Taylor Made Owens (31 page)

As time passed, Robert’s wrath diminished, and logic began to assert ascendancy over his emotions. Kristen was correct, he eventually concluded. Dominic’s ruin would mean his own; the price was far too high. He continued to hate Dominic, but learned to control it.

Just before he left the Arnold house, without Kim’s knowledge, he sat his son on his knee and showed him his Distinguished Service Cross. Two-year-old Brian was fascinated by the object and took it in his hands to examine it. He was far too young to know its significance, but Robert wanted his son to have it. Robert left it in his top dresser drawer, thinking Kim would get a nice surprise when she saw it.

After Robert left, Brian pushed over a chair and climbed on it to get the new prize Daddy left for him. He accidentally dropped it down a heating vent he’d opened to explore. Brian wanted it back, but it was gone, so he sat and cried.

F
our revolutions of the sun did the Earth traverse with little of note transpiring, except that 493 million people entered, and 205 million people exited, seven million at the hands of their fellow man. Robert, hard at his studies, took no notice of the world at large beyond baseball. At Berkeley, he was an excellent student, graduating
summa cum laude
with a degree in computer science, and he was a star pitcher for the Golden Bears baseball team, drafted by the Minnesota Twins in his senior year. He kept mostly to himself, the experiences in Iraq having made him more disinclined than ever to form relationships.

Soon after arriving in Berkeley, Robert began to think about Kristen and came to regret the way he had treated her. As time passed and the horror of what had befallen him steadily receded, it started to sink in what she and her father had done for him. She wasn’t blameless; she should have stood behind him when he needed her most. But it was him, he recognized, who started the avalanche when he cheated on her. He’d had no right to treat her the way he did. It wasn’t her fault any more than it was his. She had worked to exonerate him and almost died doing it, then stopped him from making the worst mistake of his life.

I didn’t even thank her
, he reflected with shame. It was a grievous error to reject her, he eventually concluded, but:
What can I do about it now?
It was just too awkward to call her, and as time passed, it became more so. He tried not to think about her.

All the while Kristen was in close proximity—across San Francisco Bay at Stanford University. She had decided that she would like to be a doctor specializing in childhood cancer. But the two never crossed paths, even though his team visited Stanford every year. One time, the two were within fifty paces of each other in a crowded concourse, but neither knew it.

•

At Stanford, Kristen did her pre-clinical work in two academic years, then her clinical work in sixteen months. She was a sensation there, impressing even the most exacting and stern of professors. Men were bewitched by the lovely maiden. Women either admired her or resented her depending on their disposition. She turned down dozens of requests for dates. The few times she accepted, she broke it off quickly, saying another possessed her heart.

“Who is this lucky guy, and why does he forsake this treasure?” everyone wondered. Her constancy toward him was remarkable. He had made an indelible impression on her as the best of his sex. Whether he deserved her veneration wasn’t the point, for the heart knows love, not logic. She loved him profoundly, and nothing—not time, not another man, not his rejecting her—would ever change that.

By the time Robert finished at Berkeley, Kristen was nearing the end of her first year as a pediatrics resident at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

During her first year in California, Kristen had called to ask Kim if she knew of his whereabouts, but she maintained she didn’t. Kristen found this hard to believe, since his son was there, and wondered whether Kim was hoping for a future together with him. Kim, as planned, had visited Robert a dozen times over the four years, but he showed no interest in her beyond the sexual, to her disappointment.

•

Jennifer was across the continent, still in New York City. After finishing high school, she had gone to work at her father’s advertising firm, starting as a secretary. Her father’s male colleagues, who couldn’t stop staring at her, suggested to him and her that she should do television commercials for the firm, a prospect that thrilled the young lady. With her father’s blessing, she began a successful career in commercials.

Her relationship with Kristen had improved after she left Canada. The two had begun talking on the phone and soon got into the routine of conversing for a half-hour or so every Sunday. Kristen had kept her apprised of how things were progressing with Robert until their denouement. Jennifer had shared her cousin’s tribulations through the trial, the thrill of his heroics in Iraq, and the heartbreak of his dismissal of Kristen. Not that Jennifer was displeased—she wasn’t over Robert herself—but she felt genuinely bad for her cousin. The two spent Kristen’s first spring break together in New York and enjoyed it so much they repeated the visit for the next four years.

Jennifer had begun to think about a career in acting and had gone to several auditions for plays, but was unsuccessful every time. Beauty wasn’t enough, she’d learned. One needed real acting talent to make it on the stage in New York. She’d decided to learn the craft, enrolling in expensive acting lessons offered by a private school run by former Broadway actors. Still, her success was limited to a few appearances on a soap opera.

Fortunately for her, a record producer saw her on the soap opera and saw star promise in her. That he’d never heard her sing is merely an obvious observation on the present state of the music industry. One simply needs to be young and pretty; talent in music is unnecessary. He asked her to audition a new song, and she was happy to comply. He liked what he saw and heard. Jennifer had an excellent voice.

“Krissy, I just recorded a song!” ejaculated Jennifer as soon as Kristen answered the phone that evening.

“Wow!” said her cousin.

“It should be released in about three months.”

“Congratulations, Jenny, I’m happy for you. My cousin, a pop star.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe my song will flop.” The two talked about the song for a few minutes, and Jennifer sang the chorus. Afterward, Jennifer continued, “What’s new with you?”

“Nothing nearly as exciting. Residents work long hours. I’m really enjoying pediatrics. My professor, Andrew, is fantastic.”

“Andrew? Are you on a first name basis with all your professors?”

“No, just him.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me, cuz?”

“Well, he really likes me. I like him, too.”

“Tell me about him.”

“He’s intelligent and caring. He’s tall and very handsome; he has blond hair and brown eyes. He’s a bit old, thirty-three, but he’s a marvelous teacher.”

“So is he enough to make you finally forget Bobby?”

“I’ll never forget him. I still love him, but I think I can live a happy life without him. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. Andrew has hinted he’d like to date me. I won’t be his student anymore as of August, and maybe we can start dating.”

•

After spending two stellar months in triple-A ball, Robert Peter Owens was called up to the major leagues on August 14
^th
. He made his debut for the Twins three days later in a game against the Red Sox in the sixth inning. His team was well behind, an ideal situation to bring in an untested rookie pitcher. The first batter up laced a line-drive base hit to right, which was worrisome, but he settled down after that, and ended up pitching one inning, allowing the one hit, one walk, and no runs. Trying to capture his feelings in one word is difficult, but here goes: electrified-blissful-proud-nervous-as-hell.

Sports reporters gathered around him after the game, asking the obvious. “How did it feel?”

“There is no word to capture how thrilled I am,” he replied. “It’s been my lifelong dream. I’m very grateful to the Twins for giving me a chance.”

He got home, a small apartment he’d just rented in Minneapolis, still excited, but soon became sullen because he had no one special with whom to celebrate the best occasion of his life. Robert sat there alone, drinking a bottle of expensive, award-winning wine that his uneducated palate could not prize, and looked out the window, thinking about his dad’s first day when he ruined his shoulder and how devastated he must have been. Then he thought of Kristen’s point that his father met his mother only because of that misfortune. For the first time, he understood what she was trying to convey. For the first time, he began to think how nice it would be to have someone to share his life with: to have a wife, to have Kristen.

“But she’s long gone and she probably hates me. I wonder about Jenny,” he said aloud to no one.

On August 29
^th
, Jeremy called Kristen and told her to turn on the TV to the sports network. There he was on TV, pitching for the Twins against Seattle. Pitching in long relief, he ended up winning the game: his first major league win. How ecstatic she was to find him, how proud she was of him, and how happy for him. After the game, Kristen went to her computer and found the Twins’ website. She checked the schedule and learned the team would be in Oakland the next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

To Oakland Dr. Taylor went that Tuesday. She got to the stadium a half-hour before game time to make sure she could get a good seat. “Can I get a seat close to where Minnesota’s pitchers sit?” she asked the woman in the ticket booth.

“I have some available seats in the second row next to the bullpen.”

“How far is that from the pitchers?” Kristen asked.

The lady looked over her glasses at her as if to say, “Shopping for a husband, dear?” She said, “The second row would be maybe ten feet away from the pitchers.” Too close for comfort.

Kristen bought a seat in the fourth row, donned her sunglasses, tucked up her hair under her new Twins cap, and walked into the stadium. The players were on the field warming up, she saw as she walked down the stairs toward her seat.

She spotted number 13 standing by the front row of seats, talking to several men.
Oh, God, it’s him!
she said to herself, taking in a deep breath and putting her left hand to her mouth. So emotional was she, her eyes and nose started to moisten, and so excited, goose bumps jumped up all over her body. Yet melancholy slowly began to eclipse her joy. He was right there, twenty feet away from her, but he might as well have been on the moon, so distant was the prospect of being with him. She took her seat and listened in on the badinage as best she could. The men with whom he was conversing were current and former Berkeley ballplayers here to see Robert play.

“What’s it like?” one asked.

“Well, I’m way too special to associate with you clowns anymore,” he joked. They jostled with him, shoving and laughing like little boys. This was heaven for him, Kristen knew. She overheard him giving his phone number to one of his former teammates. She jotted it down for safe-keeping.

A young boy approached Robert and asked him who he was. Robert answered. “Can you get his autograph for me?” the boy said pointing to another Twins pitcher. His friends hooted at that.

Robert asked the pitcher to sign the boy’s program, but he refused without his standard fifty-dollar fee. “Sorry, kid,” he said, “he charges for his autographs, but you can have mine for free if you want.”

“No,” said the boy, and his friends howled again. Kristen giggled, too.

“Hey, Owens,” jested one friend, “I’ll take your autograph if you pay me.” Robert pulled out a sawbuck, signed it, and gave it to him.

“Hey, Owens, you could charge fifty bucks for your autograph, too, if you did it on a hundred-dollar bill,” another of the guys joked.

Once the game got under way, he warned his friends to calm down. He was serious about baseball. He didn’t pitch that day, but Kristen enjoyed being there close to him.

Kristen called her cousin that evening with the exciting news. “I found him, Jenny!”

“Who? Bobby?”

“Yes. He’s a major league baseball player; he’s on the Minnesota Twins. I went to see him play today.”

“He made it, eh? I’m glad for him. He must be so happy. How did he react to you?”

“I was way too nervous to go near him. I just watched.”

“What about Andrew?” Jennifer asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Krissy, are you sure you want to open this can of worms again? With Bobby, I mean. It sounds like Andrew could be the best thing for you. I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

“Thanks, Jenny. It’s likely nothing will come of it anyway. A big league baseball player will get lots of female attention. I can’t see how I would have a chance for him anymore.”

“You say that, but you don’t really believe it, do you? You won’t give up on him, will you?”

“Not without trying once more for him.”

Jennifer said goodbye and muttered an oath.

Kristen went to the rest of the Twins games in Oakland that summer, but could never bring herself to approach him.

•

In early September, Jennifer’s song was released. Although the song wasn’t much good, it was among the best out at the time and went as high as number four on the charts, assisted by her sexy music video, which was later nominated for Video of the Year. The video was noticed by a certain Minnesota Twins pitcher. When he saw her as he was channel surfing on a lonely evening, he was again instantly spellbound, just like the fourteen-year-old who gazed with awe at her matchless beauty the first time they met. Unable to get her off his mind, he hacked into the record company’s computer system to get her number. But he couldn’t convince himself to dial it.

In mid-September, with the Twins in Toronto to play the Blue Jays, Robert asked Kim and his son to the city for the weekend. Kim enjoyed the wining and dining in the city with Robert, but was indisposed to hosting him in the hotel room at night with their son sleeping close by. “Don’t worry, he’s asleep,” Robert would say, but women have a hard time letting go when their children are nearby.