Chapter Two:

I slept most of the next day away, mainly from the jet lag. When I did wake up it was late afternoon. I showered and changed into a clean outfit before heading downstairs. My home was still re-introducing itself to me; the first thing it did was tell me to watch the bottom step of the staircase. A part of the step had chipped away (I didn't think I wanted to know how it happened) and I slipped abruptly and landed on my behind.

"Ow." I mumbled sorely. I took my time pulling myself up.

"Kristy?" Came a familiar voice from the kitchen.

"Nannie?" I shrieked, jumping up. "Nannie, is that you?"

From around the corner, Nannie leaned and gave me a smile. It's amazing how the woman never seemed to age.

"Oh Nannie, I've missed you!" I exclaimed, jumping up and rushing to give her a hug.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here for your welcoming party-but I was on a trip with my canasta group and it ran late-traffic was murder."

"It doesn't matter." I told her.

"Well, come on. Let me look at you." Nannie said, holding me out at arms length. "My, how you've grown!"

I rolled my eyes. That sounded like something Aunt Theo would say. "Well, it had to happen sometime, right?"

Nannie shrugged proudly. "I knew it would. You have my genes."

I giggled and helped Nannie take in the groceries she had purchased before coming home. She and I started making dinner for everyone. We were right in the middle of the chicken cacciatore when the door opened and Karen announced that she was home.

"Hey, Karen." I greeted with a smile.

"Hi Kristy." She smiled. "How was your first day home?"

"Busy. I spent the entire day in bed."

Karen giggled and set down her bag on the table. "How dreadful."

"How was the newspaper?"

"Hectic. My boss was late for a deadline on her paper and she, of course, made me do it."

I handed Karen a knife and we started chopping up some veggies for a salad. Nannie put the chicken into the oven to bake and she clapped her hands together. "Well, we're nearly there. About a half hour more and we'll be done." She took off her oven mitt and sighed. "Would you girls mind taking over. I haven't seen my garden in nearly a week and I miss it terribly."

I grinned. "Sure, Nannie. Karen and I will just have to make do with our girlish gossip."

Nannie thanked us and left us to go tend to her garden. I turned to Karen and playfully tapped her hand with the dull end of the knife. "Your boss sounds gigundoly witch-y."

Karen chuckle and nodded. "She is. But if I just hang in there I'll be moving up and I won't have to be under her thumb anymore."

"What's her name?" I asked as I tossed the lettuce into a large bowl.

"Well, her professional name is Maggie Mason." Karen replied.

I looked at her suspiciously and popped a little bit of carrot into my mouth. "What's her real name, then?"

"Well, you know her better as 'Cokie'." Karen told me.

I almost choked on the carrot that I was swallowing. "COKIE MASON is YOUR boss?!" I cried. "I didn't think she would ever make anything of herself!"

"She hasn't. Much." Karen replied. "The newspaper is this close to firing her but she always manages to slink her way out of it."

"Does she bully you?" I demanded protectively of my little sister.

Karen rolled her eyes. "KRISTY! I'm an adult. She can't bully me around."

"Cokie will do anything she can." I told her.

"I don't let her do anything to me." Karen said firmly. "I know how she was when you were in school together. Always doing bad stuff to Mary Anne and everyone else. I don't allow her to do any of that to me." She tossed the bell peppers into the bowl and patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You taught me well."

I sighed. "Well, if you're sure. Because I can beat her up if she bothers you."

"I can do all that myself." Karen joked. "Besides, she isn't as high-and-mighty as she'd like for everyone to believe."

"What do you mean?" I asked as I started tossing the salad, mixing in the Italian dressing I retrieved from the refrigerator.

"Well, for one thing, Grace Blume-do you remember her?"

"Cokie's lap dog? Sure. They were inseparable."

"Well, Grace works in the mailroom and she's having an affair with Cokie's husband."

I gasped. Despite how evil a person Cokie Mason was, I couldn't imagine anything as awful as an unfaithful spouse happening. Especially with her best friend...

"How do you know this?" I asked, bringing the salad to the table.

"I saw them one time." Karen told me, opening the cabinet to pull out the plates and other utensils. "They were at a cozy little restaurant just outside of Stamford. I was there with Norman and we saw them getting pretty intimate all over their lobster."

"Norman?" I asked.

Karen nodded, smiling shyly. "Norman Hill. He's my boyfriend."

I grinned. "Oh Karen, that is SO sweet! How did you get to know him?" Norman was one of the Baby-sitters' Club's clients way back when. He had always been a little on the heavy side but a good kid. But he lives on the other side of town and attended public school while Karen attended private.

"Well, our schools had a little get-together activity in middle school. You know, kind of like a mixer? My class and Norman's class were scheduled to meet. No one really wanted to talk, I guess we were all a little wary of each other but I wanted to meet new kids-"

"-Naturally." I interjected.

"Right, 'naturally'. So I turned to the first kid I saw-"

"-Norman?"

"No, Norman's girlfriend, at the time. But she ignored me. She just turned to a bunch of her friends and started talking about me. Saying mean things about how I was a spoiled rich kid. That kind of made everyone stick to their own even more. But Norman came up to me and apologized for the what happened. We ended up talking for the entire day and we swapped phone numbers and email addresses. We were friends all the way through high school. I went to college and Norman joined the military. His term ended this year and he came back and we... we just started dating."

"That sounds very... romantic." I said. I thought it was cute.

"When I first met Norman, he told me he used to be really overweight but he had gotten real thin then so I didn't believe him until he showed me some old pictures." Karen was telling me.

As we waited for the chicken to finish, we sat in the living room and talked more about Karen's life in general and then she asked me about what my days were usually like. I told they were filled with a lot of things. I would wake up at five in the morning, go for a run with Ma, and if it was a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, there would be a ballet trainer waiting at my private gym to teach me. My workouts always varied in their contents. Ballet helped me to keep limber and agile. Kickboxing built my stamina. Pilates toned all the important parts. Yoga on the weekends kept me centred. Gymnastics was for whatever the other workouts missed. Whatever it took to keep me in peak performance, I had for nearly two hours every day before I would eat breakfast and go out to practice with my team.

We'd practice for the better part of the day before we stopped. I was always exhausted by the time it was over and I barely ever went out afterward. I just pulled myself up to my hotel room and knocked out for the night. Usually after games or the World Series ended there would be mandatory parties and galas that I went to and I did have fun then but other than that I kept to myself.

Karen nodded. "I read that you were real quiet when it came to your career. I had to admit it didn't sound much like you."

"I am usually a very open person. But you can't say too much when you're a celebrity and not have it blow up in your face." I told her. "I guess I learned how to keep my mouth shut about some things." I suddenly laughed. That was something the BSC could never accomplish. Getting Kristy Thomas to shut her mouth.

The chicken cacciatore was done before the hour was out and by then Mom, Watson, Samantha and Emily Michelle were home. I asked them where the boys were and Mom told me that they usually get home later. Sam worked hard at the restaurant and Charlie commuted to New York every day while David Michael worked at miscellaneous writing assignments. Most of the time Andrew tagged along with him. Andrew adored David Michael and the two had become best friends, according to Mom.

It wasn't until we were halfway through dinner that the guys came pouring into the house and invaded the table. They told about their days and what hell it had been and dug into the food in such a way that reminded me about a litter of pigs at a feeding trough. But they were my brothers and I loved them anyway.

This went on for a couple of weeks. Every day I would wake up (it got easier to wake up early as my body adjusted) and clean up around the house, watch some TV, go for a run, make dinner. It was nice being home and listening to everything my family had going on but I was beginning to be restless. I wanted some of my own daily stories to tell, not just recollections of when I wasn't yet retired. I was only thirty years old, for goodness sake. I didn't want to just rest around the house all day.

I brought this up to Nannie when we were working in her garden one evening.

"I feel like a slug." I told her.

"You go out with your friends, don't you?" Nannie asked.

"Yeah, but only on the weekends. They work most of the time." I paused. "And even then, on the weekends, they talk about their lives. Mary Anne deals with troublemakers, Dawn deals with sick animals, and Stacey and Claudia talk about their store constantly. And I barely see Abby and Anna 'cause they live somewhere else."

Nannie nodded and looked thoughtful. "Well, would you like to earn money? Get a job?"

I shrugged. I didn't need much money especially since the bank was going to explode with all the money I was still getting from endorsements and retirement. I explained that to Nannie and she looked puzzled. "How much money do you get?"

I told her. She nearly fainted.

"Child, with that money I wouldn't care if I ever did anything again." She joked.

"Maybe I could do some volunteer work." I mused. "Something for the community kids? Like, I had Kristy's Krushers when I was..." I suddenly trailed off, inspired. "Hey, Nannie! That's it! Maybe I could start up Kristy's Krushers again! I could coach a bunch of new kids!" I jumped and down like a kid again. "Oh, Nannie, it would be perfect!"

Nannie could only laugh at my enthusiasm and told me that it was a great idea. I told her I would be back to help with dinner. Right now I needed to jog for my ideas. I think I ran from McClelland Lane all the way to my old neighborhood. A couple of times, young kids stopped me on the street to ask me for my autograph. I answered all the questions they had about me and I eagerly asked them whether they enjoyed softball or baseball. They told me they did. I became even more excited and by the time I reached home again, I knew what I wanted to do.

I helped Nannie set up the table and went upstairs to shower and change. I didn't eat that night because my idea was taking up everything that I had. The next day I would go to the community centre and set it all up. The advertising, the days the practices would be held, everything. Sleep didn't come very easily but it wasn't from unease. It was from excitement at setting my new plan into action.