Hard to Hold (True Romance) (26 page)
With confidence that their separation was just a temporary inconvenience, Mike had gone into his new job with determination. His Tourette’s symptoms had returned to normal. Anne had thrown herself into her studies and was in the home stretch of grad school.
They were fast approaching yet another crossroads and more than anything, Mike wanted to merge onto that highway with Anne, not as his live-in girlfriend, but as his fiancée.
The path they’d traveled together had been rockier than some, but smoother than most. In his entire life, he never dreamed he’d find a woman who shared his love for his dog, great music, travel, baseball, and was Jewish to boot.
He was going to propose.
But to do it right, he needed her to stay at the game.
“Maybe you just need some fresh air.” The minute the suggestion spilled from his lips, he winced at how stupid it sounded.
The evening was on the chilly side, but blue skies and a setting sun made it the perfect weather for baseball. The air couldn’t get any fresher than it was in the lower reserve section behind the third base line.
The teams had been scoreless until the fourth inning, when Baltimore’s Adam Jones had grounded into a double play, but sent Luke Scott home for the first run of the game. As a die-hard Yankees fan, Mike had not taken this as a good omen. Anne’s sudden bout of ill health did not make him feel any more confident.
This weekend, for Passover, was going to be filled with family. He had to propose here at this game. And yet, asking her in earshot of her parents sucked out the romance. If only he could get her to go for a walk with him. If only he could get her to agree to stay.
“Why don’t you sip some soda, honey?” her mother offered.
Anne nodded and did as her mother requested and backed off on the idea of leaving. Silently, Mike promised never to make a single mother-in-law joke for the rest of his life.
Uncertainty suddenly flooded through him. It wasn’t like him to do something this big without a specific plan.
“I’m in the mood for Cracker Jacks,” he said when the third out retired the side and the teams changed places on the field, with the Yankees up to bat at the top of the fifth inning.
Anne made a face that told him sweetened popcorn with peanuts was the last thing she wanted to eat.
“Come with me to get some?” he asked.
He didn’t want to wait much longer. It would be bad enough asking in front of her mother and father, but the Oriole fans who surrounded them had been giving his white with dark blue pinstriped jersey suspicious—and in some cases, hostile—looks. His proposal didn’t need any negative energy.
Anne shook her head. “I don’t feel like walking. The guy will come around soon.”
And as usual, she was right. A vendor selling the iconic baseball snack did indeed show up a few minutes later. Mike purchased a box and pretended he wanted to eat them, when in reality, he only wanted an excuse to get away from the crowd. As he poured the sweet treat into his hand, a square-shaped temporary tattoo floated to the top of the caramelized popcorn. If he had a pen, he could scribble two words on the slick paper.
Marry me.
But what good was it if Anne wouldn’t even look at the candied treat?
He’d almost changed his mind and was seconds away from offering to take her home when the Orioles’ third baseman made an error on a single hit by Chad Moeller, sending Yankee Robinson Cano to the plate for New York’s first run. The score was tied. He risked cheering for his team, despite the unfriendly crowd, then decided this had to be a sign.
Standing, he made a show of stretching his legs and tugging at his jeans while he rolled his neck and shoulders. He watched the rest of the inning, his brain split between hoping for another run and trying to come up with some excuse to get Anne out of her seat.
He was heartened when Anne’s father decided to make a bathroom run and hoped his wife would go, too, but she declined and for the hell of it, Mike went with David instead. He endured a couple of minutes of good-natured ribbing about being a Yankee fan and a historical reminder that in the early 1900s, the Yankees had actually been the Baltimore Orioles. After they stopped at a concession stand for a beer, watching the game’s progression (or lack thereof, as no one else scored in the fifth inning) Mike realized he’d forgotten to do something.
“I’m going to ask Anne to marry me,” he blurted out.
With a beer halfway to his mouth, David’s bushy eyebrows arched upward. He set the drink down and stared at Michael without saying a word.
He didn’t need to speak. Something in his expression made Mike replay his words in his head and then make a very important amendment.
“I mean,” he clarified. “I want to ask Anne to marry me. If I have your blessing.”
He hadn’t really planned to ask permission. As traditional as both he and Anne could be in many aspects of their lives, Mike had the distinct impression that Anne might not appreciate being bartered by her father. On the other hand, she’d understand that her father would want to be included on the decision that would ultimately affect the rest of her life.
After his initial hesitation, David lifted his beer and took a sip, the foam clinging to his moustache before he licked it off with a quick swipe. “Think she’ll say yes?”
Mike downed a good quarter of his beer. Was this why he was so nervous? Did he think that Anne, after living with him and sharing his bed and confessing her secrets, was going to turn down his proposal?
“Yeah, actually, I do,” he replied.
“Then why are you so nervous?”
Leave it to David to cut to the chase. He was a numbers guy, an accountant, a man of few words but deeply held convictions. A cheer rose up around them that indicated the Orioles had scored, but David’s eyes never left his.
“I love her,” Michael replied. “I’d move the world to make her happy.”
He didn’t reply specifically to David’s question, but his answer seemed to satisfy his future father-in-law, who lifted his beer in a toast and then took a hearty sip.
“Gonna do it now?”
“I’ve been trying all night,” Mike said. “Anne loves the Orioles. I thought she’d appreciate a proposal while they were trouncing my team.”
Another roar exploded through the stadium. They returned to their seats to find Mike’s chances of getting a yes to his proposal had increased by five runs—so far—scored in the sixth inning. Though Anne still wasn’t eating much, her mood had elevated to the point where she felt more than comfortable razzing him about how much her team was killing his.
But he didn’t mind. Maybe the Yankees had to lose in order for him to win.
After the seventh-inning stretch, Anne decided she really wanted to go home. She’d been feeling woozy since the car ride and though she’d sipped an ice-free soda the whole game, she was desperate for a nap. Between her demanding schedule at school, preparing for the trip home, and getting ready for the holiday, she’d pushed herself to the limit. And no matter how far she went from Albany, she couldn’t forget that her graduate project was due in less than two months. The upside of not having Michael around during the week was that she could work late. The downside was that she wasn’t getting very much sleep.
And yet, even though the Orioles had scored seven runs, Michael still didn’t want to go home. He insisted that Chad Moeller’s homerun over the left field fence in the top of the seventh constituted a comeback, but she wasn’t convinced. She considered taking the car herself and leaving him to go home with her parents, but she’d spent too much time away from him lately. She settled for remaining in her seat, occasionally putting her head on his shoulder until his enthusiasm or disappointment regarding the game sent her flying.
When the Yankees failed to score again by the ninth inning, the game ended. She mustered up enough strength to razz Michael about her team beating his, but her heart wasn’t in it. Darkness had fallen and she just wanted to go home.
“Camden Yard is awesome,” Mike said as they streamed out of the row and up the stairs.
The stadium was an impressive place, particularly at night when the lights sparkled against a crisp Baltimore sky. Her parents had parked at a different entrance, so they left, but Michael lingered behind, wanting to look around.
“I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to come again. Can we just walk around once?”
The crowd was thinning. Anne didn’t feel one-hundred percent, but she understood that while the Yard was nothing new to her, Mike was a baseball fan of the first order and poking around the stadium was just the sort of thing he’d enjoy. Their shared love of this sport had been yet another tick in the tally list of their compatibility. They both liked hiking. They both enjoyed yoga. They adored basketball and had similar—his Phish obsession notwithstanding— taste in music. She could no more deny him this chance to explore the home of her beloved Orioles than he would say no if she needed extra time at a knitting store to pick a new pattern.
By the time they reached the section between center field and the bullpen, the stadium was mostly empty. Mike walked to the railing, leaned over as he gazed across the sea of green grass and bright orange clay. The scoreboard had frozen with the game’s final score of Orioles 8, Yankees 2. She took the opportunity to tease him a bit about the lopsided win before pointing out the two orange seats in the sea of dark green that filled the stadium.
“That one,” she said, pointing to a spot in right-center field in the Eutaw Street Reserve seats, “is where Eddie Murray’s 500th homerun landed back in ninety-six.”
“And that one?” he asked, pointing to the orange spot in left field.
She smiled. “That’s where Ripken hit his two-hundred and seventy-eighth home run, the highest any shortstop had achieved since Ernie Banks.”
He turned and grinned at her. “You do know your baseball.”
“One of my many charms,” she replied.
He took her hand. In the space of a heartbeat, his expression changed. His bright blue eyes seemed to darken with sudden seriousness so much that her mouth dried and her blood thudded in her ears.
“Michael, what’s the—?”
But before he could answer her question, someone shouted, “Hey, you two!”
They turned to see an ancient security guard toddling toward them.
“Game’s over,” he said. “Time to clear out.”
Anne took a step toward the exit, but Michael, who’d snagged her hand, held her in place.
“We’re just taking a look around,” he explained.
She turned to him, perplexed by his obvious reluctance to leave. How much more of the park could he possibly see?
“We’re clearing out now,” she assured the guard.
“In a minute,” Michael insisted, his voice low.
But the guard continued to amble over until he was right beside them.
“Great place, this is,” the guard said, glancing around. “Old-style. Lots of character. Fan-friendly, but after a time, the fans gotta go home.”
Anne couldn’t help but agree. She looked at Michael with a silent insistence that they vamoose, and after an unexplainable hesitation, he finally moved toward the exit. The security guard followed them out, regaling them with stories about the stadium and the team that Anne might have found interesting if she hadn’t just realized that Mike was acting very, very strangely.
He hadn’t released her hand once in their walk and when they circled around the stadium to find their car, he stopped in front of the ticket booth.
“The car’s this way,” she said, pointing to the direction she was pretty sure they’d parked.
“I know,” he replied, still holding tight to her hand. In fact, his grip increased. As much as she wanted to leave, he seemed to have an equal will to stick around.
“Mike, I’m not—”
“I want to marry you.”
In the space of five words, her ears filled with cotton. Or maybe her brain just went haywire. But clearly, whatever ailment she’d suffered through all night had finally taken its final blow in destroying her ability to hear correctly.
“I mean,” he said, taking her other hand. “I want to marry you, Anne. If that’s okay with you.”
The repetition broke through her shock and the words fell into her brain like gumballs down a novelty machine, clanging into the right pockets in a burst of sound and color.
He wanted to marry her. He wasn’t asking—he was stating a fact.
At that moment, she understood how her Orioles had felt when the umpire called the third out in the top of the ninth. She launched herself against Michael and kissed him hard and long. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to bond their lives forever. He wanted her permission to want to marry her, and even as their lips pressed and their tongues clashed, she laughed in unbridled love for a man who truly understood her from the inside out.
When they broke apart, his eyes glittered. “I take it that means yes?”
“Yes!” she said at the top of her lungs. “Yes, yes!”
He opened his arms and she immediately fell back into them, the most wonderful place on earth. His muscles clenched around her, enveloping her with the full press of his love. She looked up into his face, about to ask if this was why he’d seemed so out of sorts all night when they were approached by an Orioles fan in black and orange who smelled as if he’d swallowed a brewery.
“Go Orioles!” he shouted, wrapping both of them in his sweaty arms.
The moment went from romantic to surreal in an instant, but all she could do was laugh.
