“This was just the first time. The first time was bound to be a little uncomfortable,” he says.
“I just wanted so badly for them to get along with each other,” she says. “I didn’t feel there was one single moment of connection between them.”
“You expect too much,” he says. “They’re just being normal kids.”
“Mine are normal kids!” she wants to scream. “Yours is a mess.” A person could spend her whole life making Ursula okay.
If Ursula were her little girl, Claire would bake with her and teach her how to make origami paper cranes. She would teach her jump rope rhymes and all the verses to “The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night” and they would have a birthday party where all the girls brought their Barbies and they sewed outfits for them and then Claire took out the little tool she got when Sally was this age, that attaches rhinestone studs to fabric anyplace you want them, and all the girls would go home with rhinestones on their shirts.
Claire knows how to do all these things. Has done them. She just doesn’t know if she’s up for doing them again, with this particular child.
Sally doesn’t pay all that much attention to her mother’s boyfriends. Not since Mickey, and that was way back. She can remember how it used to bother her seeing them together, and how much in love they were, how yucky she used to think it was when she kissed him. Now that Sally has a boyfriend of her own, she is just as glad when her mother is going out with somebody. It keeps her occupied and out of Sally’s hair.
Only this one, Tim, is just such a loser. He just seems so gaga all the time. He thinks everything her mom does is great. It’s sickening.
He talks in this very serious voice, like everything’s such a big deal. He’s tried to have some of these serious-type conversations with Sally, but she always manages to get out of them. Like when he wanted to hear her opinion of Nirvana, and he didn’t seem to get it that just because she’s a teenager doesn’t necessarily mean she’s some Kurt Cobain maniac.
The worst part is that daughter of his. Sally likes little kids, but this one is just so weird. Sally’s mom can’t say she didn’t try to make conversation with Ursula, but the kid wouldn’t even talk. And the father acts like she’s made out of glass, always hovering over her. Kids at school must eat her alive.
With the other guys her mother has dated over the years, you knew they were going to leave you alone. They might come over, but mostly they wanted to stay away from Sally and Pete as much as Sally and Pete wanted to stay away from them. Whatever her mother did—and Sally is old enough now to understand that included screwing now and then—she didn’t rub their noses in it. At home she was still their mom. They had their way of doing things, and nobody messed it up.
This Tim character is moving in on their world. Deviled eggs, for God’s sake. The guy has planted squash in their garden and hung up a windchime. One day Sally came home from her dad’s and found him in the kitchen making stew.
“Here,” he said. “Try this.”
“We don’t eat stew,” she said. She’d heard from her mother about what an incredible cook he was. Like that was going to make a difference to her.
“Just taste,” he said.
“I’m a vegetarian,” she told him. Well, she is now.
They hated her. Ursula knew they would. Kids always do.
The girl, Sally, probably thought she was stuck up when she didn’t answer that question about her teacher.
There were so many things she wanted to say to Sally. You are even prettier than Vanna White. Did it hurt when you got your ears pierced? Could I touch those fishnet stockings? Can I see your room?
She said none of those things. She just sat there like she was retarded.
She already knows her dad likes Claire better than her now. Soon he will like the daughter better, too. He has already offered to take her driving. He wants to play catch with the boy. What about the treehouse he was going to build with her, Ursula wants to know.
For just a moment there, Ursula imagines that it could be all of them in that sparkly house of theirs, with the Christmas lights and the dollhouse and the trolls and the cookie jar shaped like a kangaroo. For a moment she imagines them all snuggled up under one of their soft fuzzy blankets with a big bowl of buttered popcorn, watching a movie together. Killer Clowns from Outer Space, her and her dad’s favorite.
• • •
“Wait till you see this part” Ursula tells Pete. “This part is my favorite.” And Claire will pass her the popcorn and squeeze her and she will say, “Come over here and snuggle with me.”
“This movie is awesome,” Pete will say. “I thought little girls only liked to watch dumb movies like Care Bears and Barney.”
“My dad and me hate Barney,” she says proudly.
“Cool,” says Pete.
She knows better than this. Her dad will leave Ursula with a babysitter some night when he brings Killer Clowns over to Claire’s house and they will have popcorn and snuggle up and they will all watch it together, all right—him and Claire and her kids—and when the girl and her mother get scared, Ursula’s dad will put his arms around them and say, “It’s okay to look again. It’s over.”
He will teach the boy karate, and once he learns it, the first person the boy will beat up will be Ursula.
Then will come the worst. There will be a baby. She will be little and so cute you’ll want to die. Ursula will love her so much she will be willing to do anything for her, but when she tries, Claire just tells her not to get so close, she has germs. So she stays in the doorway looking in at them, watching her dad leaning over the bassinet, singing the baby the very same song he used to sing to her.
Ursula knows what she has to do then. One day she will walk out the door and get on her bike and ride away. Just like that song Dolly Parton sings, where she knows she’s in the way, and she’s leaving forever, and still she’s singing “I will always love you.”
Or like that famous singer’s kid her dad told her about that was playing he was Superman one time and he ran right out a window in their apartment building that was so high up on account of his dad was a famous singer, and he got smashed on the sidewalk. He’s dead now. The singer wrote a song about him and one time when it came on the radio her dad cried. “Will you know my name, when I see you in heaven?” the song went.
They will know her name, all right. But they will never see her again. Then they’ll be sorry.
All day long Pete has been thinking about baseball tryouts tonight. This morning, very early, he went out in the yard and leaned his mom’s mini-exercise trampoline against the back fence the way he likes and pitched to it. When he throws right, the ball bounces back to him. This morning he was throwing practically all strikes.
All day at school he has been picturing how it will be when they call his name and he walks up to the mound. He mentally goes through his windup. He sees the pitches leave his glove, one after another. First a curveball. Then a slider. Then another curve. Then his famous fastball that nobody can believe a twelve-year-old kid could throw.
Finally Pete pictures himself in a Cubs uniform. He pictures Mr. Voorhees, the coach of the Cubs, putting an arm on his shoulder and leaning over to speak to him. “I’m making you my starting pitcher, Pete,” he says. “I’ve had my eye on you a long time now. I think we’ve got an incredible season ahead of us, and you’re the linchpin.”
He will call his dad up to tell him. His dad will say he knew Pete had it in him. “Did you remember what I told you about not kicking your leg quite so high?” his dad says.
“I did it just like you told me,” Pete tells him. “I carried your lucky penny.”
His mom will be happy too. At his games, the two of them, his mom and his dad, will both be sitting on the bleachers, watching. It is the one place he ever gets to see the two of them together now, the one place where you could almost think they were a regular family, if they would just sit closer. This season, though, his parents will be so proud of him, and so
happy, they’ll forget everything else.
Bottom of the seventh inning—all they play in his league—Pete will be sitting on the bench in the dugout, sipping his Powerade. Normally he’s a starter, but he has been sitting out this game to rest his arm. Only the game is tied and the Tigers have last ups, with two outs and a man on third. The batter coming up is Dayton Fusco, a lefty whose uncle once had a tryout with St. Louis. The best hitter in the entire league.
Mr. Voorhees comes over and sits down next to Pete. “I know I said we weren’t going to play you today,” he says. “But you’re the only one who can do the job for us here. I’m putting you in.”
Pete adjusts his cap and pulls up his socks.
“Think you can handle it, son?” Mr. Voorhees asks him.
“I’ll do my best,” he tells his coach.
As he walks out to the mound he can hear the cheering, and from the Tigers’ bench, a murmuring hush. He takes the mound. Throws his practice pitches to Dougie Evert, the catcher. Strike. Strike. Strike. Dougie’s mitt is practically smoking.
Pete scuffs his toe in the dirt. He looks out to the bleachers for a second until he spots his mom. That’s when he sees this amazing sight.
She’s sitting next to his dad. She’s leaning close in to him, whispering something in his ear. He’s smiling and nodding. He reaches over and takes her hand. She rests hers on his knee.
He throws his pitch. Dayton swings but doesn’t even get a piece of it.
He throws another. Strike two. The runner on third is making moves like he might steal home. Pete sets him straight.
Pete winds up for the third pitch. By the time Dayton swings, the ball’s already resting in Dougie’s mitt. He’s out of there. Game.
Over in the bleachers, everybody is standing up, cheering for him. His father has thrown his arms around his mother. His mother kisses his dad. The two of them come running out to the field to see him, together.
It’s just after three when Pete gets home from school. He told his mother this morning he needed a ride to tryouts by four today, and he can’t be late. He doesn’t understand why she’s not there. The house is empty.
He reaches in the cookie jar, then realizes he’s too nervous to eat. He goes out to the yard to throw a couple of practice pitches. She’ll be here any minute. She has to.
“Nice arm you got there,” a voice says. Pete looks up. It’s Tim, the boyfriend. He’s standing on the porch. He’s eating one of their cookies. He’s got a glove under his arm.
“Your mother called me from work,” he says. “She got held up in a meeting so she asked if I’d drive you to your tryouts. I thought I’d come over a little early, see if you wanted to throw a few.”
“No thanks,” says Pete. “I have a system all set up here.” He throws one at the trampoline. It’s a totally wild pitch.
“If you wouldn’t mind a suggestion,” Tim says to him, “it might help if you didn’t lift your leg up quite so high when you’re in your windup. Otherwise, you’ve got a nice fluid motion.”
He throws three more pitches, all terrible. “I guess we better go,” he says. He follows Tim out to his car, walking as far behind him as he can. He climbs in the backseat. He’s sitting on something. Wouldn’t you know—a Barbie.
When they get to the field he bolts out of the car as fast as he can, but Tim has followed him. He has walked up behind Pete as he’s filling out his registration form. As he hands over the twenty dollars Pete’s mother must have given him, he speaks to one of the coaches, who is collecting the checks.
“Keep a close eye on this one here,” he’s saying. “He’s got some kind of arm on him. Looks like starting pitcher material to me.”
“I don’t suppose you could be just a little prejudiced now, could you?” the coach says to Tim, with this sickening grin. “I’ve heard some dads are.”
“He’s not my dad,” Pete explodes. “My dad couldn’t be here today.”
“That’s right,” says Tim. “I’m just a friend.”
Pete wants to say Tim isn’t a friend either, but he leaves it. He takes a number and walks over to the bench where kids are waiting for their turn to try out, first batting, then fielding. He goes to the special area for the boys who want to pitch and sits on the bench.
He has to clear his brain. He tries to tune back in to the channel he was watching today, the one where he was throwing strikes and wearing the Cubs uniform, but now all he can see is Tim, with that dumb grin of his, telling him not to lift his leg so high.
He sees that wild pitch he threw, hitting the rim of the trampoline, and the three that followed, bouncing into his mother’s flower garden. They call his name.
He adjusts his cap, feels in his pocket for the lucky penny his dad gave him. He scrapes the dirt with his toe. He goes into the windup.
It’s the dumbest pitch he ever threw. The kid, Ursula, could probably throw better.
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Voorhees calls out to him from where he’s positioned, with his catcher’s mitt. “A lot of people start out wild. Just take a second and refocus.”
Pete winds up again. Just as he’s about to release the ball, one of those terrible little pictures comes zapping across his brain. Ursula and Tim sitting at the kitchen counter at his house eating his mom’s chocolate chip cookies out of their jar.
A total ball. So is the next pitch. After that Pete isn’t even trying anymore. There’s nothing left to do but play it for laughs. He turns his cap around backward and makes a face at the guys still on the bench. “Fart up a tree,” he calls out. Who cares anymore if Mr. Voorhees hears him?
He makes his Gomer Pyle face, scratches his crotch exaggeratedly. As he steps down off the mound, he looks back over his shoulder and says in his “Beverly Hillbillies” accent, “Holy cow, isn’t this the bowling tryouts?” The other kids laugh nervously. They still have their chance. His is over.
He and Tim drive home in silence. That night he gets the call. They have put him on the Angels. Worst team in the league. He’s not pitching of course.
Tim is in the middle of writing a grant application to study the environmental impact of acid rain on southern Vermont’s wetlands when Claire stops by. She spots the candy bar wrapper on the floor right away.
“You buy Snickers?” she says.
“It’s Ursula’s favorite,” he says.
“You think that’s a good idea, Tim?” she asks him. Like a drunk reaching for the first swig from a bottle, she knows this isn’t going to lead them anyplace good, but she can’t stop herself.
“I’ve just been so busy with my application,” he says. “I gave her a dollar and told her she could run over to the market and pick out a treat.” The truth is, ever since school got out last week, Tim has been desperate for ways to keep Ursula occupied. She’s already quit T-ball, and she’ll only go to swimming lessons Saturdays if he stays to watch. Every morning when he drives her to day camp she tells him she’s got a headache and she begs to go home. The first two days of this week he let her, and naturally he couldn’t get a thing done. This morning she finally agreed to give camp another try, and he has been desperately trying to finish this part of the proposal.
“Couldn’t you give her fruit instead?” she says. “This is a child with a weight problem.”
“She’s not that heavy,” he says. “She’s just big-boned. She’s never going to be slim like you.”
“It’s not the point whether she’s that overweight or not,” says Claire. “The point is, she feels she is. She’s uncomfortable with her body. The loving thing to do is to help her get herself into the kind of shape where she can feel better about herself.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he says. He pulls her toward him and looks at his watch. “I don’t pick Ursula up at camp for another forty-five minutes,” he says. “Think we’d have time?” He should work. But he longs for her.
She moves into the bedroom. There are Barbies all over the floor and a coloring book on the bed. Also a cereal bowl and an
other Snickers wrapper.
“Doesn’t she ever pick up her stuff?” Claire says.
“I know I need to do better,” he tells her. “I’ve just been under so much pressure with work.”
Claire pulls her shirt off. She unfastens her bra and steps out of her jeans. Tim has stripped down already. She has never encountered a man like this. He’s never more than ten seconds away from an erection when he’s with her.
“Sweetheart,” he says, climbing on top of her. He lays his head on her breasts and moans. She kisses the top of his head.
“I had this dream about you,” he says. “When I woke up, I was holding on to the pillow and the bed was drenched in sweat.”
She wraps her legs around him. He strokes her stomach. “You’re so beautiful,” he says. “I never get used to the feeling of your skin.”
“You think you’d feel the same about me if I had a fat belly?” she asks. She knows this is a very mean question. She asks it anyway.
“I will always love you. It’s just hard to imagine you fat,” he says.
“Well I can’t imagine it either,” she says. “I’d be miserable. And so would Ursula be miserable, if she got that way.”
He is silent.
“It’s no kindness to a child to buy her candy bars,” she says. “It may make your life easier at that particular moment when you give it to her, but it’s going to make her life harder later.”
“I won’t do it again,” he says. His cock pushes up against her. She’s dry and tight. It hurts.
“I’m not ready yet,” she says. He kisses her breast again.
“Baby,” he says. “Baby, baby.”
“I guess I just can’t get into the mood right now,” she says. “I’m sorry. You mind?”
He would never say he did. What he says is that he is happy just to hold her, just to touch her, just to listen to her breathe.
Saturday morning Claire calls Mickey. “So where did you take your date last night?” she asks him. She knows from the Globe that Youssou N’Dour was playing in Boston last night and figures Mickey was probably there. She herself hasn’t been going out anywhere besides the Two Brothers Diner for coffee with Tim.
Where Love Goes Page 13
