Scrambled Babies (28 page)

Madison
jumped in.  “Beverly’s mother hardly knew her new daddy before they got married.  They went to boss vegas and got married real quick.”

Paeton finally had to pick up Madison and kiss her.  “I know, Maddy.  Some people do get married real quick.  I’m just not one of those people.  And besides, you have to love someone before you marry him.”

“I love Steve.  Why don’t you love Steve?”  Madison’s eyes were wistful.

How much longer could Paeton continue this dialogue without giving in to the voice that told her how right Madison was?  And, of course, how wrong Madison was.  Paeton knew from her writing that women who listened to their hearts and lived happily ever after were
only
in her books and not in real life.  Her stories were fantasies to take people out of real life.  Away from the pain that women’s hearts led them into.  As heartsick as it made her, Paeton lived in real life.  And Steve Kaselman was a real-life problem,
not
a real-life solution.

Ring! 

Madison
ran out of the bathroom to answer the phone.  “Hi, Steve.  No, she’s not ready yet.”  She peeked over her shoulder.  “But she said you can come up right now anyway.” 

“Madison Windsor Smith.  I never said any such—”

“Bye, Steve.”  Madison hung up hastily.

Paeton stormed from the bathroom.  “Young lady, are you looking for trouble?”

Madison
’s eyes clouded.  “No.  I can talk to him while  you’re getting ready.”  Her lower lip was trembling.  “I need to talk to Steve.  I want to know if I get to announce today.” 

“Madison, whatever gave you the idea that you could announce?  This is a network show, going out all over the world, for all I know.  You’re only a child.  Where do you get these ideas?”  Paeton didn’t want to make Madison cry, but she couldn’t let her daughter get away with such outlandish notions either.

Madison
sank into a chair and folded her arms.  She looked close to tears.

“Oh, Maddy, honey, please don’t cry.  Please!  I’m sorry I yelled.  It’s just—it’s just—”  Paeton rushed back into the bathroom, peered in the mirror at her own misty eyes, and shrugged.  “Okay, okay, I give up.  I guess I look good enough.”  She flipped off the light switch as she exited the bathroom.  “And I don’t care.  Ask Ste—ask him anything you want.”  She walked to the window and quietly said his name—“Steve Kaselman.”

Madison
quickly reacted to victory.  “Yea!  I think you look beautiful, Mommy.  I bet Steve will think you look beautiful too.  Steve likes you.”

Paeton could feel the flush race from her chest to the top of her forehead.  She forced a quiet laugh.  “You already told me that.  But you said you knew because of the way he looked at me.”  Paeton held her breath as she dared to ask, “Did he say something else to you?”

“Yes.  He said we were the three most beautiful girls he knew.”

Looks!  We’re talking physical appearance here.  Sex, in blunt language!  He doesn’t even know me.
  “Honey, he was only being polite.  That doesn’t mean he likes me.”

“Uh-huh!”

“Well, I’m glad he—”

Knock, knock.

Madison
opened the door.  “Hi, Steve!”

Steve stepped in and looked down at her.  “Hi, Maddy.  How are you this super day?”

“I’m fine.  Madison ran over and took Steve’s hand.  “Okay, let’s go, Mommy.”

Steve wished it was Paeton who had taken his hand.  Steve couldn’t wait to spring his next request for a date.  But he had to come up with a winning game plan.  This time he would leave nothing to chance.

#

It was a magnificent day at the ballpark.  The summer sun bathed everything in a lazy warmth.  The sound of the vendors pitching their wares and the smell of popcorn and hot dogs filled the air.  Paeton sat next to Madison right below the announcer’s booth.  Madison spent most of her time asking for food or turning around to wave at Steve in the booth.  Steve would always smile and wave back.  Paeton only knew this from Madison’s reports.  Paeton would not let herself turn around.  She was being nice for Madison’s sake. 

Steve Kaselman was good-looking.  But that’s all he was.  One kiss didn’t mean anything to two people over thirty. 
Just another good-looking jock—who knew how to kiss! Paeton, stop that!

The seventh-inning stretch came, and Paeton stood up with the rest of the crowd.  She felt Madison tugging on her blouse.  “What is it, Maddy?”

“Steve wants you to turn around.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, Steve wants us to come up to the booth,” Madison exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the figure in the booth who was making hand signals to join him.

“No, he doesn’t, honey.” 

“Does too!  Really, Mommy.  Look!  Pleeease!”

“Don’t whine, Maddy.”  Paeton finally turned to see Steve energetically making come-on-up motions, a warm twinkle in his dangerous eyes.

“Let’s go, Mommy.  I’ve never been in an announcing booth before.”

“Well, I don’t know, Madison.”  Paeton had to hand it to Steve for doing such a good job using Madison to keep Paeton near him.

“Come on, Mommy.  Steve wants us to.  He really does.”  Madison was jumping up and down like a circus monkey.

“Well, okay.  I guess we can.”

“Yea!”  Madison took her hand and began pulling her up the wide concrete stairs to the announcing booth. 

Why was Paeton playing so hard to get?  She wanted to find out what a second kiss had to offer as much as Steve obviously did.  Was it because if she let herself fall for Steve, and it didn’t work out—
who am I kidding?
  As much as her head tried to deny it, her heart had been Steve’s since that ridiculous moment in JFK International. 

But what was she to him?  Another in a long line of “touchdowns?”And all she got after he left was the “game ball”?  God, she hated it when she found herself using sports analogies the way Steve always did!

When they entered the booth, Steve was all smiles.  “Hey, how do you like the game, ladies?  Pretty exciting, don’t you think?”

Paeton forced an aloofness.  “If you like to watch a bunch of men playing children’s games, it’s all right.”

Steve whistled under his breath.  “Boy, you never let up, do you?”

“Do you?”  To her surprise, her tone was decidedly flirtatious.

Steve shook his head and winked.  “Maddy, come over here by me.  See, this is a microphone.  This is what we talk into and the world hears us.  What do you think?”

“I think I would like to announce something,” she said eagerly.

Steve’s laugh was deep and rich.  “Do you know something about baseball?”

“Sure.  I like sports.  Like my mommy.”

Steve glanced sideways at Paeton.  “Right.  I know your mommy likes swimming.  Does she like other sports too?”

“Well, yes.  She just doesn’t like sports that have only men in them.”

“Oh, I see.”

Paeton was getting uncomfortable.  “Madison, Steve is busy.  We have to get back to our seats.”

“No, Steve is fine.”  He sat Madison on his lap right in front of the microphone.  “Listen, Maddy, here’s what you do.  When the action starts, I’ll do the play-by-play quietly in your ear, and you can repeat what I say.  What do you think?”

“Well, I think I want to do the play-by-play all by myself without you.”

Paeton gasped.  “Madison, you are coming out of there right now.  This is Steve’s job.  You cannot do the play-by-play for a big-league baseball game, for heaven’s sake.  You don’t know anything about baseball.”

Madison
nodded her head vigorously.  “Uh-huh, I do too.  Me and Cody at school in New York did baseball all year at recess.  His daddy is a pitcher for the Yankees.  We did play-by-play all the time.”

Steve whistled quietly again.  “Wow, little lady.  You are something.”  He turned and grinned at Paeton.  “Once again, like mother like daughter.  Who is Cody’s daddy, Madison?”

“Cam ‘Fireball’ Fuller.  He has an E.R.A. of two point seven eight this year.  His forkball is his best pitch.”

Steve shook his head and laughed in amazement.

Madison
misunderstood his reaction.  “Uh-huh!  It is too.  But his slider is pretty good too.”

Steve smiled at a bewildered Paeton.  “Well, I guess I’m safe with this sports buff.”

Paeton threw up her hands.  “I don’t know where I’ve been.  I had no idea she was a baseball nut.”

Steve winked at Madison.  “No, I think she was a Cody nut.”  He looked straight into Paeton’s eyes, in a blatant attempt to make a point.  “By the way, I thought you did a magnificent job resolving Emily’s decision to marry Jake in
The Sky Streaks of Black.
” Paeton could feel her pulse quicken and her face turn crimson.  Steve was telling her he was a “Paeton nut!”

 “You read my book?” she exclaimed, unbelieving.

“Yes, and I paid full price for it too.  You know—”  He raised his hand for silence.  He was getting instructions through his earphone from his director.  “Ready, Maddy?  I’ll introduce you.  You can work the first batter.  You know who he is?”

Madison
looked confidently at her mother.  “Yep, Loopy Birnbaum.  He swings the wood from both sides.  Castillo is a left-handed pitcher.  Birnbaum will take the right side of the plate to face him.”

An awestruck Steve looked as if he had just invented the wheel.  “Okay, Maddy, you’re incredible.  Get ready.”  He gave a thumbs-up sign to Paeton.

Paeton, still pleasantly flushed, turned from his look.

“Welcome back, sports fans.  Well, we have a pitcher’s duel going on here with the Dodgers and the Padres, the score tied at one apiece.  And we have a small treat for you.  Small in the form of my six-year-old friend Madison McPhilomy, daughter of the talented, and I may add beautiful, Paeton McPhilomy, best-selling romance writer.  Madison is going to do a little bit of play-by-play for us.  She’s friends with the son of Cam Fuller, pitcher for the New York Yankees.”

Madison
whispered in Steve’s ear, “Steve, my real name is Madison Smith, but that’s okay.  You probably didn’t know.”

Steve nodded understanding and continued his monologue.

Paeton was transfixed.  There sat one of her precious daughters, comfortably perched on the lap of the man she knew she must deny herself.  Because Steve Kaselman would be her undoing, and she knew it.  He would turn out to be “jock number three, you’re out”! 

This realization made her heart ache.  She loved the relationship between Madison and Steve.  Finding a father for Madison would be a difficult task, to say the least.  Why couldn’t she simply marry Fred and be done with the pain of seeking a new romantic relationship?

Steve had compounded the problem by reading her book.  Not only reading it, but understanding it and praising it.  He was hitting below the belt.  She wanted to beat on his wonderful chest and cry “Unfair!”   Because while she was beating him on the chest, she would want him to take her in his arms and kiss her a second time.

But what would happen if she kissed him again?  And again?  And again?  Which kiss would be the one that would lead her to that place she could never return from?  She shuddered.  Because she knew, if she once reached that sacred place, and his kisses stopped, she would be lost forever.  She would be forsaken without him.