“From what I read, you were being compared to him in your artsy circles.”
I look over at him and arch a brow as high as it will go,then tap my nose twice and point at him. For somebody who had teased me about searching his name online, he is just as guilty.
“What? The things I read about you were impressive.” Instead of being embarrassed in the slightest, he flicks his wrist and says, “Go on.”
I readjust, sitting all the way back into the chair and cross my legs. I’m comfortable and relaxed, much in the same way I’m realizing Max makes me feel. “Elliott died and I was a mess. The California Center for the Arts was doing a gallery dedicated to abstract women artists in the twenty-first century and I’d been asked to provide eight pieces.”
“Is that a large request?” The inflection in his tone tells me he’s not pretending to feign interest in what he’s hearing. He leans back into the couch, body turned toward me, arm thrown over the back. Ready to learn.
“Nothing too crazy for me under normal circumstances. I’d finished two pieces before the accident and had the rest in various stages. But then I was so overwhelmed with planning a funeral at twenty-seven years old and caring for a toddler on my own, as she worked through trying to understand where Daddy was. My career had always been bright colors that didn’t attempt to represent anything”—I gesture to the first painting—“but I sat at an empty canvas for two weeks and couldn’t figure out how splatters of paint could have any value or meaning in life when my world was shattered.
“The Center still wanted me to participate, even if I couldn’t come up with the full set. Long story short, I gave them that one in the middle.”
“Just that one? What happened to the other two that were already complete?”
“I gifted one to my late husband’s parents and one to myparents. I had told The Center I was bringing them something new, going a direction I’d never tried before. Unfortunately, for them, they had gotten really excited and made a huge publicity deal out of it.”
“Was there press?”
“Some. Mostly colleagues and peers came from all over the country to see it.”
He points to the painting in the center. “I’m not going to pretend I’m well-versed in art, but that’s not abstract, right?”
I laugh, looking at the dark, moody swirls and the weird rabbit that was supposed to represent innocence and sadness. There are specks of silver haphazardly placed, and the whole thing is just a mess. “Not remotely. It didn’t go over well with anybody and there were lots of whispers that I’d lost my mind. Everybody knew what had just happened to me, but they couldn’t separate the devastated person from the artist they’d known and pigeonholed. It was a weird year. Then on a fall day, I put Emma in the car and we went on a drive to Redfish Lake and I painted that one on the right.”
“Along with the one Stella loves,” he says.
“Right. Everything changed again. I was given a second chance in a profession that isn’t always forgiving. Which, I’m guessing, is a lot like baseball.”
“You make one stupid choice one time and it can all be taken from you like that.” He snaps his fingers.
“What’d you do? What was so bad that you lost your deal with the Armadillos and ended up in Boise, Idaho, teaching P.E.?”
“Didn’t you learn this in your deep dive of me? It’s not a government secret.”
“I wanted to give you the chance to tell me on your ownterms. I’m not as nosy as you are.” I smile at him and stand to go into the kitchen for my drink.
His footsteps fall on the wood flooring and he slides back onto his bar stool, shoving a now-cold chip into his mouth. “I got caught doping.”
“That’s your big fall from grace?” It comes out way more incredulous than I intended it to. “Not throwing the game? Not unknowingly violating some other term of your contract? You seriously broke the easiest rule to follow in Major League Baseball?”
“Hey, watch it. You painted a gothic bunny and got kicked off the island.”He raises his brows at me and we both chuckle.
“Doping, though, Max? It’s just so . . . sad.”I wrinkle my nose.
He puts another chip into his mouth and grins. “I’m a one-hit wonder, what can I say?”
“That’s not what that term means,” I say, and he gives me a quizzical look. “If you’d played one season, sure. Then you could say you’d be a one-hit wonder. But you played for fifteen years.”
“I don’t think you understand. Baseball is the only thing I know how to do, the only thing I’ve ever been good at. I peaked in life and had my moment and it’s all over, forever. Now I’m just this guy who has a story about his glory days while living a normal life I didn’t ask for. It’s been a hard adjustment.”
He’s being so honest and never in a million years would I have guessed his story would resonate so much with me. I’m still doing the one thing I know how to do, but it also feels like my moment’s over and now I’m coasting through life. I slide my hand across the counter and rest it on top of his. Hisgaze drops to our hands and my voice goes soft. “When I say I get it, Ireallydo. You’ve just seen my greatest mistake that took it all away.” Max lifts his eyes to mine and he nods. I pull my hand back and say, “Tell me about the doping.”
He sits up straight and says, “It was so dumb. Guys do it and don’t get caught—I thought I was invincible too. I was also getting older and the younger players coming into the league were hitting farther and harder than I ever dreamed of being able to. My purpose was to cover third and I was unstoppable there. But the prideful part of me wanted to hit home runs also.”
“What was your poison?” This whole world is so unknown to me, I’m invested in understanding it. More than anything, I’m impressed he’s able to talk about it without any emotion; he isn’t defensive. It was a choice he made, and he has to live with it for the rest of his life.
“Fluoxymesterone,” he says.
