Painting the Corners Read online

  Bobby Lee had returned to the house in Tileston while recuperating, and stayed there between visits to the Pittsburgh ophthalmologists. When he got their final diagnosis and discussed his options with his mother, she sided with the doctors. She had come to believe strongly that what wasn’t meant to be couldn’t be changed. It was better, she felt, to take whatever life let you have, but not reach out dangerously far for what seemed, enticingly, almost within one’s grasp. She played catch with Bobby Lee a couple of times and noticed that he moved his glove into place very late for some of her throws, instead of having it there waiting for the ball to arrive.

  When Bobby Lee made the decision that ended his baseball career, he told Roselynn that he wanted to move back to the farm in Plainfield with his two uncles and earn his living that way. He said that he intended to take courses at an agricultural college and learn the most up-to-date methods of farming. Both brothers were married and had families, but were eager to have their nephew work along with them. They made plans for adding several more rooms to the house.

  Roselynn knew he’d be happy doing what he liked, but regretted the fact that Bobby Lee would never be able to earn much more than he needed to get by, especially when he had a family of his own. She often thought about the tragedies in their lives and how differently things might have turned out. Sometimes, her reflections about the past were suddenly interrupted by the bursting of a large bubble she didn’t even realize she had blown.

  As the years passed, the cardboard box company where Roselynn was employed expanded. She was promoted several times until she reached the top clerical position as administrative assistant to the president. The Whitman Insurance Agency did very well also. Sarah and Neal asked Roselynn to head up another branch they wanted to open in Cushing, at the point of a triangle almost equidistant from Knoxville and Tileston, to the north. But she refused, and advised them to find another partner their own age instead.

  Not long afterward, just before she turned 30, Sarah met a lawyer named Mark Bailey in Knoxville and fell in love with him. At first, she talked about a one-year engagement, but reduced it to four months when she began to have concerns about her biological clock. The reception, following the wedding in Tileston, was arranged by Roselynn and Sam’s sister, Belle, from Chattanooga. The couple decided to move into Sarah’s room in the house and save money for their own home. At the same time, Mark agreed to leave the firm he was with and open a law office in Cushing that would also offer insurance services through the Whitman agency.

  * * *

  Roselynn didn’t make an appointment to see the doctor until the third time she felt a sudden stab of pain in her stomach within the space of two months. The blood tests and X rays that followed revealed a tumor in one of her kidneys, and the operation that took place about a week afterwards indicated that the cancer cells had spread too far to be controlled by any treatment. When Roselynn understood that her life was probably going to be measured in months, not years, she made a trip to Memphis to see Etta and to have a will drawn up by Mason, the wonderful lawyer Etta had married.

  Back home, Roselynn gave up her job and spent the better part of a week on the farm she had once owned. While she was there, she intended to let Bobby Lee know what the doctors told her, but didn’t want to dampen her son’s happiness when she was introduced to the girl Bobby Lee said he was sure he was going to marry. Roselynn liked her very much, thinking that Kathy reminded her of herself at that age. She was content with the thought that his life was soon going to be a full one.

  She asked Bobby Lee to drive her out to the cemetery so she could visit her husband’s grave. She also wanted to look around at where she would soon be resting herself. Bobby Lee left her alone for a few minutes, long enough for Roselynn to bend down by the pink-shaded granite marker and whisper some thoughts to the man she had always loved.

  “We’ve got a fine son, Bob, and he would have played for the Pittsburgh Pirates if he didn’t get hurt. I told you he’d get all those good genes from us. Now he’s farming the land we bought, with your two brothers, and you should see what they’ve done to it. It’s beautiful, the kind of place you dreamed of making it.”

  Roselynn closed her eyes and could picture her husband, just 22 years old, turning her to the four points of the compass and telling her excitedly of his plans for the farm in each direction. “Today,” she continued, “I met the girl Bobby Lee’s in love with and she’s everything we could hope for. I know just what I’m going to give them for a wedding present, Bob. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. In fact you’d laugh out loud and say I was either crazy or making it up, but it’s going to do just fine. I know it will, and I’ll be able to tell you all about it soon.”

  Roselynn died in her sleep, three weeks later, before the pain they warned her about began. Shortly after the funeral, Sarah and Neal decided to sell the Tileston house, each intending to use half the proceeds for another home in Knoxville. Neither one suggested that any of the money be given to Bobby Lee. They knew that he could sell the large diamond ring he’d be getting from his mother, the one Sam gave her when they got married. They also assumed that Roselynn left whatever money she had to her son.

  Etta’s husband, Mason Turner, drove in from Memphis a couple of weeks later to meet with the family and let them know what was in the will. They sat around the dining room table and listened to him read off each of the bequests. Roselynn had specified that whatever savings she had left after the payment of her bills and burial expenses be given to Bob’s brothers, thanking them again for coming to the farm when Bob went off to war. She wanted Sarah to have her diamond ring, the gift from Sam, and expressed the hope that she would always wear it and pass it on to one of her children. “Your father would like that,” she had written. And Neal was to receive Roselynn’s Pontiac, only a year old and fully paid for.

  Sarah and Neal looked at each other and then glanced at Bobby Lee. There wasn’t anything left for Roselynn to leave him that either of them could think of. Bobby Lee sat with his hands folded, watching Mason Turner. He knew that there was still something more to be disposed of by his mother’s will, something for him. He just had no idea what it was.

  The lawyer continued reading: “And finally, to my son, Bobby Lee, the best twenty-year-old baseball player I ever saw, I leave all the baseball cards I’ve collected since I began chewing bubble gum. They are your inheritance and my wedding gift to you and your future bride. I hope they’ll make you both very happy.”

  Sarah waited for Neal to stop staring at Bobby Lee and look back at her. She wondered now, in view of everything she had heard, whether Roselynn’s illness had caused her to lose her senses before making out her will or whether she had some reason, unknown to them, for wanting to shame her son in this way.

  Neal’s thoughts were exactly the same. Of course, since neither of them knew anything about baseball, they had no idea that the collectors’ market was suddenly assigning rapidly escalating values to such things as a 1935 card showing Babe Ruth in his Boston Braves uniform — his last year of play in the Major Leagues; or a series of Ted Williams cards that covered his entire career, from his rookie season in 1939 to his last in 1960; or those detailing Joe DiMaggio’s rise to the pinnacle among outfielders, including the one from 1941 when he went on his incredible 56-game hitting streak and was voted the league’s most valuable player.

  The Ty Cobb card that Roselynn impulsively purchased at a flea market for $30 in 1947, when Sam told her to buy herself whatever she wanted to celebrate their first anniversary, was already worth 50 times more than she had paid for it. It was put out during one of the years Cobb hit over .400 and won the batting title. Roselynn’s collection included the rookie cards of every player who made it to the Major Leagues between 1938 and 1967, the season that recently ended. And it was full of cards issued by Topps and competing companies that featured many of the game’s greatest performers who had gone into baseball’s Hall of Fame since the first induction at Cooperstown
in 1939. All in all, there were a total of almost 4600 cards in the stack of shoeboxes in which they had been carefully put away.

  Roselynn almost failed to mention the collection when Mason Turner questioned her about everything she owned and could give away when she died. She was surprised to find out that he was a baseball card enthusiast himself, and was astonished, to the point of joyful tears, at what he told her the cards she had saved for so many years were worth.

  When Bobby Lee returned to the farm that day, he and Mason spent some time sorting through the collection. They discovered that almost every card was in mint condition, still inside the wrapping of the gum packages in which they came. Afterwards he went to his clothes closet and removed a cardboard box from one of the far corners. In it were the scrapbooks Roselynn had given him of his father and her. They were filled with stories and snapshots taken of them in baseball uniforms, some during the action in a game. Bobby Lee turned the pages of one of the books until he found what he remembered seeing many years earlier. It was a picture in black and white of a lovely Memphis Mudder, her eyes wide open in amazement, with bubble gum all over her nose and mouth. The bubble had burst an instant before the camera recorded the scene. Bobby Lee smiled. He intended to get the picture blown up as large as he could before it was framed.

  •

  THE KANSAS CITY KID

  •

  “If I ever find a pitcher who has heat, a good curve and a slider, I might seriously consider marrying him, or at least proposing.”

  —Sparky Anderson

  THE RESTAURANT WAS called “Sir Sirloin,” and it was located on the west side of Kansas City, about a home run’s distance from Missouri’s border with neighboring Kansas. He had suggested meeting in the main dining room at the Crown Center or at the quieter Alameda Plaza Hotel which was walking distance from his condominium. She pushed for something away from the center of town where she thought the chances of him being recognized were less likely.

  Gregg Talbot parked his car in an open lot on Independence Avenue and walked slowly down Jason’s Crossing. It was a narrow side street, with no automobile traffic, allowing pedestrians to cut through to Nevada Avenue without having to walk all around the block. Many of those who took advantage of its convenient location were in no hurry, and stopped to window-shop at the boutiques that gave the alleyway its character. The pace reminded him of being a tourist on the main street of a small resort town.

  At times, Talbot looked carefully through his designer sunglasses at the faces of people walking in the opposite direction to see whether he caught a glimmer of recognition in their eyes as they came closer. He had become a star attraction in the city during his thirteen years there, one of its best-known celebrities. Anyone who followed baseball knew that he had been the outstanding pitcher on the Royals staff for most of that time. This was only his first season of inactivity, of being out of the game. Damned if he’d say retirement, he thought, because he certainly hadn’t quit on his own.

  In just three weeks, on the Sunday before Labor Day, Talbot would be 39 years old. He was in excellent physical condition, although he’d put on about ten pounds since early April when the baseball season got under way. That’s when his agent called with the discouraging news that no team had expressed any interest in signing him. He had given himself four months to see if things changed, hoping that a contender in either league would find itself short on pitching and come after him. But by July, when it was easy to see which ball clubs needed help, none of them called. So he had recently begun to think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

  Talbot was a bachelor and still enjoyed the singles scene. He was the prey of dinner party hostesses craving the presence of a well-known personality who was unattached and could be counted on to exhibit a lively and sometimes shocking sense of humor. Talbot had the looks that made hearts swoon. He was handsome, with a smile that punctuated the stories he told, and an athletic body that advertised his virility. The suntan he picked up in Florida during the winter, where he owned a condominium close to the Royals’ spring training site in Vero Beach, stayed with him the rest of the year. Its color was an attractive complement to his wavy blond hair, which he no longer allowed to grow as long as he did when he was a player.

  Inside the restaurant, the maitre d’ told him that Ms. Edwards hadn’t yet arrived, but invited him to have a seat at a table in the far corner. Talbot preferred to wait in the small lounge adjacent to the entrance. He sat on a leather stool at the bar and ordered a glass of Perrier with a twist of lime. Two men sitting kitty-corner to him were talking about the game the Royals had blown the night before in the last inning. Talbot saw one whisper to the other and then pretended not to notice as the man’s companion turned slightly around and tried to glance nonchalantly in his direction.

  He still couldn’t figure out why Michelle wanted to see him. “What’s up?” he’d asked her when the call came three days earlier, but she made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss the subject until they were together. He lost a good part of a night’s sleep wondering whether the thing on her mind might possibly involve his return to the Royals’ pitching staff before the season was over. The next morning he classified it under wishful thinking.

  Talbot met Michelle Edwards during his first season in Kansas City, where he had been traded by the California Angels. In his first five years in the Big Leagues in Anaheim, he’d won 52 games. He had been called up from the minor leagues just after his twentieth birthday, and was often referred to in the Orange County press as the team’s “pitcher of the future.” But the Angels’ management thought he was losing his skills when his record fell to nine wins and thirteen losses in what turned out to be his last year with that team.

  Michelle was three years younger than he and had graduated from the University of Michigan the year before he arrived in Kansas City. Wayne Lancaster, the owner of the Royals, was her uncle, and had given her pretty much free rein around the ballpark. Talbot was attracted to her when they met and thought of asking her out on several occasions, but was afraid of upsetting Lancaster. Ballplayers did not have good reputations, especially those who, like Gregg, had not finished college. Besides, he noticed that she was often showing some male friend around the park while the team practiced in the afternoon, and he could see her holding hands with one or another of them at different times. He kept his feelings to himself, and began going out with some of the women whose names and telephone numbers showed up in the little black books of his new teammates.

  Lancaster pushed hard for Michelle to go to business school and get an advanced degree. She resisted, but finally, two years after receiving her Bachelor of Arts, she returned to Michigan. But the competition was too overwhelming for her, and she withdrew shortly after the start of the second semester. Michelle returned to Kansas City and found work in a large public relations firm. Her appearances at the ballpark, even for the games themselves, were far less frequent over the next several years.

  On one occasion, when she sat in the first row of box seats next to the Royals’ dugout, Michelle complained to Gregg before the game about the excessive number of hours she was working at her firm. She was expected to be in the office for ten or more hours a day and to host dinner meetings at the city’s best restaurants afterwards. There, the marketing strategy was to entertain prospective clients over a sumptuous meal and attempt to persuade them to switch their PR needs to Michelle’s firm.

  Another time, when Lancaster’s wife, Loretta, passed away suddenly, Gregg had a chance to sit and talk with Michelle at the funeral home. He realized then, listening to her, that she was troubled by some of the work she did. She questioned the integrity of certain campaigns she handled, and was discouraged by the constant pressure to steal clients from the competition. He played the role of a good listener on both occasions and said very little. He was afraid of depressing her even further by the opinions he might offer. But he came away from the second conversation convinced that she w
ould soon be doing something else.

  And he was right. Several months later Wayne Lancaster brought Michelle to the Royals to oversee both public relations and the team’s charitable activities. She was 27 at the time. Gregg didn’t know whether she had gone after the job or whether Lancaster wanted his only niece to start learning the business so she could run the ball club herself when he retired. Talbot had overheard conversation in the Kansas City locker room years earlier about how Lancaster’s son, his only child, had been killed in an automobile accident. It had occurred barely a month after getting his driver’s license when he stopped to help a disabled car on the road.

  A lot of Michelle’s PR work for the club had involved getting Talbot to speak at various civic organization lunches, and to appear before groups of school children to warn them about drugs. He was welcomed everywhere because he had become the team’s best pitcher, averaging twenty wins a season in his first six years in Kansas City. He was also one of its most popular players.

  He was thinking about some of his best seasons with the Royals when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Hi, Gregg. I’m a little late, I guess. Sorry.”

  He got off the stool, smiled, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “No, no, I just got here a few minutes ago,” he said, not realizing that almost half an hour had passed while he nursed his drink in the lounge.

  She was wearing a smart canary-yellow jacket over a powder-blue blouse. They were the colors of the sun in the sky on a perfect summer day. Her black hair was cut shorter than he remembered it the last time he saw her, almost five months earlier, and he liked what it did for her. It certainly made him take notice of her long earrings, a string of differently shaped plastic pieces in an assortment of hues, held together by springy metal coils. Michelle’s face, smiling back at him, showed that she had taken plenty of time getting ready for their meeting.