| |
When he was on the subway the following Saturday, Mike briefly doubted his plan.
He’d chosen something based on what Charlotte had liked as a kid, but it wasn’t something that had merely been a passing phase; no, he’d picked an activity she’d enjoyed for all the years he’d lived next to her.
She’d still enjoy it, right? Nostalgia, if nothing else.
He exited the subway at Union and met Charlotte at the street corner, as arranged. He’d told her to dress casually and come prepared for time in the sun. She was wearing jeans and a striped tank top, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and when he was standing next to her, he could smell sunscreen.
“Is this okay?” she asked. “My outfit, I mean.”
“It’s perfect.”
“When I got here, I started worrying that when you said ‘casual,’ you meant something fancier than what I consider casual, and...”
He should be paying attention to what she was saying, but he was hopelessly distracted by her shoulders, of all things. And the fact that this tank top was a little lower cut than what she’d worn last weekend.
He nearly reached for her hand but then stopped. Hand-holding seemed a bit serious for a second date, right?
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“It’s a secret,” he said.
She rolled her eyes.
“Don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough.”
They headed west, and ten minutes later, they were nearly at their destination, along with thousands of other fans, some wearing Blue Jays hats and jerseys.
“You’re taking me to the SkyDome,” she said.
“What is this, nineteen ninety-nine? It’s the Rogers Centre.”
She glared at him, but the glare seemed half-hearted. Missing her usual spunk.
Why wasn’t she glaring more enthusiastically? And why was he so obsessed with getting under her skin?
“Anything wrong?” he asked. “I figured a ballgame would be a nice casual date, and you always liked the Jays.”
“Very true.”
Something still wasn’t right, but he couldn’t figure it out.
Instead, he squeezed her hand, and they headed into the stadium together.
* * *
Charlotte admitted this was a reasonable place for a date, if Mike was under the impression she liked baseball and the Jays. Which he was.
But since Brad’s failed proposal, she’d lost interest.
It seemed silly to mention that, so she kept quiet as Mike led her to their seats. They weren’t in the nosebleeds, but they weren’t super close to the action, either.
Good. She was glad he hadn’t spent too much money on this.
Mike got them each a beer, and they chatted a bit about the Blue Jays of their youth. They’d occasionally watched games together at her house. He’d liked Roberto Alomar; she’d preferred John Olerud.
But once the game started, Charlotte began to feel more uneasy. She couldn’t help remembering. Those words on the scoreboard. Her initial conviction that they were for someone else, and then her dawning horror as she realized otherwise.
Brad on his knees. Her desperate escape.
Running, running, running...
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked in the bottom of the second.
She said nothing.
“We can leave if you’d like. I thought this was something you’d enjoy, but I was basing that on my knowledge of thirteen-year-old Charlotte Tam.”
“It’s stupid,” she muttered.
“I’m sure it’s not stupid.”
For some reason, as she looked into his eyes, she was overcome with the urge to tell him.
“My ex proposed here,” she said.
Mike’s easy smile disappeared. “At a Jays game?”
“Yes.”
“You said no?”
“Correct.” She hesitated. “A scoreboard proposal was literally my worst nightmare.”
“I remember. I was there the first time you witnessed one on TV.”
And she now recalled that Mike had drawn her a picture of John Olerud to make her feel better after her proposal-slash-scary-monster dream in grade two.
“Brad knew,” she said, “but—”
“What was he thinking?” Mike shook his head. “Even if I hadn’t witnessed the horror on your face when you saw that proposal, I’d know you’d never want to get engaged like that. Too many people. Too much attention.”
At least that was obvious to someone.
“It’s even worse when you can’t say yes,” she said. “People were shouting at me, telling me not to break his heart, and I just ran. I got the fuck out of the stadium as fast as possible and officially broke up with him on the phone. There were videos of me running away on social media.”
“I’m sorry, Charlotte.”
Mike rubbed his hand in circles over her shoulder. A friendly gesture, she told herself.
“I probably shouldn’t tell that story on a second date,” she said.
“I’m glad you told me.”
“Would you ever propose like that at a baseball game?”
“Nah.”
“Really?” she said.
“Why is that so surprising?”
“I don’t know. You’re a lot different from me. More like Brad.”
“I’m insulted you’re comparing me to that man.”
She chuckled. “Have you ever proposed?”
“No.”
How many ex-girlfriends did Mike have? She couldn’t help wondering.
“But when I do,” he said, “it’ll be private. Just the two of us. Maybe somewhere in nature. After you saw the scoreboard proposal on TV, I remember you said it wasn’t romantic at all.”
“I only had a fuzzy idea of what romance was back then, but yeah.”
“You said you wanted a field of flowers with nobody watching. I think you were on to something. That could be nice, or surrounded by red and golden maple leaves in the autumn.”
She pictured Mike down on one knee, staring lovingly up at someone. She was jealous of this imaginary woman.
Silly of her.
“We can go,” Mike said. “I understand if you don’t want to be here.”
“No, I don’t want to continue to let Brad ruin baseball for me. Fuck him. We’re going to stay, and I’m going to enjoy myself.” She chugged half her beer. “Have you been to any baseball games recently?”
“I go with friends maybe once a year, and last year I took my niece.”
“You have a niece?”
“Her name is Bailey, and she’s ten.”
“Wow. It’s hard to imagine Angela having a ten-year-old. She wasn’t much older than ten the last time I saw her. Bailey likes baseball?”
“No, I quickly discovered she hates it. I was just hoping to find something we might enjoy together. Now she’s into poisonous frogs and mushrooms.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope. It’s cool that there’s finally something we both enjoy.”
“Um...”
“She likes drawing them, and I got her into watercolors the last time she visited. What about Julie? How’s she doing?”
“She’s in Toronto. We don’t see each other a lot—you know how we were never close. She just got a job at Ossington Cider Bar, and she makes jewelry on the side. She made this, actually.” Charlotte lifted up the pendant on her necklace.
“Reminds me of Spirograph,” Mike said. “I loved Spirograph.”
“Me, too.”
Just then, the stadium erupted in cheers. One of the Jays had hit a homerun, but Charlotte had missed it because she’d been engrossed in her conversation with Mike. She didn’t cheer, but she smiled as she sipped her barely-cold beer.
This was kind of nice. She was glad he’d taken her here.
She bought them hotdogs in the fourth inning, but after that, she kept her eyes on the field—and occasionally on Mike. Even when she wasn’t looking at him or talking to him, she appreciated his presence.
At the seventh-inning stretch, however, something unexpected happened.
Though perhaps Charlotte shouldn’t say it was unexpected. Given her luck, it was exactly the sort of thing that would happen to her.
TAMARA KIRK, I LOVE YOU. WILL YOU MARRY ME?
The words appeared on the jumbo screen, followed by a shot of a man getting down on one knee in front of a woman, both of them wearing Jays jerseys.
“Oh God, oh God,” Charlotte muttered.
She tensed as she imagined herself in the woman’s position, and Mike squeezed her hand.
But then the couple was kissing and people were cheering, and she breathed out a sigh of relief, glad it had worked out better for them than it had for her.
In fact, she started laughing.
Her first baseball game in five years and she’d witnessed a proposal.
“You okay?” Mike asked.
“Yeah.” She laughed again. “I’m just fine.”
The concern disappeared from his face, but he didn’t let go of her hand. Nor did he say something inane like, See, baseball game proposals aren’t so bad after all. He understood they weren’t for her and never would be.
See, Charlotte, not all men are terrible.
Brad—and the excessive number of dating horror stories she’d read—may have given her a skewed perspective.
For the first time in a long time, she felt hope. Real hope.
She could find a decent man who understood her, and maybe that man didn’t need to hate wearing pants and leaving the apartment as much as she did. Just because he was different from Charlotte didn’t mean he’d think there was something wrong with her or want to change her.
Well, that widened her dating pool quite a bit.
She turned her attention back to the game. The Jays were down by three runs to the Orioles, but after a couple runs in the eighth inning, followed by a homer in the bottom of the ninth, the Jays tied it up and the game went to extra innings.
When the Jays’ second baseman hit a double in the eleventh inning, sending a runner home, Charlotte actually cheered out loud.
“So,” Mike said, “your return to baseball was a success?”
“It was. Thank you.”
And then she leaned in and gave him a fleeting kiss on the cheek.
* * *
The taco joint erupted in cheers.
Mike had been in the middle of teasing Charlotte for ordering three tacos al pastor rather than ordering three different types. Personally, he preferred variety.
But he trailed off and looked to the back of the restaurant, just in time to see a man stand up—he’d been down on one knee—and throw his arms around another man. They kissed.
“Did we just witness another proposal?” Mike asked.
“We sure did.” Charlotte didn’t seem at all bothered by this. “The blond guy said something about how he fell in love on their very first date, which was at this restaurant. You didn’t hear?”
“No, I was too busy insulting your choice in tacos.”
She gave him a look.
“Aw, Charlotte,” he said. “You think it’s sweet, don’t you?”
“Well, returning to the site of your first date is rather sweet, yes. But if someone did that for me, I’d hope they’d book the whole restaurant or arrange a private room.”
Mike found himself wondering if Anne’s had any private rooms or—
What on earth was he thinking? This was only their second date, and he was supposed to be teaching Charlotte about dating.
Teaching, not actually dating her.
And secretly teaching himself while pretending that he was some kind of lady-killer with lots of knowledge in this department.
But as he looked across the table at her, digging into her taco with gusto—why did she approve of pineapple on tacos but not on pizza?—he felt a certain fondness in his chest that he didn’t normally feel for a friend.
He’d loved her, before they’d been old enough to even drive or vote, and some of that was returning.
Though it was different now.
She picked up a piece of pineapple that had fallen out of her taco and slid it between her lips. He tried not to laugh at the thought of the seductive lip-biting lessons he’d given her last weekend.
God, she was adorable, and she would almost certainly scowl if he told her that.
Which was even more adorable.
Something about the baseball game, the way she’d told him about Brad—what was it about seeing a vulnerable side of Charlotte that brought out his feelings for her?
He didn’t know.
“Dammit, I’m getting a headache,” Charlotte said as she polished off her final taco.
He paused in eating, nearly finished his bulgogi taco. “Do you need a painkiller? I don’t have one, but—”
“No, it’s caffeine withdrawal. Thirteen-year-old Charlotte had yet to be introduced to the wonders of coffee, but thirty-two-year-old Charlotte is a coffee addict.”
“Thirty-two-year-old Charlotte talks about herself in the third person. Good to know.”
She stuck out her tongue at him, then said, “Probably not a turn-on to have me stick out my tongue and complain about my caffeine-withdrawal headache. I shouldn’t do that on a date.”
He was just glad she was comfortable with him. They hadn’t seen each other for twenty years, but it was easy to hang out with her again.
“I haven’t had any coffee since this morning,” she said. “Hard to believe I went eight hours without thinking about coffee.”
“Must have something to do with my scintillating company.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it,” she said sarcastically, but then she smiled at him. “Your scintillating company, that exciting baseball game, and two proposals.”
“I’ll be finished in a minute, and then we can leave. Chris’s Coffee Shop is two minutes from here.” He’d do whatever it took to keep her supplied with coffee.
“Excellent.”
It had turned out to be a good day, despite Charlotte’s initial discomfort with watching a ballgame, and he had an idea for their next date. Something else related to their childhood, but a grown-up version. Hopefully she’d like it.
Mike had only ever wanted to make her happy.