"You remember how I always told you about the College World Series?" Steve said.
That puzzled her, but she went with it. "U.M. down by a run in the ninth inning. You got picked off third base to end the game."
"What else? What do I always say?"
This must be some sort of metaphor, she thought, but what could it be? Steve was bringing back the most humiliating day of his life. He'd let his teammates down. So maybe he wanted to say: "I want us to be a team forever, Vic, and I'll never let you down."
"You always say you got in under the tag," she replied. "The ump blew the call."
"Yeah, maybe the photos make it look that way. But the thing is, I felt the third baseman's glove swipe my hand when I dived for the base. All this time, Vic, I've been lying to myself and everybody else. The damn truth is, I was out."
Okay, Steve, you were picked off. Your team lost. What's it have to do with us?
But she didn't want to appear critical. What was it her mother had said?
"A woman must support her man."
She wrapped both arms around his neck and moved so close, their noses nearly touched. "I understand, sweetheart. You feel your life has been a lie."
"Well, not my whole life. But I feel so much better telling you what really happened."
"So that our relationship can move to a new level?" Prompting him, trying to make it easier.
"What level is that?"
"I thought you wanted to open up, discuss feelings, remember?"
"Yeah. I was feeling bad and now that I told you the truth, I feel better."
"You feel better?" She took a step back, astonished. "What about us? What about words like 'love' and 'plans' and 'future'? Where do I fit into your life now that we know you were picked off fair and square?"
Steve seemed startled. He took a gulp of his beer, then moved toward the window. In the yard, white smoke billowed from the hibachi. Either a new pope had been selected, or it was time to put on the steaks.
He turned to face her. "Vic, all these years, I never told anyone else what really happened in that game. I couldn't have told you if I didn't love you."
"Keep going, partner. What else?"
"I'm sorry I've been such a jerk about moving in together. I figured everything was good the way it was. We each had our own space, and I was afraid that if something changed, we'd be headed for the great unknown. So I guess I was scared."
"And now?"
"Life is the great unknown, isn't it? If we shy away from risks, we're running from life."
"So you do have plans? For us, I mean."
"My mind's full of plans, except I call them 'hopes.' When we met, I didn't dare plan you'd want to be with me. But sure, I hoped you would. Even when we got together, my hopes all came with fears. The biggest one, you'd wake up one morning and realize you'd made a gigantic mistake. So I couldn't talk about any of this. Even now it's hard for me to believe you want to live with me and help me raise Bobby. As for the future-well, I've got hopes there, too."
She didn't know how far to push him, but she couldn't leave that hanging. "What sort of hopes?"
"You know, permanent stuff."
"Yeah?"
"Marriage. Kids." His voice a whisper.
"Is that what you really want, Steve?" Asking ever so gently, trying not to frighten him.
"Someday," he said quickly. "If all goes well."
Okay, a tiny retreat. But he'd moved a mile forward and only one step backward. Once you say "marriage," the word can't be erased.
Victoria took both Steve's arms and wrapped them around her waist, because the poor guy seemed incapable of movement. Then she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. As their lips touched, she murmured, "Those are my hopes, too."
She kissed him again and their bodies folded into each other, the contours fitting perfectly, a yin and yang of man and woman. "And by the way, I've studied those photos from the game. You did get in under the tag."
"No, Vic. I remember the glove hitting my hand."
"You remember wrong, lover. You were safe. You've always been safe."
Thirty-Four
Several hours after the words "marriage" and "kids" tumbled from his mouth like skydivers leaping from a plane, Steve Solomon took stock of his life.
I'm a happy man.
Strike that, Madam Court Reporter. "Happy" doesn't quite say it. I'm a living beer commercial. I'm playing volleyball on the beach with the woman I love.
He had shared his feelings with Victoria and it hadn't hurt. They loved each other and had recommitted. They were about to take the giant step of buying a place and moving in together. Steve, Victoria, and Bobby. A ready-made family.
Bobby seemed happier at dinner, too. Steve made him laugh, and the kid worked up his first anagram in a week. Who knew that "President George Bush" could be rearranged to spell "The person is buggered"?
Now Victoria lay alongside Steve in bed. They had eaten their steaks and polished off an entire pie. They had talked some more in the bedroom, had made love, talked some more, made love again, and talked even more.
Steve was just drifting off to sleep, thinking he wouldn't trade places with anyone else in the world, when he heard the thump. There was a steady breeze, and sometimes a giant palm frond would break loose from the tree and sideswipe the house on the way to the ground. But that sound was different. He felt too tired and content to get up, but he did, anyway.
The house was dark, and he was naked. He reached under the bed, grabbed an aluminum softball bat, and padded out of the bedroom. In the kitchen, he peered through the sliding glass door. The backyard was an ominous greenish black, the foliage backlit by a neighbor's powerful anticrime spotlights. Something seemed different, but what was it?
It only took a second. The grill cover was on the ground. A metal lid, it should have been leaning against the house, where he'd left it. But it had been moved, maybe two feet, as if someone walking along the house in the dark had stumbled over it.
Steve unlocked the glass door, slid it open, and slipped outside, gripping the bat in his right hand. It was light and whippy. He could crush someone's skull with it, no problem.
He smelled something burning. What the hell?
Cigarette smoke.
Then a woman's voice, out of the darkness. "You've gotten bigger since you were nine."
Heart racing, Steve wheeled around, ready to swing the bat.
"Over here, Stevie."
He wheeled the other way and saw the glow of the cigarette and a heavyset figure reclining on the chaise lounge.
"Jesus, Janice! What are you doing here?"
"Here. Take this." She sat up in the chaise and tossed a towel at him. "You remember how Mom always made me give you a bath when you were little? You hated it."
Steve wrapped the towel-wet and cold-around his waist. "You stoned, Janice? What the hell's going on?"
"Clean and sober. I came to see Bobby."
"In the middle of the night?"
"It's the only time we can talk without you hovering over us like a wicked stepmother. Or stepuncle, or whatever the hell you are."
"I'm his caregiver. I'm his father and his mother, and I'd rather see him raised by wolves than by you."
"You're so great at it, where the hell is he?"
"In bed. Sleeping."
"Yeah, well, I just rapped on his window for ten minutes and he ain't there."