Page 15 of Heavy Hitter

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.”

---