The Art of Losing(28)
Cassidy raised her eyebrows, still not convinced.
“You don’t have to say it,” I said. “I know that I said that about Mike. More than once. But Raf . . . I don’t know. I like having him around. He’s grown up and—I realize this does not help my case—rehab seems to have changed him.”
To her credit, Cassidy didn’t roll her eyes. But she didn’t look convinced, either.
“Just come along and see for yourself, okay?”
She started to sigh but caught herself. “Okay, okay. I’ll go steal my clothes back from Morgan’s room and change, and then we can go. But I have to come home right after. I have to work opening tomorrow at five a.m. because God forbid Will ask Janine to risk her beauty sleep.”
Cassidy’s manager, Will, had a habit of dating his employees. Janine was the latest. I couldn’t tell if Cassidy was jealous. He was flirtatious, and she thought he was cute, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t made a move.
I didn’t get the appeal—Will was tall and skinny, and he was always wearing beanies even when it was ninety degrees out. Not my type. Mike had been sturdy, an athlete, with a little belly and enough stretch marks to make me feel less self-conscious when naked in front of him. I still focused on my muffin top and double chin in photos of the two of us together, though.
Living a mostly sedentary life of reading comics and watching TV had left me with more padding than I wanted, but not enough motivation to actually do something about it. I’d rather read and lounge and eat carbs. Carbs are delicious.
But Will was Cassidy’s type, so I supported her crush, even if she hadn’t yet admitted it. But I found it suspicious just how often she complained that Janine got the best shifts while she was left working closing on Friday nights and opening on Sunday mornings.
I tried not to let on that, selfishly, I was happy about the situation. She now had Saturday off and could hang out with me. I’d wait until she was in a better mood to rub it in.
We pulled into the parking lot about a half hour before the opening pitch, but I could see that Spencer was anxious about getting inside to watch batting practice. I leaned forward and squeezed his bony shoulder. After his mom had slathered his gangly limbs with sunscreen and left with a warning not to let him eat anything with sugar, I’d let him sit in the front seat. It had made him smile so huge, his cheeks lifted his glasses. But that excitement had worn off, and now I could feel the tension even through the thick polyester of his Nationals jersey.
“We’ll be inside in a few minutes, I promise,” I whispered.
He didn’t respond, but he turned enough to give me a tight-lipped nod.
Raf parked and let me and Cassidy out of the back seat. I paid for everyone’s tickets, courtesy of my mom, and we wound our way through the stadium to our seats. Unlike most kids who immediately ask for food, Spencer made a beeline for the upper level. We were up in the nosebleeds, but he rushed to the edge and parked himself there.
Cassidy, Raf, and I found our seats, but Raf immediately turned around.
“Hot dog?” he asked, pointing at me and then Cassidy. “Hot dog?” We both nodded. “What about Spencer?”
“His mom only lets him eat organic, grass-fed, cage-free what-have-you,” Cassidy said with disdain.
“So . . . yes?” Raf said, smiling at her.
“Exactly,” she said, grinning back. “We need to pump him full of as much processed crap as possible before he has to go back to her.”
Raf pointed at her. “You’re my kind of girl.”
Cassidy allowed herself a small smile. She was coming around to him.
When Raf got back, I offered to take Spencer’s hot dog to him, but he waved me off.
“Don’t be offended if he doesn’t talk to you,” I said as he turned away. “Spencer loves the stadium, but it’s super overstimulating for him. He tends to stay quiet.”
Raf just winked at me and kept walking.
Spencer ignored him at first, until Raf offered him the hot dog. He held it while Spencer put relish and ketchup on it, and then they sat in two free seats and talked. Or really, Raf talked while Spencer ate and listened, but I saw him nod and respond once or twice. By the time Raf and Spencer came back to our seats, the first inning had started. Spencer was talking, if not animatedly, at least with regularity. I tried to follow what they were saying, but it sounded a lot like gibberish. So instead, Cassidy and I focused on fanning ourselves with the magazines I’d brought in case we got bored.
Sometime in the top of the second inning, three guys took seats behind us. They were college-age frat types, each holding a beer—and judging from their loud voices, I doubted it was their first. They were immediately annoying, kicking the back of our seats and getting peanut shells in Cassidy’s and my hair, and it didn’t take long before I lost patience. But Cassidy gave me a look every time I shot a glare at them, or sighed loudly, or at one point called them assholes under my breath. They heard, though. And they just laughed. There was no point in doing anything but ignoring them. So I tried to restrain myself.
Until the Nationals got a home run in the bottom of the fourth. One of the players—I didn’t know which—hit a home run over the wall in right field, and the guys behind us went wild. One of them kneed me in the back of the head when he stood to scream. I winced. When I spun around, he just flashed a drunken grin.