As we sat there, companionably turning pages, occasionally reading aloud a line or showing each other a picture—the ones I showed her were of fancy pillows or antique desks, and the ones she showed me were of Cher in some peculiar outfit, or Bruce Willis and Demi Moore holding hands—I was very tempted to repeat to her what Charlie had told me about buying the baseball team. I couldn’t, though, because he’d explicitly asked me not to, and I didn’t blame him. What I shared with Jadey she would surely share with Arthur, who would share it with John and their parents, and presumably all of Wisconsin and half of Washington, D.C., would soon know.
The night before, when Charlie had told me, I’d said, “You’re not serious,” and he’d said, “I am, but we can talk about it in the morning.”
“We don’t have enough money,” I said. I didn’t know how much it cost to buy a baseball team, but it had to be millions of dollars.
“Good God, not me alone,” Charlie said. “It’s an investment group, and I’ll be managing partner. Managing partner of the Brewers has a nice ring to it, huh? I’ve just got to put up six or seven hundred grand, and the rest will come from the other fellows, namely Zeke Langenbacher and our very own Cliff Hicken. This is the opportunity of a life-time, Lindy, it’s what I was meant to do. My brothers’ll eat their hearts out.”
six or seven hundred grand? But I didn’t respond—despite the surprising nature of what he was telling me, now that I knew his secret wasn’t anything troubling, I found myself teetering again on the edge of sleep.
Sounding blissful, he said, “Think about going to all those games, and it counts as work.”
Sleep was pulling me in, it was winning. I could hear him, but I was having difficulty forming a response. “Maybe you can find out what happened to Bernie Brewer,” I said. Bernie was the lederhosen-wearing, mustachioed mascot who had been retired a few years earlier. Before his retirement, whenever there was a home run, he would slide into a large beer mug, which had delighted Ella.
Charlie chuckled, and I promptly fell asleep.
In the morning, I woke shortly after six, and Charlie was lying on his side, his eyes shut, his breathing rhythmic and untroubled. “Are you awake?” I said, which was a disingenuous trick I occasionally used. When he didn’t respond, I asked again, and without opening his eyes, he shook his head. I said, “Did I dream that you and Zeke Langenbacher are buying the Brewers?”
Our real conversation had not taken place until a few hours later, at breakfast. Ella was also in the kitchen but on the phone, talking to her friend Christine (that she would soon see Christine at the pool apparently made a check-in more rather than less urgent), and Charlie explained the situation: Because Monday was Memorial Day, they’d be making the eighty-four-million-dollar offer Tuesday; the family who currently owned the Brewers, the Reismans, knew the offer was coming and were prepared to accept it.
Charlie was eating a piece of toast, and I was standing with my back to the sink. I said, “Well, congratulations.”
“That sounded lukewarm.”
“Not at all. I’m really excited for you, but what I don’t understand—if your investment group is offering eighty- four million dollars, how many people are in it? I’m not suggesting you put up more, but how can six or seven hundred thousand be enough unless there are dozens and dozens of investors?”
In fact, parting with such a large portion of our savings did not seem insignificant. But it wasn’t really my money, it never had been, and even if we lost it, we’d still have a cushion. We’d never had a mortgage or car payments, and some years our biggest annual expense was Ella’s tuition—we’d be fine.
“Oh, they didn’t come to me for my deep pockets,” Charlie said. “Compared to some of these dudes, we might as well be in the poor-house. No, a lot of what Langenbacher wants to do in bringing me on board is get the credibility and the connections of the Blackwell name, and frankly, I have no problem with that—I’m going into it with my eyes open. It’ll be a synergistic type of situation, good for the team, good for me, good for our family. They know I went to B-school, and they recognize what I have to offer.”
“So what will being managing partner entail?”
“Cheering for Robin Yount.” Charlie grinned. “Booing when the White Sox come to town. Finally memorizing the national anthem. No, there’s six other guys in Langenbacher’s investment group, counting Cliff—you’d know most of these fellows by name—and they’re all successful, obviously, but none of them are stars in the charisma department, if you catch my drift. They need a public face for the owners, whether it be with marketing or acting as a liaison to other leaders in the community. This is still top-secret, but one of the major goals is to build a new stadium ASAP, and you just know that’ll necessitate a lot of kid-glove negotiations.”
“And you’re sure the Reisman family wants to sell the team?”
“Oh, Lloyd Reisman is thrilled that locals are prepared to pony up. It would be devastating for the morale of this city if the Brewers got relocated again. You’re not worried about the money, are you? Because trust me, eighty-four million is a bargain. There’s no way we won’t get rich off the deal.”
“I just never knew you had this kind of thing in mind,” I said. “You’re such an avid fan, obviously, but professional involvement—I’m surprised, is all.”
“Now you know what Langenbacher and I were having our big talk about at the ballpark Sunday. You up for eighty-one games a year? Actually more, ’cause I’ll travel with the team sometimes.”
I smiled. “Sure.” Could this be it, the thing that would bring Charlie peace? Being managing partner of a baseball team—and one that, for all Charlie’s loyalty to it, wasn’t particularly famous or winning—did not seem to me a recipe for a legacy. But given that I didn’t understand why a legacy mattered in the first place, perhaps it was predictable that I didn’t understand what might create one. If it was enough for Charlie, it was enough, more than enough, for me. Charlie was sitting at the kitchen table, and when I stepped toward him, he set his arms around my waist, hugging me. We were quiet, and Ella, who was still on the phone in the corner, said in an agitated tone, “But Bridget cheats at Marco Polo!”
Charlie said, “Which do you think most people would rather do: coach high school baseball or own a baseball team?”
“You’re not doing this just to impress your Princeton classmates, are you?”
With his face pressed against my stomach, Charlie laughed. “Give me some fucking credit.”
AT NOON, I
