The Silver Linings Playbook(24)

Tiffany passes me.

She runs by me like a blur.

Suddenly, only one thing matters: I need to pass her.

I start running faster and catch up to her, but she picks up her speed and we run side by side for a time until I find that gear women do not have, and I blow by her and maintain my man speed for a minute or so before I slow down and allow her to catch up with me. We jog side by side on the beach for a long time, neither of us saying a word.

What feels like an hour passes before we turn around, and what feels like another hour passes before we see Ronnie and Veronica’s umbrella, but before we reach them, Tiffany veers into the ocean.

I follow her—running directly into the waves—and the salt water feels so cool on my skin after a long run. Soon we are in too deep to stand, and Tiffany’s head is floating over the waves, which have calmed down considerably. Her face is a little tan and her hair hangs dark and wet and natural and I see freckles on her nose that were not there earlier that morning—so I swim over to her.

A wave lifts me up, and when I come down over the other side, I am surprised that our faces are very close. For a second Tiffany reminds me so much of Nikki, I worry we might accidentally kiss, but Tiffany swims a few feet away from me before this happens, and I am thankful.

Her toes come up out of the water, and she begins to float, facing the horizon.

I lean back, stare at the line where sky meets water, allow my toes to rise, and float next to Tiffany for a long time, neither of us saying anything.

When we walk back to the blanket, Emily is sleeping with a fist in her mouth, and Veronica and Ronnie are lying down, holding hands in the shade. When we stand over them, they squint and smile at us like nothing bad had happened earlier.

“How was your run?” Ronnie asks.

“We want to go home now,” Tiffany says.

“Why?” Ronnie says, sitting up. “We haven’t even eaten our lunch. Pat, you really want to go home?”

Veronica says nothing.

I look up at the sky. No clouds at all. Nothing but blue. “Yeah, I do,” I tell him, and then we are in the minivan driving back to Collingswood.





A Hive Full of Green Bees





“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

I sit up, my heart pounding. When my eyes focus, I see my dad standing at my bedside with his hands above his head; he’s wearing his number 5 McNabb jersey.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he continues to scream, until I get out of bed, raise my hands, and say “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

We do the chant, spelling the letters with our arms and legs. “E!-A!-G!-L!-E!-S! EAGLES!” When we finish, instead of saying good morning or anything else, my father simply jogs out of my room.

I look at the clock, and it reads 5:59 a.m. The game starts at one o’clock. I promised to join Jake’s tailgate party by ten, which gives me two hours to lift and an hour to run—so I lift, and Tiffany is outside at 8:00 a.m. just like she said she would be.

We do a short run—maybe only six or seven miles.

After a shower, I put on my Baskett jersey and ask my mom for a ride to the PATCO station, but she says, “Your driver is waiting for you outside.” Mom kisses me on the cheek and hands me some money. “Have fun, and don’t let your brother drink too much.”

Outside, I see Dad in his sedan; the engine is running. I get into the car and say, “Dad, are you going to the game?”

“I wish I could,” he says, and then we back out of the driveway.

The truth is that my father is still serving a self-imposed ban and is therefore not allowed to attend Eagles games. In the early eighties, Dad got into a fight with a Dallas Cowboys fan who dared to sit in the 700 Level, which were the cheap seats at the Vet, where the die-hard Eagles fans sat.

The story I heard from my since-deceased uncle was this:

When the Cowboys scored a touchdown, this Dallas fan jumped up and began cheering real loudly, so people started throwing beers and hot dogs at him. The only problem was that my dad was sitting in the row in front of this Dallas fan, so the beer and mustard and food rained down on Dad too.

Apparently, Dad lost it, attacked the Dallas fan, and beat him within an inch of his life. My father was actually arrested, convicted of aggravated assault, and incarcerated for three months. If my uncle hadn’t made the mortgage payments, we would have lost the house. Dad did lose his season ticket and has not been to an Eagles game since.

Jake says we could get Dad in, since no one actually checks IDs at the gate, but Dad won’t go back, saying, “As long as they let the opposing fans in our house, I can’t trust myself.”

This is sort of funny, because twenty-five years after Dad beat the hell out of that Dallas fan, he is just a fat old man who is not likely to beat up another fat old man, let alone a rowdy Dallas fan with the guts to wear a Cowboys jersey to an Eagles game. Although my father did hit me pretty hard in the attic just a few weeks ago—so maybe he is wise to stay away from the games.

We drive over the hospital-green Walt Whitman Bridge, and he talks about how this just might be an important day in Eagles history, especially since the Giants won both games last year. “Revenge!” he keeps yelling indiscriminately. He also tells me I have to cheer real loudly so Eli Manning—who I know (from reading the sports pages) is the Giants’ QB—will not be able to talk or hear during the huddles. “Scream your goddamn lungs out, because you’re the twelfth man!” Dad says. The way he talks at me—never really pausing long enough for me to say anything—makes him sound crazy, I know, even though most people think I am the crazy person in the family.