Heavy Hitter, page 5
“You water your own plants?”
“I do, as a matter of fact,” she informs him a little haughtily. “When I’m home.”
“Me too.”
“You have a lot of plants?”
“I have a farm, actually.”
“Wait.” That stops her. “Do you really?”
“Small one,” Jimmy admits. “Fourteen acres, up in Baltimore County.”
“What do you farm?”
“I don’t know,” he says, faintly embarrassed all of a sudden. The guys love to tell him how corny he is, how he’s Old MacDonald. On his birthday they got him overalls and a straw hat. “Regular farm shit. Vegetables, mostly. I’ve got a little orchard.”
“Animals?”
“Horses,” he says. “Some chickens. Coupla dogs.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, well.” Jimmy shrugs into the pillows. “I needed a project after my divorce. And I’m not really that into cars, so.”
“Yeah,” Lacey says. It sounds like she’s smiling. “I’m not really that into cars, either.”
“What are you into?” he asks, then realizes a beat too late that it sounds like . . . whatever it sounds like. He thinks again of her mouth, her cold hands skating over his chest and his stomach. She left a not-insignificant hickey on his collarbone, and he’s had to hide it from his team all weekend long. “Uh. When you’re not working, I mean.”
“I’m always working,” she says immediately, then seems to reconsider. “That sounds bleak.”
“Nah,” Jimmy lies. “I mean, I get it.”
“I guess I don’t actually have a lot of . . . like . . . hobbies?” she confesses, her voice quiet on the other end of the line. “I used to. I went through a knitting phase. I knit scarves for all my bus drivers on the last tour. I did sourdough during COVID. My starter was named Carole King. And I used to really like to go hear other musicians, to go to concerts and stuff.”
“Used to?” Jimmy asks.
“Well, yeah,” she says. “It can get kind of complicated, now that I’m—” She breaks off. “It can kind of be, like, thunder-stealing, you know? If I go. The attention is automatically all on me, which people are understandably not always crazy about.”
“Even if you’re low-key about it?” he asks. “Sit in the back, wear one of those glasses-and-funny-nose situations?”
“Low-key isn’t really a thing in my life,” Lacey admits. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. But after a while my fans started figuring out what shows I was most likely to be at and coming by to say hi.”
Coming by to say hi sounds like a euphemism for some real stalker-level shit if ever Jimmy has heard one, but he doesn’t say that out loud. “All your fans are in the Illuminati,” he teases instead. “They all think you’re trying to send them secret messages via the outfits you’re wearing on TikTok.”
“I mean, to be fair, I often am trying to send them secret messages via the outfits I’m wearing on TikTok.”
“Are you really?” Jimmy blinks. “Like, the . . . what do you call it, the numerology and shit? The hidden pictures?” Anagrams, too. He read about this, alone in bed in his hotel room the other night after the bar in New York, when he tried and failed not to careen down the Lacey Logan Internet Rabbit Hole. He thought there was no way it was a real thing, the idea that her social media feeds and album notes are all teeming with various winks and hints and puzzles, the solving of which purportedly opens the door to a deeper and more profound understanding of the life and times of one Lacey Elaine Logan: her love affairs and blood vendettas, the secretmost chambers of her heart and mind. This woman has 254 million amateur cryptologists following her on Instagram. The CIA should recruit them to break enemy code.
“Yeah,” Lacey confesses now, sounding a little sheepish. “It’s different, with my fans. It’s not—I mean, they’re special. It’s a game we’re playing together, that’s all. We have a whole little thing that we do.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious!”
“I can tell.”
“Yeah, and you think it’s totally fucking creepy.”
Jimmy considers that for a moment, trying to come up with an answer besides Yup! I totally fuckin’ do. “I think you’re objectively the most successful person I’ve ever met,” he tells her finally, which has the benefit of being the truth in addition to being a compliment, “so whatever you’re doing is working for you, and if you’re cool with it then it’s not really my business to judge it either way.”
Lacey grumbles quietly. “Good answer,” she admits grudgingly.
“Was it?” he asks. His back still hurts, so he gets up and walks around the room for a minute, trying to stretch it without making any embarrassing grunting noises. It’s dark in here, the TV flickering on mute and the AC humming quietly. It’s been a long time since he talked to anyone on the phone like this. “I’m trying.”
“I appreciate that,” Lacey says. “Also, my friend, let’s not forget that you’re literally a professional athlete. You’re going to sit there and tell me you don’t have any weird shit you do for your career?”
“I mean, yeah, I sit in a recycling bin full of ice for half an hour every morning and average, like, two surgeries a year.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” She laughs, full-throated and charming. “Tell me more about the ice.”
They stay on the line for a while longer, comparing their respective workout routines and the questionable diets they’ve attempted, the supplements and the juices and the shakes. Jimmy doesn’t mention his little March of Progress episode from this morning, how it took him the better part of an archaeological age to even stand upright. A bunch of other boring shit, he told her when she asked why he was retiring. No reason to advertise the gory details.
Finally Lacey lets out a quiet yawn—quick and ladylike, sure, but Jimmy pictures it before he can stop himself: her mouth open, the wet pink flash of her tongue. He wants to ask her if she’s in bed, if she’s lying down, how she touches herself when she’s alone in the darkness. He wants to get on a plane to Canada and finish what he started last Wednesday night. “All right, you,” he says instead, glancing at the alarm clock one more time and realizing it’s after two. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a game in eleven hours.”
“Try to hit a home run,” she advises.
“I will,” he promises. “If I manage it you’ll know it’s just for you, how about.”
“Mm-hmm,” Lacey agrees before yawning one more time, the sound of it like a secret thing between them. “I’ll know.”
* * *
HE HITS ONE, ACTUALLY.
He thinks about her as soon as the bat connects, her dark hair and soft neck and quick, brilliant smile. He knows the ball is gone before he even starts to run. Jimmy hauls ass anyway, the adrenaline coursing through him, his whole body quick and sleek and painless and the din of the crowd echoing in his head; when he finally slides home, covered in dust and sweat and bruises, for a moment the glare of the sun makes it too bright to see.
Chapter Seven
Lacey
WHEN LACEY WAKES UP ON SUNDAY MORNING, THERE’S A BLIND item about Jimmy and her on the landing page of the Sinclair.
HALL OF FAME, reads the headline on the hot pink gossip site. Which uberfamous pop princess was spotted enjoying America’s Favorite Pastime at a downtown NYC club earlier this week? Sources say the chart-topping songstress and not-quite-World-Series-winning MLB catcher were seen looking awfully cozy before leaving together through a side exit—presumably to, shall we say, round the ol’ bases?
Lacey grits her teeth, one single firework of panic exploding deep inside her chest before she manages to douse it. It’s not a big deal, she reminds herself firmly. She knew this would probably happen, and she planned accordingly. She’s in control of her narrative; she teaches her fans how to read her. She is, and always has been, her own Rosetta Stone.
She texts Maddie to give her the heads-up, then hesitates for a moment before scrolling to Matilda’s name in her contacts. Hey, she types. You didn’t happen to say anything to anybody about me and Jimmy Hodges, did you?
Matilda texts back right away: Of course not! she says, complete with the zipped lips emoji. I would never.
Then, a moment later: Why, was there something to say?
Lacey gets back to LA just after ten a.m. Pacific, putting Henrietta Lang on the stereo and walking around the house for a while, getting reacclimated. Her place—her compound, technically, though that word makes her sound like the leader of a fundamentalist sex cult and she doesn’t like to use it—is in Malibu: four outbuildings, a recording studio, and a full gym, plus a cantilevered living room in the main house with a huge wall of windows that juts out over the ocean. The glass is tinted so nobody can see in—they were worried about people coming by in boats, which is in fact a thing that happens sometimes—but still Lacey finds herself avoiding that room altogether if she can help it. Something about being in there makes her feel like she’s always onstage.
She’s standing at the kitchen island dumping some flaxseed into a cup of yogurt when her phone dings with a text. Lacey looks at it hopefully, but it’s just Claire wanting to know if the house was ready and whether she got settled okay. Yes! Lacey reassures her. Claire has the next few days off, but she coordinated with the West Coast team so Lacey’s fridge was stocked and the blinds were open, the thermostat set to 69.5 degrees just how she likes. The housekeeper will be by in the morning. The chef left three days’ worth of meals. Now go enjoy your break!
Will do, Claire replies. Talk to you Wednesday!
Lacey nods, satisfied. She has a reputation as a generous employer, openhanded with time off and bonuses, and she likes to think that she deserves it; still, she can’t help but feel a little bit bereft at the thought of Claire turning off her work phone and going back to her actual life. She told Jimmy she was going to spend time with friends while she’s here, which was technically true—she’s having lunch with a hip female movie director tomorrow, and she always sees Maddie when she’s in town—but the truth is that for an undeniably famous and arguably beloved public figure, Lacey has never been exactly what one might call . . . popular. With actual people. In her actual life.
Well, she amends reflexively, even though there’s nobody here to spin the PR for, that’s not entirely true. In her twenties she did the whole girl-gang thing, a high-profile best friendship with a model named Cora that ended in a spectacular inferno when Cora’s boyfriend came on to Lacey at a party, Lacey admittedly did not rebuff him quite as quickly as she might have, and Cora leaked a bunch of Lacey’s texts to the Sinclair in retaliation. Lacey sold 2.5 million albums about it, then swore off public-facing friendships altogether, which was actually less lonely than it sounds, since she was dating Toby by then and he didn’t particularly like to share her. Still, once that relationship imploded it occurred to Lacey that maybe she should have tried a little harder to find a pal who wanted to get a casual cup of coffee from time to time, since when it comes to people who aren’t her mother and who don’t work for her who she talks to with any regularity, there’s, like . . . Matilda. There are a couple of girls from her performing arts high school back in Cincinnati, one who does Hallmark movies in Vancouver ten months out of the year and one who lives in Akron and has four daughters in competitive dance. And—well.
There’s Jimmy Hodges, now.
Maybe.
Lacey pulls up the Orioles’ regular-season schedule on her phone, even though she already did that earlier this morning, and yesterday also. They’re playing an afternoon game today, then leaving from Target Field to head home to Baltimore. She googles Jimmy Hodges + People magazine, scrolling a “50 Most Beautiful” photo shoot from a couple of years ago that she has also already perused on more than one occasion. She googles the flight time from Minnesota to BWI.
“Enough,” she mumbles finally, setting her phone down on the counter. She pulls out her notebook instead to distract herself, flopping down on the sofa in the den with the same kind of Five Star wide-ruled spiral situation she’s been using since she was thirteen. She’s been writing like crazy the last few days, the lyrics falling out of her brain almost faster than she can get her hand to move. She knows what people say, obviously—Lacey Logan can’t bump into a guy in line at a Starbucks without making a double album about it, or whatever—but she hadn’t written anything since she and Toby split and it feels nice to tap into that part of herself again, to put pen to paper, to hum the melodies under her breath. She feels most like herself when she’s writing, though she doesn’t think anyone would necessarily believe it. She knows she’s always been a spectacle first.
She’s plucking experimentally at the strings on her guitar when her mom calls. “Who’s Jenny Haines?” she asks, when Lacey answers.
“The designer,” Lacey reminds her, getting up off the sofa and padding back into the kitchen for some water. Her fingers are a little crampy from gripping the pen. She remembers Jimmy periodically shaking his hands out back in New York City, wonders how much pain he’s actually in at any given moment. Wonders if he’d trust her enough to tell her, if she asked. “You told me to send you her info, remember? For the house?”
“What?” Her mom sounds annoyed. “I didn’t do that.”
“You did,” Lacey says patiently. This happens sometimes: whole conversations her mom has no recollection of having, lost to a haze of alcohol and her own distraction. Lacey tries not to tell her anything particularly salient after two thirty p.m.
“I didn’t,” her mother insists now. “She’s the one who did your Nashville place, isn’t she? That isn’t actually my favorite of yours, to be honest. I don’t think I’d want to use her myself.”
“Okay,” Lacey agrees now, which is generally the easiest way to handle it if she doesn’t want to have an argument. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“Well, you’ve got a lot on your mind,” her mom says magnanimously. “How was the weekend?”
Lacey fills her in on the first three Toronto shows, on the mistake she made last night during “Fameland.” “You know,” her mom says thoughtfully, “now that you mention it, I’ve always thought there was an extra step in that choreography.”
“There is?” Lacey blinks. Her mom was a college cheerleading coach when Lacey was small, taking her team to Nationals seven years running before she quit to start bringing Lacey to auditions full time. She wasn’t a stage mom—Lacey is always careful to clarify this point in interviews—but she was exacting. She expected a lot. “Where?”
“Right where you’re talking about,” her mom says impatiently. “Trying to execute three full turns in that break before the bridge is asking for trouble. You’re showboating, that’s all. Lose one and it’ll give you an extra beat to hit your mark.”
“Huh.” Lacey thinks about that for a moment, though as soon as the words are out she knows her mom is right. Frankly she’s annoyed at herself for not seeing it first. “I didn’t even know you were still paying attention to my choreography.”
“Of course I’m still paying attention to your choreography.” Her mother sounds unperturbed. “Are you kidding me? I could probably do your choreography. Any of your dancers goes out on disability, you could slot me right in.”
Lacey laughs before she can stop herself, only the laugh turns into something else on the way out and Lacey has to swallow it again like a too-big shard of tortilla chip, scraping her throat on the way down. It’s disorienting, sometimes, when her mom acts like the person Lacey remembers from when she was younger: the two of them eating Tuna Helper for dinner in the apartment they moved into after Lacey’s dad left, watching music videos on VH1. In some ways, it almost feels worse than when she’s too drunk to stand. “Okay. Well. Thank you.”
By the time they hang up Lacey feels itchy and restless and sad for no reason, pacing the empty house looking for something she can’t quite name. She’s going to get a new place after the tour, she decides suddenly: some weird bungalow in the Hollywood Hills, maybe, something full of crystals where she can invite Stevie Nicks over for jam sessions. Beaded curtains in the doorway. Lots of pink. Michelle Pfeiffer’s apartment in Batman Returns, basically, only expensive. Something Toby would absolutely hate.
She heats up some grilled chicken and vegetables in the microwave. She scrolls through her social media tags. Finally she picks up her phone. It’s a little past ten on the East Coast, and as soon as Lacey flicks to Jimmy’s name in her contacts she realizes she’s been waiting to do this all day—that, even if she didn’t explicitly admit it to herself, she’s been planning it since the moment they hung up last night. Hell, there’s a part of her that’s been planning it since she saw him across the room in New York. You’ve never in your life come into a human interaction without an endgame, Toby told her once, and while she knows he probably didn’t mean it as a compliment, in Lacey’s opinion that kind of strategy is just good sense and self-preservation. There’s nothing she hates more than being surprised.
“Hey,” Jimmy says when he answers. “I was hoping you’d call.”
“Really?” Lacey winces at the sound of it, a full click too eager. God, sometimes she is so acutely aware that there’s a universe in which she never got famous at all and is instead a children’s librarian wearing whimsical dresses printed with cats riding bicycles, trying unsuccessfully to connect with guys on Bumble. “I mean. You were?”
“Yeah,” he says easily, sounding completely unselfconscious about it. She likes his phone voice, how it’s low and a little bit grumbly, how he always sort of sounds like he just woke up. “You back in LA?”
“I am,” she admits, hoping it doesn’t occur to him to wonder why she isn’t out doing something fabulous. “What about you—home to tend to your goats?”
“I’m in the city tonight, actually,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve got a condo in Fells Point.”
