Seventh Inning Stretch

I sat alone at the corner table of O'Malley's, nursing my third whiskey and watching the baseball game on the muted television above the bar. The Royals were down by three runs, and I was down by three marriages. Both situations seemed equally hopeless.

"You're a spy, aren't you?"

I turned to find a woman sliding onto the stool beside me—maybe fifty, sharp eyes that had seen too much, hair the color of expensive champagne. She signaled the bartender for a glass of white wine.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Corporate espionage," she said, turning toward me with a knowing smile. "I've been watching you for twenty minutes. You're not watching the game. You're watching the reflection in the window behind it. You've been tracking the man in the gray suit who left fifteen minutes ago, and the woman at table seven who's been pretending to read the same newspaper since you arrived." She paused. "Also, you have that look."

"What look?"

"The look of someone who's spent too many years being someone else." She sipped her wine. "I'm Helen, by the way. Former FBI profiler, current alcoholic." She tapped her glass against mine. "We're practically related."

I felt something in my chest crack—maybe my ribcage, maybe the walls I'd spent thirty years constructing. "Marcus," I heard myself say. "And I think you're full of bull."

"Oh, I am." Helen's laugh was genuine, startling in its authenticity. "I'm full of bull, Marcus. We're all full of bull. The trick is finding someone whose particular brand of bullshit is compatible with your own." She studied me over her wine glass. "You're tired, aren't you?"

"Tired doesn't cover it."

"No," she agreed softly. "I suppose it doesn't." She signaled for another round. "So. You want to tell me what you're really doing here, Marcus? And don't give me the bull about the baseball game. I know you couldn't care less about sports."

I looked at this stranger, this profiler who'd dismantled me in under two minutes, and felt something dangerously like hope. "I think," I said slowly, "I'm done pretending."

"Well then." Helen raised her glass. "To whatever comes next."

"To whatever comes next," I echoed, and for the first time in thirty years, I meant it.