She looked at me with big brown eyes and lips that didn’t pout anymore. They were tight and defensive.
“I’ll take care of the room, as always. But I can’t this time.” I zipped my fly.
She took her hands off the headboard and closed her legs. Sighed. I got ready for recriminations and a fight. But not too many. I had to get up in the morning. Even if I fucked her raw, I’d have left by eleven.
“You could have told me before I hired a sitter,” she groused.
“I know. I’m sorry. I can cover it.”
“I’m not a whore.”
“I never treated you like one.”
She looked at her watch but never made eye contact with me. “Whatever. Just get out.”
I got out. I put on my jacket, paid the bill, got her room service, and sat in the rental car, shaking.
Jesus Christ. What had I done?
thirty-four
Vivian
The decorations were up. We were crouched behind sofas and chairs. My friends. Dad’s friends. His brother and sister and their kids and grandkids. The house was alive, holding its collective breath as Dad’s car pulled into the drive. He’d gone out for pre-latke-and-soup coffee with Sylvia, the lady from the deli counter at Ralph’s. He’d changed his medication, and the rheumatoid arthritis pain had become less and less severe. He hadn’t used a walker in weeks and only occasionally needed his cane. When he’d told me he’d had the confidence to ask Sylvia out instead of just asking her to peel the potatoes, my eyes stung with happy tears.
I hadn’t wanted to meet Sylvia at a surprise party, but seeing as I couldn’t change the party, I went to Ralph’s to meet her on my own. Then I told Dad when I got home. Pretending she and I were just meeting at the party wasn’t fair.
He looked stricken. “Peanut, I wanted to have a dinner.”
“I needed pickles, and I know you don’t like the ones in the jar,” I lied. “She had a name tag. I said hi. She’s very nice, Dad. And not just to me. To everyone. The lady in front of me was being a complete bitch, and she was still nice. Real nice. Not fake nice.”
“Yeah,” he said, flipping through channels. It was after midnight, and the pickin’s were slim. “They send her to the worst customers. By the time they walk away, they’re smiling.”
He settled on one of the ESPNs, on some statistical yackety yack involving a players’ strike that wasn’t going to happen, and I didn’t even think to ask him to change it. I didn’t know what I was going to do over the course of the season, if seeing him on the field was going to hurt me too much or if even in the breadth of the stadium I’d feel the heat of his body.
But it wasn’t the season yet. I had time. I had Dad’s party the next day, and I had to get the library in shape for a funding drive, then I had summer vacation. I didn’t expect to be over Dash Wallace by then, but I didn’t have to figure out if I had to start rooting for Anaheim just yet.
That was why his face caught me off guard, landing in my throat like an olive I couldn’t swallow. First in a rectangle in the corner of the screen, still and perfect, with a predatory look outward, with the header Spring Training Report.
Dad fussed for the remote while the announcer droned about something, but his hands were swollen and stiff. He couldn’t find the button to change the channel.
“Sorry, sorry,” he grumbled to my broken heart.
I hadn’t said a word because it was crazy, but the sight of him brought it all back. When the picture flipped to clips of the Arizona practice field and Dash’s body running across it, my sorrow hit a new low.
He couldn’t catch a freaking ball to save his life. Tape of the pathetic drills looped over and over. Error. Error. Error. It was freakishly bad. I’d never seen him play like that. It was as if a Little Leaguer had stepped onto the field for a charity match.
“Stop,” I said to Dad, leaning over so he couldn’t change the station.
Scouts and sportswriters are calculating the odds that the current world champions will be in fourth place by the All-Star Game without Wallace’s A-game. With Randy Tremaine’s slugging percentage at a career high, there’s speculation number 19’s moving down to the bottom of the lineup.
They shot a second of him close. Profile. Walking off the practice field with his head down. He knew people were watching. He wanted to hide. He was ashamed.
How did I know?
I just did.
He’d hurt me. I knew he was sleeping with other women. I knew he’d forgotten me. I knew what we had together wouldn’t be repeated, but I felt no joy in his failure. I was sick to my stomach for him.
The next morning, prepping Dad’s twenty-five-man roster ball, I placed it in the little glass stand with Dash’s big blue name facing up. I wanted to remember that confident player. That king of the Elysian. I wrapped the box in blue paper and immersed myself in decorating the house and entertaining the guests while Dad was out.
“They’re here!” Aunt Bette said from her spot by the window.