Thou Shalt Not (14 page)

I settled with:
Oh it’s okay. I’ll forgive you :-) Kids give you a rough night?

Playful, slightly teasing, and then sincere. Seemed like a decent response to me.

Yeah. Among other things. They were in rare form tonight.

She didn’t ask a question, wasn’t probing me into talking.

Tread lightly, Luke.

I’m sorry...did they pass out?

Yes, they did. Just now. Thank God! How was your night?

Yes! A question.

God, I am pathetic.

Any night where I am magically transported back to my childhood by a bowl of soup is a good night in my book. :-)

Cheesy! God, I was never cheesy. I hated cheese. She was going to think I was such a tool.

I may or may not be blushing. I’m glad you liked it.

I took a minute trying to think of how to respond to this one. I couldn’t keep saying thank you, she hadn’t asked me any questions, and if I tried probing the matter of the blushing, it could quickly, and most likely accurately, be construed as flirting.

Whatever. I was going for it.

I’m taking it you’re a good cook, so if you blush every time someone compliments you, people must rarely see your actual skin tone
.
;-)

I think I was spot on when we met. You ARE incorrigible!

God, I loved that word.

I’ve been called worse! :-)

Fucking emoticons again—those things were addicting.

I highly doubt that. Rumor has it you’re a pretty decent guy. Are you coming back to work in the morning?

I wasn’t sure who was spreading rumors, but I hoped to get a chance to thank them.

She clearly doesn’t like decent guys, I reminded myself. Assholes seemed to be her forte.

Yes, ma’am, I will be there.

Ma’am?? Please tell me you don’t think I’m 80...

No! That’s what we Florida folks call manners. Plus, I wouldn’t put you a day over 75.

Manners, huh? God, I forgot those even existed.

I wasn’t sure how serious or sarcastic she was being, but the text seemed to have a heavy dose of cynicism. I sat there, wondering how to reply again. I couldn’t pat myself on the back as the most respectful gentlemen around.

I didn’t have to reply, she sent another message.

Can I ask you something?

I was tempted to be the smartass and reply “You technically just did,” but this didn’t seem like the right occasion.

Of course.

I just don’t think I could ask you this in person.

Oh god, what could she possibly be going to ask? My heart was racing again.

You can ask anything...

Okay. Do you think I should be the one replacing Robin? It seems like you were the closest person to her. I don’t want you to be upset they hired me if you don’t think I should take the job. Or if I’m not someone you think you could work with.

Of course I think you should replace her. Why would I think otherwise? They say you are really qualified, plus after you came into my class last week to discuss the Finch quote, I could tell the kids really liked you. You have a way with them.

You really think so? You don’t have to bullshit me. I can take it.

I am not sure I had ever known a woman to use the words “bullshit” or “bullshiting” as often as she seemed to. It was clearly her go-to. I liked it.

Yes. I really do.

I just...haven’t been in a classroom in so long, other than as an occasional substitute. I don’t want to ruin everything she built, that’s all.

I don’t even know if that makes sense,
she added.

She was feeling overwhelmed, nervous, apprehensive. The pressure was on her now, and she didn’t want to fail. God, I liked this woman. I highly doubted her husband was going to be there to assuage her doubts. Selfish, angry asshole.

I was half-tempted to call her, tell her she was going to do a tremendous job and that the kids would love her and that she would create special memories in the classroom just like Robin had. I wanted to tell her that I wished her husband wasn’t such a prick and that she deserved better. Obviously, I really knew nothing about this woman, or Marco, but I knew he was slime. And I had known pretty quickly that she wasn’t, not anywhere close to it.

April, I think you will be perfect for the job. Yeah, Robin was special. But she loved the kids. And I know that you will too. You’ll bring something special to YOUR classroom, and the kids will love you.

I thought about what Robin had done for me with the Dum-Dums and tried to wrack my brain to come up with something that I could do to make her more at ease. Except the only candy coming to my mind were Hershey’s Kisses. Probably too soon for those. Even more so, though, I knew how much Robin had been an encouragement to me. She had been there in the early days and had watched over me like a hawk. I wanted to be able to do that for April too. I felt like I had to, like it was my duty. But, I also questioned my motives.

She was taking a few minutes to reply, and I was wondering if maybe she had fallen asleep. It was a school night after all, but I had the luxury of knowing I would be showing movies all the following day, so I really wasn’t in the mood to sleep. However, I probably shouldn’t plan on expecting to spend the entire night texting a married woman either.

Texting always gave you the ability to be freer with what you said. She had even mentioned that she didn’t think she would have been able to ask me the questions in person. But, when you text someone more than you talk to them in person, you run the risk of making things pretty awkward when you see the other person in the real world and not the electronic one. On the flip side, there was always the possibility of text conversations making you even more easy going with the other person, and since we already seemed to get along nicely, I was hoping this would be the case.

I turned on the TV, completely uninterested in watching the Rays lose, especially since I knew Marco wouldn’t be making an appearance that I could root against.

I brushed my teeth and took out my contacts. Then, I lost everything but the boxers and climbed into bed. My phone made a loud beep as I plugged it into the charger.

She texted ten minutes later and my phone chimed loudly. I had almost been asleep, not realizing I was that tired. It was the sex. Holly’s sex wore me out. My phone chimed a second time.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” I actually said out loud, immediately feeling like I’d fit in with my elderly neighbors.

I’m sorry, Luke. My son woke up and was throwing a fit,
read the first message.

Thank you for saying that. I think sometimes I just probably need an extra boost of self-confidence…
read the second.

A third one quickly followed.

Anyway, I am sure you’re sleeping by now. I’ll see you in the morning.

I had to make a pretty quick decision whether or not to let her think I had gone to sleep, or text her back and keep this conversation going as long as possible.

What is your son’s name?
I replied.

Marco
, she immediately responded.

Then,
My husband wanted a Jr.

Is Marco Jr. still throwing a fit or did he settle down?

He’s out cold now. Thank goodness.

I really wanted to ask whether Marco Jr. threw fits often, since his namesake was such a loose cannon. But, I definitely knew that wasn’t appropriate questioning.

That’s good. What about your daughter? What’s her name?

Her name is Alexandra, after his grandmother. But we call her Alex. Well, at least I do.

That’s a really pretty name.

Thanks.

There was nothing baiting about that response, and I could keep asking questions if I really wanted to, but it was probably time to end the conversation.

Well, I should let you go. It’s been a long day for you I bet.

It’s probably been a longer day for you. I’m sure it wasn’t easy
.

It was actually much better than I had anticipated and featured a seriously memorable romp in my living room. I figured those details should be left out. But she didn’t say, “okay, goodnight” either, so I seemed to have been given permission to continue the conversation.

It’s actually been a pretty damn good day. All things
considered.

I thought that if she could be herself and use certain words, I could too. I would start small though, and a good
damn
never hurt anyone. We would already have been reprimanded by the Lakefront heads for this conversation. For starters they would probably say we shouldn’t be talking at all, considering her status as “married” and all, plus they advised us not to text members of the opposite sex as well. The damns and bullshits would have just been icing on the cake.

Hopefully, because my posole kicked ass. ;-)

That was a big part of it, for sure. :-) I can’t believe your husband hated it.

He’s an asshole. He has terrible taste in everything.

Her statement was so matter of fact, so direct, that I laughed out loud. It was exactly what I wanted of course, but not at all what I expected.

That was bad of me to say, but...
she added immediately after.

He apparently had good taste in women at least. Or one woman for sure.

I guess if the shoe fits...haha?

Oh the shoe fits. He designed the damn shoe just for his foot.

That made me laugh, but now I knew if I wasn’t already skating on thin ice with her, I definitely was now.

Proceed with caution
, the good shoulder angel reminded me. This could be risky.

Shut the fuck up
, the bad one (although I was starting to like him more and more) countered.
You’ve been prodding, and this is exactly what you’ve been prodding for.

I saw that he made of mess of things in the locker room...

I think Cubans automatically think they can pull shit like that and just write it off with ‘Oh I’m Cuban, it’s normal to be this way.’ It’s ridiculous.

Has he always been this way?

Don’t pretend like you don’t know. I saw your face at the table when I mentioned his name.

You noticed that?

Yeah. I can be observant. ;-) Everyone else was wide-eyed because he was an athlete. You looked like I had told everyone I was married to the Unabomber.

I definitely knew who he was...

Thank God you were the only one.

At least he’s just a hothead when baseball is involved?

This was as baiting as I could possibly be. Basically I was hoping she would tell me he was an asshole all the time.”

Did you ever watch the show Animaniacs growing up?

Oh god, of course I did. Every day I watched them. I actually am usually embarrassed to admit I even own the DVDs. Was this her way of telling me she was changing the subject?

I did. All the time.

Okay, so you remember the Goodfeathers skits?

Hilarious—pigeons made to resemble characters from Goodfellas. And the Godfather. It was amazing the kind of adult references that were made in each episode. I never noticed as a kid, I just thought it was all hysterically funny.

Very much so.

Well, my husband is Pesto, the bird who would explode on people for no apparent reason, even if they were giving him a compliment.

This made me laugh. I could see Pesto attacking other birds in my mind. But, I wasn’t sure how funny it was when the character related to an actual human being.

You realize that now whenever I see him play I am going to picture Pesto, right?

I’d rather picture a cartoon than a crazed Cuban.

Damn. She was loosening up. I was starting to feel more comfortable. It was already midnight.

How long have you guys been married?

It’ll be 8 years this year. I married him when I was 19.

That would obviously put her at 27, a few years younger than me. It took me a moment to remember that he was 38 now and that would have put him at 30 when they were married. God, he robbed the cradle. By that point he was already an All-Star and World Series champ. She had basically only accomplished finishing high school. I bet there was an interesting story there. God, I loved text messages. This conversation would never have been happening in the technological world of yesterday.

Stop digging, Luke.

Shut up.

I knew from my own marriage that getting married that young wasn’t the ideal thing to do. Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t ready at the time. In fact, I don’t think people become ready emotionally or mentally until much later, maybe 25 or 26. But that doesn’t stop people like us from doing it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

Bet you were popular with your friends and family, landing a big time sports star.

Yeah, they thought it was a match made in heaven.

I was going to mention my own early marriage, share common ground with her, but I quickly decided against it. That was not something I wanted to get into with her for a long time, possibly ever.

Well, you’ve got two kids. Things can’t be all bad.

God, why was I trying to be cheerful?

Dig, Luke.

Well, it’s late. I should probably sleep before I pass out and you wonder where I’ve gone.

She didn’t respond to things maybe being better than she was making them sound. I liked that. Without talking to her for more than ten minutes in person, she had already been thoughtful enough to make me soup. And I had already deduced that her marriage didn’t sound to be even remotely solid. I’d say it was a really good damn day.