Chapter 3

It was in the wee hours of the morning when I finally drove Juniper home. We said goodnight at her family's front door without any further pyrotechnics. In contrast to my first night taking her to this door, this time she wasn't flirtatious or eager to bestow a kiss on me before we so much as left the car.

We just walked up to the front door, she said goodnight, and that was the ballgame.

Speaking of ballgames, I was due at Camden Yards in approximately eleven hours. It would behoove me to go back to the apartment and get some sleep. I wondered about Juniper's job, which in all likelihood was expecting her in only about three to four more hours.

Well. She was young and strong. Maybe she could hack it.

I drove back to my own place deep in thought. I should have been on top of the world. I'd just gotten laid in a fashion I was unlikely to forget anytime soon. I reflected that, in my decade and a half of active participation in the sexual revolution, I had never been so thoroughly and exhaustingly fucked.

So why wasn't I feeling just super-duper about it all? Why, instead, did I feel uneasiness and a kind of melancholy?

It was because things with Juniper Jones weren't going according to plan. Oh, sure, a case could be made that they were going better than planned. Like any guy, the very moment I was first attracted to her as a female, the thought of bedding her had crossed my mind.

But I had expected to have to struggle a bit to reach that goal. Now it had all just been handed to me, pretty much the way somebody had handed me that plastic glass filled with cheap white wine a few days ago, back at the banquet.

With Juniper, I had wanted to select my own wine. OK, maybe I would have ended up choosing something that -- as was usual for me -- would just be an ordinary bottle from the supermarket shelf.

But it wouldn't have been the cheapest, most undistinguished vintage in the store. And I would have chosen it, and decided when to partake of it, in my own good time.

I had thought Juniper Jones might turn out to be a terrific young woman. Well, she'd been a fantastic fuck, but that wasn't the same thing.

So despite the fact that I had been thoroughly, expertly and enthusiastically laid, I had gone home feeling cheated.

I guess there's just no pleasing some people.

I got a good night's sleep, even if most of it took place after sunrise, and arrived at the ballpark in the late afternoon, fresh and ready to play. It was still chilly in Baltimore, and I dreaded traveling after today's game to Boston for our first road series of the season. If it was chilly in Baltimore, it promised to be frosty at Fenway.

Our second regular-season game in Camden Yards was, for me, pretty much like the first. I sat the bench and watched our superb starting outfield, T.S. Williams in left, Spider Welch in right, and the incomparable Zeke Taylor in center, making all the defensive plays and going, collectively, five for fourteen at the plate.

Zeke got his first homer, dead centerfield and very deep into the grassy area out there beyond the fence. Not for the first time, I marveled at the man's immense power. That homer was clearly gone before it had left the infield high over second base.

Playing part time last year for the A's, I'd hit eleven homers in less than four hundred at bats. Not that bad. But I'd never muscled up on even one that had flown so far and so fast out of a ballpark as Zeke's cold-weather two-run dinger. And I knew I never would.

For him, that power and distance wasn't even all that unusual. It must be nice.

But wallowing in Zeke Taylor envy wasn't a big part of my character. I was eager to succeed with the Orioles, but I wasn't all tensed up about it. I felt reasonably confident that if called upon, I could produce for them, both offensively and in the outfield. It was a long season, and I knew Paul Warren wouldn't forget I was down here at the other end of the dugout.

I figured to get my shot.

We beat Tampa again, sweeping the abbreviated series with the Rays and preparing ourselves for the season's first road trip. We'd be leaving early the next day -- Thursday -- and playing four in Boston over the next four days. Mercifully, the Red Sox had scheduled the Friday, Saturday and Sunday games for the daylight hours. But Thursday's home opener at Fenway would be a night game, and the weather forecast wasn't very encouraging.

Once again, leaving the clubhouse after the game, I encountered Juniper Jones and Franklin in the corridor near the exit sign. She gave me a big hello and asked me whether I wanted to give her a ride home.

Franklin interrupted. "We're leaving for Boston at eight a.m.," he warned. "Travis won't be able to bring you home at four-something again tonight."

I felt myself blushing a little at the thought that Juniper's stepdad kept such close tabs on her home-arrival times. I felt like I was back in high school.

"How about I give you a ride home tonight, but we go straight there, with no stops?" I said.

Franklin again: "Hey, why don't you come inside when you get there, meet Juniper's mom?"

It seemed a little early for meeting the family, but, hey, I'd already slept with the girl, right? And her stepfather was my boss -- kinda. So I said, sure, why not?

On the way to the Jones residence in the Mini-Cooper, I asked Juniper about her day at work. "What'd you get? Maybe two hours' sleep last night?"

"Actually, I'm not as irresponsible as you assumed," she said. "I had a scheduled short shift yesterday, and wasn't even due in until ten. I not only had enough sleep to do my job, I was still feisty enough to show up for tonight's game."

"Admirable."

"I wish we had more time tonight. To be alone, I mean."

"That would be nice," I said, "but I'm gonna be meeting your mama. What's her name, by the way? Something commonplace and ordinary, like yours?"

"Her name is Mary Jane," Juniper said. "How's that for off-the-wall, huh?"

"Mary Jane Jones."

"Well, Mary Jane Larrimore, originally. And then Mary Jane McCarty when she married my father."

"Well, 'Mary Jane Jones' has a certain fundamental, all-American honesty to it, don't you think?"

"My mom is a latter-day flower child," Juniper said. "She wasn't born in time to be a hippie herself, but her parents were for awhile, and she picked up on it pretty well, I think. She never completely let go even after her own parents went straight and got regular jobs and mortgages and stuff."

"And your dad? ... Your real dad?"

"He was no hippie, but he was a druggie," she said. "A ne'er-do-well. My mother was a flake, maybe, as a young girl, but I guess she did well to unload dear old dad, soon as possible."

"You remember him? Was he gone while you were still a little kid?"

"Oh, yeah. I remember him. I remember him well. And, no, he wasn't gone that soon. I was ... eleven, almost twelve, when he got sacked."

"So there wasn't that much time between ... him and Franklin taking over as your stepfather."

"Franklin's the only one worth being called a dad, believe me."

"Tough to grow up that way. In a home with, y'know -- strife."

"Tell me about it ... How about you? Were you the product of a broken home, too?"

"Naw. My parents are still together. Still doing great. My dad's only fifty-four and already semi-retired. He's in Colorado, living the American dream -- playing golf and staying in good with Mama by providing her with all the exotic gardening equipment available for purchase on the Internet."

"Sounds like you come from money."

"Sorry, no. But ol' dad was security-conscious and driven to make himself a comfortable retirement. They're doing it on a relative shoestring, but they're financially secure, and both of them really seem to know how to enjoy life."

"I guess having a son who's a big-league ballplayer doesn't hurt."

"Well, I'm awfully new to the days of making this game pay off for me, but, yes, I've sent them a few bucks over the past couple of years. Hell, why not? I'm single, I've inherited my parents' modest lifestyle, and last year and this year, I've made some real money, at least by the family's humble standards. The nicest part is, the money I've been able to send them was just -- gravy. It's not like they desperately needed it."

"Franklin's been our superhero," Juniper said. "Mom and I went a couple of years after her divorce, sometimes literally not knowing where our next meal was coming from. She was willing to work, but she wasn't trained for anything that would provide us with any security."

"She meet Franklin at the ballpark?"

"Nope. Mom's not into baseball that much. Franklin's son -- from his previous marriage -- lived next door to us. He was only about twenty years old and going to college at UMBC. Andrew -- the son -- was living with two other young guys, and Franklin came by to help them with a leaky dishwasher in their apartment."

"Romantic."

She laughed. "It turned out that Andrew and the other boys were helpless at household repairs and the like. When Franklin got there, he found out that they didn't even have any tools in the place. So Franklin knocked on our door, asked to borrow a wrench, and well, a year later, they got married."

"Imagine ... What if your mom hadn't had the wrench he needed?"

Juniper laughed. "She didn't! The wrench thing just got him to the front door. He eventually had to go back home and get his own tools."

"But he got his foot in the door, so to speak?"

"Don't let that taciturn appearance fool you. Franklin's a pretty smooth character when you get to know him."

As we had promised, we drove straight from Camden Yards to the Jones residence, and Franklin was just closing his garage door when we arrived.

"Some car," he said. "No Lexus for you?"

"I don't run with the crowd," I told him. "This is maybe the only Cooper in the majors."

"You need a bigger car, or a shorter girl," he said.

"It's got surprising leg room," Juniper told him. "Although there's not much room in the back seat."

"You been in the back seat already?" he asked her, teasing.

"Nope. One look and I knew it would never work."

Franklin had evidently called ahead, because Mary Jane Jones had fresh coffee and some kind of enormous cookie concoction waiting for us.

Like her daughter, Mary Jane was long-legged and lovely. She was neither as tall nor as thin as Juniper, but the resemblance was striking, and Mary Jane looked younger than her age, which I estimated had to be at least mid-forties.

She greeted us warmly and seemed genuinely pleased to have me there. I wasn't totally at ease. First of all, I didn't yet know Franklin all that well, and wasn't entirely certain how I should behave around the Orioles' bench coach and his spouse.

It didn't help that I was reasonably certain that Franklin already knew I'd been sleeping with his stepdaughter.

I wondered how much, if anything, Mother Mary Jane knew or suspected about that.

But everyone else was at ease in my company, and I eventually loosened up a bit myself.

"This is decaf," Mary Jane said. "I know you guys have to get up early tomorrow to get to BWI."

"But it's good decaf," Franklin said. "Used to be, drinking decaf was like kissing your sister, but lately they've been doing pretty good, turning out something you can actually drink late in the day."

The coffee really was excellent, but I wished Mary Jane hadn't mentioned to me that it was decaf. Now I was trying to detect the difference -- looking for disappointment that wouldn't otherwise have been there.

"Pops is a coffee hound," Juniper said. "Used to be, Mom couldn't get him to even try this decaffeinated stuff."

"It's good," I assured Mary Jane. "I never actually tried kissing my sister, but if it's like this, I kinda wish I had."

It was supposed to be a joke, but I couldn't help noticing that all three of them responded to it a little coldly. Nothing overt, but nobody laughed. My remark had been the proverbial lead balloon.

But the moment passed and soon we were in warm conversation again. I got the impression that my presence -- with Juniper -- was very welcome. Well, the girl might be too tall and too skinny, but it was hard for me to believe that she was lacking for boyfriends or dates. She was vivacious and outgoing. She might be a librarian, but she seemed neither timid nor retiring.

Maybe I was just a super-lovable type guy. Nobody had ever told me that I was, but hey, I could buy into that theory. I thought I was

pretty terrific, actually.

"How do you like playing with the Orioles?" Mary Jane asked me at one point.

"I'm not certain," I said, making another attempt at humor. "So far, Franklin and I have logged the same number of innings on the field of play."

"You'll get playing time," Franklin told me. "Paul feels very positive about your abilities. You think we'd have gone north with only four outfielders if he hadn't? Corey Zane owes his early retirement mostly to you, Travis."

I had pretty much arrived at the same conclusion, but it was gratifying to hear Franklin Jones say it. Sure, the club had a couple of infielders who could be sent out to patrol the pastures in a pinch, but obviously I was slated to be Option One if anything happened to one of our three regulars.