Be My Baby Tonight (16 page)

“Oh, really. Well, that’s a good question,
Tim. It really is,” Suzanna said, grabbing enough paper towels to
sop up a small flood, then going down on her hands and knees to
wipe the wet floor in front of the sink. “And here I am, wondering
why
I’m your wife. Except I already know, don’t I? Oh, yes.
I
know,
Tim. All of it. You selfish, self-centered,
opportunistic bastard.”

Tim ignored the character attack and went
down on his haunches. He grabbed the paper towels from her,
finished the cleanup. “What in hell are you talking about? You’re
my wife because I asked you to marry me and you said yes.”

She stood up, and he followed her toward the
back stairs that led up to the bedrooms.

“But
why
did you ask me, Tim? Because
you’re crazy mad in love with me?”

She turned around as she passed the last step
and stood in the hallway. “Let me help you answer that. No. You
didn’t marry me because you’re crazy mad in love with me.”

“I never said—”

“I know. Oh, God, do I know.” She headed
toward their bedroom.

He followed. “Look, Suze, I know I sort of
rushed you into marrying me, but—”

“What rush? We don’t see each other for ten
years, and then we meet again, and less than a day later, we’re
flying to Vegas. And you didn’t marry me because we went to bed
together. Hell, Tim, if you married every woman you went to bed
with since high school, you’d have more wives than some Saudi
Arabian sheikh or something.”

Tim summoned a small smile. “It did have
something to do with it, Suze. We’re great in bed.”

“Yeah, sure. Great in bed. It’s
out
of
bed where we’re not so great, right, Tim? Bastard.”

There she went again: bastard. Was it
becoming her favorite word? “What do you mean? I think we get along
really well,” he said, following her as she headed into her walk-in
closet and began opening drawers, pulling out a ratty-looking set
of green-and-blue-striped pajamas he’d never seen before. “Where
did those come from?”

She looked at the pajamas. “They’re my not
feeling good pajamas. They’re comfortable.”

“They’re ugly,” Tim said, watching as Suzanna
stripped out of her clothing right in front of him, pulling on the
bottoms that had a hole in one knee.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re ugly. I’m
sleeping alone.”

“Yeah,” Tim said, rubbing at the back of his
neck. “I sort of sensed that already.”

She turned her back to him, unclipped her
bra, and quickly pulled the top over her head, emerging from the
neck hole with her hair all spiked and tousled. “Move it or lose
it,” she warned, and he stepped aside, let her pass.

But then he followed her. He wanted to know
just what the hell was going on. But if she called him a bastard
one more time, it was going to be no more mister nice-guy, damn
it!

She took the decorative pillows off the bed,
then turned down the spread. “You want to know why you married me,
Tim?” she asked, tossing his pillow at him.

“I married you because I wanted to marry you.
I
like
being married to you. And, until a couple of hours
ago, I thought you wanted to be married to me.”

“Well, you were wrong. I don’t want to be
married to you.” She whirled about to look at him, and he could see
tears shining on her cheeks. “You know what I do want? I’ll tell
you what I want, Tim Trehan. I want the curse to work. I want your
career gone, I want you to have a wife who wants nothing but your
money—and I hope someone leaves
triplets
on your
doorstep!”

He sat down abruptly, on the striped chair.
It all made terrible sense now. “Dusty. That big-mouthed—”

“Oh, that’s it, Tim. How like you. Blame
Dusty. What did he do, Tim, other than tell me the truth? Now go
away. I can’t stand looking at you.”

“No, damn it, I’m not going anywhere. We’ve
got to talk. You’ve got to let me explain.”

“Explain? Sure. Fine.” She climbed into the
bed, pulled the covers up over her stomach as she sat against the
pillows. “This oughta be good. Go ahead, Tim.
Explain.”

“Shit,” Tim muttered under his breath as he
stabbed both hands into his hair.

“Well, that was succinct,” Suzanna said.
“Tell you what. Let me help you. You’ve been having nightmares,
Tim. For over a year now. Big, bad nightmares where you get hurt,
have to leave the game. Just like Jack. Other nightmares, where you
end up holding a baby, just the way Jack opened his door one day to
find little Candy in a basket on his doorstep. Only yours comes via
a curve ball.”

Tim put out his hands, pressed them down as
if trying to lower the level of intensity of this conversation. “It
was a nightmare, that’s all.”

“Yes, a nightmare. Over and over again, a
nightmare. The one with the pitcher dressed in a wedding gown must
have been a real hoot. And then—”

“But—” Tim said, attempting to sit down
beside her on the bed.

“
Don’t
interrupt—and stay right where
you are! You were having these nightmares, Tim. One at a time, even
all three of them together, a real triple play. Waking in a cold
sweat, your arms out, trying to catch the baby while all the time
yelling, ‘
No, no.’ I
was there for one of them,
remember?”

“Vaguely,” he said, feeling the pit widen
beneath his feet. He should have told her. That night. At least
before they had flown to Vegas. Anytime at all since then. Pick a
day, any day. He should have told her.

“Vaguely? Cute, Tim. I know you, remember?
The gum, the socks, the spaghetti. You’re a hotbed of stupid
superstitions, just like most ballplayers. The idea of having to
leave the game because Jack did had to have been scaring you
spitless, especially after you got hurt last year. This year it was
even worse. Dusty told me how your game was off, how the dreams had
started to screw up your performance on the field. Because you
knew, you just
knew,
that at least one thing that had
happened to Jack would happen to you. You’re that
dumb.”

“Hey! You know me; you just said so. You know
how Jack and I always follow each other. How I follow Jack.”

“That, Tim, was coincidence. Kids break
bones. Kids have crushes. Kids, especially twins, have most of the
same interests, talents. Except I did most of your math homework,
and Jack got A’s all on his own. And two boys who’ve lived for
baseball since they could walk could very easily both make the
majors. It’s you who made it all into some sort of woo-woo
superstition. It’s
you,
Tim, who let your mind give you
nightmares.”

“Woo-woo? That’s cute.”

“Drop dead.”

“Ah, come on, lighten up just a little, okay?
Let’s talk this out. Maybe not all superstition, babe. You just
admitted that twins often do the same things.”

“As
kids,
Tim. If Jack jumped off a
bridge tomorrow, would you jump off one next week? I don’t think
so.”

Agreeing with her was probably a good idea.
“Okay. So I’m stupid.”

“
Oh!
You’re
not
stupid! You’re
just a very smart man
acting
stupid. A curse? Get real,
Tim.”

“Okay,” Tim said, willing to admit to
anything short of fixing the last presidential election if it would
make Suzanna happy. He knew where Judge Crater was buried, helped
get rid of Jimmy Hoffa, could give her Elvis’s current address.
Anything. If she’d just let him talk, listen to reason.

One problem. One big problem. How was he
going to make any of what he did sound even the least bit
reasonable?

She swiped at new tears running down her
cheeks. “How could you do this to me, Tim?
Use
me again,
just like you’ve always used me. Good old Suze. She’s crazy about
me, always was. She’ll help me out; she’ll marry me. Dusty said so.
Pick one, he said. And you did—and I never asked
why.
I’m so
stupid!”

“You’re not stupid, Suze,” he began, figuring
if she’d already said it, he could turn it around, say it back to
her. “You’re just—”

“Gullible. Pathetic. God! Jack knows, doesn’t
he? And Keely? Mort? Aunt Sadie? Oh, my God, Mrs. B.? They all
know, don’t they? Good old Suze, married because she was there, she
was good old Suze, and she looked like the lesser of three
evils.”

She turned onto her stomach, burying her face
in the pillows. “I want to die, Tim. I just want to
die.”

Tim put his hand on her shoulder, to comfort
her, and she jackknifed up in the bed, to glare at him. “No. I
don’t want to die. Why should I? You know what I want, Tim?”

“You mean, besides wanting the curse to
work?” He shook his head. If only she’d let him get a word in
edgewise. He had a lot of convincing arguments, he must have them
somewhere, but all he could think about right now was that he was
lower than pond scum.

“Yes. I want you out of this room, now, and
I’m taking me out of this house, first thing tomorrow morning. Me,
Margo, and all my belongings. And then, Mr. Trehan, I want a
divorce. You got that?”

“A divorce?” Tim felt the bottom falling out
of his world. “You can’t mean that, Suze. We’re married; we’re good
together. I mean, I couldn’t have a better friend than—”

He stopped, because her face was so white,
her eyes so huge and sad. “We’ll talk in the morning? Okay,
Suze?”

“Will you get out of here if I say yes?”

“Sure. I’ll leave. Just let me apologize,
Suze. I know we got started on the wrong foot, as Aunt Sadie would
say, but I think we’ve had a pretty good marriage so far. And now
you won’t be traveling, and we can be together more, and I like
that, I really do. I can make this up to you. I know I should have
told you, but once we were married, it didn’t seem all that
important to talk about why we got married. I think we’re good
together. I think—”

She sort of moaned, then turned on her side,
her back to him, and he shut up. It was probably a good time to
shut up. Because, he also knew, the only thing he could tell her
was the truth, and the damning truth
was
that he had married
her because of the curse, his damn stupid superstitions, those
miserable nightmares.

And the unexpectedly great sex.

She already knew that. She knew he had
tricked her, hadn’t exactly played by the rules. And now she was
tossing him out of the game.

A divorce. She wanted a divorce?

What would he do without her?

Tim picked up his pillow and headed for the
den, and another stiff neck.

He figured he deserved it.

* * *

“So that’s it, the whole story. Did you
know?”

“No, Suzanna, we didn’t know. Honest. Not for
sure,” Keely said as she poured tea for Suzanna, then sat down and
picked up her glass of milk, made a face at it. “But, yes, Jack and
I did wonder.”

Suzanna nodded, poked her dark sunglasses
back up on her nose. Her eyes were still red and puffy from a night
of crying.

She wasn’t sure why she was sitting in
Keely’s kitchen at seven o’clock in the morning. She only knew she
couldn’t stay in that house at the end of the lane another moment,
and she desperately needed someone to talk to, someone who might
have some sympathy somewhere to dish out to her.

“I love him, the bastard. The no-good rat
bastard.”

“Where is he now?”

“He left. I packed him a bag during the night
and threw it at him this morning. He... He’s staying in the Philly
apartment until I can move out. He’s being very cooperative, except
when the big jerk says that he knows I can’t stay mad at him just
because he did one dumb thing and we’ll be fine, just fine. Fine?
What does that mean, Keely? Fine?”

“You’re really moving out? Getting a
divorce?”

Suzanna nodded. “But not the divorce. I
can’t. Not yet.”

Keely took a drink of milk, then walked over
to listen near the intercom, make sure Candy hadn’t awakened yet.
“Because it wouldn’t look good? I don’t know you that well yet,
Suzanna, but I don’t think you’d care about what anyone else might
think it looked like, divorcing so soon.”

Suzanna shook her head. “No, I don’t care.
It’s because... because I think I might be pregnant. Strike two in
Tim’s nightmare. Serves him right,” she said, putting a hand
against her flat stomach. “Daddy rat bastard. Has a certain ring to
it, doesn’t it, Keely?”

Keely raced back over to the table, sat down,
and grabbed Suzanna’s hand. “Omigod! Pregnant? Have you taken a
test? Seen a doctor? I’ve got this
great
doctor, Suzanna.”
She got up again, not all that swiftly thanks to her own pregnancy,
and headed for the phone. “Let me call her. No, wait, it’s too
early for the office staff to be there. But that’s okay; we’ll call
later, set up an appointment. Oh, would you listen to me? I’m
babbling. We can’t do that; it’s Saturday. Okay, Monday. First
thing Monday morning.”

“No, I don’t want to do that yet,” Suzanna
said, wincing. “I mean, I’ve skipped periods before. It isn’t all
that unusual for me.”

“But you don’t know. You should know as
quickly as you can. Get vitamins, that sort of thing. How late are
you?”

Suzanna sighed. Maybe coming here wasn’t such
a good idea. But she needed, desperately, to talk to somebody, and
other than Mrs. B., Keely was pretty much it. There wasn’t anyone
else in her life, any of her old friends, she wanted to know about
any of this.

“I haven’t had a period since we were
married. But,” she added quickly when Keely gasped, “like I said,
that isn’t so unusual for me. I’ve never been regular. If I’m on
the road, if I’m under a lot of stress? I can sometimes skip a
month.”

“But this is more than one month, Suzanna.
You’ve been married for—what? Two months?”

“Nine weeks and four days, yes. So I guess I
could have skipped two periods, now that I really think about it. I
don’t want to think about it.”