Off the Mark, page 6
I shook my head. “Nope. Not anymore. You’re the coordinator for one of the largest food programs for seniors in this whole-ass city. Asking you to also fix everything in that ramshackle building feels like too much.”
“It’s not though.”
“It is,” I said simply. “And the person you brought in did great. Long as we don’t have chairs floating like sailboats in there, I’m happy.”
He was quiet. We could hear the soft murmur of Tabitha and my grandmother in the front room. The low chatter of neighbors on the small concrete patios next to us. Some music, a hint of fragrant smoke from whoever was barbecuing down the block.
“So…uh, were you gonna tell me that Charlie Maddox is in town? Or why I saw her leaving your office looking upset?” Dean asked suddenly.
I paused, mid-scrub, my heart rate speeding up. It’d been two days since that blond badass from my past stood in my office, asking for a favor I had to decline.
She’d dominated my every waking thought ever since.
“Now that was a weird day. I can’t believe I forgot to tell you.” Yeah, because I simply forgot. “They’re holding the women’s moto championships here in the city, so she was swinging by to say hey.”
He leaned back against the oven and crossed his arms. “She randomly stopped by at a neighborhood rec center, deep in South Philly?”
I dried my hands, then propped myself up on the barstool by the back door. “I was pretty surprised too. But I wanna know how in the hell you remembered Charlie. That was way back in my pre-major league days.”
I’d gotten drafted to pitch for a Triple-A team, the Syracuse Mets, right out of high school. They were a feeder team for New York, but until I got called up, I’d lived the typical life of a baseball player in the minor leagues. On the road for half the year, sleeping on buses and in budget hotel rooms.
In the off-season, I’d come home as long as we weren’t in training. But I still had the world’s tiniest apartment near where we practiced, a town called Sweetwater outside of Syracuse.
That’s why a bunch of players and I spent our nights at the local bar—long as we kept the actual alcohol intake to a minimum. Our coaches were happy to look the other way if no one was hungover at practice. But there was shit else to do, and we were broke on the pittance of a salary we made.
At Jolene’s, beer was cheap, the music was good, and they always had a game on.
And Charlie was the bartender.
Dean held up his finger. “She served us drinks the few times I went up to visit you. And I only know one pro dirt bike racer. That’s Charlie. It’s not an easy thing to forget. But even more than that, Charlie was the only woman you ever called your friend.”
I pulled a face. “The only? That can’t be true.” I hooked a thumb toward the front room. “Tab’s my friend. Has been since, what, the eighth grade?”
Dean gave me a knowing smile. “Yeah, but Tabitha was my girlfriend, now wife, and even in eighth grade…well, you remember.”
I shifted, not wanting to admit he was right. It had been obvious from day one that Dean was into Tabitha Tyler. Even before she was his girl, she was his girl.
So yeah, I’d thought of Tabitha as my friend from the very beginning.
Because every other woman you get close to ends up being just a hookup.
“Well…whatever,” I grumbled. “It doesn’t matter what she is, ’cause she’s only here for the next few weeks. Then she’s gone.”
Dean’s smile only grew more smug. “This is fucking hilarious. I said the same exact thing to you when Tabitha came home for the summer. And what advice did you give me?”
Nope, I wasn’t gonna bite at that. I dropped my arm across the back of the stool. “I know where you’re going with this, big guy. Trust me, I’ve tried with Charlie Maddox so many times she thinks it’s funny now. She has zero interest in having sex with me.”
He went quiet, watching me. “But didn’t Charlie come to be with you in the hospital in New York City when you blew out your shoulder? I thought you’d told us she was there before Alice and I arrived.”
Memories of that night were still painful to sift through. Charlie had been there, showing up without a moment’s hesitation and refusing to leave my side.
She’d even slept curled up on the chair next to my hospital bed until I was discharged a day and a half later, into the expert care of the team’s doctors and surgeons.
“She was there,” I admitted. “It was…a really intense experience that we shared.”
An expression I couldn’t read flashed across his face. But then Tabitha twirled into the room, and his ability to focus on anything but his wife went right out the window I used to climb through after curfew. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he smiled down into her dark red hair.
“You looked so grumpy, even as a first grader, and I didn’t know that was possible for a little kid,” she said.
I shrugged. “I’d probably done something super annoying to him at lunch.”
My grandmother shuffled in, holding a heavy photo album I immediately pulled from her arms. My breath caught in my throat when I realized which one it was.
“I see you’ve got one of our favorites out,” I said, gently helping her into the chair next to mine. While I held one side of the album open, she tapped on a picture of my parents sitting on the hood of their old car outside the Grand Canyon.
“I was just telling Tabitha about how your father was when he started dating your mother.” She smiled, looking as happy as she did heartbroken. “Your grandfather told him that he looked like he’d had an anvil dropped on his head.”
Dean pulled Tabitha closer. “I can relate to that.”
“I’m a very pretty anvil though,” she replied.
Alice traced her papery fingers over a picture of my parents I’d looked at with her hundreds of times. It was a special moment—it’d been taken on their honeymoon, the farthest either of them had ever gotten from the narrow streets of South Philly.
It was also an ordinary moment—a happy young couple looking dorky with cameras around their necks. I shared a startling resemblance to my dad, from our height to our red hair. Made looking at these pictures of him, frozen in time, strange sometimes.
“People are fools when they fall in love,” my grandmother said. “One day you’ll discover that too, Rowan.”
I laughed that off. “I’m still in my sowing wild oats stage, but thanks. Not looking for anvils at this current moment.”
Tabitha’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought the same thing before I met Dean.”
I raised my hands. “But if I get tied down, won’t I be disappointing hundreds, maybe even thousands of women all across this fine city?”
Tabitha laughed while Dean threw a dishrag at my face. Casual dating, flirting, picking up women…it’d always been easy for me. I slid into that routine hard when I was playing ball.
And learned some routines are more difficult to shake than others.
People all around me were partnering up while I was here for a weekend fling, at most. It wasn’t until I’d watched Dean fall for Tabitha—literally in front of the whole block—that I wondered if I was doing something wrong.
I understood what my grandmother meant about my dad and the anvil. Got it on some level and could guess it felt really fucking great.
It still hadn’t happened to me yet.
Though when I realized Charlie Maddox, of all people, was standing on the sidewalk, waiting to see me, I did get that weird chest thing I always got around her.
It was like my body had to alert my brain that it was about to get stupider.
Alice tenderly touched picture after picture while I continued to hold the book. “You joke now, Rowan, but we’ll be telling this as a funny story at your wedding someday.”
I wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders. “Alice O’Callaghan, can you see the future now?”
“Indeed, I can,” she said primly, but with mirth in her gaze. “Your dad pretended not to be interested in that sort of thing. But then…”
I made an explosion gesture near my ears. “Anvil time.”
“When you know, you know. Just like these two.”
We both looked up to catch Tabitha and Dean exchanging a sex look. At least it seemed like a sex look to me. I passed a hand over my mouth, hiding a smile. “Are you, uh…gettin’ out of here soon?”
Dean cleared his throat. “Unless you need more help in the kitchen?”
I waved them off. “Go, go. Have some fun.”
He stooped to kiss my grandmother on the cheek. “Your dinners get more delicious every week.”
She pressed a hand to her chest. “Dean Knox-Morelli, making an old woman swoon even after all these years.”
Tabitha swooped in for a long hug. “He’s good at that, and it’s kind of annoying. Some of us have work to get done and can’t be getting distracted by our swoony husbands.”
Dean rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish grin. Meanwhile, Tabitha stepped close to me for a side hug. “I know things are tough right now without Elaine. I thought some pro bono video work might inspire extra fundraising. What do you think?”
I blew out a breath. “I’d be forever grateful, that’s what I think.”
She winked. “Consider it done. I’ll swing by in a few days.”
After she and Dean left, I helped my grandmother up from her chair, walking her over to her favorite recliner by the front window.
“Do you want me to make you some tea before I go?” I asked, anticipating her answer and already mid-turn when she grabbed me by the wrist. She had tears in her eyes, which sent me crouching to my knees in front of her.
“Hey, hey,” I said softly, “what’s going on? Dean made you swoon that much, huh?”
She sniffed, smiling a little. “I wanted to look at those pictures of your parents with Tabitha because they make me happy. I want to talk about it with everyone on the block because I miss them. Terribly. It’s comforting to miss them with other people. But then, after…”
I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “Then you still miss them. And it’s horrible. Especially in the summer.”
My parents had died during the summer. To this day, I couldn’t hear the sounds of air conditioning window units, or the jangly ice cream truck, without experiencing a collision of grief and memory, all at once.
Some summers were better than others. Some were worse. She hadn’t mentioned anything specifically, but I had a gut feeling this was one of the worse ones. She’d been hovering around the photo albums and crying more than usual, staring out this window with a wistful expression.
Two decades later, and I knew there was a part of her still hoping my dad was simply on his way. That he’d be here any second.
My grandmother nodded and patted my cheek. “What was Tabitha talking about with the center? You haven’t mentioned anything being wrong.”
I pushed to stand with my left arm and felt the sharp pinch in my shoulder, reminding me that I’d climbed that tree two days ago. “We’re having some…problems. Money problems. We need it and don’t have enough.”
“Oh, yes. A tale as old as time,” she mused, sounding tired now.
“Let me get you that tea, okay?”
I walked back into the kitchen and put on the kettle. Found her cup, plate, and sugar on autopilot. I could walk through this house blindfolded and anticipate every dip in the floorboards, every squeaky stair and frayed rug. So as the water boiled, I carefully closed the open photo album and placed it back where it belonged.
Sometimes we sat with these albums for hours. Sometimes we even did it with other people, like Eddie and Maria and Midge, pouring Irish whiskey. Laughing a lot. Crying a little.
There were plenty of other times, however, when it hurt so bad I could barely stand to look at them. Tonight was one of those nights.
Water boiled, I brought over the tea on a tray, happy to see my grandmother peering out the front windows with a smile back on her face. “Don’t spy on people. It’s rude,” I teased.
“I can’t spy if people aren’t out, doing things, and no one is doing anything.”
“Drink your tea.” I nudged it her way. “Someone will come out soon with all the best gossip.”
She hummed irritably but sipped from her mug. I surveyed the house, made sure everything was plugged in, cleaned up and in its rightful place. “Do you want me to stay and keep you company? We can watch that HGTV show you like where you make fun of everyone’s wallpaper choices.”
She pursed her lips. “People should make better decisions if they don’t want me to judge them.” But then she waved her hand in a shoo gesture. “And I’ll be fine. Just text me when you get home so I know you got there safely.”
I scooped up my Phillies hat and keys, bent to kiss her cheek once more. “I can do that. I love ya, Alice O’Callaghan.”
“Love you too, dear heart,” she said. “And everything will work out at your job.”
I paused, my hand on the door and my heart sinking. “Do you think so? Because the situation’s bleak.”
Like fire your best friend and cut a critical community program bleak.
She tipped her cup my way. “We take care of each other in this neighborhood. Lord knows you and I have been taken care of when we needed it the most. When someone needs help, we do it. Even if we have to get a little creative sometimes.”
“You might be right about that,” I admitted.
And it was true, because an hour later, I was still turning over my grandmother’s words.
Even if we have to get a little creative.
I set my now-empty Yuengling down on my stoop and stretched my legs out till they reached the sidewalk. It was a sticky summer night, and it felt like half the neighborhood was out and about. I couldn’t say what their motives were, but mine were avoiding my fucking email.
The message from Luciana—about the grant, Dean’s position, and the senior program—had included the entire board. So now there was a whole string of messages with bad news, just waiting for me to sift through and respond that I understood. That I got it.
That I’d do it.
I massaged the back of my neck, where a heavy tension had permanently settled. Part of me had been excited to be a leader again, to play the roles I used to love. Rallying people’s spirits, motivating teammates through rough patches.
I should have known better.
Before this, I’d been content in my coordinator role, happy to take marching orders and put out small fires. I hadn’t been prepared to wander into this current shit show. But hadn’t I learned, over and over, not to reach for what I wanted?
It always got taken away.
I snatched up my phone, eager to scroll mindlessly rather than decipher the financial reports awaiting me inside. I peeked through headlines, final scores, various hot takes. Found the page on ESPN’s website covering the daily updates from the motocross championships.
My thumb hovered over a link to read more.
I need a miracle, Rowan. I need your help.
My stomach hollowing, I clicked on it. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for, but I was intrigued when I landed on the championship website. There were tickets being sold for different races. Pages selling merchandise and gear. News updates and press releases.
And a listing of the attending sponsors and investors at the non-race events leading up to the big day.
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
I recognized these names. Two well-known Philly-based philanthropists. A half dozen companies that had given the rec center financial support in the past. A few more were literally on a sticky note in my office right now, names scribbled down after a meeting with Luciana. Next to those names, I’d written: Elaine’s been trying to get support from these local companies for years but no donations yet.
I clicked back through the website. All those same names were emblazoned on rider jackets and bike gear, on banners and program flyers.
I let my head fall back against the front door. Charlie was about to spend the next few weeks in the room with some of the richest people and companies in the city. And had invited me to come along with her.
The fans love a romance and so does the media. If Bettencourt wants me to generate happy, nice news stories, showing off a new boyfriend at all these events might help.
I’d turned her down.
I thought about my grandmother saying we take care of each other in this neighborhood. Of the wounded look on Charlie’s face as she fled my office. And I could hear all my gut instincts, reminding me that this was the worst possible time to do something so unbelievably stupid.
But I needed a miracle too, and her bizarre proposition was as close as I was gonna get to it.
Besides, when it came to Charlie Maddox, when had I ever been that smart?
8
CHARLIE
Five minutes remained until my second race was about to start. And I couldn’t get my riding goggles untangled.
Dempsey briefly watched me struggle before taking them with an exasperated sigh.
“You know, if you stored them the way you’re supposed to, you wouldn’t get these knots,” she said, using her nails to pick at the offending area. “You can’t go out there without them. Where’s your spare set?”
I squinted off to the side, nose wrinkled. “Back in my hotel room, probably.”
The one I’d left in a rush this morning—thoughts agitated, body out of sorts, completely distracted.
She grunted. “And how does that help us?”
My eyes darted over to the countdown clock. I was straddling my bike behind the start gate. All around me, other riders were suiting up, revving engines, checking in with their mechanics.
Meanwhile, my agent was here to deliver bad news.
But only after she fixed my goggles like a frustrated parent at a swim meet.
“Here,” she said, “good as new.”
I tucked the end of my braid into the back of my jacket and secured the goggles. Then I pulled on my helmet, but not before Dempsey fixed it with a furrow in her brow.
