Power Play: A Novel (29 page)

“Thank you. Now I’m totally mixed up.” Everything he said made sense. “Thanks for the vote of confidence I don’t deserve. I haven’t
been smart for all these years while he bullshitted and lied to me and stalled me. He told me he was going to leave her as soon as I got pregnant, and we’d be married before the girls were born. And then with one thing and another, he always had some excuse that made sense at the time. I don’t think he was ever going to do it, he just didn’t want to lose me, so he said whatever it took to keep me around. The board lowering the boom on him now is the only thing that ever forced him to make a move. My friend Bonnie is right, and my shrink—this has been comfortable for him, and I made it that way. I just sat here waiting for him to show up two days a week, if he wasn’t on vacation with them, and didn’t have something better to do. I was always the dessert, and they were the main meal. And his wife is probably much better for his career than I am. I don’t know how to do that stuff, I’ve never even seen it. I just love him. And suddenly he’s willing to give her up, but until now he kept her in the job, and all I was to him was a piece of ass,” she said harshly. She felt like it now, his whore on the side, which was how his family would view her too, especially his kids. She had stayed in the shadows for too long, and now she looked as bad as he did.

“I’m sure you were more than that,” Geoff said quietly. “You’re not that kind of woman.” He couldn’t see her that way, and never would. She was too decent a person to categorize her that way, but it was the role she’d been assigned.

“Don’t be so sure,” Ashley said sadly. She was being hard on herself these days, but she thought she deserved it. And her therapist was making her look at herself, and why she had stayed with Marshall for so long, not getting what she wanted or deserved. It happened in affairs with married men—you just kept sitting and hoping and pretty soon you were someone you never wanted to be and
never thought you could be. Ashley had always been a very moral, good woman, and suddenly she’d become The Other Woman, and a disgrace in her own mind. “I’m sure it just started as sex for him,” Ashley commented, and Geoff suspected it was true. “I was like a drug for him. He couldn’t get enough of me in the beginning. Then he got hooked. He still is. But the bitch of it is, I did too. He got hooked on my body, and I got hooked on wanting to be his wife. Maybe it was an ego trip, wanting to be married to someone that big and powerful. It’s exciting being with a man like that, until you realize all that goes with it, and guys like him don’t get there by playing fair. He never does. He doesn’t have to. He owns the world.”

“He doesn’t own you, Ash,” Geoff said quietly.

“He has till now,” she said honestly. “I don’t know who owns me now.” She looked at Geoff.

“The only one who should own you, is you,” he said with a serious expression. He didn’t want to own her, just be with her, if it was right for both of them. And that wasn’t clear yet. All they both knew was that they liked each other, had a powerful childhood bond, and they were attracted to each other. It wasn’t enough to build a future on, nor to end an eight-year affair over. But it was a good start if they were both free. She wasn’t. She was still completely enmeshed in her feelings for Marshall, however badly he had behaved. That didn’t seem to change how she felt. So she was still hooked. Just like Marshall. And Geoff wondered if she’d ever get free. He wasn’t asking her that question now. He knew she didn’t know the answer, and was desperately looking for it herself, like a lost shoe in a closet. She knew it was in there somewhere, but damned if she could find it. And Geoff was a patient man.

They got back in the pool with the girls, and stayed at the beach
club with them all afternoon. He dropped them off at Ashley’s place in Malibu at dinnertime, but he didn’t stay. He said he had work to do on scripts, and he thought she needed time alone, which wasn’t wrong. He didn’t want to distract her. And he worked on Sunday too, while Ashley tidied up the house, played with the girls, and did some laundry, and all the while she was trying not to think of Geoff, and concentrating on Marshall. There was no question that seeing Geoff again, and discovering that she had feelings for him, or could have, was heavy on her mind, while Marshall weighed on her heart like a stone now.

Before Geoff left her on Saturday, he kissed her after the girls went into the house, and he knew they wouldn’t see them. He didn’t want to confuse them too. They loved their father, and their relationship with him was a lot simpler and cleaner than Ashley’s. The kiss she and Geoff shared was searing.

“I don’t want to make this harder for you, Ash,” he said with a worried look, but every time she was close to him, he couldn’t resist her. It was why he wasn’t staying for dinner or seeing her on Sunday. It was turning his world upside down too. He didn’t want to fall like a ton of bricks for a woman he couldn’t have and who belonged to someone else, but it seemed to be happening anyway, and all he could do was try to put the brakes on and slow it down if he couldn’t stop it. “I don’t want to upset you,” he said as he kissed her again, and he felt like he was talking to himself, because he didn’t want to confuse himself either.

“It’s okay,” she whispered as she kissed him again. “Confuse me. I think I love it.” He laughed and shoved her gently out of his car.

“Go home. Why do you have to be so gorgeous and sexy? Why couldn’t you have at least grown up to be ugly?” She laughed as she
got out of the car, and waved as he drove away. She’d been thinking the same thing about him. Why had he grown up to be so wonderful and loving and handsome? And he was twenty years younger than Marshall. It wasn’t about the difference in their bodies, which was obvious, but in their lives. Ashley and Geoff had similar points of reference and history, and the same interests. Marshall was at a different place in his life, surrounded by successful people and grown children. Ashley was just beginning. And Marshall was a man of power, who wielded it like a flaming torch that lit up the night. It was heady stuff, and Ashley realized that that was part of the magic for her too. His appeal to her was not that he had been unavailable, but that he was, and enticing. It was like conquering Everest every time she was with him, and knew how much he wanted her. And that was going to be hard to give up,
if
she ever did, or could. She had never wanted to till now.

Logan and Fiona had exchanged e-mails on Friday afternoon and agreed to a meeting point in the city the next day. She was going to leave her car in a garage and wait for him outside AT&T Park. He told her exactly which entrance, fifteen minutes before the game. Alyssa called her right before she left the house and wanted to have lunch with her, and she couldn’t believe her mother was going to a ball game.

“Why are you doing that, Mom?” It didn’t sound anything like her mother, who spent all her spare time working or with them and knew nothing about sports.

“I got invited by a friend, and it sounded like fun. You need to do something different once in a while. At least that’s what your aunt Jillian tells me. I thought you were in Tahoe,” Fiona suddenly remembered, and she was sorry she couldn’t meet her for lunch and felt slightly guilty about it. She never had plans on the weekend, and was always available for her daughter. Today was a rare exception.

“I was supposed to. But John’s mom is sick or something so she canceled. She wanted him to come anyway, but she wasn’t up to
having a houseguest. He was all upset about it, but I’m fine. I guess I’ll go to the house and do my laundry.” She sounded a little mournful about it, which made Fiona feel even worse that she was going to the city to meet Logan.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t have accepted. I just figured you’d be busy.”

“That’s fine, Mom.” She laughed. “You get to have a life too. So who’s the friend?” She couldn’t imagine who her mother was going to a ball game with, and she knew Jillian wasn’t back from Europe.

“A reporter I met a while back. Interesting person. Pulitzer Prize winner.” She sounded casual about it.

“A
date
?” Alyssa was surprised. Her mother hadn’t had a date in several years. And in some ways it was convenient. It meant she was always around for them, when she wasn’t working. Their father was much less available with his new wife, and now that he was retired, they traveled all the time. They loved taking cruises, and had taken a four-month cruise around the world the previous winter, which Fiona would have hated.

“No, just a friend,” Fiona corrected her quickly. “He’s a business reporter, mostly for
The Wall Street Journal
and
The New York Times
. He won the Pulitzer for a series of interviews with Nelson Mandela. Interesting person, and apparently a baseball fanatic, so he offered to take me. He probably couldn’t get anyone else to go with him.” She knew that wasn’t entirely true, but she didn’t want to make her daughter nervous, and she didn’t consider Logan a romance. But she was enjoying getting to know him and their growing friendship.

“Well, have fun. Maybe I’ll come by tomorrow before John comes down from Tahoe. It won’t be a lot of fun up there this weekend with his mom sick.”

“I’ll be home,” Fiona assured her, and took off for the city. She was thinking about her daughter as she stood outside the ballpark, waiting for Logan. She was wearing jeans and a red sweater and Nikes, and she’d brought a jacket in case the fog rolled in, which was more than likely in San Francisco in the summer. But it was a nice day so far, and the sun was shining when she got there, and two minutes later she saw him approaching, and he waved at her. He was wearing a Windbreaker and jeans too, and a Giants cap, and he was smiling when he reached her.

“I forgot to tell you to bring a jacket, in case it gets chilly. I’m glad you brought one. I could have given you mine,” he said as they headed toward the ticket taker, and the atmosphere was so festive, she was happy she had come. There were families and young people, and couples, and groups of men, and people trying to sell tickets right outside, and everybody looked happy and as though they were expecting to have a good time. The Giants were doing well, and Logan said he was expecting them to make the World Series. And he was right about the jacket. It had been eighty-five degrees when she left Portola Valley, and twenty degrees less in the city, and cool and breezy in the ballpark. She would have been cold without her sweater, and probably freezing by the end of the day if she hadn’t had the jacket with her. Most of the time it was foggy all summer, but not today. It was one of the reasons why she liked living on the peninsula south of the city. The weather was always warm, and it was convenient for her for work. She didn’t want to commute.

His seats were excellent, and as soon as they sat down, he offered to get her a hot dog and a beer, and she went with him, and they chatted along the way.

“Do you come to the games a lot?” she asked, smiling at him as
they lined up at one of the concessions with dozens of other people. She didn’t know why, but she felt like a kid at a birthday party, and was glad she had come. And he looked like he was enjoying it too, especially with her. He had a way of making her feel welcome and at ease, and as though they knew each other better than they did. He was comfortable to be with, probably more so because it wasn’t a date and they only wanted to be friends.

“I try not to miss a game,” he told her, and then ordered their hot dogs, french fries, and beer, and stuffed a wad of paper napkins in his pocket and asked if she liked mustard, ketchup, or relish and pickles. And she said ketchup and mustard, and then he stopped at the next concession booth on the way back to their seats, and he bought her a Giants hat and handed it to her with a grin. “Now you look like a fan,” he said as he put it on her head, and she settled it into place. She had worn her long blond hair in a ponytail and not in a bun, and he smiled when he saw her in the hat. “Very cute, Fiona. I like it. You should wear it to work.” She laughed, and as soon as they got to his seats, they dug into the food, and were chatting happily as the fans streamed into the stadium, milled around, and eventually sat down. There was music blaring, and people laughing and blowing horns around them. The crowd was a mixed bag as it always was at baseball games, with fancy-looking people in expensive season seats, families with kids, people of all races and nationalities, and some who looked like they had had to beg, borrow, and steal to get there. But Logan’s seats were well placed, right behind home plate, and had a perfect view of the field in the still relatively new stadium.

“I love football too,” he told her, already halfway through his hot dog, and he grinned when he saw ketchup on her chin and wiped it
off with one of the napkins. “You’re a messy eater,” he teased her, “but you look good in the hat. I really wanted to be a sportswriter,” he confessed, “if I couldn’t be a ballplayer. I broke my pitching arm when I was fourteen, so that was the end of my career in the major leagues. I used to play soccer, but I got too old. It damn near killed me. I tore my Achilles two years ago, and that did it for me. I quit after that.”

“Do you play tennis?”

“Sometimes. I was a better soccer player.”

“My sister is a terrific player,” she said, putting in a plug for Jillian, and he looked at her oddly, as he started in on his second hot dog. Fiona had only ordered one, and it had been great. She ate a french fry and took a sip of her beer, smiling at him.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to fix me up with your sister?” He looked surprised. It was about the tenth time she had mentioned her, and the references seemed consistent and purposeful, particularly the last one. And he didn’t look thrilled about it. He was enjoying her. He was more than willing to meet her very interesting-sounding sister, but not for a date. He could already tell she wouldn’t be his style, and he didn’t want to go out with a shrink, who might spend her time analyzing him and why he did what he did, and how they were going to fix it, or more specifically
him
.

“Maybe because I am trying to set you up with her,” Fiona said honestly. “I think you two would like each other.”