Finding Abigail (8 page)

The Monkeys

I was
distracted as I did the drawings the next day. With thoughts of my upcoming
date with Nick, I couldn’t fully concentrate. By two o’clock, I gave up and
went for a jog down at the waterfront to clear my head. Since it was a weekday,
it felt like I had the trail to myself, with only a few other people out for a
run. This was my favorite spot to go; the scents and sounds from the lake were
exactly what I needed to settle down. I stopped for a fruit smoothie at one of
the vendors, sitting down at a bench to watch the boats come into the marina.
The sounds of the squawking gulls, diving for fish in the water, and the purr
of the boats motors soothed me.

I glanced at my
watch as I slurped the last of my drink, and cringed at coldness of the ice. It
was five o’clock. I only had an hour before my date, and I still had to get
home. Throwing my cup into the garbage, I started back to my apartment. With only
a half hour left, I headed straight for the shower.

The blow dryer was blaring so loud, I
barely heard the knock. I turned it off and rushed for the door, yanking it
open in time to see Nick turn and walk away. “Sorry, I had the blow dryer
going,” I called out to him, my voice echoed in the long corridor. “I lost
track of time when I went for a run. Come in, I won’t be long.”

He stopped when
I opened the door, turned around, and made his way toward me. I wasn’t sure,
but from this distance he looked irritated. But as he got closer, I saw him
smile—I must have imagined it.

Once he stood
in front of me, he pulled me close, covering my mouth with his. When he drew
away he grinned. “I’ve been waiting two days to do that.”

“Was it worth
the wait?” I asked, closing the door after he walked in.

“Oh, yeah. But
it just makes me want to do it again, so you better go get ready or we’ll miss
the game.”

I rushed back
to my room, yelling, “Help yourself to a drink in the fridge if you want.”

In my bedroom,
I threw off my robe, dressed in a coral-colored T-shirt and faded blue jeans,
and applied eyeliner and lip gloss. When I was satisfied with my appearance, I
slipped back out to the living room where Nick was standing looking at the
papers I had pinned to the wall. They were the illustrations for my book.

“Don’t you have
a second room for an office?” His gaze never left the papers on the wall as he
spoke.

“Yeah, but the
window is bigger out here, and I can listen to or watch TV as I work. It’s only
me here so my work area doesn’t bother anyone.”

He pointed to
the page where Suzie sat on the bus looking at the seeing-eye dog. “Are these
going to be the pictures for the book you’re doing?”

“Yeah, it’s
about a little girl and her big adventure to the mall.”

“Cool.” He turned
around and looked at me, taking in my appearance. “Are you ready?”

I picked up my
purse and pulled out my keys. “Let’s go.”

He took my hand
and led me to the door, and after I locked it, we headed to the elevator.

When the doors
slid open, Sylvia stood inside, flipping through envelopes, and didn’t look up
right away. She almost walked into me, the scent of spearmint hovering in the
air. I reached out to stop her. “Hey, Sylvia. Looking for something?”

She glanced up
absently, and then noticed that I had company. She grinned, lighting up the
gray of her eyes. “Hi, Abby, where you off to?”

“To a Little
League game, his niece is playing. Nick, this is my neighbor, Sylvia. Sylvia,
this is Nick.”

Her grinned
widened. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

He smiled back at
her, his brow furrowed slightly, looking a little confused by her expression.
“You too, Sylvia.”

When the
elevator door started to close, we slipped inside, waving at her as it shut.

“What was that
about?” Nick asked while he pushed the button for the lobby.

What was I
supposed to tell him?
“Oh, don’t mind her. She’s just shocked to see me with
someone from the opposite sex. And in the year I’ve known her, this was the
first time with someone other than a male friend, and that was only once.”
No
way was I going to tell him how pathetic I was. “Who knows? Sylvia’s old and
senile,” I replied, feeling guilty instantly. The truth was, she was the
healthiest seventy-five-year-old woman I knew, albeit maybe the
only
seventy-five-year-old woman I knew.

We pulled up to Lincoln Park, which held
about five baseball diamonds, a playground, and a soccer field. The park was
extremely busy; there were games in progress on both the baseball diamonds and
the soccer field. Even the playground was filled with kids climbing all over
the equipment. The sounds of parents yelling were almost as loud as the
children’s squeals of delight.  The air smelled of grease, which must have been
coming from a concession stand situated next to the bleachers.

I followed Nick
to the back, where a sign announced the Monkeys and the Warriors game. They had
already started when we sat down on the bleachers beside a tall man with thick
brown hair and a mustache. Next to him was a pretty woman with her hair in a
braid. “Are the Monkeys winning?” Nick asked him, taking some popcorn out of
the bag that was sitting on the bench.

“Not yet, just
started,” the man said, staring down at the game. He quickly glanced over and
noticed me, and a wide grin spread across his tanned face. “Who’s this? No,
don’t tell me, it’s the hot blond from the bar, right?”

I blushed; I
had never been described as hot.

“Uh… thanks,
jackass. Are you trying to embarrass me?”

This must be
his brother, Rob.

“I’m always
trying to embarrass you. That’s what brothers are for. Now stop being rude and
introduce us.”

“If you would
shut up for a second, I would,” Nick said as he punched him in the arm. “Abby,
this is my big brother, Rob. Rob, this is Abby. And the girl beside him who is
entirely too good for him is his wife, Heather.”

I leaned over,
clasping the large hand Rob offered. Despite the size, his grip was gentle.
When I shook Heather’s hand, she didn’t look or smile at me. Her skin was cold.

“Go, Bobby!”
she yelled, dropping my hand and standing up. For some reason I had the feeling
she was trying to avoid me.

“And that
little girl down there who just got a home run is my niece Bobby.” I followed
his finger and saw a girl about ten. She was wearing a brown jersey with the
name
Monkeys
on the front and a matching ball cap turned backward on top
of a very long dark brown messy braid. She was doing a little victory dance and
giving her teammates high-fives.

“She’s cute.”

Nick smiled,
his face taking on the expression of a proud uncle. “And the boy down there in
front of the concession stand, the one with the mustard- and ketchup-covered
T-shirt, is my nephew Nicky.” I saw a little boy about seven eating a hot dog
with the wiener hanging out, about to fall out of the bun. He had light brown
hair like his mother, and was wearing grass-stained jeans to go with his
stained T-shirt.

“Go, Jimmy,
run,” Rob yelled at a little boy with red hair who just bunted the ball. “He’s
getting much better, Bill,” Rob called to the guy in front of us.”

The man who
must be Bill turned around, the glare from the falling sun glistening off his
glasses. “Yeah, we’ve been practicing in the back yard when I get home from
work.”

“Well, it’s
definitely helping,” Rob replied.

I tuned out the
two men, as they discussed techniques to help their kids improve their batting
average and focused on the game. The air was cooler with the falling sun and I
wished I had thought to bring a sweater. I crossed my arms trying to take the
chill away.

The rest of the
eight innings were intense. The kids played and had fun. But the parents
yelled, held their breaths, and screamed at the umpire. You’d think it was an
all-star game at Yankee Stadium the way they carried on. In the ninth inning
Nick and Rob started talking about a robbery case Nick was working on. Rob was
a cop as well, but he was Homicide, just like his father had been before he
made captain. I felt a little out of place, so I leaned over to talk to his
sister-in-law. “Heather,” I called. She reluctantly turned to face me, leaning
around her husband. “What do you do for a living?”

She had a
polite but brisk expression on her face. “I’m a kindergarten teacher. You?” she
asked, even though I knew she really didn’t care.

“I write
children’s books.”

Her face
brightened slightly. “Really? Anything I’d know?” I hated this question.
Sometimes I felt like I was bragging. But I was the one who started the
conversation. I listed some titles that weren’t that known.

Nick must have
heard what I said, because he looked away from his brother and grinned at
Heather. “She also wrote
Wendy’s Wish
.”

Shock and awe
crossed her face briefly. She quickly recovered, but her smile was slightly
more genuine. “Seriously, you’re Abigail Watson? You wrote
Wendy’s Wish
,
the one that was just turned into a movie?”

A wave of
embarrassment washed over me as it always did when I was the center of
attention. “Yep.”

“That’s so
cool. My kids loved that book and movie. And I just read it to my classroom.”
Her voice became more animated, matching the surprised expression on her face.
It was the most emotion I had seen from her, where I was concerned, since I sat
down over an hour ago.

Bobby hit
another homerun, and everyone stood up and screamed, forgetting all about my
line of work.

The Monkeys won
six to two. Bobby got three home runs. She was sweaty, her cheeks flushed, but
her lips were spread in a permanent grin. After the game, her family rushed
down the bleachers to congratulate her. I lingered on the bench feeling a
little out of place. “Hey, Abby, how about that hot dog?” Nick called up to me
after he gave his niece a high five.

“Sure. Thanks,”
I replied, starting down the bleachers, carefully avoiding leftover food
wrappers that lay sprawled on some of the benches. Once I stepped onto solid
ground, I made my way to where he stood at the concession stand.

As I ate my hot
dog, the crowd that had gathered around Bobby, giving her hugs and high fives,
started to dwindle. “Uncle Nick, did you see that last home run? I slid home
just like you showed me.”

“I sure did.”
He turned her hat around, folding the peak. “Here, let me see that ball and
I’ll show you how to throw a curve ball.” As he walked through the gate and
onto the grass of the baseball diamond, I found my gaze wandering down,
catching a glimpse of his backside in jeans. Even though no one caught my stare,
my cheeks heated with embarrassment.

Bobby followed
Nick onto the field. When they were standing about ten feet apart, Nick tossed
the ball in a curve. Bobby jumped up with her arm stretched out, but instead of
catching it, the ball just grazed the tip of her glove, falling onto the grass.

I leaned
against the fence and watched, taking another bite of my hot dog. Nick took
long strides until he stood in front of her, taking her hands in his, and then
throwing the ball. Just as it flew into the sky above us, Rob rushed through
the gate and caught it bare-handed. He spun on them with a grin.

“You like him,
don’t you?” a soft voice asked from beside me. My head spun toward the person
who spoke. It was Heather, resting on the fence next to me. The cuff of her red
baseball jersey caught onto the wire. I had been so wrapped up in Nick, Rob,
and Bobby, I hadn’t noticed her approach.

I nodded as my
lips spread into a grin. “Yeah, I do. He’s so sweet with your kids. He seems
like a great guy.” Just as I answered, Nicky rushed past us, slipping onto the
field where the two men were tossing the ball to each other. Nicky jumped up,
trying to intercept it, but the ball was way too high for him.

“If I were you,
I’d find someone else.” Heather’s voice was low, just above a whisper. I turned
my head to look at her again, to ask if I had heard her correctly, but she was
walking away. “Okay, guys, time to go. It’s bath night.” She grabbed Nicky and
lifted him up. Bobby joined her brother and mother.

They said their
goodbyes and waved as they headed for a blue minivan. I watched as she helped
the boy in, and just as she slammed his door, she glared at me before climbing
into the vehicle. I stared at the van as it pulled out of the lot, wondering
why she had a problem with me.
Was I not good enough for her brother-in-law?

“So how about
an ice cream?” Nick’s voice startled me. I was lost in thought and was again
caught off guard.

Shaking the
unwanted thoughts of Heather from my mind, I said, “Sure.”

He took my hand
and led me to his SUV, and like a gentleman he opened the door for me.