Bet Me Read online

“No,” Bonnie said. “The only illogical thing you have to do is believe. After that, you need brains.”

  “Oh, good,” Min said. “Brains, I got. Leap of faith, taken. Plan, still in the works.”

  Bonnie nodded again. “Can you sleep now?”

  “Uh huh,” Min said, tearing up again. “Why can’t I stop crying?”

  “When was the last time you cried?” Bonnie said.

  “I can’t remember,” Min said.

  “When was the last time you cared enough to cry?” Bonnie said.

  “I can’t remember that, either,” Min said, appalled.

  “So you’ve got some catching up to do,” Bonnie said, standing up. “I have to go downstairs and sleep with a bear.”

  Min gave her a watery grin. “Do not expect me to feel sorry for you because you’ve got Roger.”

  “I don’t,” Bonnie said airily. “I expect you to envy me beyond measure.”

  “I do,” Min said, thinking of the man she’d left enraged in the moonlight. “But I want Cal.”

  Cal didn’t call, and that was all right, Min told herself, because she’d see him at the rehearsal dinner since he hadn’t called to cancel, plus she didn’t have time to think about him with the wedding only four days away, especially since she found herself fielding a dozen calls a day from her increasingly frantic sister, and anyway she was better off without him as a distraction.

  She missed him.

  Sunday, she kept telling herself, on Sunday this will all be over, Diana will be married, and I can fix my own life then. The only part she wasn’t sure about was the “Diana will be married,” but since Diana was insistent that her romance was a fairy tale, there wasn’t much Min could do besides hold her hand, make supportive noises, and listen. So she propped Diana up, went to the If Dinner on Thursday night and brought the rest of the hand-packed quarts of ice cream that Cal had given her, told Liza there was no need to apologize for making Cal sing since their fight had been inevitable, and tried to figure out a way to make things right without actually talking to him or seeing him.

  But on Saturday morning, she had to go to baseball for Harry, so she put on her newest sandals—clear plastic mules with French heels and cherries on the toes—and got to the park a couple of minutes after the game started. She found a seat to one side, trying to stay inconspicuous and wave to Harry at the same time, but Bink saw her and motioned her up. Min smiled at her and then realized that the man sitting next to her wasn’t just a miscellaneous father, he was Reynolds. Cynthie was on Bink’s other side, wedged in next to another parent, which meant Min was going to be stuck sitting beside Reynolds. This has to be payback for something, she thought, and climbed to the top and sat down.

  “So how we doing?” she asked him.

  “These kids can’t play,” Reynolds said, shaking his head. “No discipline.”

  “Well, you know, they’re eight,” Min said.

  “Discipline starts young,” Reynolds said, looking at her with contempt, and Min thought, There goes our chance at bonding.

  Down on the field, Bentley bobbled a catch and the ball rolled over to Harry, who picked it up and threw it in the general direction of a base he thought might be appropriate.

  “Oh, God, Harry,” Reynolds said loudly.

  Min saw Cal off to one side of the field and felt her stomach lurch. Ridiculous, she told herself and swallowed hard. He spread his arms out at Harry as if to say, What? and Harry shrugged and crouched down again. Cal shook his head but Min could tell from the set of his shoulders that he wasn’t mad. When he turned around he was grinning, and then he caught sight of her and his grin vanished, and she felt the rejection in the pit of her stomach.

  Oh, ouch, she thought and looked away to the dugout where Tony was eating a hot dog and shaking his head, and Liza was sitting next to him with her chin on her hand. Down at the bottom of the bleachers, Bonnie was keeping some kind of tally for Roger who would use it to explain to the kids later the importance of something or other. Lucky kids, she thought and wished she were down there with Bonnie, or with Liza, or better yet, shoe shopping somewhere. Anywhere but here, looking at what she couldn’t have. Or didn’t have the guts to go after. Same thing, really.

  Throughout the rest of the game, Reynolds continued to express his disgust at the general ineptness of the team in general, winning no friends among the parents in the bleachers, and making an already jittery Min long to hit him with something. Bink grew more and more owl-like, and Min wondered why she put up with him. I’d have left his ass a long time ago.

  Down on the field, Harry came up to bat. He looked up at them, and Min waved to him, smiling. He pounded his bat on the ground a couple of times and then put it on his shoulder, dead serious. And when the pitch came, he missed it by a mile.

  “Come on, Harry,” Reynolds yelled. “You can do better than that. You’re not trying.”

  Shut up, Reynolds, Min thought.

  Down on the field, Harry’s shoulders hunched a little, and up in the bleachers, Bink grew even stiller.

  Harry fanned the next one, too, and Reynolds yelled, “Concentrate, Harrison! You can’t swing at anything like a dummy. Think,” and Min saw Cal look up at his brother, his face set.

  Might want to ease back on that, Reynolds, Min thought, and then Harry stiffened up and swung at a pitch that was so bad it didn’t even cross the plate, and Reynolds stood up and yelled, “Harry, that was stupid, damn it, can’t you do anything right?,” and Harry froze, his little shoulders rigid, and Cal left the field, coming straight for his brother, murder in his eyes.

  “No, no,” Min said, panicking as Cal hit the bleachers. She stood up and stepped in front of Reynolds and hit him hard on the arm with her fist.

  “Hey!” Reynolds said, grabbing his arm.

  “You miserable excuse for a parent,” she said to him under her breath. “You do not humiliate your kid like that.” She raised her voice and yelled, “Harry is really smart, he’s always smart,” and then she whispered, “But you are the dumbest son of a bitch I have ever seen in my life.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Reynolds said, outraged.

  “It’s not my pardon you need, you miserable butthead,” Min whispered, leaning closer. “It’s your kid’s, the one you just humiliated in front of all his friends, and if you think that made you look good to anybody here, your head really is up your butt.”

  “You’re out of line,” Reynolds said, but he looked wary now, darting a glance at the other parents, who were clearly not amused. He shook his head, trying for bluster. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Well, for starters, she’s the woman who just saved your ass,” Cal said from behind her. “Because I was going to throw it off the bleachers until she got in my way.”

  “You,” Reynolds said, looking past Min. “Like you could do anything about it. You can’t even coach these kids—”

  “Oh, give it up,” Min said. “You know you screwed up, and the best you can do is blame your brother?”

  “Listen,” Reynolds said, raising a finger. “You are not—”

  “You know, Reynolds,” Cal said. “When you get home, you’re going to figure out that you just gave your kid the same kind of flashback you and I have been having all our lives. And while you are a butthead, you’re not a mean butthead, so that should give you some good nightmares about your parenting skills. In the meantime, you’re picking a fight with somebody who takes no prisoners. I’d back away slowly if I were you.”

  “We’re going home,” Bink said.

  “I don’t see why—” Reynolds began and then Bink looked at him, her gray eyes steely cold.

  “We,” she said, “are going home where we will discuss this. Min, will you and Cal see that Harry gets home safely?”

  “Yes,” Cal said from behind her, and Min nodded, shaking now that the first adrenaline rush had passed. She stepped sideways, back to her own seat, feeling incredibly rash, not to mention rude, and when she turned and sat