Chapter Eighteen
Sun-kissed and relaxed, the four friends walked to town for dinner around eight. They ate at a little fish place at the east end, then headed to the bar that Addison had scoped out with Katie and Jessie. This time, she was greeted with open arms. Open ballplayer arms, to be exact.
“Addie the Slugger!” Shep Silver waved them over from across the bar. “Come. Drink with the pros.”
“Addie?” Kizzy asked. “Slugger?” Lisa followed.
They weaved their way to the other side of the bar, where a big group of ballplayers congregated around the dartboard. The women nudged each other down the line till they each registered that Ben Morse was there too, playing darts.
“He’s even taller than I thought,” Pru whispered.
They all knew that was top of Addison’s requirements in a man.
“Yet still an asshole,” Addison responded.
The men made some room for the four ladies at the bar, and Shep ordered them all shots, Ben included, and proposed a toast.
“To our new homeowner with a killer swing!”
A leggy blonde grabbed Ben’s shot from his hand and downed it with a mischievous smile.
Addison tried not to stare, but found it hard to focus on anyone or anything else. She whispered to her posse.
“Why do women find that man attractive? Please explain it to me.”
“He’s got that unattainable air about him. Women like the chase,” Kizzy replied.
“Coat that in pain and loss, and he’s not just a challenge, but a challenge with a cause,” Lisa preached.
“Plus, you’ve read his books—I’m surprised you have to ask,” Pru added.
Ben collected the darts from the board. “Who’s next?” he asked. Catching Addison’s eye, he joked, “Want to pretend you don’t know how to play darts too?”
Addison gave him the death glare, turned, and headed for the bathroom.
“Wow, your friend really hates me,” he vented to Kizzy.
“She’s mad about you taking advantage of her houseguest.”
“Taking advantage? She begged me.”
“Wow. I’m starting to hate you too. She begged you to have sex with her?”
“What? I didn’t have sex with her.”
Kizzy looked skeptical.
“I just signed her hip—well, not really her hip—more like her stomach.”
Kizzy laughed.
“You believe me, right?”
“Yes, I believe you. But I’m not sure it’s good practice to go around branding women’s hips.”
“It was above her hip! But to be honest, I kind of regretted it the morning after.”
The blonde approached, flipped her locks, and said, “I’ll play—but you may have to teach me.”
Ben gave in to said blonde, making her laugh as he showed her the proper form. When Addison returned from the restroom, she couldn’t stop her eyes from gravitating to the two of them, wondering if the name of the shot, Sex on the Beach, was foreshadowing for their night’s adventure. She wanted to grab the woman and warn her, though there was probably no point. She was likely hoping for a page 137 kind of night. Heat rose to Addison’s face. Why did she care what this guy did? Her friends were right about her MO. Gicky was right about her being unanchored. She had to get her shit together, figure out what she wanted from life. She knew one thing for sure—she didn’t want the equivalent of leaving her house to some niece she barely knew. She ordered another drink to numb her thoughts.
As Addison and her crew were leaving the bar, pathetically earlier than Shep, who was near fifty years their senior, the old man grabbed Addison’s arm.
“Over-under game tomorrow?”
“What’s that?”
“Old tradition, very fun. Big barbecue at my place afterward. Bring your friends. They won’t play—but they can watch.”
“I’ll be there,” she said, meaning it. It would be fun. She had loved being on the field and playing ball. It made her feel confident, strong, and like a kid again. There were so many things about Fire Island that brought about that feeling. The bike riding, the lack of a dress code, and, mostly, the being blissfully unaware thing. Though embracing that mantra seemed like inviting a big reckoning, if, when September rolled around, Addison was still jobless. Unemployment is not conducive to carefreeness. Or is it?
On the way home, Kizzy filled them all in on her enlightening conversation with Ben regarding the newly tattooed houseguest. And though she told Kizzy she didn’t believe it, Addison felt a wave of relief, the magnitude of which she found alarming. She knew she was treading that thin line between love and hate, like a fickle teenager. She needed to stop wasting her time thinking about this emotionally unavailable guy. Wasting time was something she no longer felt comfortable doing.
Still, Addison fell asleep that night thinking of Ben. Not Ben at the bar playing darts with that blonde woman, but the other Ben. The one who helped her with her bags on the boat and talked her through her little breakdown on the sidewalk. She tried to push that Ben out of her mind, but the thoughts were too pleasant to dismiss.
She woke with a start to the distinct sound of a “truck” rumbling down her block. Garbage day! While her bungee cord game had definitely improved, she had taken to putting out the trash in the morning as an extra precaution. As she wheeled out the cans, she could see Ben at the top of the beach stairs talking to a blonde woman—seemingly last night’s blonde woman.
And she hated him all over again. Though this time, she wasn’t sure why.
She picked up her pace, but not enough to avoid him.
“You playing today?” Ben called out from the sidewalk as he passed. He said it in a benign way, which made it impossible to tell whether he wanted her to or not.
“Maybe,” she said, matching his tone and clapping her hands for Sally to come to her. Ben grabbed Sally’s collar and guided her toward his own house.
“Tramp,” Addison mumbled under her breath at her bewildering neighbor, before retreating into the house. An hour later, she was on the field stretching her quads. Her three hungover friends were in the bleachers nursing iced coffees.
The annual Over/Under game was created to honor two local heroes and legendary Bay Harbor ballplayers who were killed on 9/11. Now, so many years later, the Overs were mostly made up of the people who held memories of the two extraordinary men, while the Unders knew them only by their legacies. They were lined up by age, and Addison found her spot on the left side of the cutoff—an actual line drawn in the clay between third and home. Ben was the first person standing at the youngest end of the Overs. It had to have been a recent move from Under to Over for him. He looked up and down the line intensely, confirming her suspicion. They locked eyes for a moment, and she smirked knowingly. It had to bother him to be an Over. Whichever guy was in charge, Eddie, she believed, walked from one end of the line to the other, counting the players on the Unders, while Shep counted the Overs. At this point Shep played only one inning, more out of respect and nostalgia than anything else—but he was definitely the unofficial captain of the Overs. Shep and Eddie met in the middle.
“I’ve got thirty-two,” Shep reported.
“Thirty-seven,” Eddie countered before moving the last three guys on his line to the Overs, leaving Addison to be the oldest Under. She breathed a sigh of relief before catching Ben’s eye again. Now it was his turn to smirk knowingly. He watched Matty, his across-the-street neighbor, a college kid who had recently returned from a month in Barcelona, make his way to the field. Everyone was thrilled to see him except Addison. It hadn’t even entered her mind that she could be an Over, a thought more depressing than her aging ovaries. A mixture of bro hugs and big cheers from the Unders ensued, followed by the kid taking his rightful place on the Unders team, followed by Addison being slid to the other side of the line. Ben’s smirk was now an all-out laugh.
She could think of nothing better than to stick her tongue out at him.
Shep called out the order. It was Addie third and Ben fourth. In the first inning, Addison got on base with a two out count, and Ben struck out, which pissed him off for sure. But in the last inning, everything changed.
The Overs were down by one. It was two outs when Addison got up at bat. Kizzy, Lisa, and Pru held their breath along with everyone else rooting for them. Addison hit a powerful line drive, boom, and ran the bases as fast as her long legs allowed—which was fast. She made it to second. Still two outs, Ben followed with a home run. The crowd rose to their feet as Addison rounded third and headed home, followed by Ben. When he reached home plate, Addison raised her hand for a fist bump, but Ben scooped her in his arms and spun her around instead. He was strong, and the scoop and subsequent spins made her feel, for lack of a better word, petite, possibly for the first time in her life.
You could almost see their joy turn to embarrassment. Ben stopped and stood Addison safely on the ground, gently placing his hands on her shoulders to steady her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I got carried away. I can’t remember the last time the Overs won.”
“It’s OK,” she laughed, adding proudly, “We did it!”
She hugged him, partially to make him feel better for running her around the field like a trophy, and partially because she already missed being in his arms.
And that was it. That was the moment where she crossed that thin line between love and hate. Her friends looked out on the field and shook their heads in unison.
“So much for her not hooking up with her douchey neighbor,” Lisa whispered in Kizzy’s ear.
“I don’t know. I mean, from what I’ve seen so far, she’s not his type. I think the gentleman prefers blondes.”
Lisa pulled out her phone and googled Ben Morse’s late wife. Their New York Times wedding announcement came up, and Lisa passed the picture of his petite brown-haired bride down the line for all to contemplate.
“Hmm. He’s not into doppelb?ngers, I guess,” Pru quipped, causing them all to fall into hysterics.
Addison ran up the bleachers, her feet barely touching the ground.
“What’s so funny?”
They blew off the question and changed the subject.
“So happy you won!”
“Should we hit the beach?”
“Yes. And we’re invited to a big barbecue at Shep’s tonight to celebrate. Want to go?” she asked.
“Lisa and I are catching the five o’clock ferry,” Pru informed her.
“Kizzy? Does that mean you’re staying?”
“Yes—I think I’ll stay the week.”
“But then she needs to go home and get a divorce. I want this whole thing behind her by the end of September,” Pru said. “Without kids to worry about, it’s truly possible.”
Pru was all business, but it was obvious that the hard truth pained Kizzy. She wished she had a kid or two to worry about. Seventeen years with Rome should have given her at least that. Addison read her expression.
“Don’t think about all that now, Kezia. Just enjoy the week.”
“True, your troubles will still be there in seven days. You may as well put them aside for a few and enjoy yourself,” Lisa counseled.
“Besides, for all I know, I may be right behind her.”
Pru said this casually, very casually. Her tone almost gave them more pause than her words. Then she backpedaled.
“Only kidding. Let’s get to the beach.”
On the beach, Pru sat next to Kizzy, who took the opportunity to make sure her friend, the only one of the four with a husband and child, was OK. She pulled her nose out of the 1984 Rolling Stone she had found in the house, the first of twenty-three issues featuring Madonna on the cover, and asked her straight up, “Everything OK at home, Pru?”
Pru peered over her Time Best of ’90 issue, a forced smile rising over an image of Bart Simpson. “All good,” she said unconvincingly. A few minutes later, the truth slowly came out. It’s not uncommon for a coupled person to question their own relationship when a friend goes through a breakup. Clearly Pru was deep in introspection about her marriage.
“You really didn’t know, Kizzy? There were no signs?”
“Of course there were signs. What’s up, Pru?”
Pru put down her magazine and spilled it.
“It’s not him, it’s me.”
Lisa, who had always thought of Pru’s marriage as exemplary, especially compared to the many couples she counseled, couldn’t help herself from butting in.
“Pru, are you having an affair?”
“No! Absolutely not. It’s a little thing—I feel silly even bringing it up.”
“Just tell us,” Kizzy said.
She leaned forward in her chair, and they all followed suit, even though the nearest person to them was a beach block away.
“Tom is a brooder, while, as you all know, I’m more explosive. So, when he’s angry at me for anything from forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning to me saying something mean or insensitive, he gets quiet and doesn’t want to talk about it till he’s ready. I need to talk about things right away or I escalate—quickly. We’ve tried to work on it over the years—you know, meeting in the middle somewhere—but we never really figured it out, and now it’s our pattern when we fight. He broods, I explode.”
“Couples fight,” Lisa said, rubbing Pru’s back as she did so. “To some degree, it’s healthy.”
“Well, I stopped fighting. Just me. He broods, and I don’t give a crap. Three hours later, three hours—and I still don’t care that he is pissed at me about something. Sometimes, I apologize without even arguing my side—me, not arguing my side. Can you imagine? I don’t even care to win. I think it’s the beginning of the end.”
“You can work on that, Pru. Get to the bottom of it,” Lisa counseled. “When couples stay in a rut, it becomes harder to dig out. Keep it light. Ask if he’s noticed that things have been a little wonky between you lately.”
“Yes,” Kizzy preached, “don’t let it get ahead of you. Look at me!”
“You look pretty OK, Kizzy,” Pru commented.
“Don’t let my calm, chill demeanor fool you. I’m in lobotomy mode.”
All three looked intently at Kizzy for further explanation.
“My grandmother taught me how to do it. It’s a temporary vacation from reality, until you get your strength back.”
Addison and Pru turned to Lisa, who just shrugged, while Kizzy continued.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. Whenever I really think about it, my heart races, my hands tremble, and I feel like vomiting. Get your fire back, Pru, you don’t want this. This is the worst!”
“She’s right, Pru—about how hard it is. The lobotomy method, I’m not so sure about. You know I’m working on my life coach workbook. I am happy to send you the couples worksheets. Everyone I tested them on so far has found them really helpful. And I can always give you the names of some great marriage counselors.”
“I would try those worksheets first. I’m not sure I could get Tom into therapy right now.”
“And I thought our twenties were hard,” Addison moaned.
“You know, marriage is a social construct. If Pru gets divorced too, we can switch things up—all move into Aunt Gicky’s house and grow old together,” Kizzy suggested, only half-joking.
“We can construct our own happily ever after. Sisters are doin’ it for themselves!” Addison declared, internally cueing up the Annie Lennox and Aretha duet of the same name.
“I’m not getting divorced,” Pru responded dryly, before playing along.
“But if I did, could we each get a puppy?” She turned to Addison. “Are you a dog person now?”
“Maybe, and yes, we can each get a puppy.”
“And a fetching dog walker!” Kizzy joked.
“Done!” Addison agreed.
They all laughed, before staring out at the ocean’s waves in silence for a good long while, lost in their own thoughts. Except for Addison, that is, who seemed to be happily bopping to the aforementioned feminine anthem playing in her head.