Chapter 5

Dinner at the Lotus Garden was an unqualified success. The food was varied and well-prepared, and the service (by real Chinese waiters!) was superb.

We stayed for well over two hours. I watched closely to be certain we weren't taking up needed space, but after awhile it became clear that the dinner-hour rush had long-since ended.

Before we left, we practically had the place to ourselves. "I think it's close to closing time," Orlie warned me at last, and upon looking around, I had to agree. I left the waiter a prodigious tip for having occupied him for so long, and we left with the entire Lotus Garden staff waving at us happily as we departed.

"Friendly bunch," I said.

"Or maybe they're just happy to finally get rid of us," Gloria suggested. She might have been right.

But the meal had been two more hours of time to get to know Orlie Martinez and her family, and her friend Gloria Rodriquez. We all were more at ease with one another now.

And I was smitten with Orlie. I mean, why not? She was about my age, judging by her remarks about getting Cal Ripken's autograph, back when he was playing in Bluefield. That had to be around 1978, I thought. If Orlie had been -- say -- eight years old, she'd be 35 now. If she'd been about the age that her daughter, Maria, was right now, Orlie could be in her late 30s. Maybe a little older than I was, even.

I wasn't about to ask. And I didn't care. Orlie looked young and fresh to me. She evidently was unmarried. I was unmarried and currently involved with no one.

Maybe my summer in Bluefield might turn out to be about more than just baseball.

I called her the following day. Around lunchtime. There was no time for subtlety. Not with my schedule. Let's face it, when you're out of the city half the time for away games, keeping a relationship going is tough. Even when we were at home, my time was taken up practically every day with a game that -- for the manager -- represented about a seven-hour time commitment. No worse, perhaps, than any working stiff, and better than some, but the seven-day-a-week working schedule did put a crimp in any effort at having a girlfriend.

Luckily for me, Orlie was a bona fide baseball fan. When I called, I laid it on the line: I was interested. Very interested. Until the end of August, there would be a game played virtually every night, seven days a week. She had a job that occupied her days, and I had a job that occupied my nights (not to mention causing me to travel).

The only feasible way for us to spend time together would be for her to become a temporary baseball groupie. On Friday and Saturday nights, and Sundays, if she'd come to the games -- or if she'd make a standing commitment to see me, after the games, then maybe the two of us could...

"What about Maria?" Orlie asked.

"Bring her with you to the games," I said immediately.

"You're still going to be out of town half the weekends," she pointed out.

"Life is hard. But we're only talking about two months, here. That's -- what? Nine weeks? If I'm here for five of those weekends, we're going to see each other fifteen times. Oh, I know you won't want to come to every game, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But if we -- were dating, I could come over after the games -- even if it were kind of a later-than- normal time to start a date."

"Let's try it, Paul," she said. "But you're going to have to keep in touch, by telephone. There will be a few days when I might be on the road myself -- working -- and they might not correspond with the team's road trips."