The Silver Linings Playbook(20)

“Listen,” Ronnie says. “I want to tell you why Tiffany was fired from her job.”

“That’s none of my business.”

“It is if you are going to have dinners with her. Listen, you need to know that …”

Ronnie tells me what he believes is the story of how Tiffany lost her job, but the way he tells it proves he is biased. He tells it just like Dr. Timbers would, stating what he would call “facts,” with no regard for what was going on in Tiffany’s head. He tells me what coworkers wrote in their reports, he tells me what her boss told her parents and what the therapist has since said to Veronica—who is Tiffany’s designated support buddy and therefore has weekly phone conversations with Tiffany’s therapist—but he never once tells me what Tiffany thinks or what is going on in her heart: the awful feelings, the conflicting impulses, the needs, the desperation, everything that makes her different from Ronnie and Veronica, who have each other and their daughter, Emily, and a good income and a house and everything else that keeps people from calling them “odd.” What amazes me is that Ronnie is telling me all this in a friendly manner, as if he is trying to save me from Tiffany’s ways, as if he knows more about these sorts of things than I do, as if I had not spent the last few months in a mental institution. He does not understand Tiffany, and he sure as hell doesn’t understand me, but I do not hold it against Ronnie, because I am practicing being kind rather than right, so Nikki will be able to love me again when apart time is over.

“So I’m not telling you to be mean or to gossip about her—just protect yourself, okay?” Ronnie says, and I nod. “Well, I better be getting home to Veronica. Maybe I’ll drop in this week for a lifting session? Cool?”

I nod again and watch him jog away from me, the bouncy steps suggesting that he thinks his mission is accomplished. It is obvious he was only allowed to watch the game because Veronica wanted him to talk to me about Tiffany, probably because Veronica thought I might take advantage of her nymphomaniac sister, which makes me very mad, and before I know it, I’m ringing the Websters’ doorbell.

“Hello?” Tiffany’s mom says to me when the door opens. She is older-looking, with gray hair and a heavy sweater-coat, even though it is only September and she is inside.

“May I speak with Tiffany?”

“You’re Ronnie’s friend, right? Pat Peoples?”

I only nod, because I know Mrs. Webster knows who I am.

“Do you mind if I ask what you want with our daughter?”

“Who’s there?” I hear Tiffany’s father call from the other room.

“It’s just Ronnie’s friend, Pat Peoples!” Mrs. Webster yells. To me she says, “So what do you want with our Tiffany?”

I look down at the football in my hand and say, “I want to have a catch. It’s a beautiful afternoon. Maybe she would like to get some fresh air in the park?”

“Just a catch?” Mrs. Webster says.

I hold up my wedding ring to prove I do not want to have sex with her daughter, and say, “Listen, I’m married. I just want to be Tiffany’s friend, okay?”

Mrs. Webster looks a little surprised by my answer, which is odd because I was sure that was the answer she wanted to hear. But after a moment she says, “Go around back and knock on the door.”

So I knock on the back door, but no one answers.

I knock three more times and then leave.

I’m halfway through the park when I hear a swishy sound behind me. When I turn around, Tiffany is speed walking toward me, wearing a pink tracksuit made from a material that swishes when one pant leg rubs against the other. When she is about five feet away, I throw her a light, girly pass, but she steps aside and the football falls to the ground.

“What do you want?” she says.

“Want to have a catch?”

“I hate football. I told you this, no?”

Since she doesn’t want to have a catch, I decide I’ll just ask her my question: “Why do you follow me when I run?”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah,” I say.

She squints her eyes and makes her face look mean. “I’m scouting you.”

“What?”

“I said I’m scouting you.”

“Why?”

“To see if you are fit enough.”

“Fit enough for what?”

But instead of answering my question, she says, “I’m also scouting your work ethic, your endurance, the way you deal with mental strain, your ability to persevere when you are unsure of what is happening around you, and—”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you yet,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t finished scouting you.”

When she walks away, I follow her past the pond, over the footbridge, and out of the park. But neither of us speaks again.

She leads me to Haddon Avenue, and we walk by the new stores and swanky restaurants, passing lots of other pedestrians, kids on skateboards, and men who raise their fists in the air and say, “Go Eagles!” when they see my Hank Baskett jersey.

Tiffany turns off Haddon Avenue and weaves through residential blocks until we are in front of my parents’ house, where she stops, looks at me, and—after almost an hour of silence—says, “Did your team win?”