Chapter 9

Back at my apartment, Juniper and I had the most enchanting night together since we'd met.

The sex was exhausting, almost desperate, but we managed to make it loving and tender at the same time.

Afterward, we relaxed together, still lying naked on top of the sheets. Each of us was nursing one of my favorite treats -- a homemade root beer float. I felt contentment washing over me like a gentle ocean wave. I felt new confidence that we were going to really make this thing work.

Happiness is being thoroughly laid before one a.m., and knowing that the next day is an off-day. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be an off day for Juniper. However, she had news for me that was almost as good.

"I can get three days of vacation time at work wrapped around next weekend," she said.

"When?"

"Thursday. The fifth. Right through Monday the eighth of June."

"But the club will be in Toronto."

"I thought, if it was okay with you, I could be in Toronto, too," she said.

After our four-game series with Boston ended on June 2, the Orioles would be flying to Minneapolis for a Tuesday through Thursday three-game series with the Twins. Then we'd be in Toronto for games Friday through Sunday.

"Of course it's okay with me," I said, "although I have a roommate on the road, you know. Phil Burkowitz."

"Thought maybe I'd get my own room," Juniper said, " ... unless you want to go for a threesome with Phil."

Her little joke would have been more fun for me if I hadn't had to wonder whether she was making a serious offer. But I remembered to chuckle. "Let Phil get his own girls," I said.

"I found a little hotel just around the corner from the team's hotel," she said. "Very discreet. Also very expensive, but hey, it's going to be a little adventure, right? I can be up there before you get into town Thursday night. When you come in, we can call room service -- if they even have room service -- and have dinner in bed."

"Have you made your plane reservations back here from Toronto yet?" I asked.

"I've got an open reservation ... Why?"

"We have a road open date Monday after the weekend games with the Blue Jays. If you could delay flying back until late Monday, we could spend that whole day together in Toronto, just sightseeing."

"But the team is going to go from there to Boston, right?"

She was correct. When we finally got to that open Monday after the Toronto series, we would have played ten games in ten days. But our off day would be on the road. Sometime in there, the club would be flying to Boston for three more.

"What if the club leaves Toronto right away after the Sunday game?" Juniper asked.

"Actually, they probably will," I said. "My guess is we'll be spending the open date in Boston. But I'm pretty sure Paul would permit me to fly up from Toronto late Monday on my own dime. We don't play until Tuesday night."

"Better ask to be sure," she said, "before either one of us makes any flight reservations out of Toronto."

Before they left Baltimore, the Red Sox took three of four from us in our home park, sinking us all the way to fourth place in the Division.

Fourth place had been the Orioles' natural habitat for more than a decade before Paul Warren had taken over the club several years back. But this time, it was Toronto and not the Tampa Bay Rays that was the only club in the division currently behind us.

If we didn't get our act together quickly, the Twins' series and the three-game set with the Blue Jays would be enough to see us trailing Toronto as well. To say that our season, so far, had been a disappointing one was to state the obvious.

We had been expected to be contenders -- favorites, even -- in our Division.

We didn't have to leave until Tuesday morning for Minneapolis, and Juniper was much more upbeat that Monday night than was normal for her when I was about to leave on a road trip. No doubt the fact that she'd be joining me late Thursday in Toronto had something to do with it.

"I'm liking this life," she said as we again lay sprawled on my disheveled bed after a bout of routine fantastic sex. "I think I like it, having a steady boyfriend."

I don't know about steady," I said. "I'm feelin' pretty shaky at the moment."

"Awwww," Juniper said, her mock concern evident, "was I too rough on Little Travis?"

I looked down my naked body at my thoroughly woman-handled penis and addressed its limp and spent form tenderly: "Hang in there, Little Buddy; I'm getting you out of town in the morning!"

Juniper took the unimpressive-looking organ into her hand and held it as one would hold a small bird. "He looks like he's at death's door," she said.

"Naw, he's just dozing," I assured her. "If he wasn't so tired, he'd give you a big smile."

"God, what an image!" she said. " ... A smiling penis! ... I'm probably going to have nightmares about that one!"

"Hey, it's just a friendly, smiley-face kind of smile. Nothing evil."

"Doesn't work, though," Juniper said. "The imagery is just all wrong. Some things just shouldn't smile, you know? It's like circus clowns."

"Circus clowns shouldn't smile?"

"No, no. But you know how clowns can creep people out, sometimes? Just by being what they are -- clowns? ... It's like that. Smiling penises seem just naturally kind of threatening. Sinister ... Like smiling snakes."

"Well, the nicest thing about it, Daddy's Little Helper, there, does most of his best smiling when you can't see it -- when he's inside his lair, there."

"I'm not sure I go for that bit of imagery much, either!" Juniper said.

Tuesday morning before dawn, we left the house together in the Cooper. We were leaving more than an hour earlier than necessary for Juniper to make it to work on time, but she wanted to drive me to the airport.

In my absence, she planned to stay alone in my apartment until her flight to Toronto, two days hence. Her bubbly attitude from the previous night was still evident, even though the sun hadn't even come up yet as we approached BWI.

"Travis, I think this thing is, y'know, working," she said.

"Us, you mean?"

"This one-man woman thing," she said. "I like it, I think."

"It's important for everyone, Babe, to have somebody to call your own ... Real important ... Watch it! There's the exit ramp."

"I almost drove right by it," Juniper said. "Not paying attention."

"My plane doesn't leave for almost two hours," I said. "Gonna have me an enormous breakfast. Want to park and join me?"

"Parking at the airport is too much hassle," she said. "Besides, I'll probably catch some traffic on the way back to town. But on Thursday, I'm gonna park this little gem of a car right here in Short Term and fly to my guy."

"You know, I've never gotten laid in Canada before," I said.

We had reached the terminal. Traffic was light at that hour, and Juniper was able to stop the car at the front curb, and we could say our goodbyes without pressure from other drivers.

"Just because I'm flying to Toronto and spending three hard-earned days of my vacation time and running up credit-card debt on a hotel room, don't just blithely assume I'm going to sleep with you," she said.

"Not even if I get you complimentary tickets to all three games at Rogers Center?" I asked.

"Baseball tickets!" she said in mock disgust. "Now I'm called upon to put out for baseball tickets? Listen, Travis, I know I'm supposed to be easy, but that's just beyond the pale!"

I wasn't sure at all that I liked the idea of Juniper's denigrating herself, even in jest. Not on that particular subject matter. For the most part, I thought the two of us had been doing really well, rapidly developing a loving, exclusive relationship while putting Juni's past lifestyle behind us.

But I certainly avoided ever joking about it, and her past way of life hadn't been something she seemed to want very often to touch upon, either.

Sitting in the Cooper at BWI wasn't the best possible time to examine the issue. I covered up the cloudy expression that I probably had on my face and leaned over to kiss the driver.

I kissed the driver good.

She noticed. "Damn! ... Not bad, there, Mr. Horny Horton! I thought I'd put out your fire better than that, just last night. And here you are, up before dawn, as it were."

"See you late Thursday," I said simply. "Leave word at the club's hotel about the logistics for my coming to yours."

"You could just call me when you get into town," she said.

"That's no fun. I was thinking you could maybe leave me a key to your room at our front desk, and I could just come over and let myself in under cover of darkness."

"Yum. That does sound pretty good. Maybe I'll already be in bed. Wearing a smile."

"Even if you wake up when I come in, just pretend you're still asleep," I told her. "I'll use my silent alarm to arouse you."

Watching her drive off, I again felt a wave of contentment like I'd seldom known. Could it really be this easy, staking my claim on Juniper Jones and making it stick? We'd been so tight in recent days that the relationship was beginning to feel perhaps longer and stronger than it really was.

We were still awfully new to one another. But where I had expected some turmoil and not just a little bit of insecurity on her part, I was instead getting nothing but good vibrations.

Was I that much of a prize? Could I really expect to replace a whole platoon of past lovers, single-handed?

Well. You're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, right? She seemed happy. No, she didn't seem happy -- she really was happy.

And me? Oh, yeah. I was happy. Just check out this smiling penis I got here!

No, I chided myself mildly. Don't get all giddy. Maybe with Juniper, there's more to it for me than just the superb sex. Maybe there always had been -- right from when I'd first met this girl.

I was pretty certain I was falling for her. I hoped to God that it wasn't a huge mistake on my part. If she were to backslide on me now, it would surely hurt -- bad.

But I shouldn't be borrowing trouble. Where's that half-assed airport restaurant? I need an enormous omelet and a double-order of home fries. I'll go easy on the bacon, to make up for the fries.

The latest minor league savior who'd been brought up from Bowie to stick his finger in the leaky dike was a right-handed fastballer named Freddie Brumbelow. He joined us in Minneapolis.

This kid was a converted infielder with only two years' experience in the organization as a pitcher. He'd been with the Orioles' Class "A" club in Frederick for half a season his first year, after which, for the past season and a half -- plus April and May of this year -- he'd been pitching for Baltimore's Double-A farm, just down the road in Bowie, Maryland.

"Is this one the bottom of the barrel?" I asked Franklin in the dugout just before the first game in the Minnesota series. "This is the fifth guy we've brought up already this spring."

"Oh, no! This one is a good one," Franklin said. "They've just been reluctant to bring him up, because the front office has been determined not to rush the kid."

"But circumstances alter cases, right?"

"Exactly," Franklin said. "The club's needs come first, and, man, are we ever needy right now!"

"He's not a very big guy," I observed.

"Fast, though. He's scary-fast, Travis. And he pitches smart. Got a nice slider and change, keeps 'em guessing, but mostly he just rears back. Not much of a curve ball, but If he doesn't throw his arm out, he's gonna be special, I promise you. And they say he never gets tired."

"Well, I hope he's the one we've been waiting for," I said.

"You know he's married to Josey Fitzgerald?" Franklin said.

"The broadcaster? With BirdSports?"

"Yep. This kid was up with the Orioles once before -- long time ago now -- when he was still an infielder. I met him back when I was coaching in the minors and he was a good-field, no-hit starting shortstop at Bowie."

"That Josey's a real babe! I'm kinda surprised. The kid doesn't look like he'd be ... up to the task."

"They've been together awhile," Franklin said. "Even before Freddie went out to flyover country somewhere, learning to be a pitcher, after he'd been released as an infielder."

"Must be True Love," I said. "Hooking up with a guy trying to make it in the low minors."