Be My Baby Tonight (22 page)

“No,” he said quickly, rubbing at the back of
his neck. “That’s not what I meant. What I mean is... Oh, hell,
Suze, I don’t know what I mean. Look, let’s just go to bed. Where
did you put me?”

“In the back bedroom. It’s the only other one
that has furniture, remember? You don’t mind?”

“Of course I mind,” he said, and she was
pretty sure it was the first really
honest
thing he’d said
to her all evening.

He stepped closer to her, put his hands on
her upper arms. “I missed you, Suze. I missed you so much.”

Give in,
her body cried out, even as
her brain delivered a mental kick to her backside.

“We’ve been apart longer than this, Tim. Ten
days for one of your road trips, another week when I had to go to
Seattle. Ten years, when we went off to college.”

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms.
“This was different. I didn’t know if you’d be here when I got
back. I... I need you, Suze.”

She had to say it. She had to say something,
because if she didn’t, she’d fall into his arms, give in, give up,
and they would spend the rest of their lives reliving the old
patterns. That old pattern where Tim asked, and she gave.

“Because of the curse? Because, otherwise,
you could get hurt? Have to leave the game?”

“Screw the curse, Suze. It was stupid. I was
stupid.”

“Yes, you were. And so was I. This isn’t just
about the curse, or your superstitions, or some crazy belief that
you’d end up doing at least one of the three major things Jack did
this past year. There’s more to it than that, Tim. A lot more.”

He dropped his hands from her arms, and she
sighed in relief and in loss.

“Kindergarten. Paste. La-La-Land psychology.
We’re back to that?”

“You don’t see the pattern, Tim?”

He made a face. “No, I don’t see the damn
pattern. We were kids.”

“We weren’t kids in that hotel room, Tim. And
yet you reverted straight back to the old days. You had a problem,
and good old Suze could help you out. You seduced me, Tim.”

“Yeah, that took all of ten seconds,” he
grumbled, just like a man, and she was suddenly
so
glad she
hadn’t forgiven him.

“Go to bed, Tim,” she said, turning her back
on him.

“Ah, Suze, I’m sorry. That just came out. I
didn’t mean it.”

She turned back to him. “A part of you did.
Tim,” she continued, sighing, “either we divorce now, admit we made
a mistake, or we work on this. But you can’t expect a lifetime of
Tim asks and Suzanna jumps to be resolved with one quick ‘I’m
sorry.’ Do you understand that? You have to decide just what it is
you want from me, what you think you need from me, and I have to
decide if what I feel for you is what a wife should feel, or if
I’ve finally thought I’ve won one, and the victory was more
important than whether or not I still
wanted
it.

If she had hit him with a lamp, he couldn’t
have looked more shocked. It had never occurred to the man. Never.
She might not want
him?

He’d seen some glimpse of light, realized
that he’d made a mistake. Had even suffered, a little. But, deep in
his heart, he was so damn sure she’d forgive him.

Rocked your world, didn’t I, Tim-bo?

He changed the subject. “We have a free day
tomorrow, just a practice, so I can come home again in time for
dinner. Then the Cardinals are in Tuesday and Wednesday, we’re off
Thursday, and the Cubs will be here for a three-game weekend. Then
we hit the road, for two with the Marlins and two more with the
Braves, and then to Shea Stadium to finish the season with three
against the Mets.”

“And?” she said, trying to get his point.

“I just thought I’d tell you, that’s all.
That’s what husbands do, right?” he said. “So you can plan? We
could go out for dinner tomorrow night? You could come stay at the
apartment Tuesday and Wednesday? Didn’t you say you still had some
vacation time coming to you?”

“We’ll see,” she said, feeling rather
powerful. It was a new feeling where Tim was concerned. Not that he
was exactly
pleading
with her, but he was close. “Now, go to
bed, Tim. You got knocked down, remember?”

“I’m still on the floor,” he said,
grimacing.

“In the
game,
Tim, in the game. You go
upstairs.”

“Aren’t you coming? Oh, I know, I know,
separate bedrooms. But it’s late, Suze. You need your rest, too,
right?”

She looked at him suspiciously for a moment,
then decided he was just trying to get her upstairs, where he’d
make his next move. Well, good luck to him, because she had found
the key to the master bedroom door.

“I’ll be up soon,” she said. “I brought the
cats home today, before they forgot who we are. I just want to make
sure they have some dry food and fresh water. Otherwise, Margo will
be standing on my chest, nose to nose with me, at five in the
morning, yowling.”

Tim just about knocked her down as he headed
over to the plastic pad on the floor in front of the pot-and-pan
closet and picked up the dishes. “I’ll do that.”

She pulled out the foil bag of cat treats and
shook it. “Thank you. But you forgot Margo’s nightly treats. I’m
surprised she wasn’t waiting for us when—ah, here she comes. She
heard me shake the bag.”

Suzanna went down on her knees and poured a
few treats into her hand. “Come here, sweetheart. Look what I’ve
got for you.”

Margo was a great cat, but like many
Persians, she also was very much her own cat. She was the queen,
and she made very sure everyone knew it. Big, bad Lucky never
approached the feeding dishes until Margo was done eating. She
allowed affection, gave much in return, but even Suzanna couldn’t
turn her into a cuddly lap cat. Still, she kept trying.

As Margo finished the last of the treats,
Suzanna picked her up, hoping for a little purring, and maybe a
lick on the nose, which was either Margo’s way of saying, “I love
you,” or “Okay, I’ve been good, I’ve let you hold me for three
complete seconds, so now let me down.”

“Oh, look, Tim, she’s letting me cuddle her,”
she said, smiling up at him as she stroked Margo’s long, lush coat.
Margo was all fur, and looked twice as big as she actually was. At
her last appointment at the vet, she’d weighed in at only six and
one-half pounds.

Funny. She felt heavier tonight.

“Okay, they’ve got fresh food and water,” Tim
said, sort of nudging Lucky with the toe of his sneaker, as if
pushing him out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

Suzanna bent her head so that Margo could
lick her nose, still running her hands over the cat’s body.

“Tim?”

“Hmmm? I was just heading upstairs. You
coming?”

“Not yet. Tim, I think Margo may have worms
or something. Do you think she could have worms? Her belly’s sort
of tight, and fuller than it’s ever been. You know how she can
stretch out on the couch? She looks like she’s three feet long, and
pencil slim. Lucky goes outside, so God knows what he gets into and
could bring home to Margo. When did you last have him at the
vet?”

“It’s... It’s been a while,” he said, nudging
Lucky again with his foot. “But he didn’t have worms then. Dogs get
worms. I don’t think cats get worms. Probably not. So, no, Lucky
didn’t... didn’t give her anything. Maybe she’s just eating a lot.
Aunt Sadie may have been overfeeding her.”

Margo was still cuddling, her purr loud and
rumbling.

“Her nose is cold and wet, and I think that’s
good. But this isn’t at all like Margo, Tim. It’s probably all my
fault. I know Mrs. B. takes very good care of her, but she’s more
used to Mrs. Josephson, I guess. And I’ve been away from home so
much lately. Do you think she senses tension in me, and is trying
to comfort me?”

“If she knows I’ve been benched, yeah, I
guess so. Come on, it’s late. Let’s go upstairs.”

Man, he was antsy. What was his problem? He
looked... Yes, he looked
guilty.

Suzanna’s internal radar, which had been
trained on Tim for most of her life, turned itself on, scanned the
room, and landed on Lucky.

Did Lucky look guilty, too? Could cats look
guilty? Was Margo sick, or just being unusually sweet? Or did she
think that she and Suzanna were kindred spirits?

“Tim,” she said, dragging out his name.
“Lucky is fixed, right? That is what you told me.”

He scratched at a spot just above his left
ear, a sure sign he was about to say something she wouldn’t
like.

“Tim?”

“About Lucky getting snipped...” he said,
grimacing as if every word was painful.

“Timothy Patrick Trehan,” Suzanna said, still
holding Margo as she got to her feet. The cat objected, cried out,
and Suzanna let her down before walking straight up to Tim and
pointing a finger at him. “You didn’t have him fixed, did you?” She
poked her finger into his chest.
“Did
you?”

He let out a long breath. “You wouldn’t
understand. It’s... It’s a
man
thing, Suze. How could I look
Lucky in the face if I did that to him? Snipped? Cripes. I just
couldn’t do it. He’s only about a year old, Suze; he hasn’t even
lived
yet. How does a guy do that to another guy? But... But
I was working my way up to it, honest I was. I’d made up my mind to
have a little man-to-man talk with him, explain things, and then
get him an appointment. But then Mrs. B. told me—”

“Mrs. B.
told
you, Tim?” Suzanna’s
eyes narrowed. “She told you what, Tim? She told you that Margo was
pregnant?”

He gestured awkwardly with his hands. “She
bought this... this book about it. Said something about nipples
getting pink and big, and no hair, and, well, I tried really hard
not to listen.”

Suzanna glared at him for a few moments, then
went looking for Margo, who was sitting on the kitchen table,
daintily licking her paws. She picked up the cat, her hands
gripping the animal behind her front legs, and went face-to-belly
with Margo’s stomach.

“Oh... my...
God,”
Suzanna said as
Margo struggled to be free. She put down the cat and whirled
around, to face Tim once more. If her eyes could turn to lasers,
he’d be just so much dust on the floor.

“You said she was pretty much still a
kitten,” Tim said quickly. “Lucky’s not a kitten, but he’s not that
old, either. I thought I had time. You know, to break it to Lucky
gently?”

“I could kill you. I could just
kill
you,” Suzanna said. “How can I believe
anything
you say to
me?” she asked him, and, then she stomped up the back stairs.

* * *

The Cardinals came and went. So did the
Cubs.

The Mets were on a tear, winning three of
five on the road.

And the “Phightin’ Phils” were now three
games out of first. The rest of the team had been great, but Tim’s
play could pretty much be summarized as stink, stank, stunk.

He had taken to putting music discs in his
car radio and avoiding the call-in all-sports talk stations.

Two errors in five games. A solid Golden
Glover, and he’d made two stupid errors in five games. And his
batting average had dropped seven points so far in September. That
was a big drop, this late in the season.

Not that Suzanna cared.

She hadn’t come down to a single home game,
because she’d gone out of town, to San Diego. She’d told him she’d
have to travel with Gloria for a while, show her the ropes, but Tim
wasn’t buying it.

She had gone out of town because she wanted
to be out of town while he was at home, and now she was home again,
and he was on the road.

That was what he got, telling her his
schedule.

She’d planned her absences around it.

“You have to put it all out of your head and
concentrate on the game, bro,” Jack told him, long distance.

Tim sat down on the edge of the Atlanta hotel
bed, the cell phone pressed to his ear. “How am I supposed to do
that? She’s avoiding me. I call home, and I get the answering
machine, have to listen to my own stupid voice. I call Mrs. B., and
she tells me Suzanna’s home; she can
see
her car in the
driveway. She’s using the Caller ID and just not answering. Next
thing, Jack, she’ll be moving out. Lay siege to the castle of her
heart? Sounds good, if soppy, on paper, bro, but we’re never in the
same place.”

“You will be if you keep dropping games while
the Mets keep winning. In fact, the way I figure it, unless you
sweep the Braves and take two out of three games from the Mets, win
this thing outright, you’ll be lucky to get a wild card and play in
October at all. All while hoping the Mets drop at least two of
their three to Cincinnati before you head to Shea. Statistically,
you’re not out of it, but you’ve got to win, Tim. You’ve got to
win.”

“Don’t remind me,” Tim said, unconsciously
rubbing his belly. He’d just been sick again. Hell, he’d been sick
every morning, waking up with his stomach roiling, so that the
moment he picked his head up off the pillow it had been a mad dash
for the bathroom.

He felt like shit.

“So, she went to the doctor? You did say she
had an appointment, right?” Tim asked, not able to concentrate on
baseball, not able to think about anything but Suzanna.

“Yeah, bro, she did.”

“And she is?”

“Oh, yeah. Even had a sonogram, because she
wasn’t sure when you two got lucky.”

“Don’t say Lucky. I’m still thinking about
strangling that cat.”

“I’m not talking about that Lucky. Want the
due date?”

“Margo’s?” Tim rubbed at his clammy forehead.
“I don’t think so.”

“Not the cat’s, Tim, for crying out loud,
although I do know it. Aunt Sadie figures it’ll be next week,
around October fifth. If you guys get into the divisional series,
you’ll probably be out of town, playing.”

Tim sighed. “I can live with that.”