss.
“How are you getting back?”
Nathan shrugged, flashing her a boyish smile. “A big, strong pitcher like me should be able to figure out something.” He gave her a quick hug and disappeared back through the door and into the clubhouse.
The consolation prize was getting to drive the scrumptious, low slung teal Mercedes SL750 sport coupe. Suella found it in the same spot in the players lot located in the concrete bowels beneath the stadium.
The wedge shaped speedster with the sensuous seats of buttery leather spun around the ramp, and in just a few turns and a climb up Adam’s hill, Suella found herself in their neighborhood. Their condo at the top overlooked the whole city.
A clear, June night intensified all the twinkling light and neon from the tops of the buildings. When she looked out the picture window at the twinkling lights and the dazzling cityscape below, she thought that this might be a nice place to start the next chapter in her life. Yet she and Nathan had bought the condo because, as Nathan had said “Hotels get expensive.” Nathan had just been traded to Cincinnati a couple of summers before, and at the drop of the owner’s hat, could find himself pitching in a new city the next day.
Their real home was in Santa Monica.
They’d met seven years ago, at a party.