“I do now. Fuckin’-A right I do.”
“You lose controlandvelo. Okay, next pitch. No. Fuck. C’mon, Roddy.” I pop sunflower seeds into my mouth, chew them up, spit the shells in the trash can, as I watch Roddy throwing his changeup. “He’s not selling the change. Keep telling him, it’s a fastball until it’s not. The leg kick, the stride, should be identical. Look at him, he looks like he’s about to…fuckin’ get down on one knee and propose marriage.”
My phone buzzes. A text message from Allison:I’m here. Need 5 mins.
Yeah, well, I need a lot of things I can’t have. Like a normal sister.
She texts again.I know you’re in there. And I know you’re awake.
I’m busy, I respond.
Doing what? Prepping for your tee-ball lesson tonight? Let me in.
“Mac, I gotta do something. Call you back in five. Go rub one out or something.”
“At my age, that takes more than five minutes.”
When I’m off the call, I walk to the front door. I crack it open just enough to fill the frame and no more. The cold morning air slips in around my ankles, sharp as needles. Allison stands on the porch in a dark coat belted tight, hair perfect, makeup crisp. She looks like she’s heading into a courtroom.
“Let me in,” she says. The sun is low and bright behind her, throwing long shadows across the frost on the walkway.
“No. Say what you have to say, then leave. Or better yet, just leave—”
“Fine,” she says. She lifts her chin, bracing herself the way she does when she’s about to deliver something that will hit hard. “Trinity,” she says. “Trinity’s mother is Carmela Muller, the one who hit you with her car.”
I don’t answer fast enough for her liking. She reads it right off my face.
“You already know,” she says, blinking. Not a question—more like she’s talking herself through it. “You already knew? How long?”
“Always,” I say. “First time I met her. Last October, at the mara—”
Her hand raps across my face, a good, hard, open-hand slap.
“What’s with you hitting me all the time—”
“You didn’ttellme?Me?”
“Why should I—”
“That woman’s had an agenda from the start!” she cries. “She probably hates all of us.”
“No,” I say.
“She seduced Finley,” she says. “Not that it would’ve taken much effort—”
“Would you quit saying that? She’s not sleeping with Finley. She’s been interviewing him for the documentary. That’s why she meets with him.”
Allison considers that a moment, eyes darting, before her eyebrows rise and her chin dips. “And you believe that?”
“Finley is the last person on earth she’d sleep with,” I say, feeling myself shaking, the rage rising.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” I say. “It means—”
“Tell me why.” Allison grabs a handful of my shirt. “Why is Finley the last—”
“Because he cut the brakes on my bike.”
