Taylor Made Owens (7 page)

But no one he knew cared for the sport, so no one cared how good he was at it. It frustrated him that his talent in baseball earned him no recognition, let alone admiration among those who knew him. Girls flocked around the great hockey players and football players, but his being the best baseball player by far in the city garnered shoulder shrugs.

Baseball could have been a good avenue for Robert to make friends, but that went nowhere. The game came so naturally to him, he couldn’t comprehend how others seemed to find it so difficult. The game was so important to him—in his mind, baseball was his most promising means of escape from indigence and social oblivion—he took exception when bad plays or bad calls affected his record, and thus his chances of getting noticed by a scout. He’d often lose his composure with teammates over botched plays and scream reprimands not calculated to endear him to anyone such as, “Christ, don’t we have a first baseman who can catch the damn ball!”

He’d constantly argue with umpires over their incompetent calls, often cursing or throwing his cap or his glove down in frustration and getting tossed from the game. His parents would never have tolerated this behavior, but they were gone. His coaches tried to reign in his excesses, but didn’t feel they had the authority to get too harsh. Combine his poor sportsmanship with vanity over his talent and envy over that talent, and none of his teammates liked him.

At school, the story was analogous. With an IQ sixty-two points higher than average, relating to his typical classmate was a little like that classmate trying to relate to a mentally retarded peer with an IQ of thirty-eight. Teachers, with a few notable exceptions, were too inept or unmotivated to challenge him with advanced material; standard high school fare was well beneath his capabilities, so he spent most of his time bored to death. He had a tendency to ask questions that most teachers couldn’t answer, which undermined the respect they got from other students. He regularly disputed the statements they made, which also conduced to disrespect. Had his parents been there to guide him, they would have subdued his arrogance and disrespect, and ensured he was in the best learning environment lest his gifts stagnate, but they were gone. His teachers tried to assert their power when he got unruly, but he only respected authority when it was earned and wielded with competence. Few teachers met his standards. He was a regular at the office. Not able to trust anyone and wary about forming relationships, he seemed unfriendly to most people, which was impertinent of a guttersnipe.

There he would sit, now on the bus, now in class, now in the cafeteria—surrounded by people, but all alone. Classmates construed his isolation as aloofness. No one liked him, and no one felt sorry for him.

Hence, this young man, blessed by nature with charm, looks, athletic talent, humor, and brilliance, had no friends whatever, the continuing toll of the calamity that befell him at age eight. Only Kristen and Jennifer saw him for what he was. Most everyone else saw a low-class, yet conceited, foster child, someone to look down on.

With the end of the school year, the Taylors migrated northwest to their cottage. Kristen renewed her relationship with Dominic. Dominic thought Kristen had matured nicely over the past year and he moved in for the conquest. Talk about poles apart from Robert. He took her for drives in his Mercedes convertible, took her around the lake in his powerboat, raced with her on jet skis, took her for expensive dinners—and gave her a gold necklace, which she accepted this time. He was an egoist, often bragging about himself and forever descanting on what he had, but those were excusable faults in the context of a two million-dollar cottage on the lake.

She didn’t know the half of it with Dominic. Some might describe him as dissipated, but others weren’t so kind. His fortune came from his father’s dealings in the illicit diamond trade. Daddy had found he could get diamonds cheap, while fueling insurgencies in some African nations. Rebel groups used the money from the sale of these diamonds to buy weapons to continue killing anyone who got in the way. Government troops killed rebels when they could, and anyone else who got in the way. Hundreds of thousands had died—but no one important to the Solanos. Dominic, who was as malevolent as his father, but not as smart, continued his father’s ways, and dabbled in cocaine pushing to make his own indelible mark on the community.

Kristen, pure of soul, saw only the good in people. Overlooking their foibles and blind to their perfidy, she had no real conception of evil. This was an enchanting quality—she had nothing but—although it could be hazardous, like walking blindfolded along the precipice of the Grand Canyon. Dominic seemed a bit shady—consorting with shifty-looking rogues, for example—but that was exciting to this young girl. More exciting, in any event, than the cold shoulder from a cold boy. It was easy to forget Robert while she was enjoying herself so much with Dominic. Few teenage girls would feel different. They might have got serious had it not been for her father’s constant warnings that Dominic was a libertine and for the other four girls he was entertaining in similar fashion.

By summer’s end, he was getting so serious about this wonderful girl that he dumped two of the other girls and devoted his extra time to wooing Kristen. She was the only one who wouldn’t come across with what she owed him for all his effort and expense, and he meant to exact payment. She had no intention of letting him go very far, though. Dominic’s attempt ended when Shannon, one of the dispossessed women, broke in on them, and spoiled the mood with her screaming and crying.

•

Robert passed the summer playing baseball, reading, watching TV and hanging around. He managed to get two lawns to mow at twenty dollars each. He might have got more but for a key shortcoming: no lawnmower. The two who hired him had their own and allowed him to use it.

One customer will feature in our story: Kim Arnold, a svelte woman of sandy hair, fair complexion, and stunning hazel eyes. A widow in her mid-twenties who’d lost her husband almost two years prior courtesy of a drunk driver, she was affluent, smart, nice, lovely, and alone, which is a superior set of traits for any woman. There were swains aplenty, but she couldn’t conceive of remarrying, so in love had she been with her husband. Still, she enjoyed attracting men and would parade around her pool in a bikini while Robert was cutting the grass every Wednesday. Afterward, she would invite him to sit with her for a soft drink, and he would take the opportunity to study her titillating features while her head was turned. She turned her head often to foment his indulgence.

Jennifer went to live and work with her father in New York City for the summer. After turning thousands of male heads and turning down many dozens of pleas for dates—her father wouldn’t permit it—she ended the summer on a vainglorious high. Upon her return in late August, she exercised her conceit by demanding a pledge of fealty from Robert. When he returned the usual response, she snapped, “Your loss. Good riddance!”

But as she walked out, she thought she’d better ensure her cousin couldn’t intrude on her turf in case she decided to tread on it again. She turned around and said, “You seem to think you can get any girl because you had Krissy and me on a string for a while. Well, I have guys after me who put you to shame and I’m going to start dating them. And Krissy’s been dating some rich guy all summer, so you’ve lost her, too. She might well flirt with you again, but it’ll mean nothing. Her reputation at school is that she thinks no guy is good enough for her.” This was true; her standards for boys were in the stratosphere, but a girl possessed of all conceivable lures for ensnaring a man could afford to be persnickety. “She’ll be the friendliest girl in the world, but the minute any guy shows interest she turns cold on him.”

Jennifer knew precisely what button to push to set off his alarm. He immediately became suspicious of Kristen’s interest in him. “That leaves you with no one,” she concluded, as she walked out.

•

Back home after summer break, Kristen tried out her machinations on Robert. “I met a rich, handsome guy this summer. I’m really serious about him,” she told him.

“Oh, who is the poor bastard?”

Taken aback, she paused for a moment, then said, “He is definitely not poor.”

“But he is a bastard?”

“No. His name is Dominic Solano—of Solano Jewelers. We spent a lot of time together this summer.”

“Of Solano Jewelers?” Robert repeated, chortling. “He gave you that gold chain, I suppose?” Kristen nodded and smiled. “Well, I’m Bob Owens of defunct parents and all I have to give you is this,” he sneered, and he stuck out his tongue at her. “He’s all yours, Taylor. I guess that means I can’t have you,” he said, feigning tears and wiping his dry eyes. “Ah, shucks, that leaves only a billion other girls. So long.”

Kristen sighed. She tried to convince herself she liked Dominic better anyhow, but it was no use. When she wasn’t with Dominic, she was hard-pressed to specify why she was attracted to him outside of his looks and his means. When she wasn’t with Robert, she’d think of his hilarious remarks, of their inspiring conversations, of his alluring eyes, of him saving Jennifer’s life—in a word, of the
exhilaration
she felt when he was near. She often missed Robert; she never missed Dominic. And, oddly, she didn’t get jealous of Dominic, even though she now knew there was another girl—as Shannon had demonstrated—but the thought of Robert with another girl made her ill-tempered.

The two stayed on the outs until an opportunity for reconciliation came at friend’s party in early October. Caroline Carter, Kristen’s hard-looking friend, hosted one and invited Robert at Kristen’s request. When Kristen got to the party, Robert was already downstairs. Caroline came up to her and announced, “You, like, wanted to find out what Owens really thinks of you? Like, I gave him something to loosen his tongue.”

“What did you give him?” Kristen enquired.

“Just a glass of beer with, like, three ounces of straight alcohol in it. It’s, like, 180 proof. That one beer will be like drinking a six pack.”

“You shouldn’t have done that. He might get sick.”

“Yes, Miss Prissy,” teased Caroline. “It’s already done, so go downstairs and see how he, like, reacts to you.”

Kristen wandered downstairs and saw him applying himself to the spiked drink, and watching music videos. He was strewn across the couch in an attitude of supine ennui. She attempted to play it cool, but the unwitting smile and radiant eyes he impelled in her had become more obvious of late, which unmasked her true feelings. Her shimmering eyes caught his attention, and he stared for a time with a warm smile of his own, a thrilling turn of events for the enamored girl.

The liquor quickly took hold of his senses. The room began to gyrate, as though his drunkenness had overflowed to unsettle the very gravity around him. Robert got up and wavered. Steadying himself, he sashayed up to Kristen, trying to be cool by stepping to the thump of the song then blaring, but missing every beat by a second or so. “Where’sss Derrick?” he asked.

“You mean Dominic?”

“Derrick, Dominic. They both begin with duh and end in ick.”

“I haven’t seen him since August.”

“Sssit with me on the couch,” he suggested, while plummeting past it to the floor.

“You missed,” she pointed out, while laughing and taking a seat.

“I did not,” he answered before looking at his body—at least, he thought it was his—slumped on the floor, and determining the preponderance of evidence was with her. “Come on down here then,” he resumed, grabbing her foot and pulling. She slid off the couch, landing next to him. He leaned his head against hers and put his arms around her. “Taylor, you are
ssso
cute,” he proclaimed with such feeling he had to twist his head back and forth as he said “ssso” to express it all. Then he kissed her.

Astonished and elated, she was breathing quickly and casting at him that adoring gaze that young women besotted can’t suppress in passionate moments that says, “I want to have your children!” (Or maybe it means, “Touch me again like that, and I’ll see to it you never have children!”) Hers was a primal, subconscious response, her biology asserting itself.
Our first kiss: October second
, she mused. “Please stop calling me Taylor. Call me Krissy.”

“I thought only family could call you that,” he remarked.

“Anyone I feel really close to,” she declared, looking earnestly into his eyes. She threw her arms around him and attacked his mouth with hers.

Just when it seemed her fantasy was coming true, her cousin came downstairs and joined them. None of the boys at school could hold her interest, and she wanted Robert back. She wore jeans and a form-fitting white shirt with no bra, and snatched his undivided attention, except between left and right. He released Kristen and went for her cousin, grabbing her hand and yanking her down to the floor.

“Oh!” she yelped as she landed on his lap.

“Jenny, you are incwebwy boofoo … incweb … you’re va preiesssgirlonEarf!” he slurred, his ability to enunciate gone the way of gravity. Her face was so breathtaking he seldom looked lower, but the revealing shirt compelled his attention. The outfit Jennifer selected had the desired effect: the drunken lad couldn’t help gaping at her perfect curves and her barely concealed nipples. The uninhibited boy placed his hand on one breast. Jennifer moved it down to her waist. “I’mhappiess,” he paused to burp, “whenI’mwifyou.”

“What?” she giggled.

“Jusskissssme,” he said. There was such intense yearning in his eyes, she could see her great-grandchildren frolicking about his pupils. She was at once delighted and alarmed. He pulled her close and kissed again, this time more aggressively.

It was pleasurable, and she stopped resisting, but where is that hand going now? “Bobby Owens! Not in front of Krissy,” she reproached between kisses.

“Shoo!” he said to Kristen. She ran upstairs, almost in tears. As she was putting on her jacket to leave, she saw the two walk out, Robert leaning against Jennifer. The young detective elected to follow them to his house, wondering how far her cousin would go with him.