Chapter 8

Liz plopped down on the couch and kicked off her shoes the moment she entered my home for the second time. She tilted her head back and looked the ceiling while I set the security system and turned the air conditioner up. It had gotten a bit stuffy in the house because the early spring day had been exceptionally warm, even by Southern California standards.

"Do you want ... water, beer?" I asked. "That's about all I have here."

"A beer would be nice," Liz said. "I wanted one with the burrito. I'm glad I have on loose shorts."

I handed her one of the craft brews I kept in my fridge. She looked at it dubiously but took a sip.

"That's pretty good," she said.

"Do you know what Mom had for her afternoon snack today?" I asked. I didn't wait for Liz to reply. "A pizza roll ... ground pepperoni and hot pepper cheese."

I grinned but Liz didn't look impressed.

"I've never had one," she said. "I mean, it sounds good but I can't see why you'd be so ... excited."

"You poor girl," I said. "Do you know what Mama Sal's bakery is?"

Liz shook her head and frowned.

"My parents..." she sputtered. She didn't need to say anything else. There was nothing remotely healthy about Mama Sal's hot pepper pizza rolls.

"They were possibly the greatest food on the planet," I said. "They had pepperoni rolls in Texas and Arkansas when I was there but nothing like Mama Sal's. Here? Christ, they have guacamole white pizza with artichoke hearts but they don't have hot pepper pizza rolls. I thought I might have found someone that understands my longing but, alas, I have not."

"Goof," Liz said. She shifted around and reclined on the couch with her head on the arm rest. I got up and grabbed a pillow from the chair and tossed it to her.

"Zo, tell me vat you see in ze dahtz," I said in a horrible German accent.

"Trust me, I need some time on a therapist's couch but it won't be yours!" Liz answered with a chuckle. "If I had clean clothes I'd just see if you'd let me sleep here. A huge burrito, a beer and I'm ready for bed. Am I a cheap date or what?"

"You can stay here if you want," I said. "I have a washing machine. You can wash what you had on today."

"That would be a really bad idea," Liz said, turning her head to look at me. "If I go back to the hotel in the morning wearing what I had on the day before the rumor mill will go crazy. Particularly since my hair is so ... fucked."

The baseball cap on wet hair hadn't done Liz any favors.

"About the only thing worse was if I had my heels in my hands when the photographers start to take pictures," she continued.

"You can wash what you have on now and no one will know the difference," I said with a shrug. "I'm not trying to talk you into anything or out of anything."

"Except my clothes," Liz said with a wink. As she'd done in the car hours earlier, she rolled the hem of her shirt upward once or twice. I held up my hands in surrender.

"I forgot that you probably don't understand that," she said, turning and sitting up. "For ... years ... no picture of me showed my stomach. Some people suggested that I had had a C-section or stretch marks from a baby that I didn't want anyone to see. Others thought I was too prudish to show my belly button. A few thought I was actually a clone and didn't even have a belly button. Apparently that's how you can tell."

"Good to know," I said with a laugh.

"I'm serious," Liz said. "Google Liz Larimer belly button and see what pops up."

I decided to play along. The words brought up 40,000 hits and I gawked. I clicked the first link and it took me to a site that had a very long-winded dissertation on Liz and her stomach.

"Fuck," I muttered softly.

"I know!" Liz said. "Click the images section and it's worse. I mean, people seriously have too much time on their hands if this is what occupies their attention. I have sites dedicated to my butt, my boobs, my hair, my fingernails and probably my toes."

Just for giggles, I typed in "Liz Larimer butt." I forgot I was still in the images section and I saw a host of pictures of her onstage and at a pool.

"People try to take pictures up your skirt when you're singing?" I asked. "That's..."

"Gross," Liz said. "I have to wear cheerleader bloomers under my skirts. The first year I toured I got the microphone hooked on my skirt. It lifted up and there were hundreds of pictures of me in granny panties with hose."

"I see that," I said, turning my tablet around. She shook her head.

"Since then I put on bicycle shorts or bloomers underneath and use a cordless microphone," she said.

"I see that," I replied with a wink as I clicked on a different picture and showed her again. This one had her in Spandex shorts with the back of her skirt lifted upward as she spun. Liz put her palms to her eyes and sighed.

I felt like a dick.

"I'm just goofing with you," I said. "I didn't think it would make you this upset."

"It's just..." she said before she puffed out her cheeks. "This is just a ... microcosm ... of my life. I'd like nothing better than to curl up right here and sleep. It's stupid that I have to worry about dragging Sarah out again tonight or having a bunch of assholes digging through your life. I know I signed on for it but you didn't."

"Don't worry about me," I said. "Look, we have a couple of plausible cover stories. My mother was your teacher; we went to school together; you're donating to the hospital. If anyone digs into my past they'll know we had a lot to catch up on. If they're worried about the marketing angle then we'll lie. No, that's not right. I'll lie. I'll tell them I asked you about a job but you told me that all that is handled by your label. If they ask where you spent the night, I'll tell them to go fuck themselves. Incidentally, if it comes to pass that I actually work for you, I'll very likely tell them the same thing. I didn't want it to be a surprise."

Liz offered another of her genuine smiles.

"That response hits my brain just about every time one of them shouts a question at me," she admitted with a giggle. "OK, fine. I'll call Stephanie and tell her I won't be home tonight. Then you can strip me out of my clothes and..."

"Uh," I cut in.

"I'm kidding," Liz said. "Well, sort of. I probably wouldn't mind finding out if my teenage fantasies have any bearing on reality. But that would be a really bad idea."

"I've had my share of workplace romances," I said. "They always end badly."

"You're telling me," Liz replied as she reclined on the couch again. "I dated backup singers and a couple of the dancers from my stage show. I thought ... it was casual. They thought I was going to give them a leg up in the business or become their Sugar Mama. I just wanted to get laid. One of them went to the tabloids but ... we ruined him."

"People in glass houses and all that," I said. "People always forget their own skeletons when they're trying to reveal someone else's. He shouldn't expect sympathy from me."

"I feel bad about it," Liz admitted. "That was the last time I made that mistake. Of course, the label went to great effort to make sure all my male dancers were gay after that. It made it easier but I think I could have turned a couple of them if I'd have shown them my belly button."

"I've seen it twice in one day and I'm still holding strong," I joked. "It might not be as alluring as you think it is."

Liz gave me another grin and rolled her shirt up a little higher.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. She lifted her hips slightly and pulled her shorts down until the top of her panties showed. The dark blue cotton had a white bikini band around her waist. She glanced over to gauge my reaction. I was willing myself to keep my focus on her face.

"If I didn't know better I'd swear you were gay," she said. "Belly button and panties and no reaction at all. Well, that leaves me only one way to go."

I gulped when she lifted her shirt high enough to display her bra. It was white and silky and I could see the pale tops of her breasts where her tan stopped. Liz was grinning broadly when I forced my eyes back to her face.

"At least I know that I haven't lost my touch," she said, laughing now. She pulled her shirt back down and her shorts back up. "A picture of that might have netted you a hundred grand."

"I'll just wait until you're asleep and take the picture then," I said with a wink as I tried to regain my equilibrium. "It's almost nine. If you're heading to the hotel you should probably let Sarah know soon. The boys have school tomorrow and she'll want to be back by 10:30 or so."

"Here is good with me if you're OK with it," Liz said.

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't OK with it," I said.

"That's not the impression I got," Liz said, sitting up again. "I got the distinct feeling that your friends pushed you into spending today with me."

"It wasn't a chore," I said, smiling at her.

"But you wouldn't have done it if they hadn't pushed you," Liz said.

"Maybe not," I admitted. "But, I'll tell you this. I would have regretted it if I hadn't. It has nothing to do with ... a job or seeing your boobs. Well, it has nothing to do with the job. I'm always OK when a girl shows me her boobs."

"Jerk," Liz said, but she was laughing.

"Seriously though," I said. "I had a lot of fun just talking to you today. It's cool to have someone that understands things I can't really explain to my friends. They ... they all came from cities. They were always anonymous, a part of the crowd. You know that I've changed as much as you have. It's been great spending time with you. I've really enjoyed it. You ... your personality isn't much different from what I remember. I always thought you were very smart and I always knew you'd be successful. It's just a bonus that you've turned out to be such a nice person, too."

Liz turned her head and bit her lower lip.

"I didn't mean to embarrass you," I said.

"It isn't that," Liz said with a heavy sigh. "I've had fun today too. I think I always knew it'd be cool to hang out with you again. But, well, I'm not sure that I haven't spent the best consecutive 10 hours of my life. I told you that I felt normal today. I ... I can see living a life like this. I like having someone that ... just lets me be me. Now I'm kicking myself again for not calling you 10 years ago."

"I needed to grow up some before I could be any sort of friend to you," I confessed. "I was ... shallow. If you had called me when I first signed with the Angels, I probably would have tried to exploit your success for my own benefit. I had to grow up after I got hurt. In a lot of ways, playing baseball is like being a singer. Both occupations permit us to remain perpetual kids. I had an agent and a lawyer. If I had made the pros I would have had financial advisers and a marketing team. I would never have had to grow up if I didn't want to. And I can tell you that I didn't want to grow up. I didn't like responsibility. I didn't like accountability. Do you know how I knew the cops would bust the guy on the motorcycle? It was because I got busted for something similar when I was in A-Ball. I had my Mustang and I got it up to 120 miles an hour when the cops saw me.

"I lost my license for three months and paid a huge fine. The team found out and suspended me for seven days. It might not sound like a big deal but it cost me a week's pay and that hurt. Maybe I would have grown out of it but I'm not sure. I'm only sure that I hadn't grown out of it by the time I got hurt. So I probably would have been a real asshole to you. I ... I might have even tried to take advantage of you. I don't know. It's hard for me to reconcile the you here now with the one from 15 years ago. At various times during our afternoon I've thought you've changed completely. Other times I can see you haven't changed much at all. I think you've just ... matured ... and I'm not sure I really have. I just learned that I can't do some of the shit I used to do."

"Sure you can," Liz said. "You've just learned there are consequences when you do them. I learned the same things but in the opposite way. When we were in school, I could have walked naked down the hallway and no one would have even seen me. No, that's not true. You would have noticed but I doubt anyone else would have. Now I can't pull my underwear out of my crack without 10,000 people seeing a picture of it. And you couldn't have taken advantage of me 10 years ago. If anything, I planned to take advantage of you. That's the main reason I put the phone down. My ego was pretty big at that point but I think a part of me still knew it would hurt me if you rejected me. It's the same even now. I was thinking about how nice it would be to go to bed with you ... to spend the night together even it was only once. I know that I could completely let loose and we'd be the only ones that knew about it.