Chapter 14

Cleveland was inhospitable, beating us three out of four at "Progressive" Field (formerly known as "Jacobs Field"). Along with Baltimore's fans in the stands, I found myself hoping that the Orioles never got so desperate for spare change that they would sell "naming rights" to Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

I'd seen an Internet blog where one local man said that on the day Camden Yards was renamed something like Pillsbury Park or Folger's Field, he would be through showing up for ball games there forever.

I can't remember what Detroit's new ballpark's nondescript name is, but we didn't do so good there, either. We lost two out of three and limped home back in third place.

And we were running out of season.

The sickening part of it was, the club's offense was still potent. We were scoring lots of runs -- leading the league in runs scored, in fact -- and both Josh and Zeke the Streak were in the top five among the league's hitters.

In addition to his gaudy .332 average, fourth highest in the AL, Zeke had already hit thirty-six homers by only mid-August. He was "on pace," as they say, to hit about forty-five.

Didn't matter. Our pattern was that Shiggie Nomura and the new kid, Brumbelow, would make good starts for us and usually would win their games, but the rest of the staff would be frighteningly shaky. That meant three of every five games were crapshoots, no matter how many runs we scored.

I didn't like being a naysayer. It was a long, long season with almost forty games still left to be played. But I was getting the distinct impression that it wasn't going to be the Orioles' year.

The local press was especially critical of the pitching coach, Arlie Stone. Never mind that Arlie had been there in the same capacity all through the recent glory days when the Orioles had won two pennants, one World Series, and had reached the post-season three times in a four- year stretch.

What had Arlie done for us lately?

Paul Warren, even, was catching some flak from the fans. It wasn't surprising. The Baltimore faithful had suffered through a long period of hard times before Paul had become the field manager, and the fans dearly loved it when the team had finally become competitive again.

The prospect of suddenly returning to mediocrity after only those few years back in the sunlight made every loss seem more distressing than it might have been.

Franklin summed it up. "I remember when people would have been thrilled to see us at 66-59 and solidly in third place!" he said. "But not this year. This year, seven games over .500 is considered failure."

Now, coming home from Detroit, we had to face Boston and the Yankees for six games. Not exactly a breather.

Juniper and I had been communicating regularly that week, and on our return, Franklin and I drove in a two-car caravan from BWI directly to the Jones' house. It was Sunday evening again, just a week since my last inconclusive face-to-face with Juni.

Despite the importance of this meeting to both of us, and despite my having given the matter lots of thought during the past week, I had no clear idea what I was going to say or do. To the extent that I had a plan, the plan was simply to react to Juniper.

If she said she still felt the same way she had a week earlier, she presumably would be making some kind of pitch for us to give it another try.

At that point, I would be under some pressure either to agree or to be the Bad Guy who had given up on her when the chips were down.

Hell, even I didn't know which way I would go on it. On the one hand, Juniper had proven herself to be pretty weak-kneed when it came to fundamental reform. She had known from the start that I wanted an all-or-nothing relationship, and she had chosen summarily to reject that arrangement back in Toronto.

On the other hand, Juniper also was the one who'd eaten humble pie. She had come back to me and asked for another chance. She also was the one who claimed to have changed in some important respects.

I was very uncertain about whether the change was real. But the one encouraging thing I knew about Juniper was that she didn't dissemble. So I felt strongly that I could believe her when she said she wanted to try again.

I knew, at least, that if it didn't work out, she wouldn't be sneaking around sleeping with other guys on the sly. Nope. She'd just tell me it wasn't working and we'd say bye-bye -- no doubt for the final time.

So what it boiled down to was, if she wanted us to get back together, did I want to say okay?

I didn't kid myself. I really wanted her! I badly wanted to say yes. To me, the real question was, would I be able to hold up if we confronted still-another failure somewhere down the road? How many times could I put my energies into this, only to find out that Juniper's history weighed too heavily on her to permit her to have a normal life?

Juniper and her mother had an appealing light dinner waiting for us when we got to the house. The four of us stayed at the dining room table for a good hour after dinner, mostly discussing the season-in-progress and the Orioles' seeming inability to jell and the repeated failures to compete effectively.

"We're close to it being stick-a-fork-in-us time," Franklin said. "We've got to win at least four out of these six games with Boston and the Yankees, and we had better win both of the three-game series, or it's going to get really hard to come back this late."

After we all helped clean up the dinner debris, Franklin and Mary Jane once again said early good-nights and retired to the upstairs.

"You want to go out for a little walk?" Juniper asked.

"What is it? Ten-thirty? Yeah, sure. I really ought to be going back to the apartment and run a load of dirty clothes. I may have to wear third-day underwear tomorrow. But, hell yeah, let's go for a walk like normal people."

"We could go back to your apartment together," she said. "You could run your laundry and we could drink your cheap white wine and discuss our future -- if any."

"Maybe we shouldn't spend any time back at my place until we've done some of the discussing at a neutral site," I said.

"My test papers are still valid," Juniper said. "I haven't been out with anybody since you left town last week."

"I know that," I said. "I'm not worried about catching anything. I'm worried about the future. We try this again, and it doesn't work, that's just going to hurt like a sonuvabitch, Juni. I don't know whether I'm up to it."

"What about me?" she said. "You think I'm just out on a whim, here? ... That I haven't got anything at stake? Jeez, Travis, this is the first time in my whole life I've been serious about a man! First time!

Juniper was a curious mixture of supplication and aggression. Maybe it was the way she loomed over me when we both were standing.

I guess when a woman is six-foot-four, it's hard for her to cajole.

We were outside now, but not very far along on our supposed walk. Juniper still had the floor -- or at least, the sidewalk: "You stand here and tell me you're all worried about what might happen later ... if we didn't make it," she said. "But for me, I'm facing that pain right now! Tonight! I don't have to worry and wonder about what'll happen if we fail, because if you say no to this, we will have failed right now -- tonight!"

"It's not really all that dramatic, is it Juni? I mean, if you decide you want to change, there are lots of guys out there who'll want you. I'm not the only chance you're gonna have. Not by a long shot."

"It doesn't work that way, and you know it," she said. "Look at you. Look how hard you worked at making me understand that I was wrong about Carla, back when you thought she was the whole reason for my running away from you."

However tall and imposing Juniper was, she was getting teary-eyed now, and working herself up to an emotional pitch. "I ran away because I was afraid of commitment," she said, "and now I've got to where it's the only thing I care about. And not with 'some other guy, ' either. With you! Please, Travis, try to have a little faith, here."

I didn't say anything for a long time. Somebody's dog -- invisible but nearby -- was barking incessantly. Juniper, who'd been close to tears only moments before, how seemed composed. She just stood, waiting for me to say something.

"Do you want to come back with me tonight -- to the apartment?" I asked her.

"I've already packed a bag, just in case you said yes," she said.

"Okay. Leave a note for your mother."

Back at my musty-smelling apartment, Juniper helped me carry my bags in from the car and to get the first batch of dirty clothes into the washer.

We had the cheap white wine, just as Juniper had predicted, and we talked. We talked into the night. We also made love between the bouts of talking. We got up once to fold my clothes and hang up the Perma-Press shirts coming out of the dryer.

It was an enormous relief. For both of us.

Not doing my laundry.

Not the talking.

The sex. It had been awhile. For both of us.

Discussing -- once again -- our future and the obstacles was absolutely essential, but it didn't really bring relief because after it was all talked out, we both still had to just go on from there on faith. You agree to something and then you hope that you and the other person can live up to it.

But the sex! That was right now. Whatever tomorrow would bring, tonight was very gratifying indeed.

"Thanks," Juniper said theatrically after our first feverish coupling. " ... I needed that!"

"No more than I did," I told her, a little short of breath for an alleged professional athlete.

"You gotta admit it, we're good together in bed," she said.

"For me, 'good' doesn't begin to describe it," I said. "For me, it's never been better. But Juni, promise me that for as long as this lasts, it's just going to be the two of us. It's not that you're doomed to be with me for the rest of your life. That part will be up to you. But as soon as there's somebody else, you've got to tell me about him."

"It's just gonna be you, Trav. I promise."

"No, that's not the promise I want, because you might not be able to keep that one. But if you stray -- even once -- I want to know about it. I want to hear about it from you and nobody else. And don't think I'll forgive and forget, either, because I won't. You stray -- even once -- and I'll take it as a clear indication that we can't do this. That it just won't work."

"Didn't I tell you that I'd be able to come -- with you," she said, nuzzling my chest. "Jeez, I was afraid I'd lost them -- all my little extra nerve-endings on my clit! But you tickled every one of them little suckers!"

"That 'I can't come' stuff was just all in your head, and you know it," I told her. But I was secretly pleased to hear her say that.

Who am I kidding? What guy wouldn't be?

"Juniper? I asked you to promise ... To promise that if you had sex with another man, you'd tell me."