LITMIR.BIZ

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walk into a private school in Manhattan, where kids are wait-listed from the time they’re born.

      When they moved to the suburbs, though, they got Tess right into prestigious Cortland Academy, a private day school two towns over, and Mike’s salary easily covered tuition.

      Cam never liked the private school crowd, though. Especially as Tess got older. She wanted her daughter to hang around with “normal kids,” as she put it, as opposed to worldly rich kids. Anyway, the local public high school has a terrific reputation—even wealthy families send their kids there.

      It doesn’t matter how many times Mike has defended to his parents the decision—a joint one between him and Cam—to switch Tess from private school to public freshman year. Dad still doesn’t get it, and he still blames Cam.

      For a lot of things.

      “…Here’s the pitch…”

      Looking back, Mike wonders if things might be different now if he’d decided to forego the annual skiing trip over President’s Day. Instead, for Valentine’s Day, he gave Cam the biggest box of Godiva chocolate he could find, and Tess a camera that cost a small fortune. Then he broke the news that he was going away without them.

      Tess cried.

      Cam retreated emotionally—surprise, surprise.

      He tried not to care, flying solo out to Utah to meet his parents and his older brothers—Dave, who lives in Chicago, and Jeff, in Los Angeles.

      They all seemed so content with their lives—Dad, newly retired, and Mom, a doting wife and grandmother, and Dave and Jeff, with their wholesome wives, large families, big plans, bright futures.

      It made Mike’s life back home in Jersey seem all the more isolating.

      “…cut on and missed.”

      A few weeks after he got back, he told Cam he was leaving.

      One look at her face when he broke the news, and he wanted to take it back. But he forced himself to hold his ground, forced himself to remember the advice his father had given him one day on the slopes.

      “Ask yourself where you’ll be in ten years, son, if you two stay together. Do you expect things to get better—or worse?”

      Looking into the future on that blustery day, Mike envisioned himself and Cam, middle-aged and living in a household without Tess, who by then would be out of college.

      What would they even have to talk about? They could barely keep a conversation going now, even with Tess between them to share the burden.

      Mike pictured himself and Cam coasting into their retirement years sitting at the dinner table alone together, night after night, forks clinking against china the only sound in the room.

      That, and the ice cubes dropping into Cam’s glass as she refilled it yet again.

      “…and the count is one and one. He’s two-for-four tonight, with a double and an RBI…”

      Mike hasn’t been able to shake the image of Cam, ten years older, ten years lonelier, angrier, with the drawn, angular face and bloodshot eyes of a longtime drinker. Like her father.

      He didn’t—doesn’t—want himself and Cam to become those people. Workaholic, alcoholic.

      Maybe apart, they’ll have a chance to escape that fate. Together, it seems inevitable.

      At least, that’s what he managed to convince himself after talking to his father back in February.

      Tess told him that, within days of his leaving Cam threw away every bottle of liquor in the house. She’s supposedly gone cold turkey on the booze, which may prove that Mike was right to leave and that his father really does—as he always claims—know best.

      “…Here’s the pitch, fastball, in there for strike two.”

      Yet Dad never was crazy about Cam. Conservative and old-fashioned, he had judged her before he even met her. He took issue with her past, even with her parents’ lives. He hated that Cam’s father is a musician, that her mother has long been out of the picture.

      “What kind of woman just up and leaves her husband and children?” he’d demanded of Mike, back when he first found out about Brenda Neary.

      The kind of woman whose daughter might grow up to do the same thing. That’s what Dad was thinking, even if he didn’t say it out loud.

      Maybe somewhere deep inside, Mike was always afraid of that, too.

      Hell—maybe it had actually happened.

      Only Cam didn’t check out physically, as her mother had. She checked out emotionally, putting up walls he couldn’t get past.

      Why would she do that if she still loves him, as she claims?

      All these years, Mike wondered, and worried. But he long ago gave up asking his wife if everything is okay. He’s known for quite some time that it isn’t.

      “…Two out, the count one and two in the bottom of the ninth here at Yankee Stadium. The bases loaded with Yankees who still trail by two runs…”

      Mike gave up, too, on believing that the girl he fell in love with still exists somewhere behind the mask of a burdened, bitter housewife.

      Still…you never know.

      “God, I miss you,” he says aloud.

      “…It is high…It is far…It is GONE! A game-winning, walk-off grand slam and the Yankees win! The-e-e-e Yankees win!”

      Wait a minute…

      The Yankees won?

      Somehow, Mike missed it…And he was right here all along.

      Yeah. That’s kind of how he feels about his marriage.

      Shaking his head, he drives on toward the Holland Tunnel, and the small rented apartment that doesn’t feel like home.

      Then again—neither does the big brick Colonial in Montclair.

      Jesus, Cam, what happened to us?

      No, that’s not exactly it. More like…

      What have I done to us? Can I undo it before it’s too late? Do I even want to?

      Eddie Casalino grew up in Atlantic City; he knows the beach, the boardwalk, and most of the casinos inside and out.

      Not that he gambles. What a waste of hard-earned cash.

      At twenty-two, he’s got better plans for his money: big plans. For a year now, he’s been saving every spare dollar from his day job at Packages Plus and his night job as a desk clerk at Bally’s. A few more months, and he’ll have enough for a bike. Not just any bike—a Harley. Used, but in great condition.

      Then he’ll be able to move to a better apartment, someplace off the public transportation route.

      Yeah, by fall, he’ll be riding his bike back and forth to work, living someplace with decent plumbing, maybe even a yard or a balcony. Who knows? Maybe a view of the ocean.

      Dream big…that’s what his mother always told him.

      Last week, he went to Kaminski, his boss at Packages Plus, to ask for a raise.

      “You need to step it up a little, Eddie. Talk to the customers. Don’t just hand them their mail, weigh their packages, take their money. Be friendly. If I see more initiative from you, I’ll think about a raise.”

      He’s been remembering to do what Kaminski said. He’s stepped it up at Bally’s, too, making small talk with guests as they check in and out. He’s never been much of a chatterbox, so it doesn’t come naturally to ask people where they’re from, if they’ve ever been to Atlantic City before, whatever. He tries to act interested in their answers, but he really doesn’t give a shit.

      “Night, Eddie,”

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