Lovers and Liars Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sometimes, when they were in the same room, he didn’t even notice her. At other times he did and sent her out. Belinda minded a lot, but she always obeyed. Anything to make him love her. Because she knew he didn’t.
    But she had loved him.
    The way a person loves God. From a distance, with devout admiration. Belinda knew he could fix it with the coach and get her on the team.
    The first time she approached him had been on a weekend when he was dressing to go out with Nancy for dinner. Belinda hung in the doorway, suddenly unable to speak, wishing he would notice her. Finally he did. “Hey, kid,” he said. “What are you doing?”
    She gulped. “Dad, I was wondering—”
    “Nancy, let’s go. We’re late, for crissake.”
    End of conversation.
    She finally caught him late at night in his study. He was immersed in work. Abe noticed her when she coughed. “Belinda, what are you doing up?” There was a note of irritation in his voice.
    “Dad, I have to ask you something,” she had said bravely.
    “You should be in bed. Does your mother know you’re up?”
    “No, I … Dad, please.” Tears had filled her eyes. It was so hard to get him to listen to her. And this was so important.
    “All right, what is it?”
    She explained about the team, about how she was the best player, about how all her friends had made it, but the coach wouldn’t even let her try out, because she was a girl. She had stumbled over the words in her anxiety. But she knew now that everything would be all right. Her father, like God, could do anything. Anything .
    “And that’s the problem?” Abe said, lifting a shaggy brow.
    “Yes,” she breathed.
    He had laughed. “The coach is right. Baseball is for boys. Which you are not, unfortunately. It’s time you stopped acting like a boy and started behaving like a girl.” He began to write on a pad.
    Belinda couldn’t believe what she had heard. “You won’t help?”
    “Didn’t you hear me? No, I won’t help. Now, go to bed!”
    She had run back to her room, trying as hard as she could not to cry, thinking, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. But once in bed, the tears came.
    Football wasn’t organized, so in the fall and winter she could still play with the boys after school and on weekends. By now—for she was almost eleven—the girls thought she was a freak and made fun of her behind her back, yet openly enough that she always knew.
    She had stopped playing football the day Jay Goldsteintackled her and grabbed her budding breasts. That day she went home and cried hard, hating what was happening to her, hating Jay, hating all the boys, wishing she were a boy, hating God for making her a girl. She knew, without a doubt, if her father hadn’t loved her before her body had begun to change into a woman’s he wouldn’t love her at all now.
    That was the year she had gotten Lady for her birthday. It was her dream come true, and when she saw the beautiful bay mare at the stable and Nancy told her she was hers, Belinda forgave her father and loved him with all her heart. She hugged her mother, a rare display of affection. Her father was out of town, but the day he got back she waited up for him, past her bedtime, to tell him how thankful and happy she was.
    He had gazed at her blankly. “You what? You got a horse for your birthday?”
    She stared. Her face fell. No, this wasn’t happening, it was a bad dream …
    “Your mother got you a horse for your birthday,” he said, clearly surprised. Then he smiled. “Well, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
    She didn’t cry, not in front of him, not until she was in her room, her haven. Then she sobbed until she couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t known. He didn’t care. He didn’t care at all.
    From then on she had stayed away from him as much as he did from her. That took no effort at all on her part because she rarely saw him. Worse, he didn’t even notice she was avoiding him. Then when she was thirteen he took her summer away from