Been In Love Before: A Novel by Bryan Mooney

the doors slowly opened. She led him down the familiar hallway, then stopped and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Okay, now you can open your eyes.”
    Before him stood new glass-and-chrome double doors, which had replaced the old wooden one with its rusty doorknob. The new front doors were prominently stenciled with M ACGREGOR S PORTS M ARKETING —W ORLD H EADQUARTERS . He turned to her in amazement, speechless.
    She smiled a coy smile. “I threw in the World Headquarters line just to add some cachet. Like it?”
    “I love it!” He was so impressed and excited, he hugged her tight and kissed her for good luck. “Rose, this is so awesome.”
    She swallowed hard, then recovered by saying, “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Come on inside and see your new offices.”
    His longtime assistant stood to greet him. “Looks great, doesn’t it, boss?”
    “You bet. Oh my God, this is awesome.”
    Posters of him during his playing years adorned the walls, along with pictures of him shaking hands with many of the players he currently managed. The old dingy coffee room was now a modern meeting room with a large cherry conference table and six black leather executive chairs. Colorful baseball pictures and posters hung from every wall. He nodded his approval.
    “Now to your office.” She took him by the hand and led him to the corner office and motioned for him to open the tall, imposing walnut door. Once inside he was speechless. His desk was in the corner. Rose had replaced the dark, dingy commercial-grade flooring with a soft and subtly patterned white wool Berber carpet. In a glass case in the corner was his baseball glove and one of the baseballs he had used to throw his monumental no-hitter against the Yankees. The final strikeout to win the game. Other memorabilia lined the walls, as well as pictures of him with some of baseball’s greatest players. Rose had made it really feel like home. She knew him well.
    “Rose, I can’t believe it. Look at this place. You’re great. And under budget, wow!”
    “Well . . . almost under budget, but close. Only one thing . . . I used your old storage closet back there for filing cabinets to hold all the records, files, and receipts. I had a lot of surplus baseball equipment left over. New stuff that you had in boxes, like bats, gloves, jerseys, and baseballs—stuff like that. There’s no more room. Maybe you can sell it online or donate some of it?”
    “Sure.”
    She spun around his new office and smiled. “You like it?”
    “Rose, I absolutely love it,” he told her as he sat in his new high-back executive chair. “Tell you what . . . let me take you out to dinner to celebrate.”
    “Sure,” she said with a broad grin. “How about tomorrow night?”
    “Okay . . . sure. No, wait, I can’t do tomorrow. Ryan’s daughter, Mary Kate, bought dance lessons for me and my brothers, and the first one is scheduled for tomorrow night.”
    “Dance lessons?”
    “Yeah. She’s getting married in two weeks. So she said she wants to dance with her father and uncles and bought us some dance lessons.”
    “Oh,” she exclaimed. “Hey, I got a good idea,” she chirped. “You can’t just take a dance lesson and not practice. Why don’t we do dinner at Germaine’s on Yamato? You remember the place. They have a band and serve dinner and have a huge dance floor. We can practice all your dance moves and celebrate your new office at the same time.”
    “Germaine’s? Is that the place the four of us used to go to years ago? The one on Dixie Highway, in Boca?”
    “The one and only. What do you say?”
    He took in a deep breath and said, “Lots of memories there. With Alice. Tony.”
    She looked at him and put her hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
    “Sure, why not? You want me to pick you up, or . . . ?”
    “I have a client to meet with earlier, so why don’t I just meet you there? Say, seven? Okay?”
    “Sounds great. I thought