Chapter 1

I figured she had to be a basketball player because, Jesus, she was really, really tall.

I mean, not just tall for a girl, y'know? Tall for anybody. Tall for a basketball player, even.

I'd been sent by the Orioles to this spring banquet featuring jocks from all sports. There were men and women there from all the local colleges and universities as well as the pro sports organizations. One would expect to run into some tall, athletic-looking types of either sex.

She was a strikingly pretty thing, although skinny. Very skinny. Maybe just being as tall as that made a person seem skinnier.

Nope. This chick was, like, skinny.

Well, enough of this. I didn't want to get caught staring at her. I imagine it's not so great for a young woman, being as tall as that. People would probably tend to treat you like a freak. The really awful people (of whom there is no shortage) would make lame witticisms about your height, probably thinking that they were the first ones -- ever -- to think up those clever remarks like, "How's the weather up there?"

The only-fairly-awful people (like me) would just stare at you too long.

So, belatedly, I tactfully looked away.

"I know you," a voice behind me said. I turned and found myself looking at the silver locket dangling from The Girl's neck. The locket was just about at eye level when I'd turned. I looked up and there she was -- Miss Everest herself, standing right in front of (and a little above) me, much like an adult hovering over a child.

"Excuse me?" I said. She'd just said she "knew" me, but if she did, I didn't know from where. Granted, I was a major league baseball player -- albeit a little-known one. But I was especially anonymous here -- in downtown Baltimore -- only a few weeks after the trade that had brought me from the Oakland A's to the Orioles in exchange for a Triple-A catcher and a tired utility infielder playing out his string.

So, although I might be (barely) a big-league ballplayer, I was not exactly a household name in Baltimore. I hadn't been, even back in Oakland. But especially not in Baltimore, where I had yet to so much as play a regular-season game for the Birds. I had never even played in Camden Yards as a visitor.

Well, all these thoughts had shot through my head faster than it takes to tell you about them. It wasn't like the two of us had experienced this lengthy pregnant pause. The tall babe had declared that she "knew" me, and I had said "excuse me" and only a few nanoseconds had gone by between times. So it wasn't really quite as awkward as it sounds.

"I said, 'I know you, '" the young woman repeated. "You're Travis Horton, the Orioles' new outfielder."

Well, that was flattering. I figured if you had taken a poll of every single human being in that crowded banquet room, maybe three of them would have known my name. And this was a crowd full of fans at a sports-related event.

"Yes, that's right," I said, finally. "And you're... ?"

"Juniper Jones," she said.

"You mean like the old movie star?" said I. I had thought she'd said "Jennifer Jones."

"What movie star?" she said. "I don't know any movie stars named Juniper Jones."

"Oh! ... Juniper ... Sorry, I didn't understand what you said the first time. I don't think I ever met anyone named 'Juniper' before."

"Really?" she said. "Why, there were three other Junipers, just in my high school geometry class!"

"You're kidding, right?" I said.

"I'm kidding, right."

"Unusual name," I remarked. Brilliant conversationalist, that's me.

"It's a tree," she said. "Pretty appropriate -- don't you think?"

Hmmmm. Tall jokes, she's giving me now. Alarms went off. Don't join in. Stay away!

"So how is it that you recognized me?" I asked her. "I'm brand-new in town."

"You're a major league baseball player," she said.

"Well, yes. But I'm not exactly Roger Clemens. I'm surprised you recognized me ... Are you a player? Are you with Maryland's basketball team? Or UMBC?"

"Do you mean am I one of the guests at this jock concert?" Juniper said. "Am I a basketball player? ... You don't know basketball all that well, do you, Travis?"

"Not particularly, no ... Why?"

"You're assuming that because I'm tall, I might be a college basketball player. But if you knew anything about B-ball, you'd take one look at me and say, "With that body, I can't see her blocking out under the basket."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, I guess you're a little bit ... frail ... for a player."

"Frail. Nice word. Feminine-sounding. You could have said 'skinny.' ... Or even 'anorexic.'"

"So you're not ... an athlete?" I said, trying to get the conversation back on safer ground.

"Right. I'm not a guest at the front tables, as you probably will be. I'm just here with my dad. My dad is the Orioles' bench coach, Franklin Jones. I assume you've met him?"

Well, I had met Franklin Jones, but now Juniper had me confused again. Franklin Jones was a black man. He was not very tall and quite definitely black. Juniper, here showed no signs of being wholly or partially of black ancestry.

She read my mind. "Franklin's my step-daddy," she said. "That accounts for my pale-faced aspect."

"So you recognized me because you're Franklin's step-daughter and you hang out at the ballpark from time to time?"

"Not only at Camden Yards, but at spring training in Lauderdale, too. Mom and I were down for the whole six weeks this spring."

"Surprised I didn't see you while you were down there."

"Because I would stand out in a crowd, right?"

"Hey, don't go all sensitive on me. You said you were there for six weeks. I, too, was there for the whole six weeks. As the New Guy, it behooved me to demonstrate a little enthusiasm, so I showed up almost a week early with the pitchers and catchers. I still never saw you there."

"Well, maybe you didn't see me, but I saw you. You'd be surprised -- sitting down, I look pretty much like a normal person. Probably, you didn't notice me because down there, I wasn't in a dress-up dress and all spiffed up and standing up with a glass of cheap wine in my hand."

"You look positively regal with that wine glass in your hand. A person can't even tell it's cheap wine."

"It's a plastic glass, Dude. So you know, going in, it's gonna be cheap wine ... But thanks for the 'regal' thing. You're pretty smooth, for a ballplayer."

"Thanks for noticing. It's one of the reasons the Orioles traded for me. It's on my scouting report: 'Bats, fair; fields, fair; runs, fair; but in social situations, he's a smoothie.'"

"Were you surprised to find out the Orioles had picked you up?"

"Actually, I really was -- at first. I mean, the Orioles already had a hell of an outfield. I figured to be the number five man and that I might not even end up going north with the club. But when Cory Zane got released, the outfield suddenly didn't seem quite as ... crowded."

"The way I hear it, you're going to get into a lot of games."

"From your lips..."

"Pops says you're the real deal," she said.

"Pops?"

"My dad. Step-dad ... Franklin."

"What'll happen to me if I call him 'Pops?'"

"I'd advise against it, although he's not likely to turn violent."

"Family stuff, huh?"

"Right."

"You going home after -- with Pops?"

"You want to make me a better offer?"

"Well, I am new in town, and all. Don't know the best places to go."

"We won't need a restaurant. They're serving rubber chicken and peas here, in less than an hour."

"We could fake it with the chicken -- just push the peas around the plate a little and then go out for Italian later. I know a fantastic place."

"I thought you were new in town and needed a guide."

"I am, and I do. But I love Italian food, so I've already investigated that much. This town has a half-dozen fantastic Italian restaurants!"

"Let me guess: Sabatino's -- right?"

"Well, they're number one. I mean, Sabatino's is every bit as good as its reviews. But I've got this secret place. Off the beaten path. It's not even listed on the Internet. I know, because I've checked."

"You know, I've lived in Baltimore since I was a pre-teen. You're not very likely to spring an Italian restaurant on me that is (a) decent, and (b) unknown to me."

"Want to bet?"

"Aren't you the least bit concerned about what Pops will think? He takes his daughter out for a nice event-dinner and, poof, she runs off with an itinerant ballplayer. Couldn't that sort of thing go hard on you tomorrow at the Yard?"

"Listen, they don't come any more harmless than I am. I'm so boring I can't even score an interview for a paragraph in Roch Kubatko's blog in The Baltimore Sun, even."

"The last guy who tried that 'I'm so boring' line on me turned out to be anything but boring ... Not to imply that he was exciting, or that it was a positive experience."

"But he wasn't boring?"

"Not boring. He was memorable, even ... But for all the wrong reasons."

"So, do you want to try this Italian place I know?"

"How tall are you?" she asked.

"I knew we were going to get to that at some point. I'm five-eleven. Perfectly normal height. You going to tell me you only go out with guys taller than you?"

"If I only went out with guys taller than me, I wouldn't see much action, now would I?"

"But you've got your limits, right? That's why you want to know how tall I am? What is it -- you have a six-foot minimum?"

"Nope. No minimum. I just asked the question to see how oversensitive you might be to such issues. And you do seem a little defensive about it, at that."

"I can bear up if you can. I haven't seen you sitting down yet. Didn't you say you weren't all that tall, when seated?"

"I did say something to that effect," she said. "With me, it's mostly all in the legs."

"And fine, fine legs they seem to be, from what I can see from way down here," I said. It was true. The girl might be way too tall. She might have the breasts of a pre-teen. She might be rail-thin, stem to stern and mostly just stem.

But she had a pair of legs on her that were plain impressive. Sure, they were thin, too, but they weren't thin-thin, y'know? They were pleasingly slender and they just went on and on! ... And on!

I'd always been a leg man, first and foremost, and, Jesus-God! This girl's legs were the finest -- not to mention the longest -- I'd ever laid eyes on.

Maybe she would look less tall sitting down.

Maybe she'd look even less tall than that -- lying down.