Chapter Five
... but the saddest words of all to a
pitcher are three: “Take him out.”
— Christy Matthewson, pitcher
Aunt Mary’s charge cards and line of credit wouldn’t cool down enough to touch for some time, or at least until Jack Trehan wrote one whopping big check, but Keely had made some very satisfying purchases in the past two days.
With M and M on her hip—she just called her “the baby” now, unable and unwilling to stick with the horrible M and M label—she had gone on a search-and-purchase mission through Macy’s, Strawbridges, Sears, and even Wal-Mart, on a buying spree the likes of which probably hadn’t been seen in Whitehall in a long time
They now had pots and pans, dozens of them.
Even a double boiler, which Keely had always secretly wanted, yet never purchased for herself. She’d picked up lovely plates at Pier One, then used the colors from the fruit-covered dishes—blues and greens and rusty reds, mustardy yellows—to accessorize the rest of the kitchen.
Now a wooden block of quite excellent knives sat on the counter, along with a white toaster, a blender, a Cuisinart that should have been plated with gold, it was that expensive, and a KitchenAid stand-up mixer with a motor powerful enough to mix concrete.
A huge wrought-iron rack above the center island held the new assortment of copper-bottomed pans (installation by McBride, mistress of the portable drill and molly bolts). A glass-topped table with metal underpinnings and four matching chairs sat beneath a Tiffany-style lamp that repeated the grapes and fruit motif that also was carried through to the glass fruit nesting in a clear, fluted glass bowl on the tabletop.
Bits and pieces were still missing, like the potted plants she planned to put in the corner near the French doors leading to the patio, but those could wait. This was a time for essentials. And, yes, Keely had decided, glass fruit on the kitchen table was an essential.
So she’d started with the kitchen, moving quickly to the bathrooms, where the neutral-beige fixtures made it easy for her to pick whatever color scheme struck her, and follow it through with curtains, towels, soap dishes, and thick, plush area rugs. She’d done up the powder room in blues and purples, the main bath in grass greens and bright yellows, and the master bath in black and white. Her own guest bath was done in peach and green, and the rest were left for another day.
The incompleteness of the job frustrated her, almost as much as having to stop dead every few minutes and see how the baby was, see how dinner was coming along, throw towels in the washing machine, or try to figure out where Jack Trehan was, because the man just wasn’t ever home.
Not that she cared. Not as long as he was on time for meals.
But, hey, could he show just a little interest here? No, she supposed not. If he could step out of the shower and reach for a dry towel, what did he care if she’d hunted through the entire mall for just the right texture, just the right size? If he could sit down and feed his face with oven-roasted chicken and twice-baked potatoes, what did he care if she’d had to scrub those potatoes while holding a cranky baby who only shut up when she was being held?
That was another thing: She was taking a self-help crash course in the care and feeding of babies, and it wasn’t easy. She’d watched the videos, read the books, and M and M was a good baby. But that didn’t mean Keely wasn’t still nervous, or that she wanted to spend all day talking to a baby who could only smile back at her. She felt like a neglected wife, a stressed-out, overworked mother, and she wasn’t even married.
The man was oblivious, that’s what he was. He walked around in a daze, watched the boob tube for hours on end, and then disappeared without a trace, going who only knew where, only showing up again in time to eat, shower, or watch more television. To him, Keely didn’t exist. M and M didn’t exist.
And another thing—the phone never rang. Shouldn’t the phone ring at least once in a while? Didn’t the guy have any friends? Then again, why should he? He wasn’t exactly the friendly sort, now was he?
Still, Keely couldn’t say she wasn’t having the time of her life. The man made few rules: take care of the kid, furnish the house. No budget, no limits, no “Could you have the room painted to match my eyes?” He was about as hands-off an employer as a gal could wish for, and Keely nightly added up what she spent, multiplied it by ten percent, then divided by two. Still not megabucks, but she was getting there... and she’d only just begun. There was still an echo in the house.
But now she wanted, needed, his help. She couldn’t furnish fifteen rooms without some sort of input from the client, and trying to figure out his taste based on one old chair, one TV, and a lamp with a hula girl on it—well, that just didn’t work.
So he’d have to come with her on her next shopping trip, he’d just have to. The trick was in trying to figure out a way to make him understand that.
“You need a couch,” she said Wednesday night at dinner, plopping a bowl of garlic mashed potatoes down on the tabletop, then sitting down across from him. A very domestic scene, if anyone was peeking in the windows; but then, looks were often deceiving.
“I need a lot of things,” he answered, reaching for the bowl. “Buy them.”
“Yes, I agree. Buy them. But what them? What do you like? French Provincial seems wrong, but I don’t see you as wanting lots of chrome and wildly modern stuff either. Then there’s the problem of delivery. I can’t order special fabrics or shop where the furniture isn’t available for quick delivery, which, greatly limits my choices. I hate that.”
Jack held up both hands, waving her to silence. “I don’t get it. Where is any of this my problem?”
Keely momentarily imagined loading her spoon with mashed potatoes, then catapulting it across the table, smack into his face. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Maybe it’s your problem because you’re the one who has to live with my choices. For instance, do you like the black-and-white motif in your bathroom?”
“That’s a motif?” Jack asked, raising his eyebrows. “Well, damn, I’ve got a motif. Who would have thunk it. I thought I had towels.”
“And rugs, and accessories, and—oh, never mind. Yes, you have towels. Thanks to me, you have towels. Now you need a couch. Chairs, lamps, carpets, drapes. Art for the tables, the walls. Are you saying you want me to pick everything? You want to leave the choices entirely up to me? I could think that faux leopard skin would look great on the dining room walls, you know.”
Jack pinched his fingers at the bridge of his nose. “Look, Keely, I know this doesn’t make much sense to you, but I just don’t care, okay?”
“You would if I bought the most fashionable, uncomfortable furniture I could find,” she interrupted.
“Would I? I’m living with one chair now and I’m making it. M and M has more furniture than I do. Who cares?”
“Who cares? I’m sleeping on the floor for the past two nights, and the man says who cares?”
“So buy a bed. Buy six beds. There’s six bedrooms, right? Just get it done, okay?”
Keely sat back, shaking her head. “I don’t get it. Is this depression? Are you really this upset about not being able to play baseball anymore? Should you be seeing somebody?”
“Oh, nice, nice,” Jack said, slamming his fork on the tabletop. “What comes next? Are you going to try to analyze me now, Keely? And I’m not depressed, damn it!”
“Could have fooled me,” Keely said under her breath, earning herself a wicked look that probably should have warned her to keep her mouth shut, if Keely responded well to warnings.
“I’m thinking about renting the house out, that’s all,” Jack admitted, picking up his fork again, stabbing it into a piece of pork chop. “I just need furniture until I figure out what to do with M and M, where I’m going to put her until Cecily comes back, and then I’m probably going to rent the place, furnished if you do your job, unfurnished if you don’t. I don’t belong here.”
Keely had pretty much s
topped listening after he’d mentioned M and M. “Where to put her? What do you mean, where to put her? She’s staying here, with you.”
“That’s impossible,” Jack said shortly. “I might... well, I might be going to Japan.”
“Japan?” Keely squeezed her eyes shut, knowing she was repeating what he said, knowing she was showing an interest she shouldn’t be showing, knowing she was going to keep pushing until she got herself into big trouble. “What the hell is in Japan?”
“Baseball,” Jack said, biting out the word as if it had landed, bitter, on his tongue. “I could only pitch every four or five days, and only in relief, but I still have enough of an arm left to give me a couple more seasons. Not in our majors, but over there, I’d be fine. Maybe I’d even get my arm back. It could happen.”
Keely sat back in her chair, looked at him levelly. “You’re nuts,” she said frankly. “I mean it, Trehan. You’re nuts. You’d chance ruining your arm completely, maybe maiming yourself, for a couple more seasons of baseball—in Japan? And what about the baby? You’d just leave, go off without the baby? How could you do that?”
Jack pushed back his chair, stood up. “We’re not having this conversation,” he told her, throwing down his napkin. “And the pork chops are tough,” he ended before slamming out of the kitchen, just like an angry husband... while Keely sat there, just like a frustrated, insulted wife.
And they weren’t even married.