Summer's Last Inning

Margaret stood at the edge of the hotel pool, the office's Fourth of July party sprawling behind her like a glittering accident. The water reflected the bruised purple of twilight, and somewhere beyond the fence, she could hear the crack of a baseball bat from the park—the sound cutting through the hum of drunken laughter like something sacred.

"You're not swimming?" David asked, sliding up beside her. His collar was unbuttoned, revealing that thin hollow at the base of his throat where she'd pressed her lips three weeks ago in the copy room. "You love swimming."

"Not tonight." She gestured vaguely at her silk blouse. "Dry cleaning bills."

He laughed, but his eyes stayed fixed on the pool. "You know what the office pool is up to?"

"Which one?"

"The baby pool. Someone's put five hundred on you and me."

The air between them thickened. Margaret had been so careful—twelve years of careful, since her first marriage collapsed like a house of cards, since she learned that wanting something was the surest way to lose it. "That's inappropriate."

"It's also wrong." He turned to her, and in the pool's reflection, she saw the young baseball player he'd been before law school, before the mortgage and the divorce and the way his shoulders curved forward now, like he was carrying something invisible. "I already entered."

She waited.

"I bet on myself. On us. A thousand dollars."

"David."

"I'm forty-two, Margaret. I'm swimming in debt, I hate my job, and my ex-wife is remarrying a man who coaches little league baseball." He stepped closer, his breath smelling of whiskey and something sweet—anticipation, or fear. "The only thing I'm sure of is that I want to try again. With you."

Beyond the hotel fence, the baseball game erupted in cheers. Someone had hit a home run.

"I paid eighty thousand for my divorce," she said finally. "That's how much it costs to learn that love is just a contract nobody honors."

"Then let's be the ones who honor it."

She looked at the pool, at her distorted reflection rippling across the surface, and thought about all the times she'd chosen safety over the possibility of drowning. "The water's probably cold,"

David smiled, and for the first time, she saw the young athlete he'd been—before life pitched him curveballs he couldn't hit.

"Then we'll warm each other up."