Hot Ticket (10 page)

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.

“You’re right you know,” one of the guys snorted to the Kelly on TV. “He went for a stolen base the other night and was tagged two feet out. What’s a guy like him doing stealing bases? They got base runners for that!”

Ohshitohshitoh
shit!
In all her ecstasy about the talk show, she had completely forgotten some of the things she’d said on her audition tape. “So . . . you say they’ve played this clip a few times, huh?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Oh man, they probably run it twice every hour,” the guy said, and then looked at her curiously. “They don’t tell you stuff like that?” he asked, suddenly interested.

“Apparently not,” she said with a smile painted on her face. “Hey, you guys have a great day. I’m going to miss my train,” she said, and picked up her coffee and paper and hurried out of that little bakery, walking blindly, walking deafly, seeing only Parker’s face, hearing only Parker’s voice on the phone the other morning.

Of course her train was late. She hit New York at the tail end of rush-hour traffic, and it seemed hours before she could get a cab. It was seven o’clock before she reached her apartment.

The place had been shut up so long that it smelled musty and dank and felt insufferably hot. She immediately set about opening windows and lighting some scented candles, trying to air out the place before Parker arrived.

Of course Parker arrived early.

She’d wanted to at least have a bath and change into something really decadent, but he buzzed her apartment while she was still running around in nothing more than a skirt, a camisole, and her bare feet.
Okay, okay,
she told herself. At least she had her fabulous new hairdo, and she rushed to a mirror in the entry to fluff it with her fingers after buzzing him in.

When he knocked at the door, she threw it open and gave him a big smile. “Hey, stranger!” she said, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Hey,” Parker said, and put his hand on her waist. That was it—just the one hand, and definitely not the big bear hug she was accustomed to. Like she wanted.

“Wow,” she said, stepping back. “
Wow
, Parker. That might possibly be the coldest greeting in the history of man.”

He said nothing, just gazed down at her, the muscle in his jaw leaping with the clench of his teeth. He was angry—she had a sense he was doing all he could to contain himself. She stepped back again, and myriad emotions skated through his gray eyes—dismay, anger, and a couple more she couldn’t quite figure out.

“You look great,” he said at last, and glanced up to her hair. “Like what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Thanks,” she said, nervously touching it. “I can see you are thrilled with the new me.”

He looked directly in her eyes with a cold, gray stare. “Not exactly,” he said. “
Destroyed
is perhaps a better word.”

“Destroyed?”
she echoed incredulously. “Okay, that’s it.” She twirled away from him, marched into her living room, her hands on her hips. “What the hell, Parker? Ever since I got you on the phone this week—when I
finally
got you on the phone—you’ve been a total dick to me.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes, when I’m getting trashed in two dozen fifteen-second spots across America each day, I’m not a particularly nice guy.”

“I
knew
it,” Kelly snapped, and shoved her hands through her hair.

“Did you think I wouldn’t see it? I’m in a sports profession, Kelly. People in sports tend to tune in ESPN.”

“I know that!” she snapped, and squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and finger.

“Isn’t this just fabulous,” Parker said irritably. “Like an idiot, I was hoping this was the point you’d at least offer some viable explanation.”

“Of course there is a viable explanation, Parker! Did you think I was using you to come up with sound bites?”

He said nothing, but the muscle in his jaw jumped again.

“Oh my
God
,” she said to the ceiling.

“Well what am I missing? You used me to get the ESPN job, right? What part am I leaving out?”

“I
did
use you,” Kelly admitted. “But a very long time ago.”

Only Parker didn’t exactly hear that, because he roared to the ceiling, “How could you
use
me like that?”

“I didn’t
use
you. I didn’t even know you then! I made that tape before you ever came on my show!” she responded angrily.

“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better! That means four months later—
after
I’ve been on your show and
after
I have fallen in love with you—you used that
trash
to promote your show!”

“I didn’t know they were going to play it!” she cried. “If I’d known they were going to use that, I would have asked them to use something else!”

“How could you not know it, Kelly? They run it all day long, all week. There isn’t a person in America who hasn’t seen that clip!”

“Well
I
didn’t see it!” she insisted angrily. “I haven’t watched TV in weeks! I’ve been working my ass off to tape segments for my show!”

“Do you have any idea what it’s done to me?” he breathed angrily. “It’s humiliating to know that the woman the networks have broadcast to the
world
as being my girlfriend is all over the same networks talking about what a loser I am! And I guess I am a loser, Kelly, because I’m not hitting, I’m missing balls—”

“No way, pal,” she angrily interjected, pointing at him. “No way are you going to blame me for your stupid slump! I have
nothing
to do with your ability to play! It’s all in your head!” she cried, waving madly at her head. “You use that superstition or whatever you call it like a crutch!”

“It’s not my imagination that you used me to get a job at ESPN.
And maybe you did it a long time ago, but you could have told me. At some point in the endless hours we have spent talking about
your
career, you could have
told
me instead of letting me find out in a locker room along with thirty of my closest friends!

“I’m
sorry
! I’m sorry it happened, I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you, and I’m sorry I didn’t know they were going to use that segment!”

“They just used it without your permission?” he exclaimed, disbelieving.

Kelly winced. “I gave them permission to use my materials to promote the show. I just didn’t know how they planned on doing it.”

“Great! So now I can sit around wondering what else is going to pop up on TV while you enjoy very high ratings at my expense! And in the meantime, I guess your beloved Mets can just go down the tubes, right?”

“Will you stop saying that? I am starting to wonder if the only reason you claim to love me is because you believe that somehow,
I
am making you play well!”