Chapter Ten

TEN

By the end of the episode I think I get it, and that Ben was being sincere about it being his favorite thing. They do make fun of it. Everyone laughs during the argument about the stolen guacamole during the nacho tower challenge. The hottest commodity on the beach appears to be a guy named Logan, an "entrepreneur." He grew up in New Jersey, which garners a whoop from Eric. Somebody points out that his signature move is stroking the knuckles of each woman when he's sitting alone with them. One of the other contestants, Cole, likes to talk about how long his parents have been married, and he repeats it enough times that the whole party starts saying "thirty-seven" in a chorus as he winds up to do it again.

They don't only make fun of it, though. There is a sincere and heated debate about which contestants are the best matches for each other, like they can't help but go along with the premise. I even find myself taking sides and making a mental note of a few people I want to choose for next week's bracket. Later I point out that the margarita in Felicia's glass rises and falls to different levels every other shot, and everyone oohs . "The editing," Talia says. "First what she did in the diving contest, and now this? She's going to be the villain."

I learn it doesn't matter if we stop paying attention to talk about something else for five minutes. This happens frequently. All the important parts are recapped before and after each commercial break anyway. And even the important parts are not that important.

What I get about this whole thing by the end of the episode is that the show is a necessary part of it, for the commenting and opining, but the real point is that it gives everyone a reason to get together for two hours on Monday nights in the dead of winter.

Cassie's friends leave as soon as the show is over, because the billable hour tires them out too. The athletic department guys are getting their coats. Cassie gathers dishes and hands them to Eric, who loads the dishwasher. Ben puts the empty beer bottles in a paper grocery bag for the recycling.

I begin dragging the stools back to the counter. "Do you watch it for the love stories? Like, do you believe any of these couples will stay together?"

Cassie picks up empty gumbo bowls from the coffee table and passes them to Eric. She shrugs. "I'm optimistic. I always like to see it work out."

Eric pulls her into his chest and kisses the top of her head. "My wife is a sucker. How many of the couples are still together? One?"

"One," Ben confirms. "Three final couples per season—it has about a seven percent success rate."

Cassie blinks at Eric, and a placid smile appears on her face. Placid like a lake full of alligators.

Eric and Cassie balance each other. He shows his love by giving people a hard time; she is sweet and sincere. He is all boundless energy and hyper extroversion, and she is still and steady. Most of the time. But every so often…

"Ben, how many years has this show been on? Five?" Cassie asks.

"Something like that."

Cassie steps closer to Eric and strokes his face. "My dear husband." He leans into her hand. "How many championships have the Knicks won in the last five years? No, the last twenty years?"

Eric's mouth drops. He puts a hand to his heart like he's been stabbed. Ben snorts.

Nobody needs to answer the question, but I do it anyway. "That'd be a solid zero."

Cassie takes Eric's hand and squeezes it. "And you still cheer for them. Does that make you a sucker?"

He sighs. "Yes, it does."

Ben is really laughing now, holding his stomach with one hand. Maybe he's never seen this side of Cassie. She gives Eric shit so sparingly it's magic when she does. Ben leans back and his shirt rides up, exposing a strip of his toned stomach, a smattering of hair visible at the center. He pushes an unruly wave off his face and lets out a happy sigh.

I can't take my eyes off him. After the past couple months, I don't understand how this version of him can exist, the one who lounges on a couch and brings a dog to a party and appreciates a genuinely funny burn. The one who looks like this.

There were girls in my freshman dorm who had crushes on Ben in college, but his Stepford prom king thing never did it for me. Now that I think about it, though, there were a few occasions like this one, when he wasn't completely composed, when I thought: Oh, I get it. A couple times when he was a player and got worked up over a bad call. And once when a few of us were stuck in the office at midnight, so we rewatched that old "Boom goes the dynamite" video, and he laughed so hard he cried. It wasn't a big deal, though. It didn't make me feel unsettled, like I feel now.

Cassie turns on Ben next. "I don't know what you think is so funny. You're a Sixers fan."

Now it's my turn to laugh.

This night should not end with Ben and me walking home together, but it does. It happens so fast. I'm digging in my bag for my keys when Eric reminds Cassie he drove Ben here from the auto shop, where he left his car to be serviced.

Cassie turns to me. "Don't you live in the same neighborhood?"

"I walked here." My response is too fast, an attempt to preempt a request for a ride home.

The problem is that at the same time, Ben says, "I wanted to walk Sasha home anyway."

Cassie narrows her eyes at me, probably because I have never walked here before in my life.

"I like walking in this weather. It's refreshing." It's not, but it's what comes out of my mouth. Today is as frigid as any other day in the big gray blur of January. Even as I'm saying it, I try to gauge how weird it would be if I told them Never mind, I just remembered I did drive. It would be very weird.

Cassie's nod is like the bang of a judge's gavel. "You can walk back together, then."

I press my lips together hard. In fifteen seconds and with one little lie I've bumbled my way into a long cold walk with Ben, plus the logistical challenge of figuring out how to get my car back before work tomorrow.

We don't talk on the stairs or as we weave through the parking lot. I try not to look at my car. Thankfully, it's far away, in the last spot. I zip my coat all the way to the top and flick up my hood. This warms my ears and comes with the added bonus of blocking me from seeing Ben in my peripheral vision.

We aren't even at the corner and my face is already numb in the razor-blade wind. This is a peaceful residential neighborhood, with a few apartment buildings and lots of charming old homes. Mature trees line the street, their bare branches towering overhead. At this hour, in this part of town, few cars are on the road.

Ben says something but my hood muffles the sound. "What?" I have to turn my head and shoulders toward him to see his face.

He clears his throat. "Sorry if I was weird in there," he repeats. "After the night of the interview—well, I didn't mean to say all that. Feels a little awkward."

Didn't mean to say all that to me. I'm not supposed to be his confidante. And fair enough, because I'd be mortified if I spewed my private feelings all over him. Showed him my vulnerabilities, so he could judge me and use them as ammunition.

Except I have no urge to judge him for what he said. It revealed him to be a living, breathing human. My instinct is to empathize with him, but I'm not sure whether to fight it. "No worries," I say lightly.

We walk on the quiet side street in silence for a few minutes until he breaks it. "So tell me what you thought of the show. If you hated it completely."

"Why do you assume I hated it?"

He shrugs audibly, the waterproof material of his coat scratching against itself.

"It wasn't good—"

"In your opinion."

I hold up a hand. "Let me finish. And not in my opinion. Objectively. It's objectively not a good show. But it doesn't matter, it was fun."

He blows into his fist to warm it. "Really?" He sounds pleased. "I thought you'd be too cool for it. That you'd only be into, like, cinema. " He gives the last word a pompous inflection.

"Ah, yes," I say. "Me, the esteemed creator of The Devil Wears Prardwyn." He laughs. "The person who spent a half hour today filming Gallimore trying to juggle blindfolded. Don't fence me in, Callahan."

He ponders my words. "Wouldn't I be fencing you out?"

Sasha stops to sniff a mailbox, and I shuffle from foot to foot to generate body heat. "No, you're fencing me in. With, like, cinema. " I mimic his intonation.

He groans. "This conversation is terrible. Should we try again?"

"At your own risk."

"So you had fun, and you're going to come next week?"

I am. I am, because doing it once has shown me that I need it. I need this, I need Beach House Mondays, because I am so fucking alone. This is my first time living by myself. I've always had Kat or other roommates, and my parents nearby, and friends in my hometown. That's how I got away with hating all my jobs. An otherwise full life, I always told my parents, like a well-coping widow.

I'm not equipped to go home and sit by myself in an apartment every night. I have Cassie and Eric, but they're both busy, so I often make excuses not to hang out so they get more alone time. Mom and Kat's visits have become less frequent since I've settled in. I have coffee with Taylor and Jess once a week, and go to the gym, and spend Friday nights at the mall buying, like, one shirt that I end up returning the following Friday night. I find it comforting, being surrounded by noise and other people, even if those people are strangers. Like I can absorb a social life by osmosis. This, an actual social life, is better.

"I have to, if I want to win the fantasy league," I say.

He switches the leash to his other hand and blows into his fist before sticking it into his pocket to thaw. "Bold words for the new kid. Who's your pick for the money so far?"

"I've narrowed it down to two contenders."

"Which two?"

We reach Ardwyn Avenue, the main road. I glance both ways before crossing, and Sasha's collar jingles as Ben follows. "Well, first, Jasmine."

"Obvious choice," he says.

"But still likely." There's more activity in this part of town: students walking home from the library, a movie letting out at the tiny independent theater. The used bookstore and quirky boutiques are closed, but the bars are open, with bored-looking bouncers checking for fake IDs outside.

"And second?"

I push my hood back because it's getting annoying, turning back and forth to look at him. "Brianne."

"Which one is that?"

"The one with the short hair."

"Hm. You seem confident." He doesn't look sold.

"I am." I debate whether to explain. "Jasmine and Brianne got different music than everyone else when their boats came in. I'm thinking they're going to be battling it out for Logan. We saw the entire exchange he had with each of them at happy hour. They weren't just part of the montage. They both seem to be solid in the challenges. And in the preview at the end of the episode, you could see them both multiple times, in different locations, wearing different outfits."

"Ugh," he says, but a smile plays at his lips. "You're cheating, Radford."

"How?"

He shakes his head. "You're using your video editing knowledge for an unfair advantage."

"What rule does that violate? I assume you have a written rulebook. I'd expect nothing less from you."

He's behind me now, Sasha dragging him toward a streetlight so she can sniff it. "No, it just violates the entire spirit of the game."

I break into a grin and spin to face him. "Oh, the spirit of the game? You know you've already lost when you start referring to the ‘spirit of the game.'?"

That gets a chuckle out of him. "I asked you not to ruin this for me."

"I'm making it better for you," I protest. "You can use my observations to make your picks. Only for this week, because I'm nice."

"Are you?" He studies me. "On principle I now feel obligated not to pick Jasmine or Brianne."

"Do your principles usually lead you to crushing defeat?"

He laughs again, his face glowing orange under the streetlight like a friendly demon.

This conversation is going too well. It's going so well that I have to ruin it.

"I wish you would've been honest with me from the beginning." The words gush out on a single breath. "I wish we could've agreed that we were in a shitty situation, but we weren't going to take it out on each other. I think we should try to do that now."

My statement is ill-timed, because Sasha still isn't moving forward, so we don't even have the walking as a distraction. We're stuck standing there. She takes a few steps to the left, into the grassy area near the curb, and squats. It's silent except for the sound of her peeing.

Ben looks down, scuffing one shoe slowly, dragging a pebble along the sidewalk with his foot. "I don't know if I can."

Hot frustration builds in my head like an unopened soda bottle rolling around in the trunk of a car. "Why not? I can't figure you out. We used to work together ! Mom and Dad, right? Will you just admit that even though you want everyone to think you're so nice and charming, you're really a petty asshole like the rest of us? Even on day one, you couldn't stand to look at me. You told Verona and Lufton I didn't deserve to be here. That I was a bandwagoner. What did I ever do to you?"

He gives Sasha a tortured look, a call for help, like maybe she'll chase a squirrel and they'll have to run. But Sasha is an elderly tyrant who walks with slow, arthritic steps and digs her heels in whenever she wants. He's going to have to answer the question.

"I can't possibly trust you," he finally says. "I thought that would be obvious."

"Why would that be obvious?"

He raises his eyebrows. I raise mine, or try to, but it's so frigid I'm not sure if my facial muscles are doing anything. In my pockets, my fingernails stamp half moons into my palms.

"You want me to—okay." He clears his throat. "Annie, you left. Senior year, middle of the season, after the team lost five games in a row. Right when it was becoming clear that we weren't going to be any good. You say we were Mom and Dad? Well, you walked out on our family. I know this is a cutthroat line of work, but personally that's not how I operate, and I didn't think it was how you operated either."

A group of students walks toward us on their way to one of the bars, the guys in nearly identical puffer vests and the girls coatless, huddled together against the wind. He pauses as they pass, rubbing his face. When they're out of earshot, he continues.

"Nobody knew how to do your job. When you left, it all fell on me. I tried to make a video once. It took four hours and was eight seconds long. That all sucked, but it wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that I thought we were a team. I spent three and a half years in awe of you, did you know that?"

I should shake my head, but I'm too stunned to move. The part about us being a team makes sense. I felt the same way. I can believe he respected me. I can believe he liked working with me. But awe is a big word.

"I still remember the first time I saw you. This girl in a blue dress with matching sneakers, marching onto the court with a camera and bossing around the starters with complete confidence, this look in her eye like she had a vision in her head and she was going to make it happen. Which you did, of course. All those years I felt lucky to work with you. I thought we were friends. " His voice turns rough. "We spent more time with each other than we did with anyone else in our lives. And you left and never looked back, never answered any of my texts. Just moved on, like it never mattered."

When he's finished, he brings his hand to his mouth and squeezes his bottom lip between his fingers.

My throat seizes up. "We were never friends," I manage.

He stares at me in disbelief. "Okay," he says, like it's not true. Like he's humoring me.

"I mean it," I snap. "We didn't hang out outside of basketball. We didn't know each other that well. We weren't friends."

If we were, maybe I could've asked him for help.

If we were, maybe it would've made a difference.

Eric was one year older, so he was gone by senior year. I thought I was close with lots of other people who were part of the program. But when I needed someone on my side, I was alone.

"Fine." He shakes his head. "Regardless, I never would've done that to you. I wouldn't have left before the end of the season, even for a good opportunity. I wouldn't have abandoned you to pick up the pieces. Call that whatever you want."

A car turns the corner, headlights curving on the asphalt. A sharp thread of anger laces itself through me, pulls tight, ties a knot. A hot squeezing sensation grips my head.

We have to wait for the light to change. I'm shaking like I'm about to blast off. "I don't even know where to start with how fucking off-base that is," I spit.

"Jeez, Radford." He reaches out as if to steady me.

"No. Stop. You think I left for another opportunity ?"

"Um. Well. It was a long time ago. I think Coach Maynard told me you found a full-time job and were going to graduate early so you could take it?"

There must be flames flickering in my eyeballs now. I can't swallow. "He said that was why I left?"

"Yeah?" Ben says warily. "You wanted more eyes on your work and we weren't going to make the tournament…You got a job offer and…It was never clear to me whether it was at another school, or in the NBA, or what. He didn't know."

He didn't know because the job offer didn't exist. "I didn't leave because we were bad or for another job. He and I didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, and I was going through personal shit. Even when they sucked, I loved that team more than anything. But I couldn't do it anymore. That was it, okay?" My voice cracks.

He doesn't say anything. He looks pensive, clearly shifting around the building blocks in his head, the ones he's used to construct his assumptions about me and our shared history, testing to see whether the foundation still holds up the house. His face says he's unsure.

"Okay?" I repeat.

He nods.

I read the street sign in front of us. Somehow we're almost at my apartment, although hardly anything about the route we walked through downtown registered in my mind. Ben follows a few feet behind as I turn the corner.

He breaks the silence. "There must've been a misunderstanding, because Coach wouldn't have said that if he didn't think it was true." He says this slowly, puzzling it out as he goes.

"You have a lot of faith in him."

"Well, yeah, I do."

I bite my lip hard, like it might prevent me from saying anything else. But I have to say something. Not about what happened to me. I have no interest in going anywhere near that subject with him, but I'm not the only one who got hurt. "You know he made Phil Coleman play on an injured heel, and that's how he ruptured his Achilles?"

He doesn't comment on the sudden change in subject, but it surprises him. "Uh. That's not how I remember it."

"He should've gone pro."

"He was cleared to play."

"He told him he didn't feel ready."

"Coach wouldn't do that."

He really believes it. We've reached my building, so I stop walking. I can hear my own agitated breathing. "You make a lot of wrong assumptions about people," I say. "I don't think you're going to win the Beach House bracket."

There were points in this conversation when, if we had stopped talking, we might have ended our walk with some kind of peace. But no, we kept going, to the ugly tender spot at the heart of it all. There is no treaty, no resolution. There's no anything. Ben stands there for a minute, his face resigned, and then Sasha pulls him away, and I wait until they're out of sight before I summon a Lyft to pick me up and take me to my car.