“Ben!”
“I shall call her Dolly. Or Mabel. Or Pumpkin. No, something sexier.”
“Are we going to do this Cubs thing or not?” Bernice’s yell jarred Ben out of his trance.
He shook his head. “Okay, so maybe let’s not forget the Cubs.”
He snapped a selfie and kissed her hood. “Goodbye, my Samantha.” He didn’t turn his back on her as he climbed into a waiting Ernie, and we drove on down the street.
After our eight-hour drive over to Chicago, Bernice insisted we go to a karaoke bar. “We are only this young once. We need to live it up.”
Right.
Blake attempted a swift exit, but the parents were unanimous in their insistence he stay with us until after the game.
“Welcome to my life,” Ben said as we passed a tired-looking Blake in the hotel hallway.
An hour later, at the moody bar, Bernice ordered tequila shots for the table. When half of us turned up our noses, she shrugged and downed the three extra shots.
“Now we sing,” she proclaimed from atop her stool. “Blake, as our guest of honor, you’re up first.” When Blake protested, she came over and sat in his lap, as if the sheer bulk of her could convince him otherwise. He stood, dumping her to the floor and bolted left.
I waited half an hour before barging into the men’s bathroom to find him huddled on the squalid floor. “I have my counselor on standby; do you need to schedule an appointment?” We’d been rather unsociable since The Fight, so I knew it wasn’t so hard for him to ignore me now. “Look, Ben’s on stage with Bernice. You can come out, I swear you’re safe.” I held out my hands, but he didn’t meet my gaze. “Blake, I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have said those things.”
He finally looked at me. “Truce, Reese, I think we were both out of sorts.” He shook my hand and stood. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you.” He pulled me in for a hug and I melted inside.
We finished making our peace in a hidden corner of the bar and two beers later, we sang a duet. Afterwards we went back to our stories and kissing in the corner. When he told me about the accident he’d had at sixteen while cycling, and that he hadn’t cycled since, I invited him to a bike ride and coffee early the next morning.
Ten hours later, we whirled willy nilly on bikes through the busy streets of Chicago.
“You have to go faster,” I called over my shoulder. “You’re strong. You can do it.”
We pulled over and sat under The Bean. The air itself was sweet, a slight breeze danced between us. Tourists milled about, but we hardly took note.
“You did so good.” I grazed the back of his hand and tried to ignore the sentiment in his eyes.
“You didn’t feel the daggers I was shooting at your back?”
“Oh, I felt them all right.” I couldn’t hold back the grin.
“Everywhere I looked, I saw large objects. Tall buildings, pedestrians, poles which called to me, begging me to run into them. Vehicles passed me helter-skelter, and I saw the nearness of death at every turn.” He sighed.
“Now you’re sounding like Bernice.”
“Reese—” He looked at me so tenderly, I wilted inside. His gaze terrified me, and I spoke fast.
“So I was thinking we should each pick one thing this year, one challenge to work on. Maybe yours is riding your bike.” I punched his arm. “Maybe mine is, I dunno, inventing something.” I wasn’t yet ready to speak what I was actually thinking. I told myself this could be the year of Reese, of courage, of dreams coming true. Maybe I’d grow out my hair; maybe I’d get a tattoo. I needed to figure out a way to stick to doing the hard stuff, without Ben, without anyone. And that was daunting on a whole new level.
“So I was thinking.” He looked shy.
“Yes?” I shoved my hair behind my ear, heart thumping like it wanted out of my body.
“I’d like to take you on a date. Tonight, after the game. Tomorrow morning, sometime in the next twenty-four hours before we say goodbye.”
“I’m not sure if—”
“I’d like for you to dress up, and I know you’re capable of opening your own doors, but I’d like to open the door for you like a gentleman. I’d like to tell you all the things I’ve been thinking. I’d like to have one chance to woo you.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. “Blake, I don’t know if—”
“Reese.” He lifted my chin. “Reese.”
I looked into his kind face and my insides twisted.
“Please, give me one chance. I think we could be something great, and I think you know it too.”
Between the tightness in my throat, I couldn’t find words, but I accorded him a short nod.
“Okay, tonight then. I’ll make it count.” He leaned in close until I could see the smile lines around his eyes, smell his soap. “One date.”
“One date,” I said, and hoped it wasn’t a mistake.
“And then hopefully a million more.” He gave me the lightest kiss on the side of my face and my insides exploded. If I’d known what the rest of that day held, I might have lingered there with him a moment longer, but instead I said we should leave.
I thought about our pending date as he continued to watch me, as he ran a finger over my cheek, as he did a cartwheel when we stood to grab our bikes. I thought about our date as I reached for my bike and as I slide my phone from my back pocket to put in the bike basket.
But when I saw the text, I forgot all about him and sped away without a word.
17
Bernice
“Finally. After years of watching them on the television I have arrived. In Wrigley Field. Ready for an afternoon with my Cubs.” Benjamin stood trance-like beside me.
I shook my head. “Oh Benjamin, you make it sound like they hung the moon.”
He didn’t answer but snuck down to the field. I watched him bend over and touch his cheek to the grass. As the security guard huffed over to our son, I smiled at Carl and ran my fingers through his hair. “So last night was…”
“Incredible. It was incredible, Bee.”
It had been my shining hour and the music roared out of me. Once I got Benjamin off the stage, I crooned “It Feels Like Home” and focused on keeping the tears at bay. “Brick House” was for Carl. He knew what I meant. “Stand by Your Man” was for all the loves I turned down to come back to Carl. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” was for Baby Bernice and Baby Carl.
This was it, my encore for my love, and I would not let it be cut short by even one syllable. I found myself growing sentimental again, but it was instead cut short by Benjamin’s reappearance in the stands.
“What did the guard say?” Carl leaned over me.
“He was in a huff, told me I couldn’t be down there.”
“Well, that’s silly,” I said.
“I told him I’d waited my entire life to be here. He told me he’d heard it all before.”
“You know what I say. Son, live today, no regrets tomorrow. Go back down there.” I wanted more time with Carl.
“I told him he didn’t understand the lengths it took for me to get to this patch of grass. And after I went into a five-minute commentary, in which I mentioned the trip was the last request of a formerly dying man at least three times, he turned a blind eye.”
“Good job, son. Make your own destiny.”
“Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey, Chicago, whaddaya say? The Cubs are gonna win today.” Benjamin wasn’t listening to me at all.
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s a bunch of sweaty men in unflattering uniforms. They toss the ball, they miss the ball, they stand around.” I fanned myself.
“Mom, this is America’s game!”
“Booooooring.”
“Mom!”
“If they would get some uniforms like those police officers, let’s say it would be a step in the right direction. Whatever happened to top hats and tails? That Rhett Butler knew how to dress. My, if I could get my Carl to dress like him for o
ne night, dot, dot, dot.”
“Mom, stop!”
In response, I spritzed wisteria at his face. “Well, if you hadn’t insisted we leave the hotel room before noon for a three o’clock game, we wouldn’t have so much time for the chit chat.” I pulled lipstick, a nail file, a book, two pairs of sunglasses, gum, snacks, a pen, and a notebook and placed them in a row on my lap. “Stop squirming, son, I’m going to work on my To-Do list.” I waved my pen in his face.
“This really isn’t the time or the place…” He shut his mouth.
“I also have Scrabble on my phone. I’m prepared for anything.”
“Really, Mom?”
“Yes, if you download an application on your phone, you can carry it with you absolutely anywhere. It’s the niftiest thing.”
“You will not take this from me; I won’t let you.”
“Benjamin, what in the world are you talking about?” He ignored me and headed back to the ground level. “It’s okay, don’t mind me,” I called to his back. “I’ll just sit here like the princess I am and wait for Charlie.” He didn’t even turn around at the mention of his friend’s name.
Reese
I biked back to the hotel in half the time it should have taken, hardly noticing if Blake was keeping up or not. Charlie was there waiting when I arrived, taller than I remembered, broader too. I fell into his hug and his scents. He smelled like Old Spice, like clean, like home. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed him until he was in front of me.
We sat and talked over each other for hours, and when it was time, I was transported to Wrigley Field—I floated, didn’t take a step. Briefly, through a Charlie-induced fog, I noticed Blake arrive, then sit, watching me. But I couldn’t tell what it meant, what any of it would mean.
And then, during the seventh inning stretch, there were a series of gasps as Charlie knelt in front of me. “Will you—” but before he could finish, I jumped backwards and ran up the stands. I swear, I don’t think I even knew what happened until I was ten blocks away.
Charlie was back.
And he had proposed.
I began a steady spiral to somewhere outside my known universe.
I didn’t even realize where I was heading until I was already there and when I arrived, I sank to the ground and waited. I knew he would find me.
We were still connected, even after all that time and all those miles. Charlie found me an hour later tucked away in that ferocious metropolis, and he claimed it was the first place he looked.
Once, when we were sixteen, we flew to Chicago for a school trip. We’d both placed in the school art competition and went with our friend, Alisa, for the Nationals. That night, after Charlie placed first and I didn’t even get an honorable mention, we snuck out of our hotel and explored the streets of the city until dawn. We took hot chocolates and apple tarts from Mindy’s down to Lake Michigan and told our dreams to the wind and the stars and each other. That was the first time I knew I loved him, that he was more than a friend. I tried to kiss him that night, reclined in close, intoxicated with the light of the moon and the smell of him. But he pulled away, and we’ve never spoken of it since.
When he appeared post-proposal, he brought me hot chocolate and an apple tart (gawwwwd, how does he do it?) and sat beside me in silence for an hour before he broke the stillness.
“So, I guess that was a bad idea?”
Instead of yelling at him, calling him a moron, I laughed. He always does that to me. He was my best friend, the keeper of all my secrets. He got me.
I’d always loved him.
“I was worried you weren’t coming back to me. I was about to do something drastic,” he said and grinned with both his mouth and his eyes.
“I definitely think this counts.”
“Your mom kept me posted on the trip schedule.” He ran his hands through his blond hair. I’d always love his hands, almost delicate but rough enough to be manly.
“Are you kidding me? Why do you talk to my mom?”
“It’s not a big deal. She messages me constantly, but sometimes it works out. Like in this situation.”
“It’s still weird.”
“Reese, I couldn’t wait another day, another minute before seeing you.” He caressed me with his gaze. “And I heard I might have a bit of competition.” He came in for a kiss, concentrated and sweet, with a yearning I’d never seen in him. I’d ached for this entwining for so long, and I met his advances with an embarrassing eagerness. I’m a big fan of kissing, and it turned out he was a good kisser, a great kisser.
I extracted myself to hold his face, to pinch myself. “I’ve dreamed of this moment my whole life.” Falling in love with my best friend—maybe clichés were nicer than I liked to think.
“Have you now?” He kissed my collarbone. His hair was soft beneath my fingertips. I drank in the experience of him. I’d waited for this meeting of hearts and lips since I was sixteen, but something felt off. I craved for this magic to taste credible, but when he kissed my neck, everything else went black.
We lingered there for hours. Once again we watched the distance and the lake, lying side by side on the tired dock, waiting for something, everything, nothing. After the initial silence, then the kisses, we couldn’t stop talking. After years of avoiding the topic of “us” we escalated into story after story of wanting, not wanting, mixed signals, confusion.
“I’ve had a crush on you since our freshman year in high school, but I lost hope after you talked about Seth Stevens for months on end.”
“What? No you didn’t!”
“And the night you tried to kiss me right here, a decade ago, I was too nervous. And figured you were delirious from lack of sleep.”
“Stop.”
“All through university you were on a ‘I don’t ever want to get married’ diatribe.” He reached for my hand.
“I only said that because I knew you’d never be interested in me. And all those other boys were boring.”
“Clearly.” He smiled.
“Clearly.” I smiled back.
“So I finally gave up all hope. I thought you actually meant it.”
It was the most confusing, exhilarating untangling of stories and lives I could imagine. I kept still, all warm on the deck, under the blanket of revelation and mulled it over again. This is what I’d wanted for as long as I could remember and now I wasn’t sure I knew quite what to do with it.
After long moments, even more questions, lingering kisses, and wandering hands, as the heat left the deck and the long, long lines of sunset appeared, I said I needed to think. When Charlie didn’t respond, I realized he’d fallen asleep, and I kept my own company. The night turned orange, pink, purple. It faded into gray, then black and still we stayed back. I knew everyone was probably worried, wanted to know where we were and what happened. I knew Blake would be gone, at his uncle’s at last, but I didn’t let myself think any more about him.
I didn’t dare move because I couldn’t help but think if we shifted one tiny inch the illusion would shatter.
“So we can talk about it tomorrow?” he whispered so softly it was easy to pretend I didn’t hear him. Instead I buried my face deep in Charlie’s chest and willed myself to believe we would forever be this happy.
Bernice
“Mom, is there anything you’d like to tell me?” Hours after the game, Benjamin and I waited for Carl in the hotel lobby for our last night out.
“Benjamin, I’ve been dying to let you in on my secret. This is my effulgent moment. I invited Charlie here because I could see the way Blake looked at my Reese, because I started to see it echo back from her eyes too.”
“Look at you, throwing out big girl words, while doing childish things,” he said, and I could tell he was proud.
“I have another phone application for my words. I work on learning a new word a day. Effulgent was from two days ago.”
“Right. Let’s focus here. You don’t think you could have left well enough alone, let the cards fall where
they may, let destiny take its course?”
“Hogwash.” I folded my hands in my lap. “You should be thanking me, it’s Charlie.”
“Mom. It’s Reese’s life. Blake’s a good guy too.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I like the kid well enough, and I didn’t mind the idea of her married to some foreigner so I have an excuse to travel and a place to stay. But Ireland? No thank you. If I can’t have the Cabana boy, well, don’t get me started.”
“Right.” He pulled out his phone.
“Besides, Reese and Charlie were made for each other. Since they were little tots, Leah and I talked about the dresses we would wear at their wedding. Leah would have killed me if Reese had wandered away to another boy under my watch. I’ve had a host of stellar ideas in my lifetime, but I must say this one is my tasty cherry on top.”
“At the top of the charts, Mom.” He gave me a thumbs up.
“I already sent a text to Leah, so she’d hear the good news from me first. Blake is a hot catch for someone, but only Charlie is good enough for my baby girl.”
“Unbelievable, Mom. You are absolutely unfreakingbelievable.”
“Well, Charlie and I are best friends—I had to do something.” I clicked my heels on the tiled lobby floor and looked around for my husband.
“You had to do nothing.” Benjamin rubbed his temple. I reached to smooth his hair, and he cringed.
“Benjamin, need I remind you Charlie’s dad was a movie star and his mom was a swimsuit model? He got all the right genes, and I would eat cake off that backside.”
“Mom!”
“I’m just saying. Oh, the grandbabies they will make me; a Mama has to think about these things. You’re fine—Maya is a sweetie. I’m never worried about you.”
“Thanks.”
“And the proposal at the game? I wasn’t expecting that. That was all Charlie. That boy is pure genius when he goes off script.” I rummaged in my purse for my lipstick.
Benjamin walked away in response.
I watched his back blend into the crowd and shook my head. Everyone seemed so tightly strung. We were here to celebrate baseball and love and summer. If you ask me, what we all needed was a little time to kick back by the pool, to work on our tans and watch the drama between the lifeguards. It was like watching daytime soaps in real time.
Remember Us Page 20
