Fair Play (7 page)

Rounding the corner of her parents' street, she recognized her brother's Explorer parked outside their house and frowned with disapproval. Phil lived ten minutes away, tops. Why couldn't he, Debbie and the kids walk over? It was gorgeous outside, a perfect day for a stroll. But she knew her brother: If she brought it up, he'd accuse her of being a “wacko environmentalist.” That was the problem with Phil—with all of them, actually. They couldn't understand why anyone would
think
differently than them, never mind lead a different kind of life.

Passing through the gate, Theresa walked the six steps up to her parents' tiny stoop and pushed open the front door, which was never locked on Sunday. There in the living room, her father sat in his Barcalounger watching the Giants game, a canister of oxygen on the floor beside him.

And on the couch were her brother, Phil, and Michael Dante.

Theresa stared at Michael, dumbfounded.

“Um . . .” She struggled to find her voice. “No offense, but what are you doing here?”

Michael looked to his left, then to his right, then back at Theresa questioningly. “Are you talking to me?”

“Who are you, Travis Bickel?” She turned to her father. “Dad?”

“Mmm?” Her father's eyes, huge and distorted behind his thick glasses, were glued to the TV set. “Your mother and I invited him,” he replied distractedly.

“What?” Theresa spluttered.
“Why?”

Her brother shook his head disapprovingly. “Whatever happened to ‘Hello, how ya doin',' maybe taking your coat off?”

“Butt out,” said Theresa.

Phil nudged Michael in the ribs. “Nice girl, huh? Talks to her brother like that.”

Michael's hands went up in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I don't want to get in the middle of anything here.”

“Too late,” Theresa mumbled. Grim, she slipped out of her coat and hung it on the coat rack by the front door. Then she sidled over to her father's chair. “I bought you some nougat,” she cooed.

Her father glanced up into her face appreciatively. “
Cara mia.
How sweet.”

Her voice dropped down to a whisper. “But you're not getting it until you tell me what he's doing here.” She jerked a thumb in Michael's direction.

Her father looked back and forth between her and Michael in bewilderment. “You two know each other?”

Oh, that was rich. That was good.
She turned to Michael with what she hoped was a storm brewing in her eyes.
You are going to rue the day you ever cooked up this little scheme, Puckhead.

Michael obviously had no trouble reading her expression, because he volunteered to answer the question—fearful, Theresa assumed, that if he didn't come clean she would soon divest him of more than his teeth.

“Theresa's agency is putting together the PR campaign for Dante's.”

Theresa's father nodded, impressed. “Is that so?”

“Yes, it is,” Theresa replied. “Now tell me why you invited him.”

“Because he's a very nice boy,” her father declared. “He stopped over here at the beginning of the week with some food from the restaurant for us and wanted to know all about how I was feeling. They noticed we hadn't been to Dante's for a while.”

“So—?”

Her father shrugged. “It was your mother's idea. Ask her.”

“Fine. I will.”

She spun on her heels and was heading toward the kitchen when Phil called out her name. “What?” Theresa snapped, stopping dead in her tracks in the dining room, where the table was all set and ready to go.

“Hand over the nougat.”

Doubling back to the living room, she fetched the bag of nougat from her purse and hurled it at her brother like a baseball. “She's got some temper on her, that one,” she heard him say to Michael as she disappeared into the kitchen.

The tableau greeting her was one she'd seen a hundred times before: her mother standing at the counter, arranging the ingredients for the antipasto on a platter with the precision of an artist, while her sister-in-law, Debbie, stood at the kitchen table, putting together a salad. Farther down the table, Theresa's niece, Vicki, and nephew, Philly Junior, ages seven and nine respectively, sat coloring. Baby Carmen, three months old, sat gurgling in a baby seat on the floor. When the two older children spotted Theresa, they jumped up and ran to embrace her.

“Aunt Theresa! You're here!”

“Aunt Theresa, you look beautiful!”

“Hey, rugrats.” She leaned over to kiss both of them and without prompting, slipped off the phalanx of silver bracelets encircling her left wrist and handed them to Vicki. This was their own little tradition: Whenever Theresa came to Sunday dinner, she would give her bracelets to Vicki to wear for the duration of her visit. The little girl loved slipping them on and off and playing with them.

“Hey, Ma.” Theresa gave her mother a kiss on the cheek, doing the same with her sister-in-law.

“Did you meet Michael?” her mother asked, glancing slyly at Theresa out of the corner of her eye.

“Ma, I already know Michael. He's a client.” She was working hard to keep the annoyance she was feeling out of her voice.

“He's single,” her mother continued, rolling up a piece of cappicola and putting it on the plate.

Theresa looked at her sister-in-law imploringly, but it was clear she wasn't going to get any assistance from that quarter. There was only one possible rejoinder. “So?” It was pathetic, but right now she couldn't think of anything else to say.

“So he's nice. And
Italian,
” her mother practically sang.

“
So?
” Theresa repeated.

“Forget it, Ma,” her sister-in-law called out to Theresa's mother. “She don't wanna hear it.”

“No, I don't,” said Theresa. “Did it ever occur to you two busybodies that I might not want to go near a professional hockey player with a ten-foot pole?”

“I don't know why you still act like it was such a trauma,” said Debbie offhandedly as she sliced a cucumber. “I mean, it's not like you were actually raped.”

Vicki looked up from her coloring. “Mom, what's—”

“Nothing,” Debbie cut in. “You just concentrate on your coloring.”

But to Theresa, who felt as though her sister-in-law had just kicked her in the teeth, it
was
something. She crouched down beside her niece, stroking the girl's thick brown hair.

“Vicki, would you and Philly mind going into the living room to play for a few minutes? I need to talk to Mommy and Grandma privately.”

“Ooookay.” Vicki huffed, reluctantly picking up her coloring book and crayons as she followed her brother out of the room. Theresa waited until she was certain they were out of earshot before sliding into the chair Vicki had vacated. Debbie was family. They'd known each other for years. So why was she so worried her voice might crack with anger?

“What you just said really hurt me, Deb.”

“But—”

“Let me finish.” Theresa could feel the walls of her throat closing in.
Please, God,
she prayed,
let me be able to get the words out without crying.
“Have you ever had a man force his tongue into your mouth when you didn't want him to?”

Debbie was silent.

“How about having a man grope your breasts against your will, or stick his hand up your skirt to try to shove a finger inside you?”

“Theresa.” Her mother's voice was anxious.

“That happened to me,” Theresa continued in a quivering voice. “I was also punched in the face and called a bitch and a whore. But according to you, none of that counts.”

Debbie's eyes darted away as her face colored red with mortification. “That's not what I said.”

Theresa began to tremble. “No, but it's what you implied, whether you realize it or not.”

“
Cara.
” Theresa's mother's voice was gentle as she approached her from behind and placed two loving hands on her daughter's shoulders. “No one doubts that little Russian
farabutto
hurt you, or questions why you might have a hard time trusting. But Michael's not like that.”

Theresa turned to look up into her mother's eyes. “How do you
know?”
she asked plaintively. “He brings you a plate of ziti and you know his life story?”

“I just know,” her mother insisted stubbornly.

“Well, I don't,” Theresa replied. “And I would appreciate it if you quit playing matchmaker.”

Her mother muttered something under her breath—a prayer for Theresa's obstinate soul, no doubt—and doubling back to the stove, handed her the now completed plate of antipasto. “Would you bring this out to the table and call the men into the dining room?”

“Sure.”

Theresa took the tray and did as her mother asked, gratefully accepting her sister-in-law's apology on her way out of the room. She went to help her father out of his chair, but he was already being aided by Michael, whom, she noticed, took the not-so-subtle opportunity of sitting down right across from her at the table. Maybe her mother was right, she thought, as her father led the family through saying grace. Maybe Michael wasn't “like that.” But Theresa wasn't about to risk finding out.

“So, Ter,” said her brother, heaping his plate high. “Did you know Michael plays for the Blades?”

“No, I didn't,” deadpanned Theresa. “I just moved here from Mars. Tell me more.”

“He's a successful, famous athlete but he still lives in Brooklyn,” her father added, his eyes flashing with significance.

“Maybe he's not successful enough to afford the rent in Manhattan,” Theresa pointed out coolly.

“Or, maybe he hasn't forgotten where he comes from,” said Phil.

“Whoa, folks, please,” Michael appealed as he looked around the table. “Let's get off the subject of me and talk about something interesting here, like who's going to make it into the Superbowl.”

Theresa's family seemed to take the hint, and for that she was grateful. Talk of football led to talk of individual players, and Michael had her family laughing until they damn near cried telling them about the time he and some of the Blades tried to take on a couple of the Giants in an impromptu touch football game.

Was he always this entertaining or was he putting on a show for her approval?

Whichever it was, she was forced to admit he seemed able to hold his own on any number of subjects and appeared to have a never-ending supply of amusing stories, which he told with great flourish. He also appeared to be an all-around good guy, even going so far as letting little Vicki crawl all over him during dessert, despite her mother's protestations. Even so, it creeped Theresa out that he was even
here.
It was like one of those bad, B-grade horror films where someone seemingly innocent worms his way into a family, only to turn around and dismember them in their sleep a few months later.

Every once in a while, Michael's eyes would seek hers for some kind of confirmation, which Theresa would pointedly ignore, giving him the look Janna had chris tened “The Ball Shriveler.” She wanted to make her displeasure at his presence clear. It was icky. Deceitful.

And it wasn't going to work.

“
Mind if I
walk with you to the subway?”

To Michael's mind, it was a simple enough question, but Theresa looked as though she were deciding the fate of nations while she buttoned up her coat.

“Sure,” she finally said, her voice noncommittal as she waited for him to finish up his good-byes to her family. Walking up Eighty-sixth Street together, Theresa's pace was closer to a sprint than a walk.

“What's the big rush?” Michael asked, hustling to keep up.

“I don't want to miss my train.”

“You won't.” He checked his watch. “You have a few minutes left.”

Theresa said nothing. He might be wrong, but Michael could swear she looked kind of annoyed, the way she had all through dinner. He knew he had some explaining to do. “Theresa, I swear to you, I did not bring your parents a care package to worm my way into your family.”

“Right.”

“Look, I brought your parents some stuff from the restaurant because it felt like the right thing to do. And I won't lie, I was hoping that maybe, the next time they talked to you, they'd mention I'd been over and say what a nice guy I was.”

“Or invite you for dinner so you could ambush me, and I'd have no way of escaping.”

“No.
No!
” He put his hand over his heart. “I swear on my mother's grave that is not what I was thinking.”

“No?” Her left eyebrow was practically touching the sky. “Then what
were
you thinking?”

“I never expected a dinner invitation. And when it came, all I could think about was how I hadn't had a Sunday family dinner since my mom died. I was so thrilled I didn't stop to think how it might look to you,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry, Theresa.”

That seemed to do it. The truth always did. Theresa slowed her pace and her expression relaxed.

“You and your brother don't have any family?” she asked.

“Yeah, we do, but it's not the same. My mother was always the one who did Sunday dinner. She was the best cook.”

“Hmmm.” She seemed to be mulling this over. “You should have checked with me first to ask how I felt about it,” she said, almost sounding apologetic.

“I'm sorry.” He peered at her, trying to get those big, almond-shaped green eyes of hers to look directly into his. But she wouldn't. Jesus, she was stubborn. Her eyes remained fixed straight ahead.