Casey's Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

was forty-four years-old. It didn’t matter how
often he crunched in front of Seinfeld reruns in the evening, his smooth skin
had become bulky. What would a woman think of this body he no longer
recognized, he wondered nervously?
    He
shaved carefully to avoid any nicks, his face appearing jaundiced in the
yellowed glass of the old bathroom mirror. At least, thank God for small
mercies, he still had all his hair – thick, dark and unresponsive, prone to
collapsing in his eyes or standing up around the crown when he least expected
it. Was he still good-looking? He was fairly certain he had been, once, when he
was playing ball. Since his career had ended in injury, it had been impossible
for him to really look at his own face. His features seemed to blur together
until he barely registered himself, like a person seen briefly from a moving
car. Tonight, however, he was determined to see himself as she would see him:
tall, barrel-chested, with a pleasant face that really only worked because his
lips were full and his eyes were large. Long hands, even teeth… there was
nothing exceptional there.
    But
there must be something, he thought, that he was missing, seeing that he wasn’t
that bad looking. Why else would he be standing here preparing for his first
date in four years? And then there it was, crinkling around the edges of his
eyes: the sadness, the disappointment. Ah ha, he thought, and patted his face
dry.
    He
was so sure he remembered where she lived. And in truth, he did remember the
house, which she had painted the pale yellow of an anemic winter lemon, but not
how to get there. Several wrong turns after starting out, he spotted two of her
fat, orange cats curled around each other in the front window and knew he had
the place at last. Janine answered her door wearing ocean blue silk that stood
away from her body despite the obvious tightness of the dress. He forgot to
bring her something and felt sheepish about it except that she was practically
hopping out the door into the car so perhaps she hadn’t expected anything
anyway. Though, he mused as they drove through the early evening’s hazy light,
it would have been nice to surprise someone, for once.
    In
the car, they talked about their teams, about the season, about the year the
way two people who work in the same office do. He watched her uncross her
impossibly long legs and smiled when she caught him doing it. She asked what
Billy was like to work with, and he commented on the way Ed Black made his kids
run too many stairs. The restaurant rose up suddenly and he felt a delicious
sense of relief at having arrived.
    “I’ve
wanted to ask you out for years,” she said as they were seated. It was an odd
comment, mostly because she had, until six months ago, been married. Though, he
supposed, when it came down to it, that didn’t mean anything.
    “Really?”
was all he could think to answer. He certainly hadn’t felt the same way about
her. She had seemed even more intimidating when she was married. “I can’t
believe that.”
    He
sounded like an idiot, even to himself. But she just laughed and tucked her
napkin into her lap, prompting him to do the same. “Sure,” she said. “You’re
handsome, funny…” She trailed off.
    He
ought to be complementing her, he realized. So are you, which was the first
thing that came to his overloaded mind, was thankfully stricken before it left
his mouth.
    “You
look lovely,” he noted. “That’s a beautiful dress.”
    She
blushed again, and he watched as it colored her skin.
    “Do
you really think so?” She was smoothing her hands across her lap under the
table. He could tell from the graceful movement of her arms.
    “Yes.”
    “I
bought it when Stan and I…” she stopped. “Before I got divorced. But I never
had anywhere to wear it after that.”
    “Well,
it is lovely,” he said and then the conversation stopped. Frantically, he
searched through his memory for some indication of what to say next.