She opened the door, and I cracked mine, making the dashboard ding ding ding. I was supposed to open her door. It was a habit. But she was out and gone, slamming the door and running up the stone path.
Getting out first and opening the door for her was a promise of something more. A promise that I’d be careful with her body and her heart. As she ran up the steps and pushed the door open without needing to unlock it, I knew I’d broken that promise.
If I couldn’t keep my word with a woman like Vivian, I’d never be a worthwhile partner to any woman. I sat outside, coming to terms with the fact that she was it. She was my last chance at love, and I’d blown it. I’d had a choice between a woman I could love the rest of my life and baseball.
I’d made the only choice I could have, and I had to be okay with that.
By the time I got home, I’d resigned myself to a life alone but secure, steady, and predictable.
Packing was easy. Sleeping was hard. Impossible.
The sheets smelled like fucking.
I stripped the bed, made it again, and stared at the ceiling until morning.
I missed her already.
thirty-one
Vivian
I wasn’t surprised. I’d known deep down that it wasn’t going to work, so I was as good as someone who had cut the bungee cord and jumped anyway. So I fell and fell hard, but I wasn’t shocked when I met the ground.
“Of course I’m bummed,” I said to Francine as I pulled blue and white balloons off the shelf.
She was helping me get supplies for Dad’s birthday party and had a baseball pi?ata under her arm. “Yeah, but you’re doing everything Dodger blue. Got the baseball balloons and the pi?ata. He’s too old for a pi?ata.”
“We have nieces and nephews who will be there. Should I get this silver fringey stuff?”
She snapped it from me and put it in the cart. “All I’m saying is, when Carl did that thing, you wouldn’t listen to Procol Harum for… how long? Ever?”
“I never really liked Procol Harum in the first place.”
“And you wouldn’t go to the Singapore Lounge forever.”
“This is different.”
“It was shorter?”
“Yes. Shorter. Also I came out of it sad, yeah. I wanted it to work. I still wished it had. And I’m nuts about him. I cry, Francine. I cry every night. But it’s because I miss him, not because I think I’m worthless.”
“You’re not worthless.”
“That’s what I’m saying. It was him. Not me. I wasn’t too boring. I was actually too much fun.” I did a little dance with my shoulders and snapped up a stack of blue cups.
My shimmy belied the depth of my tears. After he drove away, I’d taken two sick days and just bawled. My father shook his fists at heaven and threatened to sue the league for something, anything. I couldn’t calm him down because I was in such a state. I could barely breathe, much less argue him out of taking legal action.
On day two, my eyes ached. I put an ice pack over them and, through the cold blackness, explained to my father that it was all right. I’d stop crying soon. I was in love with Dash Wallace. He didn’t love me, and not only did that have nothing to do with any of my shortcomings, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Dad didn’t say anything.
But late on day two, he exploded when I stood in front of the fridge, looking at the cold inside as if it were a fish tank.
“That son of a bitch. I’m going to kill him.” He leaned on the counter. He was having a bad day but refused to admit it while I was upset.
“It’s fine, Dad.”
“What I don't have because of the arthritis I make up for in bludgeons. I can hit him with my walker. I don’t care if I go to jail. And God help him. That’s all I have to say. God help him.”
I shut the fridge. I didn’t even know how to be angry. I couldn’t work up the energy for it. I remembered why I was there and opened the freezer.
“It’s fine,” I repeated, getting out the ice pack again. “I’ll get over it.”
“I don’t understand it. When I was a young man—and it wasn’t that long ago if you ask me—when I was a young man and a woman like you came along, there would have been a fight. Big fight for you. Now they fight to see who can treat the best women the worst. It’s disgusting. Taking pictures of their schlongs.”
“Dad, really?” I put the ice pack over my eyes to reduce the cry-swell.
“They’re all intimidated. That’s the problem. They don’t know how to act, so they act like animals, and they push the best ones away because they’re afraid you’ll wake up and realize you can do better. Mark my words, he’ll either be back or be in the paper with someone so far beneath you he feels like a bigger man. You wait. It’s gonna happen, and either way, you’re still better than any man deserves.”
“I don’t think it’s about deserving.” I took off the pack. “I don’t think it’s a contest.”
He grumbled something I couldn’t make out, and I tossed the ice pack back in the freezer.
“You’re a beautiful girl, you know that, right? Just say you know.”
“I know. I’m also funny and sexy, but you can ignore the sexy part. I’m just…” I sighed, and the breath caught in a sob I dismissed for later. “We had a great time.”