Hardball (30 page)

“We should go,” he said.

That wasn’t the answer I’d been looking for, but what could I expect?

He helped me down from the wall, but his touch was cold, and his eyes avoided mine.

Dash

Before Ithaca winter set in, we got a cord of wood for the fireplace. My father bought rough brown twine to tie it together in manageable bundles. The sisal came in a tubeless cylinder, and we pulled the end from the center. There’s a lot of wood in a cord, and we used yards and yards to bundle it, pulling from the center of the cylinder to take a length. We could use ninety percent of the spool, and the size of the thing never changed. It just got emptier and emptier, but it looked the same on the outside.

Until the last few yards. Then the shape would start to collapse, and the entire thing disappeared as if the invisible man had gotten undressed, and boom, I’d see how empty it had been all that time.

I walked her to the car and drove it back to her house, but my shape was crumpling. I was about to be stripped down to invisibility. I’d looked pretty fine and felt okay until she refused me, then I’d realized how little I had left at the core.

“I’m sorry,” she said when we were halfway to her house.

It was the point in the drive where I could have gone in either direction: to my place, and a night of fucking, or her place.

“I understand.” I didn’t understand a thing, but I couldn’t talk. I was about to fall apart, and talking would only use up the few yards I had.

I held her hand because it would reassure her and she’d stop talking. With that touch came a new unraveling. Had I lost her? Did my desperation drive her away? With that thought, I was one layer of twine from complete collapse.

I parked and got out before we could talk this through more. I opened her door and helped her out. At the top of the steps, I stopped.

“The game tomorrow…” I said.

“Yes.”

“Will you come? I have the seats for you.”

“Yes.”

“Will you still walk the bases with me?” I asked. I needed her to. For luck, yes. Because I needed the routine. But also because it meant she was beside me.

She barely hesitated, and that told me the truth of her response. “Yes.”

“We’re playing San Diego next.”

“I want to go. Can I just go to your games when I can?”

“Yes, I”—
take a breath
—“I need you there. Whenever you can.”

“Dash, you’re fine with or without me. You have to believe that.”

I put my fingers to her lips. I couldn’t hear another word. She turned her head until my palm cupped her face, and she pressed it to her cheek, letting her eyes flutter closed.

I’d hurt her. I hadn’t thought it was possible to hurt someone with an unopened ring box, but I had, and with that, the last of the string got pulled away.

Vivian

“Why do you look like that?” Dad asked when I got inside. He was in his robe and slippers, boiling water for tea. His amber med bottles were out. If it was midnight and he was up with painkillers, the arthritis was flaring.

I got a cup from the cabinet, deciding to stay up with him.

“He asked me to marry him.”

“
Mazel tov
! Where’s the funeral?”

“I said no.” I pushed my mug toward him, and he swung a teabag into it. “It’s too soon.”

“It is, it is.”

“Why do I feel like crying?”

“I want to tell you something you don’t know. Do you remember that boyfriend you used to have?”

“Carl?”

“That one. He used to call here all the time. After you broke up, I mean.”

“What?” The teapot whistled just as I said it. “Why?”

Dad turned off the heat. “He wanted to know if you were all right. And I didn’t like the guy. I didn’t like what he did. I was mad at him. But he was very upset.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I? He was wrong for you. If I told you how much that stupid ass cried for you—you with your good heart?—you’d just try to comfort him.”

He poured hot water into my cup, and the water went from clear to pale yellow, releasing the waxy florals of chamomile.

“I don’t have the energy to be mad at you,” I said.

“Have the energy to realize it’s hard to say no to someone you care about. Even for Carl the
schlemiel
.”

I dunked my teabag, pinched it, and put it to the side. Carl had put a stake in my heart. I’d thought I’d never get over it.

And Dash? What had he done by moving too fast? Whipped the rug out from under me, from all my view of how things were and should be, and I was going to make contact with the floor. Hard.

“I’m afraid he’s going to leave me.”

When I said the words, my face tingled and crunched. That was my hard place, and by refusing him, I’d angled my body to hit harder and faster. My mouth filled with gunk, and my eyes burned with tears. In a second, I couldn’t breathe unless I gulped.

Dad was there. He held me right there in the kitchen for a good ten minutes while I sobbed as if I hadn’t been proposed to. I sobbed as if I’d been dumped.

Vivian

Are you up?

It’s 2am. Of course

(…)

(…)

You have a game tomorrow. You need to sleep

I can’t

(…)

(…)

I’m sorry

No. I’m sorry

Vivian

My phone lit up. He was calling. The thing to do was to answer it. Talk to him. Tell him I loved him and accept his love even if he felt half-heartedly trapped into expressing it.

Or not.

Who was I to doubt him?

I was the sensible one, that’s who. I started saying things to myself as the phone vibrated in my hand. Bad things.

I was an object.

When he got to know me, he’d dump me.

He couldn’t hear me crying, and I didn’t want him to. I rejected the call.

I’m not functioning well. I can’t talk

He didn’t answer for a long time. And why should he? He was the one who had put his heart on the line, and I was the one who was protected and fortified. Not only had I rejected his proposal, I’d rejected his call.

I’ll walk the bases with you tomorrow

You don’t have to

The next text came right after.

Your tickets are at the will call if you still want to come to the game. Otherwise, I’ll see you another time

Another time.

Simple and polite. Nonspecific. Not demanding. Move along. Nothing to see here. Nothing but nothing. I couldn’t call him and reassure him. I’d already said I couldn’t talk.

Good night

I hit Send and started on the next text before the first even went through.

I love you

Both messages were delivered. The screen said so, but nothing came back. I had no way of knowing if he even saw them.

I tried to sleep and failed. My brain was too busy winding guilt around justification, knotting me into a braid of righteous self-reproach.

I should have just said yes.

But I couldn’t have.

I fell asleep, sure I’d lost him, and woke up an hour later when the birds started whistling. Dash was the first thought on my mind. I didn’t look at my phone. I was afraid of what I’d see.