Chapter 17: Dave

That long weekend with Emmy was the happiest four-day period of my life to date. There just wasn't any doubt about it! I had offered her a chance to just relax, back at the apartment, and skip one or more of our ballgames, but she wouldn't hear of it. She and Eddie were right there at the same old stand, for all three games, Friday through Sunday. And Eddie quietly disappeared again, right after the Sunday afternoon game, so that Emmy and I could have a little time together before she had to head back to the Real World for another week.

And there had been Thursday night, and Friday night, and Saturday night. And there had been the wee hours of Thursday morning, when we had first gotten back, and Emmy had been there, waiting!

Oh please, God: I'm not gonna ask for anything else, just let me keep what You've given me already!

Emmy wanted me to start thinking about a trip down, with Eddie, to see her in her native habitat. She wanted me to meet Patsy Fischer, the famous better-looking roommate. Patsy would want to make it a threesome, Emmy warned me, but I should just forget about that, right now, because it wasn't ever going to happen.

More importantly, Emmy wanted me to come home with her to McLean to Meet the Parents. She didn't pretend that my meeting with them was going to be all sweetness and light. Emmy told me, right out, that she was worried about how well they'd accept me, as a suitor. They were picky. Very. OK -- they were snobs, at least her father was. Both parents wanted her to Marry Well. It was a big deal in their lives right now, and had been, for a couple of years. They had been introducing her, together and separately, to a whole series of their ideals of suitable men, for some time now.

Believe it or not, I understood all of this pretty well. I mean, back home in Coshocton, I had been considered pretty suitable, in most quarters. I think even the parents of the rich girls in Coshocton wouldn't have been too upset if their daughters had brought me home. I was respectable, in least in my own milieu.

But I'd seen the Country Club, out there in the Northern Virginia Horse Country. I could imagine the Shreve house, in a big field out there somewhere, maybe with freshly painted white wooden fences all around it, following up and down the rolling hills, a half-mile away from the house on all sides.

And the other place in McLean. The working-week house. That's the one I'd probably see first. It would be pretty impressive, too. And I'd have the which-fork problems, again. They weren't going to cook out in the back yard and serve hamburgers.

I really didn't fault Emmy's parents, all that much, for wanting something better for her. After all, essentially, I shared their view that Emmy was special. She deserved the best. If Emmy's father, The Undersecretary, was going to look askance at Baseball Boy from Some-Indian-Word, Ohio, well, I found that understandable.

I really did! Maybe I was some sort of self-hating Virtual Snob myself. At the very least, I seemed to be a snob-sympathizer.

I knew, though, that Emmy insisted that I must meet them -- her parents -- sometime soon. Maybe it would be hard going, but it was something she wanted me to do. God bless her, she made it clear that she wasn't looking for their approval, and didn't expect to get it. She simply wanted to join the issue... To open a dialogue with them on The Dave Question.

She said she didn't want us to be sneaking around. But I had noticed that, so far, Emily hadn't been exactly broadcasting her weekend whereabouts back to the home folks.

So, OK. There were lots of things I'd rather do than go meet Mr. and Mrs. Shreve, but if that's what Emmy wanted, I'd do it. I'd do it as soon as the season was over -- the first week in September. OK -- as soon as the playoffs were over, second or third week in September.

Somewhere in there. I'd meet them.

Not now. Too much going on. Too hard for me to set it up, during the week, when I was playing every night and they, presumably, were both working every day. And the weekends? Worse, really. Mostly day games, for me. I didn't want a rush-rush trip to McLean and back, some Saturday or Sunday evening between ball games. If Eddie and I had to meet these people, I wanted it to be under somewhat calmer conditions.

After the season was over. That was best. As soon as Emily was sure I wasn't going to just put off meeting them forever, she subsided and let me be the one to choose the time, place and manner.

We did go down to see Emmy, though, and to meet her roommate, Patsy Fischer, on the night before opening our next three-game road series at Potomac. I arranged with Stu to meet the team in Potomac at the appropriate hour, but to take responsibility myself for getting Eddie and me down there. The plan was for us to drive the pickup to Emmy's apartment, leaving it there overnight, between games, until after the second game of the series.

The unspoken part was, Emmy and I would be sleeping in her bed for three nights. On the day before the third and final game, Eddie and I would drive the pickup back to Frederick, and hitch a ride back to the Potomac ballpark with the pitching coach, Evan McDonald, before the final game. McDonald, who had a family, frequently commuted home during the Keys' road series with close-by teams like Potomac.

Our first night at Emmy's apartment was a bizarre experience -- especially for Eddie. Patsy Fischer made a terrible fuss over me, hanging all over me, doing a pretty good self-parody of a man-crazy female. I'm really not sure just how much of it was being done for laughs. Sometimes, it sure seemed like she wasn't kidding!

She was almost as bad with Eddie, who was a little overwhelmed by her. I hope he knew she was just kidding around. At least, I hoped she was just kidding around. Turns out she'd lied about being Emmy's "better-looking" roommate, but it was true that she wasn't at all hard to look at. She was blonde and built, and as exuberant as an oversized Lab puppy.

Eddie thought she was almost as wonderful as Emily. Increasingly these days, Eddie's brainwaves ran through his gonads on their way to wherever they eventually ended up.

Eddie got the couch. Patsy Fischer, pouting, slept alone in her bedroom, and I got to sleep with Emmy. Maybe a good time wasn't had by all, but Emmy and I did OK.

Unlike my sober-sided little brother and my gentlelady neighbor, Ms. Washington, Patsy was not above teasing Emmy unmercifully, the first morning after our arrival.

"I almost called the cops!" she told Emmy. "I thought he must be strangling you in there! My God! I haven't heard so much screaming since Friday the 13^th, Part II!"

I kind of liked hearing all that teasing. Reading between the lines, it was telling me that either Emmy hadn't had any other male overnight guests during Patsy's tenure as roomy, or, if she had, the reviews from Emmy those guys had received weren't as good as mine.

Either way, it seemed like happy news.

Eddie took it all in, a little wide-eyed at the outspoken Ms. Fischer, but he said nothing. The kid's got class!

Emmy and Patsy both planned to drive out with us to Potomac for Game two on the second evening we stayed over, but not for the first night's game. The next day was a working day for both of them, and they knew the game, and the ride back, would get them back to Arlington pretty late.

Emmy was asleep when we got back from that first game, but she was wearing her traditional bedroom ensemble when I joined her -- her invisible nightie. Nobody could accuse this girl of being a clothes horse.

Next morning, Patsy was at it again. When I emerged from the bedroom ahead of Emmy, I got my own broadside: "Thank God tonight is your last night here!" Patsy told me, "... when you go away, maybe I can get some sleep!"

When Emmy came out to get her first cup of coffee, all Patsy said to her was, "... Did'ja come?"

But it took more than a little teasing to rattle my girl. "All three times," Emmy told her. "Then, we knocked off early, so you could get some sleep."

The visit to Arlington had been fun, and we'd even had time for a quickie tourist-trip for Eddie to the Air and Space Museum downtown. There were many more Smithsonian structures yet to visit. Perhaps another time. Between baseball and sleeping late after those nights of hot sex, our time in Metro Washington had been, indeed, limited.