But then, just as Mack had almost made up his mind, the Boys of Summer arrived.
“How-Baby” Comatis always made Mack feel better, because when Mack saw How-Baby, he thought about hot dogs and cold beer, dugouts, organ music, extra innings, home plate. He thought about basebalclass="underline" the word that defined summertime for the rest of America. Howard Comatis was president of the Texas Rangers, and he stayed at the Beach Club every July during the all-star break. He came with his wife, Tonya, and his two baseball buddies-Roy Silverstein (VP of marketing for the California Angels) and Dominic Saint-Jean (president of the Montreal Expos) and their wives. How-Baby was in every way the group’s leader-he was a tall, muscular Greek with a full head of black hair and a bushy mustache. His wife, Tonya, called everyone baby, and she always called Howard How-Baby, whether she was speaking to him or about him, and the name stuck. Mack had a hard time thinking of Howard Comatis as anything but How-Baby.
Mack first saw How-Baby when he opened the door of Lacey Gardner’s cottage at seven-thirty in the morning. How-Baby was standing on Lacey’s tiny porch.
“Howard,” Mack said, startled. “Good morning. Welcome back.”
How-Baby held out a Texas Rangers hat. “Put this on,” he said. “We have fifty bucks riding on who could get you to wear their hat first. The other two bozos are waiting by the lobby. They have no detective skills whatsoever.”
Mack took the hat. He had three like it at home from previous years, but he’d left them in the apartment with Maribel. He creased the brim, and tried it on: a good, snug fit. “All right,” Mack said. “Thanks.”
How-Baby put his arm around Mack’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid. Come with me. I want to show you off.”
Sure enough, Roy Silverstein stood on the front porch of the lobby holding a California Angels cap and Dominic St. Jean was stationed out by the Nantucket Beach Club and Hotel sign, holding an Expos cap.
“Damn,” Roy said, when Mack and How-Baby rounded the corner. “I thought for sure Dom was going to get Mack when he pulled in. Where’d you find him, How-Baby?”
“None of your business,” How-Baby said. “Now pay up.”
Roy was short, bald and skinny. He wore a pair of madras swim trunks cinched at the waist. He reached into his pocket and pulled out twenty-five dollars. “Hey, Dom,” Roy said. “How-Baby got to Mack first. Don’t ask me how.”
Dominic crunched across the parking lot. Dominic was the most elegant of the three men. Because he was Canadian, he sometimes lapsed into speaking French, and he was the best dressed-this morning in creased navy slacks, a lemon yellow polo, and tasseled loafers.
“Merde,” Dominic said. He spun the cap around his index finger, then he tossed the cap to Mack. “Wear it tomorrow.”
“No, wear mine tomorrow,” Roy said.
“You stick with the front runner, Mack,” How-Baby said. “Stick with the Rangers.”
Tonya Comatis popped her head out the lobby door, her auburn beehive hair-do spun high like cotton candy. “Boys, get back to your rooms. I won’t have you competing with each other all week.” Her face brightened when she saw Mack. “Mack, baby,” she said. She kissed his cheek, leaving, Mack was sure, a ruby red lipstick mark. “Why, you look ex-haus-taid!”
“It’s early,” Mack said.
“No, I mean, you look really tired. You look tired to your bones.”
“Give the kid a break, Tonya,” How-Baby said. “Now, Mack, can you find us the plastic bat and a few of those Wiffle balls for this afternoon? I’m going to teach these clowns a thing or two.”
“You’d think they’d want to get away from baseball,” Tonya said. “You’d think they’d want to forget all about it. But no. They love it. They absolutely love it.”
“If baseball were a woman,” How-Baby said, “I’d marry her.”
“I’d marry her first,” Roy said.
“She wouldn’t marry either of you,” Dominic said. “You’re both too ugly.”
That afternoon at five o’clock when the beach boys took the umbrellas down for the day, the beach became a playing field. How-Baby and Roy marked the bases and the fair/foul line in the sand. Tonya and the other two wives-Dominic’s wife was a quiet blonde named Genevieve, and Roy’s wife this year wore ponytails and looked just about eighteen-pulled shorts on over their bikinis and brought out bottles of cold Evian. The teams were co-ed-usually How-Baby and the two wives versus Roy, Dominic, and Tonya, but sometimes it was How-Baby and Tonya against everyone else. One thing stayed the same: How-Baby’s team always won. He clobbered the wiffle ball into the ocean every time he was up. The first two balls were lost out at sea. “That would have been a home run at Wrigley,” How-Baby said, as he rounded the bases. “That would have been a homer at Candlestick.” Then Tonya made a rule that hitting the ball into the water constituted an automatic home run.
“I know you, How-Baby,” she said. “You’ll try for the upper decks at Yankee Stadium next, and we’ll lose the only ball we have left.”
How-Baby was amazing in the field, too. He pitched so fast the ball was a white blur. He had Roy and Dominic and the ladies swinging at air, and if they did hit the ball it was usually a crazy-spinning pop-up that fell right into How-Baby’s hands. There was a magic to the man, a magnetism that neither Bill nor Mack’s father had taught him.
Nine innings with How-Baby took about an hour. Then, the players came in from the field, Roy wiping his bald head with a handkerchief.
“The bastard doesn’t even cheat,” Roy said to Mack. “If he cheated, at least I could hate him.”
“I hate him anyway,” Dominic said. He swatted How-Baby’s behind.
“Join us for a cocktail,” How-Baby said. He wasn’t sweating or winded; he was as cool as the breeze off the water.
“Okay,” Mack said. It was after six and he’d planned to spend the evening with Andrea-it was her final night on the island and he was supposed to help James shave. Then he hoped to walk with Andrea and James up the beach, but suddenly that seemed depressing. Mack might find a perfect scallop shell or a sand dollar and he would give it to Andrea as something to remember him by, knowing full well that by the time she reached Baltimore, it would be broken or lost. Better to spend time with people who made him feel good.
Mack followed How-Baby to room 1. (How-Baby always booked room 1-there was no question how the man felt about being first.) They sat in the deck chairs. Tonya appeared with two sweating beers, and How-Baby drank half of his in one long swallow. The man lived with gusto.
“So, Mack, tell me, how was your winter?”
“It was good,” Mack said. A pale, unenthusiastic answer, but it was all he could muster-and it wasn’t a lie. The winter had been good; it was only since May that things had started to spin out of his control. “Maribel and I lived on Sunset Hill again, next to the Oldest House.”
How-Baby stroked his mustache. “I wanted to ask you about Maribel. I got worried when I heard you were living out in back of the hotel with an old lady. Because you know Tonya and I think you’re a marquis player, but we like Maribel a whole bunch too.”