West of You

by Christina Metcalf

  People are kinda the same. If someone doesn’t know you, but knows your friends or your spouse, they may decide that you are either a good “pitch” or a bad one based on who you’re with, how you’re framed.

  I’m framed by a dead BFF and not a single successful romantic relationship. That can’t look good to the ump of the universe. There’s no way he’s going to call me a good pitch with sloppy hand placement like that. Okay, so my metaphor needs some work but how many at bats do you really get when you keep coming up with nothing but air? Swing, swang, swung. Nothing.

  Thinking about my failed relationships, I looked at my map and opened Facebook. Like some sort of strange gravitational pull, I decided it was time to message my first college boyfriend, Cash. Calling Mike would have to wait.

  It was no surprise to me Cash was still playing ball in Alabama but these days, he told me, he spent more time yelling at ten-year-olds to “watch the steal” and not so much doing the stealing himself.

  I met him at the ball field the next day. It’s funny how the fields all look alike, dusty and chained in with the equivalent of roadside billboards announcing the places for braces, fishing, and pediatrics. I recognized his twins right away. I’d like to tell you they looked exactly like him but they didn’t. They favored mom. But Facebook made me feel like I knew them. I had “attended” their 3rd birthday party with the Tonka Truck dump cake and had watched the video of when one had skated right over the other’s hand causing them to spend Christmas Eve of last year in the ER.

  I stood at the edge of the clay-covered bleachers trying not to remember our favorite pastime. I felt a bit like Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham standing there watching him. But for the record, I never made him wear a garter belt and I prefered art to literature. And he never made it to the majors. Okay, it was nothing like Bull Durham except that his love truly was baseball and he would’ve done anything to play for as long as he could.

  He tossed the ball at the other middle-aged pudgy guy on the field and jogged up to me.

  “Well, I’ll be. Were you this cute when we went out?”

  I giggled that ridiculous laugh women save for men who are flattering them. The Alabama heat and humidity contributed to my blush. Before I could answer he hugged me.

  “I sure was sorry to hear about M. She was a great girl.”

  I nodded, my throat thick with regret.

  “Such a tragic accident. Coulda happened to any of us. I know I’ve done it before.”

  “Done what?” Surely he hadn’t killed himself before.

  “Rushing. Speeding.”

  I nodded. I forgot he had been given the “churched” up version.

  “Sure. Who hasn’t?”

  I felt like a voodoo doll in my image had been stabbed as I lied to him. I was just so tired of people telling me I was wrong or cruel or crazy. No one wanted to believe that someone who has everything wanted out. Because if they could believe that, they’d be forced to admit that she had a lot more going for her than they did and what would that leave them? I wanted to forget the accident report and I wanted to believe what they did. Maybe I could be like Cash and everyone else. I could ignore it too.

  But then I pictured Sister Mary Patricia pacing the front of my classroom explaining the difference between a lie of commission and a lie of omission right after she bobby-pinned my ultra long bangs out of my eyes. The style that was good enough for John Taylor of Duran Duran was definitely good enough for me. But apparently not good enough for God or Sr. Mary Pat.

  “God will make you blind if you pretend you can’t see.” she announced to the class.

  As she got older God made her walk with a walker and I always wondered what she did to deserve that.

  “It sure is good to see you. Where you stayin’ tonight? There’s not much around that doesn’t have bed bugs.”

  He tossed a ball in the air and caught it behind his back. He read my face just as he always did and laughed a hearty belly laugh that made me picture him someday with a snowy white beard and a gluttony problem.

  “Only kiddin’. Mama would have my head if I didn’t invite you to stay with us.”

  “You live with your mom?” Suddenly the air didn’t seem so heated.

  “Naw. She lives with me...us. In our guest house. I redid the old barn on the property. Pretty proud of myself, actually.”

  He flashed a dimple.

  There’s something quaint about the country. I imagined for a minute as I stared past his shoulder what it would be like to have my mom living out back of my family home. Then I remembered that she couldn’t even be bothered to stay around until my 13th birthday so we becoming buddies who make brunch together probably wasn’t happening really soon for either of us.

  “My mom loved you.”

  He held the ball out to me like an apple but before I could grab it, he snatched it away and smiled. His words were meant to be endearing but they stung for a moment. One of the saddest things I had to do when we broke up was give back his mama. But let’s be honest, a southern belle doesn’t have much use for a southie from Boston. Well, Gloucester but to her we’re all Yankees.

  Cash may remember his mama loving me but he had conveniently forgotten the two weeks from hell it took to get there. Who knew meals took hours to prepare? I discovered that very quickly when I stayed with them the summer between our freshman and sophomore year. Such a different world. My dad and I didn’t eat it unless it came out of a box or a microwave. On special occasions, sometimes both.

  My first night in town, in that smart white kitchen with the red gingham curtains, she sat me on the farmhouse stool that had been “in her family for generations” but that Cash would later tell me by generations, she meant Pottery Barn.

  I feared being left alone with her but he assured me it would be fine as long as she didn’t do any “heart blessin’.” If she blessed my heart I was to come find him immediately. He left me to play ball with his dad and whatever else men did on a farm that didn’t have any animals or crops.

  Belle placed the most beautiful tomato I had ever seen in front of me. Perfectly symmetrical, a lovely ruby red that seemed an ideal lipstick shade. Of course to be fair, the only tomatoes I saw on a regular basis were cut up in jarred salsa. But the tomatoes on those labels looked nothing like this state fair winning version in front of me. I didn’t know whether to paint it or eat it.

  She slid the knife out of the holder and handed it to me.

  “Would you be a doll baby and cut this up?”

  My eighteen-year-old head bobbled an eager “yes” just like a doll. She rewarded me with a polite southern smile. No eyes involved and certainly no teeth showing.

  I held the knife in my hand, enjoying its heft, and realizing the power of this instrument. It reminded me of the commercials from the ‘80s where the Ginsu knives cut through aluminum cans. Dad had ordered a few and gotten the second set free because he ordered right away. I hate to be the one to ruin it for you, but a Ginsu knife could only cut through an aluminum can if it was duct-taped to a welding torch. Come to think of it, that commercial showed it cutting through a tomato afterwards.

  “Wedges, darlin’.” She reminded me.

  “I’m sorry...excuse me...what did you say? Pardon?” Remembering the proper manners necessary for a Yankee to reside south of the Mason/Dixon line was making me nervous. Plus at that time, I still really liked Cash.

  That was before Claire, Melissa, Amy, and half of my pledge class, of course but that’s a story for another time or confessional.

  “Wedges. For the salad.” She pointed her knife toward the tomato. And the way she called my attention to it, I wondered if the theologians had messed up the forbidden fruit. Apples didn’t seem half as appealing.

  I smiled, grabbed the knife, and was about to plunge it into the tomato when she asked, “You have cut one before...right, Darlin?”

  “Of course.” I answered before I could even think about my lie. It didn’t seem right to tell her the only
vegetables I saw on a regular basis were in jars, cans, and cafeteria lines.

  “Good. Then you know what you’re doin’.”

  I nodded as she turned her back to me and got back to the apple tart she was working on. I rolled the tomato over onto its back, exposing it’s roundest, thickest part. I watched as the silver of the knife pierced its center. There was no explosion of juice as I expected. The knife glided through its fat center like it was made to dissect the tomato’s portions. I removed the top from the bottom and laid them next to one another, proud that they were nearly even in portion.

  From behind me I heard a gasp.

  “I said wedges! You cut it in half.”

  I looked at what I thought was my masterpiece only moments before. And then looked at Belle for guidance.

  Her anger melted as I watched.

  “Well...bless your heart. You haven’t eva cut up one of these now have you?”

  I finally knew what it was like to feel like a scolded puppy and to have a mother.

  At 45, now, I looked forward to showing her I still remembered how to cut wedges. But I could also hear M talking about how phoney Belle was and how only a twisted woman could raise a guy “Bent on his own relationship self-destruction.” She called Cash the “Bailer.” She said he’d never seen a plane he hadn’t wanted to jump out of. But she also was the one who told me I needed to go out with him when I first turned him down.

  “Absolutely not. You call him back or march down to that Sleeper house and tell him you’ve reconsidered.”

  “If you hate him so much, why should I go out with him? You’re always telling me he can’t even be faithful to himself. You’ve called him a dirty dog, a dumb jock, and a meathead. Why on earth would you want me to date him?”

  “You don’t know anything” she said. “You have to go out with him, so you don’t end up marrying him.”

  It took me two years and countless 2 a.m. calls and dorm pickups to realize what she meant. By dating him, I could get guys like that out of my system. I could recognize a schmoozer for what he was. When it came to Cash, I was a slow learner. That was one class I wasn’t advanced in.

  But while I learned the lesson with him, I certainly didn’t apply it elsewhere in my life. Maybe my father was right when I overheard him talking to his best friend after my divorce. Maybe I was broken.

  From the glare I was getting from Cash’s wife on the bleachers, I knew we recognized one another. Or rather we recognized the look Cash was giving me. It was obviously one she had seen as often as I had.

  Praying for time I Need you

  It’s incredibly inconvenient when your best friend dies, particularly if you only have one. There are countless moments I wanted to call her and play “mean girls” or figure out how the world was supposed to work. That’s what girlfriends are for.

  But she had left me here to figure it out all on my own. It felt a lot like when you’re the youngest of your friends at school and they all move on to junior high, high school, or college before you. The only difference is that she wasn’t around to report back. I had yet to receive one email about the other side...not even a text...or a flickering light.

  I used to believe in the after life but as the days go on and still no word from M, I figure maybe we do just die. She had always been a rule breaker. If there was another world out there, a heaven, surely she would’ve come to tell me. Even if that was against the rules. Or maybe even apologize for leaving me friendless. But she hasn’t. Not once.

  None of my dreams feel like visitations. They feel like sadness. Maybe that is her and maybe suicides are punished in a way we can’t understand. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than nonexistence. I can’t think about either.

  Cash hugged me again quickly and introduced me to his wife before jogging back out to serve as king lord commander of his squadron of mini baseball players. The scene reminded me of that book about the guy who landed on the island surrounded by all those little people. But these little people were in clay-stained uniforms.

  I struggled for topics of conversation with Cash’s wife. I was never very good at small talk. That was M’s thing. She could talk to a tree stump and get it to answer.

  “How’s practice?” Seemed like a safe enough topic.

  “They’re about to start a game.”

  I didn’t know if that meant practice was good or she was merely correcting me for my inability to recognize a game from practice.

  “How long have the twins…”

  “Corey and Caleb.”

  “How long have they been playing?” I asked.

  “Since they could walk.”

  “Oh.”

  I watched a ball sail by the kid who had been playing since he could maintain his balance.

  “Do you have kids?” she asked not taking her eyes from the field.

  “A daughter and a son. She’s...”

  “She play any sports?”

  “If chasing boys is a sport...or maybe texting.”

  I laughed. She took her focus from the field for the first time since I sat down and glared at me.

  “Sports are incredibly important in a child’s life.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they are. I wasn’t discounting that. It’s just that Maddie was never a joiner.”

  “You make them joiners. That’s on you.”

  “My son plays.” I said hoping to save the conversation and find a common ground.

  “Oh, you’re one of those. Son in sports, daughter doing nothing.”

  I nodded taking my insult of being a bad parent as well as I could. But her uber masculinity was as subtle as a Viking. I knew a lot of the girls Cash had been with in the past. He loved blondes and brunettes. Skinny and curvy. But I had never known him to go for a frat guy. My gossipy thoughts were interrupted by a belch that I am fairly certain came from her.

  “Get your mask on Hillston!”

  I assumed she was yelling at her son until I turned around and realized that phrase of endearment was leveled at Cash who was warming up the pitcher without a mask between his handsomely rugged face and the incoming ball.

  My once charming ex-boyfriend whirled around, pointed to his wife and yelled in a tone I never heard, “Wanna get down here and do it yourself or just shut your mouth? Your choice.”

  Discomfort edged up my spine. I wanted to be invisible like when your best friend starts French kissing her boyfriend in front of you.

  “That’s your money maker. Just didn’t want you to hurt what God gave you.” she yelled back.

  If that had been said by anyone else, it might’ve been a compliment or a joke. But coming from who I’m sure had to be a gym teacher, it sounded like the worst of put downs. She was calling her husband pretty in a part of the country that didn’t take kindly to prissy men.

  I searched my repository of things I would normally say to other moms at baseball games but came up with nothing so I texted Walsey. Mid-way through catching him up on the train wreck of this pairing, she yelled again, a thunderous command, “No phones at the ballpark, Samantha.”

  I felt bad for poor Samantha until I looked up and saw her glaring over her sunglasses at me and not some other mom. I quietly tucked the device away mid-sentence.

  “Did you play ball?” I asked her to try and smooth over an undoubted rough start. “And it’s Sara, not Samantha.”

  “That’s what I said, Sara.” she drew out every letter of my name into its own syllable.

  “I played all day. Every day. Would’ve played after college too but a shoulder injury took me out.”

  She said it like one would talk of a sniper’s bullet.

  “Sounds like your kids have it in their genes then with the two of you.”

  She made a sound that was somewhere between a pig’s snort and a cat throwing up a hairball.

  “Why do you think I married him?”

  There are a lot of reasons to marry Cash. He’s charming, wealthy, smart, a good conversationalist, borderline pretty
, and athletic. Really, there’s only one reason not to. He has a problem with monogamy. It’s kind of like my problem with carbs. I swear them off and do quite well for a few weeks. Then I’m right back at my unhealthy habits. There’s nothing malicious about Cash’s cheating. He just can’t quit. As someone who has taken on Atkins more times than she can count, I can’t really blame the guy.

  But did Jax really have some crazed idea to bring up super athletes? I watched Corey always a second behind the action and about twenty pounds too heavy for the sport and I wondered if maybe he was switched at birth or maybe just over testostorized as an embryo.

  My phone buzzed and seeing Michael’s number made me immediately queasy. I couldn’t hear about the wedding plans yet. I texted him that I was in the middle of a children’s orchestra concert and couldn’t talk. Might be late when I got out. How are Maddie and Henry?

  Jax cleared her throat and I worried she’d hurl my phone deep into center field if I kept looking at it.

  He responded with: we really need to talk. How late can a kid’s concert go? LOL.

  For the record, I hate when men use LOL and emojis for that matter. I can’t respect them after that.

  I texted: haha. Not sure. Text later.

  I loved texting. Notice I didn’t say I would text later or he should. Vaguery. Social media and texting is the best.

  “My ex.” I said shaking the phone but her focus was on the field.

  “Alright! Go Tank! Yes!”

  I wasn’t sure which twin was “Tank.” Corey was up to bat but looked more like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Caleb was twirling in the batter’s box like a ballerina.

  I assume “Tank” was Corey who despite his size, actually looked quite frail. It was not a good nickname. One would be more apt to believe he was tanked, then believe he was a tank.