Читать книгу Dying Breath - Wendy Corsi Staub - Страница 15

Cam throws another pair of shorts into the open suitcase on the bed she once shared with Mike.

Then she wonders why she even bothered.

It’s not as if they’re likely to fit for more than another week, maybe two at the most. She desperately needs to go shopping for some summer maternity clothes.

Shorts with elastic bands at the belly, sleeveless tops to reveal her fleshy upper arms, maternity bathing suits…

Yeah, that’ll be fun.

But it was, last time around, she remembers wistfully as the warm night breeze stirs the sheers at the open window.

It shouldn’t have been fun, shopping on a strict budget in pricey Manhattan maternity boutiques, battling nausea the whole time. But whenever she stepped out of a dressing room wearing some ill-fitting, overpriced garment over a strapped-on foam belly provided by the store, Mike would flash an emotional smile and tell her she looked great.

She didn’t look great, and she didn’t feel great, and they couldn’t afford any of it—the clothes, the medical care, the baby—but that didn’t matter. Mike being there with her every step of the way made it all okay.

This time around, she’ll have to go it alone. Maternity-clothes shopping, blood work and tests with potentially scary results, labor, diapers, the whole thing.

Unless…

Nope. No way.

They’re already into June now, and he hasn’t come home. Not to stay, anyway.

He comes and goes in the driveway, thanks to his regular visitations with Tess. But he never ventures into the house. If she happens to be at the door, he’ll wave and call out a greeting, but that’s about it.

They talk on the phone a few times a week to discuss the details of his visitation schedule, household bills or repairs, that sort of thing.

She hasn’t even had an opportunity to mention the pregnancy to him—if she was ready…which she’s not.

When she is ready, though, it’s not something she should mention in passing.

Tess has to be home early tomorrow night because of finals, I scheduled the annual cleaning for the hot water heater, and, oh, by the way, I’m pregnant.

No, she’ll have to summon him over, sit him down, drop the bombshell, then…

What?

Wait for his reaction.

Wait for him to get over his shock, to ask why she didn’t tell him sooner, to say that he wants to be a part of this baby’s life—all of which is inevitable.

But where do we go from there?

Do they continue on in this state of marital limbo?

Trial separation.

She’s tried it. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want it.

But Mike, apparently, does. Otherwise he would be reaching out to her, talking about coming home.

All he’d have to do is ask, and she’d take him back.

When he finds out about the pregnancy, he might decide to do just that. But she doesn’t want him back that way. She wants him back because he still loves her.

Because I still love him.

She shoves another pair of too-snug shorts into the suitcase.

Mike will be dropping off Tess soon. It’s a Tuesday night; he took her to a nice seafood restaurant for dinner to celebrate her terrific final report card. Cam stayed home, planning on eating cold cereal—to take in her nightly milk serving—in front of the TV. Then she decided that seemed pitiful.

So she threw together a stir-fry and ate it on the good china, sitting alone at the kitchen table reading a literary novel and trying not to wish that the raspberry-flavored seltzer in her glass was Pinot Grigio.

Talk about pitiful.

But still better than cold cereal and TV.

All right, what now? Should I catch Mike in the driveway and tell him we need to sit down and talk before Tess and I leave for the shore Friday morning?

Yes. She should.

In the split second after she makes that decision, as if to reinforce it, she hears a car pulling into the driveway below.

Sitting in with the band, Ike Neary spots her in the middle of the first set, during the opening riff of “Brown Eyed Girl.”

The shock is nearly enough to make him lose his grip on the drumsticks, but somehow he manages to hang on.

Brenda?

Oh my God, Brenda!

After all these years…

“Hey where did we go…” sings the lead vocalist, a kid named Jimmy.

Ike’s drumming.

And miraculously, Brenda’s familiar face is here among the throng that’s gathered to drink and dance to live music at the Sandbucket Grill on this warm Tuesday night in June.

Oh my God.

What should Ike do? What will he say to her?

What does one say, after thirty-odd years, to a wife who walked away and never looked back? A wife who left you to single-handedly raise one daughter and bury the other…

Swept by a familiar surge of fury-tainted grief, Ike blinks away the tears pooling in his eyes.

What is she doing here? How did she know where to find me?

He wasn’t even officially supposed to play tonight.

He never does, these days.

But Jerry, the owner, spotted him and asked him if he’d sit in for a set.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “we have a very special guest here tonight to help us inaugurate the Sandbucket’s new stage…”

Over the winter, Jerry built a fancy new outdoor stage out back. Now he has to pay for it—and compete with the big acts in nearby Atlantic City—so he’s stepping up his exposure in the shore papers. This week he took out ads with color photos of all the new bands playing the Sandbucket’s new stage, alongside black and white photos of the legendary musicians who played there in the past.

Brenda must have spotted Ike’s picture among them. Maybe it triggered her memory…

Right. Because she got hit on the head all those years ago, came down with amnesia, and wandered away.

Of all the scenarios he conjured after his wife disappeared, that’s the best.

It sure as hell beats the one where she gets abducted from their apartment in the crime-ridden neighborhood, murdered, and her body dumped in a landfill somewhere.

And the one where she just walks away to start a new life somewhere without him and the girls.

“Do you remember when we used to sing…”

Forcing his eyes open, Ike chimes in on the familiar chorus.

“Sha la la la la la la…”

His eyes scan the swaying, singing crowd below the stage, seeking Brenda.

“…la la la la te da…”

She’s gone.

Again.

“So what do you think, Messy Tessy?”

Seated beside her father in the front seat of his silver-blue Saab as he pulls into the driveway, she can’t help but smile at the affectionate nickname. It doesn’t fit her—it never really did—but she’s always liked it anyway.

“What do I think about what?”

“About the Fourth.”

Oh. Right. He was just telling her about all the things they could do for the Independence Day holiday in a few weeks.

And she was thinking about other things. Nice things, for a change—like Heath Pickering.

And not-so-nice things, like whether she should feel as guilty as she has been about letting Morrow cheat off of her in the English final the other day.

The thing is, who does it really hurt? No one. Tess is great at English. Morrow, who says she really thinks she might be dyslexic, is not. Tess has been trying to help her with the Shakespeare stuff for the past month, but there’s so much Morrow just isn’t getting.

When Morrow finally asked Tess if she could copy her answers since they sit right next to each other alphabetically, Tess had to say yes.

Well, she didn’t have to.

But she feels sorry for Morrow because of her disability, and anyway, if Tess hadn’t agreed, Morrow probably wouldn’t be doing her this huge favor in return: having her new boyfriend, Chad, a junior and a friend of Heath’s, talk to him about Tess.

Bold move, but Tess had little choice. It was either that, or leave town in a few days for the entire summer without Heath knowing she’s alive.

She heard he got a lifeguard job for the summer, at an ocean beach. She wonders where. Remembering his L.B.I. T-shirt, she wonders if it’s somewhere down near Long Beach Island. That would totally be fate. Maybe he’ll turn up right in Beach Haven itself. Wouldn’t that be a dream come true? Spending a summer at the shore with Heath?

That can’t exactly happen unless she meets him, which is why she told Morrow to tell Chad to tell Heath about her.

At Lily’s pool party tomorrow, she’s supposed to find out what he said. Heath might even show up there, according to Morrow, who invited, like, everyone in the school. It’s not even her party, but Lily doesn’t care. Her mother won’t even be home.

“What are my choices again?” she asks her father, reaching out to turn down the radio, which is broadcasting tonight’s Yankees game.

He could have been there. Someone he knows through work got last-minute box seats.

Dad loves the Yankees.

“But I love you more,” is what he told Tess.

She believes it, most days.

“We can go to Cape Cod to visit the Nortons at their beach house”—he begins ticking off on his fingers—“or we can have a barbecue at Grandma and Grandpa’s, or we can watch the fireworks over the East River from my roof in the city…”

“What about Long Beach Island?”

“What about it?”

“We always watch the fireworks there.”

They always have, even back before they got the beach house on Dolphin Avenue. As a kid, Mom always spent her summers on the shore—mostly Long Beach Island—with Granddad, and she’s nostalgic about it. She wants Tess to have that same tradition.

Dad hesitates, either straining to hear the radio announcer, who’s shouting about some Yankee who just got a hit and loaded the bases, or trying to figure out what to say.

Tess stares out the window at the red-brick, white-shuttered Colonial that hasn’t really felt much like home since Dad left.

Yellow light spills from the black wrought iron fixtures beside the door and along the curved path bordered by long flowerbeds. Normally by June there are pastel-colored annuals planted there.

Not this year—the beds have only dirt and mulch, waiting for blossoms Tess suspects will never be planted.

Mom usually goes to the garden center around Mother’s Day to fill the Volvo station wagon with plastic cell packs of blooming geraniums and impatiens. Dad would tell her they can get the landscape service to do it, but Mom never wants that. She says she loves kneeling in the sunshine, working the earth with her trowel, making things grow.

But this year, she doesn’t seem to care. About a lot of things—not just the flowers. And Tess, who never paid much attention, is surprised at just how much it bothers her to see plain old dirt in the beds every time she steps into the yard.

“Would you rather just spend the Fourth at the shore with your mother?” Dad finally asks, interrupting her bleak thoughts.

Your mother.

She hates how he’s taken to saying it that way. Before the separation, he used to just refer to her as Mom.

Your mother—ugh. It’s so distant. As if that’s his only connection to Mom—that she’s Tess’s mother, and not his wife.

“Do you want to spend it at the shore?” Tess asks her father in return.

“I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about you.”

Ignoring that, she repeats, “Well, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Want to spend the Fourth at the shore?”

Dad frowns. “With your mother?”

Your mother.

“You know what? Never mind,” Tess snaps, and opens the car door.

“But—”

“I don’t know what I want to do yet. I’ll figure it out later. It’s still weeks away. Thanks for dinner. Night.”

“Tess—”

About to slam the car door, she opts to close it instead. Firmly. Then she jogs toward the front door with a backward wave.

Dad just sits there for a few seconds, like he’s either trying to hear what’s happening with the baseball game or trying to decide if he should come after her.

She wishes he would. She wishes he’d come into the house with her, close the door, and stay.

But he won’t, because the bases are loaded and Mom—her mother—is here. And he doesn’t love her mother more than he does the Yankees. He doesn’t love her mother at all.

For awhile there, Tess didn’t blame him.

But lately, Mom has seemed kind of…

Lost. Sad. Vulnerable.

Okay, so she obviously screwed up their marriage—but maybe she deserves a second chance.

Doesn’t everyone?

Yeah. Including Dad.

Tess turns toward the car again, wondering if she should run back and tell him never mind about the Fourth. That she’d love to spend it with him, wherever.

But he’s already backing out of the driveway.

Slipping back onto a stool at the long bar, Ike tilts the icy brown bottle to his lips and swigs a fresh beer.

All the doors and windows are open to let in the salty night air and the live music out back. A new band has taken the stage—a couple of kids who just graduated from college and decided to launch careers as musicians.

Yeah, good luck with that, Ike thinks, setting the beer on a cardboard coaster. In this day and age, it’s not easy.

Was it ever?

Probably not.

But for Ike it sure seemed that way. He dropped out of high school to become a busboy at a supper club in Fort Lee, back when the swing orchestra and crooner scene was going strong. Pearl Bailey, Dean Martin, a kid named Frank Sinatra who hailed from right down the Palisades, in Hoboken. There were countless lesser—if not completely un—known acts, too.

It was a lesser-known who taught Ike to play the drums after-hours, and told him he had talent.

By the time he was twenty, he believed it, a cocky son of a bitch. Hitched a ride down to the beach one summer night that changed his life.

That was the early fifties; doo-wop music was taking hold in Philly, spreading to the Jersey Shore. Ike was great with harmony. Classic case of right place, right time. Someone asked him to sit in on the drums, sing a little backup. He did, and a star was born.

Ha. That’s what he thought.

Yeah, but he wasn’t the only one.

He had quite a following, right from the start.

Easy-breezy.

Then he met Bren in Beach Haven.

She was just a kid then, genuine jailbait. But Ike wasn’t old enough—or maybe just not smart enough, or strong enough—to know better. He took one look at Brenda Ann Johnson on the beach in that not-so-virginal white bikini and he fell hard. Got her name tattooed on his right forearm a few days later, rimmed by a heart. Knocked her up in no time, and felt obligated to settle down and support a family.

Sure as hell not easy to do on a rented drum set and a dream.

God knows he tried, though. For her, for his precious baby Ava, and later, for Camden, who Bren always called their “midlife crisis surprise.”

But Cam turned out to be Ike’s salvation. If he didn’t have Cam after he lost everything else, he’d have had nothing to live for.

Then again, if he didn’t have Cam, maybe he’d still have his Brenda.

Cut it out!

Ike guiltily steers his brain away from that particular thought process, though not as effectively as he used to.

When Cam was a little girl, it was much easier for him to focus on her many needs and not on his own devastation—or what might have been. For a long time, Ike was able to ignore the truth: it was the second pregnancy that did Brenda in.

She went off her medication, afraid of what it might do to the baby. And she never went back on it—not that he knew, anyway.

So if Cam had never been born, he’d still have Brenda. Sometimes, in his aging, irrationally resentful mind, it’s that simple.

“Yo, Ike, what d’ya think of the new digs out back? Nice, huh?” Billy, one of the bartenders, asks as he materializes at this end of the bar to load a blender with ice.

“Nice,” Ike agrees, forcing himself back to the present, away from the futile what if’s.

“You guys sounded good tonight.”

“We always sound good.”

“Better on the new stage, though, right?” Billy’s bare, muscular, tattooed arms reach for some kind of blue liqueur, some berries, pineapple. He tosses it all into the plastic pitcher with the ice, then flips the switch.

“What the hell kind of drink are you making?” Ike asks above the blender, the chatter, the wailing guitars out back.

“This here? It’s for them.” Billy indicates a couple of clean-cut guys down the bar.

They’re wearing pastel polo shirts, shorts, no socks—cologne, too, Ike’s willing to bet. He knows their kind; he’s been seeing more and more of them around here lately, and fewer rockers, bikers, working-class types.

Billy pours the fruity slush into a pair of glasses—real ones, not plastic—then plunks in a pair of straws and paper umbrellas, garnishing the whole thing with a wedge of pineapple on the rim.

“Cripes, Billy, a fancy stage, girl drinks…next thing I know you’ll be wearing a tux.”

“That ain’t gonna happen.”

“Don’t be so sure. I think Jerry’s trying to change the image of the place, attract a different kind of crowd, like what they tried to do up in Asbury Park.”

Billy smirks and heads off down the bar with his girl drinks, leaving Ike to drink his beer and reminisce about the glory days here on the South Jersey Shore.

He keeps an eye on the crowd, though—still looking for Brenda.

In case he really did see what he thought he saw earlier, from the stage.

Too late.

Mike’s car is disappearing down the street when Cam opens the front door. That was fast. Usually he lingers a few minutes, as though he can’t bear to say good night to his daughter just yet.

On the doorstep, Tess looks up, startled.

Cam, glimpsing fleeting distress in her face, asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Tess shoots back. “What’s wrong with you?”

Cam scowls. “Watch your tone, Tess.”

With a scowl, Tess amends, “All I meant is, what are you doing out here?”

“I figured I’d open the door for you when I saw Daddy pulling up.”

Tess’s expression instantly softens. “Oh. Well, thanks.”

Looking as though she wants to add something, she comes into the house. Cam knows better than to press her daughter.

“He was in a hurry to leave tonight, huh?” Cam asks casually as she closes the door.

“Yeah, I guess.” Tess heads immediately for the stairs.

Cam slides the dead bolt and sets the alarm that had once seemed so necessary for a house this size “in the middle of nowhere,” as Cam once saw it.

Back when Mike moved into senior management and they first considered moving out of Manhattan, her only suburban experience was her childhood apartment in Camden. There were bars on the windows, junkies on the streets, and sirens screamed all night.

Yeah, and it took her all of five minutes to figure out that this upscale, well-insulated neighborhood couldn’t be farther from her roots—or closer to Mike’s, even though Connecticut is two states away and not on the list of places she was willing to live.

High on a ridge west of Manhattan, Montclair won them over with spectacular skyline views, historic architecture, and a manageable commute. Though historically the town boomed early last century when Manhattan’s affluent built their mansions—and though it remains partially populated by celebrity types, the cultural elite, Wall Street and media royalty—there is, nonetheless, a small-town feel. It is, as the first realtor told Cam and Mike way back when, a great place to raise a family.

So Montclair it was. With a built-in security system. Because you can’t be too careful…anywhere.

Not when you’re a mother tormented by visions of real kids in real trouble.

Cam looks up at her daughter heading up the steps. “Tess? You should pack, tonight or tomorrow morning. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

Not very convincing.

“Don’t leave it for the last minute,” Cam calls, but her daughter is already down the hall, closing the door to her room.

She sighs, remembering Tess’s little-girl days, when she was always delightful, always delighted.

When was the last time she heard Tess laugh?

Really laugh, not the staccato, sarcastic sound she frequently emits these days to express just how ridiculous she finds something—or someone, usually Cam.

Well, can you blame her? She started a new school, turned fourteen, and her parents split up, all in a matter of months.

Not exactly a glee-inducing combo.

Only thing that can top that for Tess will be finding out her soon-to-be single mom is pregnant.

Cam shakes her head and starts for the kitchen, thinking she needs a glass of—

Milk. That’s all you get tonight.

Or ever.

Cam sighs, longing for wine, for her little girl, for Mike.

For the life she used to have—or perhaps, for the life she never had at all.

Okay, so it isn’t the first time over the years that Ike’s caught a glimpse of Brenda—only to have her either vanish into thin air or prove to be a figment of his imagination all along.

He’s pretty sure he didn’t take a hit of acid earlier when Frankie offered—though, yeah, he remembers taking a hit or two off Jimmy’s joint before they went on. But it’s not like he’s stoned out of his mind, blind drunk, or—despite his age—going senile.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

Brooding, he twirls the cold, wet beer bottle back and forth between his palms.

For all he knows, Brenda has been dead all these years, just like Ava.

Somewhere in the back of Ike’s mind, beneath the weighted shroud of grief and loss, something stirs.

No.

More wishful thinking, and you know it.

Or does he?

Years ago, there was no DNA testing. Ava’s body—with all recognizable features obliterated in the fall—was identified based on the contents of the wallet in her pocket.

No one ever questioned it, or the fact that there wasn’t a suicide note. Not even Ike. Not back then, anyway.

But as the years passed, he began to wonder…

Would his firstborn child, his beloved, beautiful Daddy’s girl, really have done that to him after all he had been through? Would Ava—after promising to be a stand-in mom to her little sister—have abandoned Cam as well? Was she that distraught over Brenda’s disappearance, or her grades, or a breakup, or any of the things the police said might have caused her to kill herself?

Anything’s possible.

And when Ike’s stone sober, he’s usually fairly convinced that it was her. When he’s messed up, though…he believes anything’s possible.

Like some other girl diving to her death that day with Ava’s wallet in her pocket, and Ava still being alive somewhere.

Like Brenda showing up in some bar looking for him…

Or on the street in Philly, or in an Atlantic City dive casino, or at his granddaughter’s eighth-grade graduation, or any of the other places Ike’s glimpsed her—or so he thought—over the years.

Brenda.

As hard as it ever was to believe his wife had really chosen to walk away, it’s even harder to fully accept, even now, that she’s never coming back.

Maybe that’s why he keeps looking for her, for both of them, Bren and Ava, more and more lately.

Or maybe he’s seeing Brenda because she’s really there.

Maybe she couldn’t stay away. Maybe she’s been watching him, and Cam, and even Tess, keeping tabs on them. Just waiting for the right moment to come back into their lives.

Any time now, Bren, Ike silently tells her, wherever she is. Any time.

“Need another beer, Ike?” Billy asks, and he shakes his head.

The night is young. It’s time to move on.

Ike drains his beer and leaves the empty on the bar, then shuffles off toward the door and the neon-lit world beyond.

“…Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth on a beautiful night here in the Bronx…” the radio sportscaster is saying as, driving past the stately mansions of Montclair, Mike fights the urge to make a U-turn and go back and…

What?

Knock on the door and demand that Tess make a decision about where she wants to spend the Fourth of July?

What would that accomplish?

She’s not in a reasonable mood. She hasn’t been in a reasonable mood since she turned fourteen and he moved out.

Nice timing, you selfish jerk.

Cam didn’t say that, but she wanted to. He could tell. He’s said it to himself enough times since he made what now feels like a stupid, spontaneous decision to jump off what he’d decided was a sinking ship.

“…The pitcher winds, kicks, and deals…outside, ball one.”

Poor Tess.

Never in a million years did Mike ever believe his own daughter would become the product of a broken home. Divorce happens to other people. Not him and Cam.

Or so he thought, until he woke up one day and asked himself whether he’d be happier with her…or without her.

The answer seemed so damn clear at the time. As far as he was concerned, they’d hit an all-time low when she refused to accompany him on the February ski trip with his side of the family, an annual Christmas gift from his parents.

She claimed it was because she didn’t want to take Tess out of school for a week.

“We’ve always done that, and it’s no big deal.”

“Now that she’s in high school, she can’t just miss all those days, Mike.”

“She can take the work with her.”

“They won’t do that. They’re trying to discourage parents from pulling their kids out for illegal absences.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s our kid; we can take her out of school if we want to.”

“And have her fall behind, and maybe jeopardize her grades? Uh-uh. Let’s just ask your parents to wait until March this year for a change, since that’s when her break is.”

“Can’t. I’ve got to be in Prague that week,” he said.

The truth was, Mike hadn’t yet scheduled that particular business trip; he just knew it was coming up.

But Mike knew how the suggestion that they postpone the ski trip till Tess’s March break would go over with his father. Mike Sr. wasn’t thrilled with Cam’s decision to enroll their daughter in a public high school. He’s a big believer in private school.

Back when they were living on a shoestring budget in Manhattan, he was aghast that his grandchild was attending PS 42. He even offered to pay for private tuition, but you can’t just walk into a private school in Manhattan, where kids are wait-listed from the time they’re born.

When they moved to the suburbs, though, they got Tess right into prestigious Cortland Academy, a private day school two towns over, and Mike’s salary easily covered tuition.

Cam never liked the private school crowd, though. Especially as Tess got older. She wanted her daughter to hang around with “normal kids,” as she put it, as opposed to worldly rich kids. Anyway, the local public high school has a terrific reputation—even wealthy families send their kids there.

It doesn’t matter how many times Mike has defended to his parents the decision—a joint one between him and Cam—to switch Tess from private school to public freshman year. Dad still doesn’t get it, and he still blames Cam.

For a lot of things.

“…Here’s the pitch…”

Looking back, Mike wonders if things might be different now if he’d decided to forego the annual skiing trip over President’s Day. Instead, for Valentine’s Day, he gave Cam the biggest box of Godiva chocolate he could find, and Tess a camera that cost a small fortune. Then he broke the news that he was going away without them.

Tess cried.

Cam retreated emotionally—surprise, surprise.

He tried not to care, flying solo out to Utah to meet his parents and his older brothers—Dave, who lives in Chicago, and Jeff, in Los Angeles.

They all seemed so content with their lives—Dad, newly retired, and Mom, a doting wife and grandmother, and Dave and Jeff, with their wholesome wives, large families, big plans, bright futures.

It made Mike’s life back home in Jersey seem all the more isolating.

“…cut on and missed.”

A few weeks after he got back, he told Cam he was leaving.

One look at her face when he broke the news, and he wanted to take it back. But he forced himself to hold his ground, forced himself to remember the advice his father had given him one day on the slopes.

“Ask yourself where you’ll be in ten years, son, if you two stay together. Do you expect things to get better—or worse?”

Looking into the future on that blustery day, Mike envisioned himself and Cam, middle-aged and living in a household without Tess, who by then would be out of college.

What would they even have to talk about? They could barely keep a conversation going now, even with Tess between them to share the burden.

Mike pictured himself and Cam coasting into their retirement years sitting at the dinner table alone together, night after night, forks clinking against china the only sound in the room.

That, and the ice cubes dropping into Cam’s glass as she refilled it yet again.

“…and the count is one and one. He’s two-for-four tonight, with a double and an RBI…”

Mike hasn’t been able to shake the image of Cam, ten years older, ten years lonelier, angrier, with the drawn, angular face and bloodshot eyes of a longtime drinker. Like her father.

He didn’t—doesn’t—want himself and Cam to become those people. Workaholic, alcoholic.

Maybe apart, they’ll have a chance to escape that fate. Together, it seems inevitable.

At least, that’s what he managed to convince himself after talking to his father back in February.

Tess told him that, within days of his leaving Cam threw away every bottle of liquor in the house. She’s supposedly gone cold turkey on the booze, which may prove that Mike was right to leave and that his father really does—as he always claims—know best.

“…Here’s the pitch, fastball, in there for strike two.”

Yet Dad never was crazy about Cam. Conservative and old-fashioned, he had judged her before he even met her. He took issue with her past, even with her parents’ lives. He hated that Cam’s father is a musician, that her mother has long been out of the picture.

“What kind of woman just up and leaves her husband and children?” he’d demanded of Mike, back when he first found out about Brenda Neary.

The kind of woman whose daughter might grow up to do the same thing. That’s what Dad was thinking, even if he didn’t say it out loud.

Maybe somewhere deep inside, Mike was always afraid of that, too.

Hell—maybe it had actually happened.

Only Cam didn’t check out physically, as her mother had. She checked out emotionally, putting up walls he couldn’t get past.

Why would she do that if she still loves him, as she claims?

All these years, Mike wondered, and worried. But he long ago gave up asking his wife if everything is okay. He’s known for quite some time that it isn’t.

“…Two out, the count one and two in the bottom of the ninth here at Yankee Stadium. The bases loaded with Yankees who still trail by two runs…”

Mike gave up, too, on believing that the girl he fell in love with still exists somewhere behind the mask of a burdened, bitter housewife.

Still…you never know.

“God, I miss you,” he says aloud.

“…It is high…It is far…It is GONE! A game-winning, walk-off grand slam and the Yankees win! The-e-e-e Yankees win!”

Wait a minute…

The Yankees won?

Somehow, Mike missed it…And he was right here all along.

Yeah. That’s kind of how he feels about his marriage.

Shaking his head, he drives on toward the Holland Tunnel, and the small rented apartment that doesn’t feel like home.

Then again—neither does the big brick Colonial in Montclair.

Jesus, Cam, what happened to us?

No, that’s not exactly it. More like…

What have I done to us? Can I undo it before it’s too late? Do I even want to?

Eddie Casalino grew up in Atlantic City; he knows the beach, the boardwalk, and most of the casinos inside and out.

Not that he gambles. What a waste of hard-earned cash.

At twenty-two, he’s got better plans for his money: big plans. For a year now, he’s been saving every spare dollar from his day job at Packages Plus and his night job as a desk clerk at Bally’s. A few more months, and he’ll have enough for a bike. Not just any bike—a Harley. Used, but in great condition.

Then he’ll be able to move to a better apartment, someplace off the public transportation route.

Yeah, by fall, he’ll be riding his bike back and forth to work, living someplace with decent plumbing, maybe even a yard or a balcony. Who knows? Maybe a view of the ocean.

Dream big…that’s what his mother always told him.

Last week, he went to Kaminski, his boss at Packages Plus, to ask for a raise.

“You need to step it up a little, Eddie. Talk to the customers. Don’t just hand them their mail, weigh their packages, take their money. Be friendly. If I see more initiative from you, I’ll think about a raise.”

He’s been remembering to do what Kaminski said. He’s stepped it up at Bally’s, too, making small talk with guests as they check in and out. He’s never been much of a chatterbox, so it doesn’t come naturally to ask people where they’re from, if they’ve ever been to Atlantic City before, whatever. He tries to act interested in their answers, but he really doesn’t give a shit.

“Night, Eddie,” calls Angela, one of the blackjack dealers, as she passes him on his way to Pacific Avenue.

“Morning, Angela,” he returns, as usual, and they smile before continuing on in opposite directions. She’s about to clock in; he’s about to take the jitney to his rented room and catch a few hours’ sleep before he has to be back behind the counter at Packages Plus.

Sometimes, he imagines asking Angela—who, he’s heard through the grapevine, is divorced with a couple of kids—if she wants to go out with him. But a hot older woman like her wouldn’t want to ride the bus to T.G.I. Fridays and the multiplex.

It’ll have to wait until fall.

As he walks along the deserted street toward the bus stop, Eddie smiles at the thought of Angela on the back of his new bike, her arms and legs wrapped around him.

Dream big. Yup.

All he needs is—

“Dude!” he blurts involuntarily as a figure abruptly steps out of the shadows in front of him.

Startled, Eddie stops short—he has no choice, the person is standing squarely on the sidewalk, facing him, blocking his way.

“What—”

Then he sees the gun.

In the split second before it goes off, he looks up. In shocked recognition of the shooter’s face, his voice clogged with dread, he begins to ask, “Why—–”

Then a flash of blinding pain, and everything shatters: his bewilderment, his big dreams, his skull.

Lying on the sidewalk with his brains spattered around him, Eddie Casalino dies.

The lone witness is his black-clad killer, who whispers, “Sorry, dude,” before tucking away the gun and disappearing into the night.