Her Problem Ch. 02

After being sent to the Asheville Tourists Single "A" team by the Rockies, my Caddy with its two hundred thousand plus miles died on me. I thought about trying to find another large, used automobile to replace it because those seemed to be the only ones I was comfortable in due to my height; but one of the coaches with the Tourists convinced me that a full sized pick-up truck was just as comfortable and more practical for my needs. I used part of my modest signing bonus to pay cash for a new Ford F-150 extended cab truck from the local dealer. I went to an accessories store and had a bed cover installed which gave me a dry place to haul the unbelievable amount of equipment I'd accumulated since joining the Rockies organization.

I had been approached by an elderly couple dressed in an amusing mixture of team logoed apparel after my first home game in Asheville. He had on a Tourist's cap, a windbreaker with my alma mater's logo on it, and a Rockies T-shirt on under the windbreaker. She had on a cap from my alma mater, a Rockies windbreaker, and a (I assumed) replica jersey from my alma mater. The coaches had emphasized how important team relations with fans were so I stopped and listened to the couple as they introduced themselves to me.

"Hello, Joe. My name is Max Seaton and this is my wife Madge. We wanted to welcome you to the Tourists and ask you about something that could be beneficial to us and you. Do you have time to hear us out?" Max said to me.

"I don't have any plans except to find something to eat, going back to the motel, and resting until tomorrow. I guess I can give you a few minutes." I answered him with an annoyed tone.

I didn't really want to spend any time with them but didn't want to upset them and have them complain to the team manager. When Madge spoke up, some of my annoyance went away.

"We know that the meal allowance is barely enough to feed a strapping young man like you so we'll buy you dinner. Will you follow us to the restaurant?" Madge interjected having detected my tone.

"My momma told me long ago not to turn down a free meal so sure, I'll follow the two of you." I said to her.

I had expected them to go to the parking lot and drive to one of the better restaurants located on the other side of town, but they walked away from the ball park and I had no choice but to follow them. Thankfully we were in the middle of an eight game home stand and my gear was in my locker and I didn't have to carry it the four blocks we walked to the little diner they finally went into. I had seen it before while driving back and forth from my motel to the ball park, but had ignored it because of its shabby appearance.

Max and Madge were already seated in a large booth at the back of the diner and were having a conversation with a middle aged woman dressed in the typical waitress uniform for a diner; blue striped dress, white socks, and white rubber soled shoes. The waitress had left by the time I got to the table and Madge motioned me to sit across from her and Max in the booth. They waited as the waitress brought glasses of water to the table. She had started to turn away when I got her attention.

"Excuse me, but do you have fresh brewed sweet tea? I have trouble with tap water in a new city until my body gets use to it so I need something else to drink. I don't see a menu either so can you bring me one?" I asked her as politely as I could. The look she gave me made me think I'd asked for a glass of bull piss instead of tea.

"Sugar, we have the best sweet tea in the state of North Carolina and Max has already ordered for everybody so you don't need a menu." She told me and I heard the sarcasm in her tone. All three of them started laughing when my face turned red from her statement.

"Relax Joe, I guarantee you'll like what Max ordered and I swear you're among friends here." Madge said to me after she'd stopped laughing. "We'll talk about what we hope will be a win-win for you and us after we eat."

The food began arriving fairly quickly after that. Large bowls of green beans, corn, and mashed potatoes made from real potatoes and not a mix were brought to the table along with a platter of grilled chicken breasts. A plate full of fresh baked biscuits with a bowl of white gravy was placed in the center of the table. A whole pitcher of sweet tea was also brought out. Max waved away my comment that they were spending too much for my dinner.

We ate in silence and the food was better than I had expected. It was almost as good as my mom's cooking and it didn't take long for me to get full. I pushed my plate away before leaning back away from the table when I was done eating. Madge and Max had big grins on their faces when I finally looked up at them.

"I don't have to ask how you liked the food, Joe. Your actions and the look on your face right now have shown me that you enjoyed it. I think you're ready to hear our proposal now." Max was saying to me with a large smile on his face. I merely nodded yes as I settled back into the surprisingly well padded bench seat of the booth.

"Madge and I met in college, the same college you recently graduated from to be exact. After we were married and after a few years working my way up the ladder in the company that hired me out of college, I was transferred here to Asheville. Madge and I both fell in love with the area and Asheville in particular so we settled down here and have been happy here.

"We're getting on in years and can't do all the things that need doing to maintain our home so we've been letting young men like you stay in the apartment above our garage for free in exchange for doing the things we can't. We would be overjoyed if you became our next tenant. Earlier you said you were still staying in a motel, but you won't be able to afford that for very much longer and still have any money left in the bank.

"What do you say, Joe? Would you like to help us out? I promise the work at our house won't interfere with your ball practices, training sessions, or any other activity you may want to pursue."

"It sounds too good to be true. If I were interested in taking you up on your offer, what kind of restrictions would there be?" I asked.

"No loud parties, no loud music after 9 P.M., and no roommates of either sex are the only restrictions." Madge answered me before Max could.

"That doesn't mean you can't have friends over, Joe and that they can't stay a night or two if that's what you want. They just can't stay permanently." Max jumped in before I could say anything.

"I'm not a big party person, don't like loud music myself, and hopefully I'll be moving up to the next level before too long so those aren't a problem. I think I'll take you up on your offer. I have to be at the ball park early in the morning though so I don't know when I'd be able to move into your garage. For that matter, I don't even know where you live." I told them in what I hoped was a warm and friendly voice.

"If you tell the desk person at the motel that it's okay with you, Madge and I will move your stuff from the motel you're staying at and we'll show you where we live as we walk back toward the ball park. If you're ready, we can do that now." Max said to me excitedly.

I nodded yes and the three of us left the booth. Max pulled a fifty dollar bill from his wallet and threw it on the table.

"Keep the change, Molly and tell Josh Madge and I say hello. We'll see you again next week." Max yelled as he led Madge and me out of the diner.

We walked back toward the ball park and Max stopped in front of a huge two storied house half way between the diner and the ball park.

"Here's our house. You can see the garage there on the right. There's room for your truck on the right hand side, but you'll have to raise and lower the door manually until you install the new door opener I got last week. The last young man we had living over the garage burned up the old one, he was in and out so much. I hope you're not going to be like him. The last I heard about him, he was in drug rehab, and didn't have much of a future with the Rockies." Madge stated with a touch of pride and of disappointment.

I didn't know what to say so I nodded my head no and turned away as my own disappointment overtook me. The man she was talking about had been a teammate of mine in college and a good friend. The experience of more money than he'd ever had before had gone to his head and the partying had not only wrecked his career but possibly his life.

I trudged back to my truck and went to my motel to relax from the day's game and the evening's sad turn. Even though I'd used the whirlpool at the ball park, I still went down to the motel's hot tub for a few minutes. When I left the next morning I told the young man behind the motel's desk that Max and Madge were coming for my stuff and it was okay. He only smiled and said that was okay with him. I spent the rest of the day at the ball park shagging flies, working on hitting the correct cutoff man during game situations that my position coach yelled out at me, and my hitting.

After that evening's game, Max and Madge were waiting on me in the parking lot. I helped them both into the cab of my truck and drove us to their house. I helped them down and Madge gave me the key to the garage apartment before she and Max went to their house. I opened the garage door and parked my truck inside before climbing the stairs to the apartment.

It was more spacious than my old basement apartment and extremely clean. My stuff was in the middle of the floor and I spent the next few minutes putting things away before flopping onto the bed in exhaustion. Tomorrow was a day off from baseball and I was going to start earning my room by doing as much work as I could around Max and Madge's house.

I stayed in Asheville the rest of the Single "A" season and didn't get to Double "A" Modesto until it ended. There was only a month left in their season, but the Rockies had already convinced me to go to their rookie fall team to continue my work on my new position. After fall league, I went to winter ball in Mexico and baseball was my life for the next three years.

I met some fine looking women during the next three years and enjoyed some of them sexually along the way, but none of them made me feel the way Mare had. Baseball was all I thought about or cared about during those thirty six months and a long term relationship wasn't in the cards for me. I had almost put Mare completely out of my mind until the day one of my Hispanic teammates in my third season of winter ball sat down beside me an hour before that evening's game was to start.

"Hey Joe, do you know this fine Latino babe? It says here she went to the same college you did." Miguel Gomez asked me after flopping down beside me.

He opened up the magazine he was holding and held it in front of my face. I didn't need to read anything on the page and couldn't anyway because it was in Spanish because the picture of Mare spiking a volleyball on a sand court took up the whole page except for the narrow margin of prose on the right hand side of the page. That picture made all the work I'd done trying to purge her from my memories useless as those memories came rushing back into my head.

"Yes Miguel, I know her. We graduated at the same time from our university." I told him as I struggled with the mixture of emotions the picture had invoked.

"It says here that she's going to be in Cancun the same week we are. Man, I sure would like to meet her. Will you introduce us if I can find out where she's staying?" Miguel asked me with obvious lust in his voice.

"No, I won't introduce the two of you. Take it from me; you don't want anything to do with that slut." I yelled as my anger again over-powered my other emotions and I sprang up from the bench, stormed onto the field, and sprinted away from him. I wouldn't know until later that most of my teammates had heard my outburst and had stood in shock as I ran as hard as I could across the field away from the dugout. Surprisingly I had my best performance of the season that night, going four for four and hitting the game winning homerun in the bottom of the ninth.

I struggled with the old emotions that I thought I'd conquered before seeing Mare's picture in that magazine. I don't know why I did it, but when I saw it in the trash after that night's game; I picked it up and kept it. The next three weeks were some of the most difficult of my professional life. My Hispanic teammates and coaches couldn't seem to understand why that picture had affected me so much even though I tried to explain it to my position coach.

The team arrived in Cancun and I tried to avoid leaving the motel when I wasn't busy with ball practice or games. I didn't want to accidentally run into Mare if I could help it. Unfortunately what I wanted was in direct opposition to what other people that knew of Mare's and my past and the way it ended between us, wanted.

I was walking back to the motel from the ball park on the third night we were in Cancun when my future was changed forever. I hadn't been too worried when all of my teammates had turned me down when I asked them to accompany me back to the motel. I had been acting kind of strange since seeing Mare's picture so I chalked up their refusals to that. It was a well-lit street in a good neighborhood by Central American standards and I had on the team windbreaker so I wasn't expecting it when the Mercedes limo stopped beside me and before I could react, two big Hispanic males grabbed my arms, and marched me to the car before forcing me into the back seat.

"Hello Joe." A very familiar voice said to me.

"What's going on Mr. Ortiz?" I managed to ask Mare's father as the car sped away down the street.

"Call me Roberto, Joe, like you did before. I give you my word that you'll not be hurt, but I need you to listen to me and this way guarantees that. You know how much I love my daughter and it's tearing me up inside how bad she's been hurting for the last three years. She loves you with all her heart and won't even try to get over you. I need to know what happened between the two of you, but she won't tell me, so you need to."

"I don't think I can do that Mr. Ortiz. I'm sorry Marizona's still hurting but it was something she did that caused us to break up. If she won't tell you, you'll have to forget about why we broke up because I won't tell you either."

"You'll tell me or I'll keep you until you do. Why do you think you were alone tonight? I had my friends tell your teammates to let you walk back by yourself. We are in Mexico and you wouldn't be the first gringo to go missing for a few days, weeks, months, or years. I gave my word you wouldn't be hurt, but I didn't say anything about keeping you prisoner until I find out what happened between you and my daughter. This best thing for you to do is tell me and get it over with. I promise you'll be back in your motel room tonight if you tell me."

I looked at him and then at the three large men that were in the car with us. I might could have beaten one of them one on one in a fair fight but I stood no chance against all three of them or the four of them if Mr. Ortiz decided to join in. I weighed my options in my head and decided that telling him was the better of the two bad options I finally reduced my choices down to. I hesitated as I realized the other three men in the car would hear about that night at the frat house.

"Mr. Ortiz, what Mare did isn't very pleasant. Wouldn't it be better for us to talk about it somewhere with a little more privacy?" I asked him after deciding to tell him.

"Whatever you have to say to me can be said in front of these men. They know what will happen if they ever say a word to anyone about what they hear tonight. Not just to them, but their entire families and the families of whomever they talk to. Go ahead and tell me."

I told Mr. Ortiz about that day and what had kept me from escorting Mare to the party. About not finding her on the first floor and tricking her sorority sisters into letting me know where she was. About hearing her squeals of sexual pleasure and her final scream of orgasm as I felt my face turning red from a mixture of anger and embarrassment. His facial expressions didn't change as I told of the two men who were watching and expecting their turn when whoever she was with was finished having sex with her. How I knocked them out cold before looking into the room and seeing her with not one man but two and they both had their cocks in one of her bodily orifices and her mouth wasn't one of them. How I fled after calling out her name in anguish. I didn't leave out one detail which included the confrontation between us in the classroom.

He listened patiently as I told him of my resolve to never see her again and how I'd been able to keep that resolve until the magazine with her picture in it had been shoved in my face. He smiled knowingly at me after I'd told him that.

"You're still in love with my daughter, aren't you, Joe? I heard about your reaction when you saw her picture and Miguel's request for you to introduce them. I think it's time for you and Mare to finally talk to each other about what happened three years ago. I can promise you she's not the same woman she was before she met you. Do you think that was the first time she'd been with two men at the same time?

"Marizona was my only child so I didn't try and interfere when she started dating John Sullivan and became involved with her sorority. The fraternity John belonged to and the sorority Mare belonged to had reputations as party houses with lots of free alcohol, drugs, and sex. I tried to talk Mare out of joining that particular sorority, but she didn't listen and I left her alone to sow her wild oats and make her own mistakes like I would have if she'd been a son.

"She was over that when she returned that fall and wasn't going to have anything to do with the fraternity that year. I was so happy when she met you and the way she changed when the two of you became a couple and serious about each other.

"She didn't lie when she told you she was drunk. The hospital found she had twice the legal limit of alcohol in her blood when the campus police found her lying in the street outside of the house your apartment was in. I was told about the two different semen samples in her vagina and rectum. I found out who the men were from my sources on campus and I promise you John Sullivan and Charles Winslow were dealt with in a very serious and painful manner. I had mercy on Stephanie because she didn't deny her part in what happened to Marizona and Mare begged me to.

"My daughter needs you back in her life, Joe. She's withdrawn into herself, never goes out to have any type of fun, hasn't had a date that I know of since the two of you broke up, and the only time she seems happy is on a volleyball court. The problem with that is she's playing so recklessly that she's injuring herself and it's taking longer and longer for her to recuperate during which time she's miserable and hard to be around because she's unhappy."

"You're a smart man, Mr. Ortiz, and knowing everything you just told me you knew; you had to have figured out why I broke up with Marizona. Your little abduction of me was your way of forcing me to see your daughter, wasn't it?"

"Yes Joe and I apologize for bending the truth a little when we first started our conversation, but you didn't give Mare or her friends a chance to explain how Mare ended up in the situation you saw her in that night. It wasn't her fault, she didn't have any intentions of doing those things you saw her doing, and you made it worse by abandoning her and not giving her a chance to explain everything. She loves you still and won't be happy until you at least give her a chance to prove that to you."