Amy Cousins - When the Lights Go Down

A good day for home runs.

She glanced at her watch—just after noon—and then again at the clear blue sky overhead.

There was almost always someone in the Tyler family who was willing to catch the 1:20 p.m. start of a weekday-afternoon Cubs game. She was ahead of schedule on the show and could blow off an afternoon if she put in a couple extra hours of paperwork later that night. She calculated her best odds on a Tuesday afternoon and dug out her cell phone.

By the time her call was answered, she was behind the wheel of her truck, heading to the ballpark.

“Wanna play hooky with me, Grace?”

* * *

A Polish, half a bag of peanuts and two frozen lemonades later, she sighed and rubbed her aching stomach. She passed the rest of the peanuts to the delicate blonde in the expensive suit beside her.

“This feels a little sacrilegious.”

Her sister-in-law cracked a peanut shell open with her teeth. The pile of broken shells at her feet had been growing steadily for the first four innings. They’d already sworn to their server that they’d clean up the mess. “I said I’d pick up the peanut shells! Jeez. And it was your idea to play hooky. Who’s up next?” She tossed another husk to the floor.

“Their cleanup batter. Ten gets you twenty it’s an intentional walk,” she said automatically, shading her eyes with one hand before remembering where she was. “And that’s not it. Look at this place.” She waved a hand at the private box around them. “We’re supposed to be squeezed into bleacher seats between a bunch of rowdy drunks, with some underage kid in front of us losing her lunch all over her shoes. My lemonade should be spiked with cheap vodka from a flask you’re hiding in your purse, and we should both be well on our way to a good sunburn by now. And Sarah and Addy should be here, too. What’s happened to us?” Although she knew her sisters would be with them if they weren’t both past their due dates at this point. They’d responded with total jealousy when Maxie and Grace texted them a selfie from the stadium.

“Welcome to the world of adulthood.” Grace sat back and propped her bare feet on the coffee table in front of them. She had already kicked her high-heeled, strappy sandals to the side of the sofa. “The company box. God, I’m glad I kept this perk in the budget. Non-alcoholic drinks because we both have to go back to work tonight. And shade.”

“That’s just what I mean.” Maxie shook her head in disgust and took another sip of her slushy. Let out a little yell as the Mariners’ base runner tried to steal second, only to be tagged out in a rundown between the second and first basemen. “Face it. We’ve lost our youth.”

Grace snorted as she sucked on the straw in her ice tea and then choked a little. “Come on, girl, it’s not all bad. Remember the vomit.”

“True. There is that.” Giving in, she propped up her feet on the table beside her sister-in-law’s and graciously accepted the rewards of aging. After all, there was something to be said for getting regular attention from the servers, who poked their heads in every fifteen minutes to see if they needed anything.

“So,” Grace said after cracking open another few peanuts shells, “we’ve been here for four innings, and you haven’t mentioned Nick Drake once, despite giving me every detail of your script review, your consults with Heitman, the résumé of every man and woman you’re putting on this crew and a fairly detailed rundown of the prop list for the show.” Grace pinned her with a bland look that was somehow also impossible to dodge. “What gives?”

She’d been holding in the words for a week.

“I haven’t seen the damn man!”

Grace tilted her head. “Since when?”

She bit her lip. “Since I, um, attacked him in a public elevator.”

“Ahh.”

Maxie shook her head and clenched her teeth. Kicking the table away, she jumped up and paced over to the plate-glass window. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass for a moment, but it wasn’t as soothing as she’d hoped it would be. After a moment, she laughed and turned to face the sofa again, leaning the back of her head against the glass.

“When I told him we had to be ‘all business’ after that second incident, I thought he’d try and schedule more of those meetings he’s so fond of.” She sighed and rapped her head lightly against the window, hoping it would help clear her mind. Didn’t work. “I didn’t think he’d up and vanish on me. Not that I care.”

“Right. You’re the picture of indifference.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me.”

“See, we’ve found our youth again.” Maxie grinned.

Grace’s next words stopped her cold.

“You know, he’s got a box here.” Crack, crunch, toss.

“Who? Nick?”

“Who else?”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve watched a game from there. I knew his name rang a bell when you said it, I just didn’t make the connection right away. It’s been a year or two, but we’ve met several times. His company invited us when they were trying to woo your brother.” Maxie waved her on. Tell me more. “They wanted to franchise Tyler’s, take it nationwide. Hell, who knows? Worldwide. Nick’s company thinks big.”

“His company?” Her brother had nearly done business with a man she couldn’t stop picturing naked. Too strange. “I’m embarrassed to admit I wasn’t really paying attention to that part. God, I’m a jerk. Is he a really big deal?”

“He’s a venture capitalist. An angel investor. Deals in all kind of things. Companies or concepts with potential. Normally people pitch to angels rather than vice versa, but Nick’s a more proactive breed. He goes looking for prospects. Your brother decided he wanted to move more slowly and keep sole ownership.” Grace looked up at Maxie, her brow wrinkled. “I thought you were interested in this guy. Haven’t you found out anything about him at all? All you’d have to do is search his name on Google. There’s gotta be a million hits about him.”

“I want to jump him, not hire him. He just makes something in my brain go haywire.” Grace’s phone rang, preventing Maxie from continuing with that dangerous line of conversation. She flopped back onto the couch as her sister-in-law got up and started pacing with the phone.

What had she thought he did for a living? Ran around and saved his mother from making bad financial decisions? Backed shows all over the theater world? She supposed she’d mentally tagged him with some kind of generic “Finance Dude” title. Who the hell knew what a comptroller did, after all? He could have been a relatively regular guy just looking out for his mom.

Except no one would ever mistake Nick Drake for a “regular guy.” Or even a generic Finance Dude.

No, she’d known it was an unknown field to him, but their conversation over dinner had revealed that he’d mastered the most salient details quickly. His command of the information with which she’d supplied him in her sales pitch had been swift and complete.

But it still seemed weird for her to think of him with responsibilities that had nothing to do with her. She’d been so focused on her reaction to him that she hadn’t stepped back to acknowledge the fact that the man had a life. One that might keep him too busy to engineer ways to drop in on her and challenge her “all business” declaration, like she’d secretly hoped he would.

Okay. She’d let him live.

Grace was smiling as she bantered over the phone. Maxie caught the last piece of her conversation. “Yes, dear,” she said, “I’m planning an afternoon affair with another man. Can you text me his number? You’re a doll. Love you.” She kept the phone in her hand until the message alert went off and then tapped the screen. “Bingo.”