You Could Be Home by Now (26 page)

S
ETH MINCED DOWN
M
AIN
S
TREET,
feeling yesterday's run, sore and swollen in all the places that his body came together. And ravenous. He hadn't managed an actual dinner last night. Ditto breakfast today. Ditto lunch. And this festival was the last damn place he wanted to be. He was on thin ice with Lobel though, so when the man said
go
, Seth went. He had quotes to get. Proof of residents and their families having a grand old time. And it was too goddamn quiet back at the office. Just another Post-it from Nicky Tullbeck.
Be back later, boss. Out on something big.

What Seth wanted was something small and normal. It was Wednesday. He and Ali always ate at The Homeplate on Wednesdays. Already the thought had a dull, nostalgic grub to it. Something he'd done with his wife, long ago, when they still sought each other out. He headed toward the café. Shin splints on top of it all. Their waitress, Cara, said she was glad he was here. He'd kick himself if he missed this, she said, indicating the screens where a game played live. She showed Seth to his usual table, where Alison sat, still and erect, as if this was the kind of thing she often did in the middle of the day. For all he knew, it was. “Hey,” he said. He didn't look at her too closely. He was sick to death of looking at her closely. Analyzing. What her hair meant, her clothes. They used to talk. He never used to piece her together by clues. “Who's playing?” he asked.

“Tigers–Indians.”

“It close?”

“Yeah, let's talk about baseball right now. You never came up last night.”

“You sack out on the couch plenty.”

“It didn't look slept on.” It hadn't been, much. He'd tossed about. But Seth didn't say so. He thought of Ali, inspecting the creases of the afghan he'd returned to the back of the armchair, turning the pillows in search of the dent where he'd laid his head. It meant something, that she'd done some detective work. It was the kind of thing he might have done. Alison said, “You left without even saying good morning.” No rancor at all. She just wanted the fact of it in the world.

“Well. It's a big day. Adahsville.”

“Adahstown.”

“Right. You got your speech coming up. I figured I'd let you sleep.” He hadn't thought any such thing. He'd tried not to think of her at all. He'd known only that he wanted to be out of the house when she laced up for her morning run.

“Seth,” said Alison.

She wouldn't get away with that. Saying his name like it solved things. Just because so much had come to her so easily. “We're in trouble,” he said.

She looked some place beyond his shoulder. “Maybe we
should
stick to baseball.”

He shook his head. No.

“You know, I'm at a point,” said Alison, then stopped. “No, that's right. I'm at a point right now where the only thing I think I
can
talk to you about is baseball.”

The books all said not to press.

The books said healing was a marathon and not a sprint.

The books said that when couples fought, couples lost.

“Fine,” Seth said. “Baseball. I think the designated hitter's an abomination. I think the National League's got the right idea.”

Alison slitted her eyes. One time in college he'd actually been moony enough to check a thesaurus for their color.

He said, “I think Rose was completely screwed over.”

“You really don't want to start in with me.”

“I think Bill Buckner's a hell of a guy and everyone makes mistakes.”

“I'm not going to fight you now, Seth.”

Now or never would be a facile thing to say. And she might choose never. She
would
choose never. She would speak the word and then what God had joined together would be pretty well torn asunder. Cara approached to take their order, took in their postures, and left. Seth said, “We can't just not talk.” He said this without regard for the double negative. He said it as though he hadn't slept on the couch to avoid a confrontation.

The commercial ended; play resumed. A home game in Detroit. Bottom of the seventh. Alison said, “Look at Galarraga. The cameras don't leave him alone for a second.”

Galarraga. Seth didn't recognize the name.

“The Tigers' pitcher,” she said. She had always been able to read his face. She sounded like herself again, the vibrant Alison whom everybody adored. They were off the edge of the map and
this
was what she wanted to talk about. “Think.” She darted forward and tapped his forehead. Her voice was syrupy and condescending. “Seventh inning. Why on earth would the camera be following the pitcher's every move?”

“If he's working a no hit—”

She clamped a hand over his mouth. “You're not supposed to
say
it.”

Saying
no hitter
was bad luck. So that was something his wife still believed in.

“No errors or base runners, either,” she said, and her hand pressed closer. Desire jolted through him, electric to the groin. His synapses were treasonous fuckers. Alison's fingers were very cool. They began to warm against his lips. She said, “Those two words you're thinking? Don't you dare.”

The two words being
perfect
and
game
. He nodded. Ali moved her hand away. Baseball was religion to her family. It wasn't to his, but he'd had a pretty typical boyhood. He knew how not to jinx things. The air itself felt drier without the cup of his wife's palm. He swallowed. “I know better than to say it.”

“Saying you're not going to say it is practically saying it.”

No wonder their marriage had gotten to this point. The verbal gymnastics she went through to avoid actually speaking. Seth said, “I don't even know who's playing.”

“Tigers–Indians. I told you already. Cara saw me through the window and dragged me in. She knew I wouldn't want to miss this.”

“Don't you have your big Adah thing?”

“Not for hours. Hoagie wants to run through it again, but I just texted I'll be late. He can wait a bit, considering he sprang the whole town thing on me at the last minute. C'mon. Let's live dangerously. And it won't be long. It's almost the top of the eighth.”

She sounded happy. Actually happy. First time in ages and it had nothing to do with him. “Alison,” he said, “You and me, we're in the bottom of the ninth.”

She acknowledged this with a brief incline of her head. She'd done herself up for the big day. Earrings, smudgy eyes, a sweep of tint across her lips. “Baseball, Seth. Baseball's my speed. We'll talk later, but—Please, can we just watch the game?”

Good God, was he ever a sucker. But he couldn't help it. Something about the way his wife had said
please
, about the virtue of playing every last out. Cara came back for their order, availing herself of the momentary calm.

“Could be the third time this season,” the waitress said. “The Phillies last week, Brandon back in May.” Cara was breaking the rule, practically shouting
perfect game.
Yet somehow, Alison wasn't ripping
her
head off.

“Braden,” Ali corrected. “For the As.”

“Braden, yeah. That's the one. ”

They ordered onion rings. A Coke each. The kind of things that teenagers ordered in movies set in malt shops. The last out of the seventh played. Commercial break. Cara returned with their sodas. The game resumed. Galarraga walked out to the mound. He walked like any other player, not strutting toward the record book, not bowed by expectations. Just another person pretending that what was happening wasn't. Cara hovered, ignoring her other tables. The Indians' batter approached. Travis Hafner. Alison would know his batting average, his walk-to-strikeout ratio, the path he'd taken coming up from the minors. He gave a trial swing, testing the weight of the bat. Another superstition. It was bound to be. The heft of the thing wasn't going to change from one moment to the next. And it didn't do Hafner any good. Groundout to short.

Cara whistled, a tone or so down from a teapot. “Never been a season like this.”

“Nope,” said Ali.

“Miss?” called a woman from the neighboring table. “Our check?” If they weren't watching the game, Seth wondered why they were even here. Aside from some serious onion rings and the salmon burger special they had offered a few weeks back, The Homeplate's food was nothing to write home about.

Jhonny Peralta was next at bat. Galarraga fanned him. None of the announcers hinted at the word
perfect
or the word
game
. None of the captions did either. No one in the restaurant spoke the words. Forget religion. A conspiracy like this was the best possible measure of human complexity. Russell Branyan was up and Galarraga forced a groundout to second. Commercial break. Alison said, “You know that no one's talking to him. Galarraga, in the dugout.”

Maybe Seth had been quiet a while, but so what? “Alison. I'm not not-speaking to you.” He heard how stupid that sounded and he didn't care. “I was watching the game. Just like you wanted. And you know what? It's just a game.”

“Seth.”

“Just a game. And
no
w I'm not talking. I'm out of things to say.” He could make it more than a game, of course. He could assign stakes. Say Galarraga pulled it out. Seth would change everything. Hightail it for good. Chances were, he'd stay—hardly anyone pitched a perfect game—but there was still the possibility. He drew his hands together, then realized it looked like he was getting ready to pray. He cracked his knuckles instead, the sound louder than he'd intended.

Ali said, “I'm only making conversation. I didn't mean—look, it's another superstition. You don't talk to the pitcher when he's working something like this.” She sipped her Coke. “I wonder when they stopped talking. The fifth inning? The fourth?” She looked at Seth like he'd actually know. He shrugged, straining to remember the flurry of adjectives he'd tried for her eyes all those years ago. This was it; one perfect game and he'd head to the nearest U-Haul lot. They'd assign him a truck and he'd look at the mural on its side. Whatever state was depicted there would become his destination. He gritted his teeth, keeping himself quiet. He didn't want the rash bet he'd just made to tumble out.

Alison set her glass down. “Nine innings. Teammates clamming up one by one.” On screen, whenever the ball wasn't in active play, the cameras searched out the Tigers' pitcher. The composure on the guy. Alison sighed. “Nine innings,” she said again.

“It's the way of the game.” Two outs now till the top of the ninth. Five outs total till he knew for sure.

“But think. Once your teammates go quiet, it means everything they've said to you up to that minute is code for I-don't-think-you-can.”

“That's not what it means.”

“On some level. And if he doesn't make it, just think how much he will have let them all down.”

“Yeah, but no one ever makes it.”

“Young. Joss. Robertson. Larsen. Bunning. Koufax. Hunter. Barker. Witt. Browning.”

“Okay. Hardly anyone.”

“Martinez. Rogers. Cone, I missed one, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” A tremor to her voice. A crack. This is what finally did it. This. Flatware rattled. She must have kicked at the table legs.

“So much for immortality,” said Seth. He hoped Galarraga pitched like hell. From some cheapo apartment on down the road, he'd write the man. This is going to sound crazy, sir, but your curveball set me free.

“MartinezRogers
Wells
Cone.” Alison took a long, slow breath. “Johnson. Buehrle. Braden. Halladay.” The couple one table over was staring. His wife's voice pitched higher with every name. Galarraga would pull it out, or not. Seth took his wife's hand. This would be the last time he ever held it, or not. They sat quiet for the next two outs. The whole bar did. Top of the ninth. Commercial. Galarraga on the mound, warming up beneath their countless eyes. “Look at him,” Alison said. “Carrying all that hope. That's got to be the loneliest feeling in the world.”

Seth was an imbecile.

Seth was in the bush leagues, emotionally.

“You aren't talking about baseball anymore, are you?”

“Of course, I'm talking about baseball.”

She wasn't. Look at her face. Nine innings. Nine months.

Galarraga pitched. A crack of impact. The ball was aloft, then caught. Perfect still. Two outs left for the record books. Seth squeezed his wife's hand. Bile rose in his throat, and with it the fear that he'd somehow be held to the thoughtless gamble he hadn't had the guts to give voice to. “It's been a fuck of a week,” he said.

She gave him a look that said,
now
you bring this up?

“Let's make a bet. Perfect game means total matrimonial amnesty. We back off. We let things calm down. We just keep going along.”

From Alison's face you'd think he'd laid out the other terms, the ones that meant a U-Haul and the open road. “I asked you to do one thing. One. Dammit, Seth.”

Nine innings. Nine months. The suffocating press of hope. He said, “I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought we were finally talking.”

“You were talking. I was watching the game.” She stood.

The remembered brush of her hand over his lips. The superstitious weight she accorded those two words. He said, “This is the dumbest fight I've ever heard of.”

“It was a vicious, nasty thing to do. The one thing I asked.”

“Ali, please, just stay.”

“It's ruined. And I'm just going to get more and more pissed sitting here.”

She left. He missed Galarraga's next out. He marked it only with the bar's collective breath. One out till perfect. Alison wouldn't ditch this for anything short of her whole self cracking clean in two. His mind was a tumult of his wife. The stakes he'd set clattered together. Galarraga wound up. Seth brought his fist to his mouth. He didn't really believe, but Ali did, and because she did, he spoke a cursed and deliberate
perfect game
in the moment the pitcher loosed the ball.