The Lucky Charm (The Portland Pioneers) Read online

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The boardroom was on the next floor of the large office building they rented. The top floor; talk about ironic, Izzy sneered as the elevator opened to the atrium. Only executives and board members had their offices on this floor, and the vast expanse of curved glass was a lot flashier than anything she’d seen on the lower levels.

  She’d only been in the boardroom a handful of times in the past and it had always been empty. She’d been there to do menial tasks, like stock the water and leave out gold engraved pens when one of the other secretaries hadn’t had time to do it. Her chin twitched higher. She might have started out as the lowest rung of the totem pole, but she’d done good work here. Great work, she corrected. They were lucky to have her. After all, they could have hired someone without all the mental hang ups and only gotten forty hours a week out of them. Really, they’d gotten a bargain with her.

  She pushed the heavy wood door open, and at the sight of suit after suit, dozens of eyes on her, pressing into her, Izzy’s mouth dried. Swallowing hard, she let the door swing shut behind her with a horribly final sounding click.

  “Isabel, so glad you could join us.” Mitch rose, extending a hand toward her. She shook his hand almost automatically, trying not to cringe at his damp, sweaty palms and trying to ignore the possessive sweep of his gaze.

  This was why she never could have been an actress. The idea of standing in front of even twenty people had her heart pounding and her mouth turning into the Sahara.

  Charlie was standing off to the left, and she didn’t miss his swift smile of support. It felt like it was them against the world, but then, that wasn’t a new thing. Her chin lifted and she gave Mitch Hansen a challenging look.

  “As you know, Charlie has some truly unfortunate health issues.” Mitch didn’t seem torn up about this at all, and though Izzy tended to give most people the benefit of the doubt, she really hated him in that moment. He didn’t give a shit about anything but his own damn agenda. “He needs to take some time, a long time, to address those. As of now, he’s going to part time. A number of his projects have been shifted off his plate, to other producers and other departments.”

  Izzy couldn’t help the mute look of sympathy she sent Charlie. His job was practically his whole life. She didn’t even want to imagine what it would feel like to have it all ripped away.

  But nothing could stop the inexorable progression of Mitch and his “ideas.”

  “Which leaves you at a bit of a dead end,” Mitch said, with another covetous leer. “And it would be such a shame to waste you, Isabel. You’re one of the brightest rising stars at the network. So we’ve decided to present you with a new opportunity. A brilliant opportunity, I might add.”

  The fearful anticipation was just about killing her. Izzy briefly wondered what Mitch would do if she, too, dropped to the floor with heart-attack symptoms.

  “And what is this brilliant opportunity?”

  Later, Izzy would wish she’d never even asked, that she’d just turned and walked away, blown up her career instead of staying and listening to whatever torture Mitch Hansen had devised for her.

  “The Portland Pioneers. They lost their sideline reporter and we haven’t been able to fill the position. But now we can.”

  It was like facing an oncoming eighteen wheeler with full lights. She was frozen, numb with shock and something that must have been fear and dread combined. She could only stand and watch as it ran her over.

  “Sideline reporter?” Her disbelief was horribly blatant, and shock made it impossible to mask.

  “I think you’ll be brilliant. You’re attractive and smart as a whip. And so charming.” Mitch’s oily voice rolled over her and she wanted to leap out the window into the Puget Sound and scrub until she was clean again.

  “But I don’t have any experience,” she said bluntly. Desperately. After all, she was in the sports journalism business. For years she’d witnessed girls perfect themselves and their visual presentation in order to win these jobs. She was just a workaholic who wanted to be a documentary producer. Their breed and hers had exactly nothing in common.

  “You have a degree in journalism. Did you not take any classes in broadcasting, Isabel?”

  “Of course I did.” Her voice wavered but then she willed it to stay strong. She was a professional, and Mitch wasn’t going to get the best of her. Not today, not any day. “It was a requirement.”

  As it happened, she’d taken exactly one class, and during it, she’d done everything she could to stay behind the camera. In front of it, she’d been cardboard and stiff, jerky and unpleasant. A frozen bitch, one student had joked. Not exactly the attractive, charming reporter that Mitch clearly wanted.

  “Well, then,” Mitch said, spreading his hands out in invitation. “Welcome to the Pioneers team, Isabel.”

  The end of the meeting passed like a nightmare. The terms presented in the contract were favorable, but not exactly thrilling. She’d get some experience, she supposed, if it didn’t all end in disaster. But she was afraid disaster was exactly what she was courting.

  All she wanted to do was climb on top of the vast conference table and scream, “I want to be behind the camera, not in front of it!” She didn’t because she was still a professional, and also because she was fairly certain nobody gave a shit what she was actually capable of. They only cared about the false front that Mitch Hansen had sold them on. They’d taken one quick look at the list of projects she and Charlie had completed and had assumed she’d be good at anything they threw at her.

  It was a fallacy that Izzy wished she could believe, but she’d seen evidence to the contrary. If it would have changed Mitch Hansen’s mind, she would have unearthed her college transcript and pointed to the second and last B she’d received. The first B had been enough to dissuade her from a seven-year dream of being a doctor. The second had convinced her the last place she ever needed to be was in front of a camera, but the smug look Mitch gave her said it all.

  You can scream, you can protest, you can beg, but I’ve got you now.

  “Izzy, this is going to be great for you. I know it seems scary…”

  She and Charlie had returned to their regular floor and their regular lives—at least for now—and the first thing he’d done was drag her into his office. Unlike her rickety cubicle, it had a door and he closed it, shuffling over to his chair and plopping down into it.

  “Scary?” Her voice was so high pitched she was surprised she didn’t hear any glass shattering. “Scary doesn’t even begin to cover it! I’m not a reporter! I don’t do the camera, Charlie. I’m horrible at the camera! And baseball? The Pioneers? In Portland?”

  “I think you’ll be great,” he said quietly. But even through his support, she could hear the note of doubt in his voice, and that was even more horrifying. Charlie wasn’t even sure she could do this.

  “I don’t know anything about baseball,” Izzy spat out. “Like, literally nothing.”

  “You’ve worked here for six years, how could you not know anything about baseball?”

  She could only shrug. “It’s so dull. Endlessly long, with a lot of stupid rules and complicated statistics.”

  “You’ll be fine. It’s not that complicated, actually. You’ll catch on in no time.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Izzy could only glare. “I love how everyone thinks I’m some kind of Wonder Freaking Woman. Just because I’m good at my job doesn’t mean I can do every other job in the entire world.”

  Charlie leaned forward, the pressure of his elbows sending the desk into protesting creaks. “I meant it when I said this was going to be good for you. You need experience. You want to stay with this organization. This is your ticket to make your goals a reality.”

  “I don’t understand.” On a normal day, she probably could have, but Mi
tch’s announcement had caused her brain to short circuit.

  “You succeed in Portland, I bet you that you could have any job you wanted at the network. And Mitch will be the first one to hand it to you.”

  “So, this is a test.”

  Charlie shrugged. “It’s an opportunity.”

  “But it’s baseball,” she whispered plaintively. “It’s worse than watching paint dry.”

  “And if Mitch had asked you to paint the wall and watch it dry, you would do that, too. You have too bright of a future to waste it with all this nonsense,” Charlie said sternly. “You’re made of better stuff than that. Besides, it’s only for a season, then you’ll be back up here, and better for it.”

  “Promise?”

  A shadow crossed Charlie’s face for a split second and then Izzy remembered what other bomb Mitch had dropped today. “I can’t promise, Iz, you know that. I don’t have the power anymore. But I’ll see what strings I can pull. I’m not out entirely. That helps.”

  “They shouldn’t be able to force you out like this,” Izzy insisted stubbornly. “It’s not right.”

  “I’m more concerned about you actually signing the contract and not throwing your career away.”

  “I guess I don’t have much of a choice,” she said bitterly.

  Charlie’s expression softened. “Don’t ever let yourself believe that,” he insisted. “You’re your own person, Izzy Dalton. You always have a choice. I want you to remember that.”

  “Even when I’m suffering in Portland?”

  “Even when you’re suffering in Portland.”

  The Portland office was much smaller than the Seattle one, and not nearly as showy.

  Izzy had spent almost her entire plane trip to Portland reading up on the Pioneers, the last expansion team created in the American League of Major League Baseball, and every article had made her want to turn around and tell Mitch she’d changed her mind. She’d much rather have no job than this job, but Charlie’s little speech about the job she really wanted kept her on the plane and in her seat.

  The receptionist was snobby or bored. Either way, she could barely be bothered to glance up at Izzy’s arrival.

  “Hello.” Izzy had to force a smile. “I’m here to see Toby Palmer.”

  “Of course. You must be Ms. Dalton. I’ll let Mr. Palmer know you’re here.”

  She retreated to one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs and perched on the edge, ignoring the impulse to fidget, even though the mysteriously invisible tag on the neckline of her black silk shell itched horribly.

  Footsteps echoed in the hallway leading to the lobby, and Izzy stood, smoothing her ivory wool skirt, and plastered a smile on her face.

  She’d also done her research on Toby Palmer. He’d been in sports television for over thirty years, most of those as a producer, though he had done some game calling when he’d first started in the business. He was smart and quick and rumored to be ruthless. As he came forward to greet her, Izzy already knew he wasn’t going to be much like Charlie because as she’d stood, he’d checked out pretty much everything she had to offer.

  Sexist pig.

  It was a reminder that this job wasn’t anything like her old one—she wouldn’t be the invisible action behind the scenes, she’d be front and center, right in front of the camera—and suddenly, nausea blossomed at the base of her stomach.

  Izzy forced her smile, and reminded herself that she’d never failed yet.

  “Ina, hold all my calls.” This was directed toward the receptionist, as Izzy followed her new boss down a series of hallways flanked by row after row of cubicles. Toby’s office was at the end, with a halfway-decent view of Mt. Hood, or what might have been a halfway-decent view if it hadn’t been clouded over and drizzling outside.

  Izzy took a seat in front of the desk and folded her hands in her lap as he settled in the big leather captain’s chair. “Mr. Palmer, I appreciate the opportunity to join your team.”

  He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’m not going to lie and tell you all sorts of pretty smelling shit, Dalton. You’re stuck with me, and I’m fucking stuck with you. So cut the bullshit.”

  Izzy gripped the chair handle at this rather unorthodox response. “I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” she said, trying for an optimistic cheer, when all she felt was disbelief at the situation she’d landed in: dumpy office, losing team, shitty boss.

  “The Pioneers are bad,” Toby continued, “and they’re not really on the verge of getting better.”

  Her knuckles turned white on the chair. “You’d better be careful or you’ll scare me off,” Izzy said. It was all bravado she didn’t feel. In Seattle, under Charlie, she’d felt assured of her place. She’d been confident and sure and in charge. Now, all she felt was a paralyzing fear that she’d fail.

  “If only,” he said darkly, smoothing back his full head of white hair. She could give him that; unlike Charlie, he still took good care of himself. A bit of a belly, but other than that, his suit fit moderately well, and his facial structure was still chiseled enough that he must have been handsome when he was younger. She hoped all of the above was evidence of a wife he still loved, not a ploy to attract another. The last thing she needed was a sexual-harassment problem.

  He got to his feet, wandered over to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that faced Hood. “You look like you might have some potential, Dalton. But there’s nothing on this resume about broadcast experience. Or baseball. Am I just supposed to shove you out there and let you wing it?”

  As it turned out, she could also dislike her boss. He’d been her boss for about five minutes now, Izzy estimated, and he’d been nastier to her than Charlie had in six years.

  “I guess…” Izzy stuttered. “I do have some experience.” Maybe this wasn’t the best time to bring up her single class in broadcast journalism.

  Toby waved a hand like he wanted her to stop defending herself. Time for that later, Izzy thought, clinging to her last shred of optimism, and changed the subject.

  “Why don’t you tell me about the team?”

  Even that was a disaster, though. “Why don’t you tell me?” he challenged with a frown. Like he knew that she was not only clueless about broadcasting, but equally clueless about baseball.

  Izzy knew what she wanted to tell him. This team was on the verge of falling apart. Maybe it could be saved, but from what she’d read, the chances were that it would disintegrate sooner rather than later. As she debated how much opinion to give, she started off by stating the facts of the Pioneers’ last season. Facts were safe. Opinions, not so much.

  “By August last year, the Pioneers had a wild-card playoff spot virtually locked up, but a sixteen-game losing streak during the last part of the season guaranteed they’d lose it. It was the ninth year of the Pioneers’ existence and the ninth year without making the playoffs.” That was the extent of what she knew about the Pioneers. No, she corrected herself, that was the extent of what she knew about last year’s baseball season.

  Toby said nothing, but looked unimpressed. Izzy struggled to recall any other facts she’d read and came up empty. Finally, he stood and walked over to the window that overlooked the city skyline.

  “For years, Portland claimed they wanted a professional baseball team. The city adores the Blazers, the NBA franchise, and even the Timbers, the new MLS organization. But the Pioneers have had historically bad attendance, and nobody watches our coverage either. Basically, Portland couldn’t care less that we’re here, and that won’t change until the Pioneers can find a way to win when it counts.”

  “And you think this year is the year?”

  “We all thought last year was the year. There might never be a year.” He sighed and maneuvered behind the desk, flopping down in his massive leather chair.

  “I didn�
��t even want a new reporter,” Toby continued, his voice ripe with annoyance. “Seemed pointless to me, but I didn’t get much choice in the matter.”

  He hadn’t been lying when he said he’d been stuck with her, much as she’d been stuck with him. If he’d been anyone else, she would have tried to commiserate in their mutual misery, but with Toby’s eyes narrowing in on her, she couldn’t quite work up the nerve.

  Still, Izzy knew she should say something. Something about hope for the future, about being happy to work with him, but her mind was totally blank. After all, nobody was happy about this situation.

  “I’ll try my best not to make you regret it too much,” she finally said with the hardest edge to her voice that she dared. And she would. She wasn’t a quitter, even under these circumstances. It seemed impossible that mere days ago, she’d been so certain of her own invincibility, of her own ability to turn everything she touched to gold.

  Toby just grunted, and Izzy shut her mouth.

  The good news, Izzy contemplated as Toby grudgingly showed her to her cubicle—her cubicle, she thought with something that might have been affront; even the on-air talent didn’t rate an office here—was that it seemed like the Pioneers had hit rock bottom. So had she, so they had that in common.

  “I’m assuming you’ll need some time to get things settled in Seattle?” he asked, and she nodded, glancing around the beige walls of her new prison.

  “Then you can just meet us in Florida. No point in coming back here, because the entire office is practically relocating for the spring.”

  Florida. She’d almost forgotten that baseball’s one saving grace was avoiding the worst of the wet months by training in the state most resembling paradise. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Only one hundred and sixty two games, she thought sardonically, plus bad hotels, bad food, obnoxious boss. A job I don’t know how to do. Things are definitely looking up.