by Emily Belden
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Emily Belden
Just like bagels and lox, they don’t make matzo like this in LA.
In fact, I don’t think they make matzo at all in LA. It is while I’m basking in this unleavened daydream that Brian Jackson’s
name pops up on my iPhone.
“I thought you had rounds tonight,” I say. As I stand up,
matzo crumbs fall from my crotch and Leno is there to vac-
uum them up with his mouth.
“I’m on my way to work now, stalker. Listen, hey, I know
it’s last minute, but how about accompanying me to a Dodg-
ers game tomorrow night? I’ve got some decent seats behind
home plate if you’re into that kind of a thing.”
To be honest, I’m not sure if I am, but I’m willing to find
out.
“Sure,” I say as I thread my the freshly Turbo-laundered
Anthropologie linen back through the handle of the oven
where it belongs.
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I baked a marble cake.
I saw the recipe on Facebook when I woke up this morn-
ing; one of my mom’s friends shared it to her wall. It looked
easy enough and then I remembered reading somewhere that
baking decreases stress and anxiety levels by 35 percent be-
cause it puts your head and your hands somewhere else. Given
my current life status, I let the baking bug bite me. Though it required an Instacart delivery, two additional trips to Trader
Joe’s, and hand-stirring three sticks of butter and six eggs because I put my quintessential wedding-registered KitchenAid
in the Goodwill pile years ago, the real challenge was making
the layers of melted, bittersweet chocolate look like intricate marble veins by using the tip of a steak knife to fan it out.
Even though it’s probably more a Pinterest fail than anything
else, I pulled it off and now our apartment smells heavenly.
Like Magnolia Bakery.
After using a spatula to lick the batter off every square inch
of my mixing bowl, it’s now time to get ready for the Dodgers
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game with Brian. Admittedly, I have no idea how to pull off a
sporty yet cute style, but that’s exactly the look I’m going for tonight. So I text Casey for fashion advice, knowing full well
that whatever she says is likely going to involve…
Ripped jeans.
OK. What else? I write back.
Just then, her mug shows up on the screen of my phone.
She’s for whatever reason FaceTiming me. This is a first.
“Sorry, I’m in the middle of setting up a vintage electric
chair at one of my booths. I can’t text right now,” she explains.
“So you’re going to a baseball game, Rosen?”
“Yeah, with a friend.”
“OOOooooooOoohh,” she says. I don’t have an annoy-
ing little sister. But if I did, I imagine she’d be just like Casey.
“Maybe you can bring this friend to my expo after? Weird surroundings are perfect for lifting the awkwardness of a first date, just saying.”
“It’s not a date,” I say, polishing off one of her LaCroixes.
“It’s just an old friend who had behind-home-plate seats he
didn’t want to waste.”
“Behind home plate? Got news for you, Charlotte. You
don’t just invite some random girl you aren’t trying to hook up with to take that seat. You take a client, your best dude
friend, or a girl you’re trying to impress. Hate to be the bearer of good news, but he’s trying to impress you, my wonderful
widow friend.”
“Relax, Casey. It was a last-minute invite. Now, can we
get back to the original question? What do I wear? I need to
hurry up and get ready, he’ll be here in a half hour.”
“And he’s picking you up? Christ. Throw on an oversized
jersey, put your hair in a loose ponytail, and go with nude-
colored makeup. No eyeliner. It’s humid tonight, it’ll smudge.”
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I’m shocked that she’s advising against eyeliner, something
she will likely have tattooed on her body next. I’m also some-
what stalled. I mentally scan my closet and know for a fact I
don’t own a Dodgers jersey and neither does she. But then I
realize I know—or knew, rather—someone who does.
“Thanks, girl. Can you pop Leno out when you’re home?
It’s gonna be a late night and I don’t want him to pee on the
floor.”
“Late night? OOooooOOh,” she says again.
I roll my eyes and tell her bye as I hang up while she’s still
teasing me.
On the top shelf of my closet, I spot the moving box la-
beled “Decker’s Stuff.” It’s next to a few large suitcases, some winter clothes I haven’t needed since moving to California,
and the box for last year’s Christmas present from my parents,
an Instant Pot.
It’s hard to believe there’s just one left. One box is what I’ve pared the Decker collection down to. Everything else
I’ve managed to slowly but surely take to Goodwill over the
years. That’s never a fun trip. It feels like I’m shedding a layer of skin each time I pull into the drop-off line, not knowing
what’ll be left of me without retaining tangible memorabilia
of his. But it is a necessary errand, especially if you don’t want to explain to a guy you have over why you have a shelf full
of men’s clothes in your closet.
When I place the box on the floor, a poof of dust flies off
the lid. A curious Leno trots by and sneezes. I push him away
as I dig around for the old Dodgers jersey I know is in here.
I kept it because it was signed by their pitcher and I was told it’d be worth something someday. But it was never my intention to sell the jersey for a few hundred bucks. This thing is
already priceless to me simply because it belonged to Decker.
I finally find the jersey under a bunch of his life insurance
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policy papers and lift it out of the box. I unfold it out and, of course, smell it. There’s nothing lingering on this one, though I had hoped that there was.
The jersey is absolutely perfect for tonight, albeit a little
wrinkled and big (hey, she said oversized, right?).
Howdy, partner. I’m downstairs whenever you’re ready , says the text from Brian.
Give me just a sec to lock up. Be right there , I respond as I quickly shove the rogue policy stuff back in the box, toss the
jersey on, and throw my hair into a casual ponytail just like
Casey instructed. I may or may not have nailed sporty-yet-
cute, but I am dressed for a drama-free night at the ballpark.
Outside my apartment building, I spot the only parked car
with its flashers on about twenty yards up the block. Brian
rolls down the window and greets me with a smile and a wave.
I greet him with a slice of cake wrapped loosely in tin foil.
Brian is also wearing a Dodgers jersey, except his is “away”
and mine is
“home” so the colors are opposite. His uniform
is completed with a baseball cap, and he has managed to nail
sporty-yet-cute way more than me, even with Casey’s fashion
direction. He could not look more boy-next-door if he tried.
“Buckle up, Sporty Spice,” he says.
“Don’t let the jersey fool you,” I preface. “I know nothing
about baseball. How many periods are there again? Four?”
“Innings. And nine.”
“How was work?” I ask as Brian noshes on a bite of mar-
ble cake.
“Good. Really good, actually. I only amputated three legs
today and treated one case of the bubonic plague.”
“I didn’t know people still get the plague.”
“Yeah, they don’t. I’m kidding. Just a few sinus infections
and a sprained ankle. I was trying to zhuzh it up for you a bit.
Everyone always thinks my work is so interesting. But really,
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my job is really just hanging out with a bunch of kids who
blow their noses on me and cry when the blood pressure cuff
gets too tight. Occasionally we get an emergency or two, but
it’s nothing like the episodes of E.R. said it would be. You’d be surprised what some of these LA moms think warrants a
trip to the hospital. Still, I wouldn’t change a thing. I love me some snot-nosed kids any day of the week.”
Fifteen minutes later, we arrive at Dodgers Stadium. Brian
makes three loops around the jam-packed parking lot before
finding an open spot that doesn’t totally scream “door-dings
galore.” The car turns off on its own and the seat belts retract automatically like a ride at Six Flags has just come to the end, proof that I’m never getting over the novelty of this vehicle
from the future.
“Hey, Char? Slight suggestion. You might want to leave
the beach tote in the car,” he says as I sling my Birkin over
my shoulder.
“This is not a beach tote. This is a Birkin,” I say to him,
leaving out the part about it being a Chinatown fake as if the
statement would carry the same weight to him as it would
with the interns.
“That’s great, it’s really nice, and big, and all. But Dodg-
ers Stadium has a strict no-bag policy. Sorry, I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. They’ll confiscate that thing at
the gate.”
I brought the urn in case Debbie the thief scaled the sides
of my apartment building while Casey and I both aren’t home
tonight, not to have it sit locked in a car that screams “please, smash my Tesla windows because I have money and if you look
hard enough, there’s a Birkin and a set of golf clubs in here.”
“Everything okay?” he asks as I rub my hands together and
stare into space.
“Yeah, it’s just that…”
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“You’ve got the urn with you and you don’t want to leave
it in the car in this giant stadium parking lot. I totally get it.”
There aren’t words to describe how embarrassed I am to be
caught toting around the ashes of my dead husband like I’m
trying to smuggle my own snacks into a movie theatre. Bring-
ing him to Alfred’s was fine. I passed that off like I was simply making good on Brian’s request to visit the urn before I take
it away for good. And when we went to Pala for the farmer’s
market, he was locked in my trunk in Brian’s building’s se-
cure gated garage. But now, I’m just a deer in the headlights,
unsure of my next move.
“How about this: we lock Decker in the trunk, I turn on
the security system that’s linked to my phone, and we drop
the car off with the valet instead. I’ll tip the guy a twenty
right off the bat for safekeeping. Any funny business, and my
phone will light up. We can leave right away. Do you feel
okay about that, Char?”
It’s been a really long time since anyone—guy, girl, co-
worker, family member, you name it—has stopped to ask:
What is Charlotte missing? What does Charlotte need? And
right now, Brian has identified the thing that’s causing me
would-be crippling anxiety and proposed a solution.
“I’m good with that.”
I’m no sports aficionado, but I will say it’s a perfect night
for a baseball game. The sun is setting in the kind of way that turns the whole sky into a field of pink-and-orange cotton
candy. The sticky summer air is transitioning into something
that’s finally warm and comfortable, and there’s a glow in the
night that will make everyone look their personal best, even
under the bright stadium lights. This is the kind of night that needs no Snapchat filter.
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“Okay. Not going to lie, that was awesome,” I say of John
Legend being the special seventh inning stretch singer.
“You’re telling me. I’m just glad I didn’t end up dumping
the tickets on StubHub,” Brian says. “To be honest, I was a
little on the fence about asking you to come with me. I mean,
the daytime farmer’s market excursion slash potential urn re-
connaissance mission is one thing. But a just-for-fun ball game is another. You know, I’m still not over the death stare you
shot me when I showed up at Wet Hot the other day.”
“First off, it’s We Hot. One t,” I correct him.
“Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“Secondly, if we’re being honest here, you walked in and
I didn’t know what was going on or whose idea it was. Then
when I learned Debbie was behind it, I was upset she felt the
need to send for backup. It wasn’t that it was you per se. It was more just the fact that she sank to a new depth to show me
she didn’t think I could handle the urn. Don’t take it person-
ally, okay?”
Even I surprise myself with my rational assessment of his
impromptu reentry into my life.
When he doesn’t answer, I decide to show my gratitude.
“Regardless, I owe you a thanks for inviting me to the game.
It’s a beautiful night and I’ve never had seats this good to anything in my life.”
“Cheers to that,” he says, smashing his beer against mine.
A splash lands in the tray full of loaded nachos. “So I have to be honest about something.”
“You wanted the jumbo soft pretzel instead of the nachos?”
I jokingly ask, snagging the chip with the most cheese.
“You weren’t my first choice to take to the game tonight.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“Wait, that came out wrong. What I mean is…there was a
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girl, a nurse I work with, Bella, who I was dating. Actually,
I wouldn’t even call it dating. More like just—”
“Spit it out, Jackson.”
“She’s a huge Dodgers fan, and for her birthday I was going
to surprise her with these seats, but I found out from someone
in Internal Medicine that she’s sleeping with some guy in Ra-
diology and I just… I prefer things to be a little simpler than that. So I ditched that plan and ended up asking you instead.”
Brian’s explanation comes out a mile a minute. He needs
to take a breath. Eat a chip. Relax.
“Well, I’m not so sure things on my end are any more sim-
ple than a love triangle at Cedars, but I do appreciate the ask.
And these nachos. Here, this is a good one.”
I grab a chip with extra jalapeno and ground beef on it
and put it up to his mouth, the equivalent of giving Leno a
chew toy so he doesn’t destroy a pair of my shoes. Redirec-
tion at its finest.
“I just want you to know, I’m glad that I asked you. And
that you said yes,” he tells me as he crunches down the chip.
The redirection may not be working so well, but at least there’s a clear compliment in there. “It’s just nice to have a no-pressure night out, you know? I can be myself and not worry if—”
“—you have nacho cheese dripping down your chin?”
Brian wipes his mouth with his arm.
“I see how it is. Me trying to be serious and you making fun
of me. It’s starting to feel a bit like old times, isn’t it?” he says.
Just then, the stranger sitting behind us shakes Brian’s shoul-
der. “Dude, kiss her, bro!”
Kiss me? Who is this guy who was eavesdropping on our
conversation? Sure, it was on the warm and fuzzy side, but we
weren’t flirting and we are certainly not a couple.
The rest of the fans in our section then let out a loud scream
and jump out of their seats, waiving and pointing at the jum-
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botron. I look over that way and sure enough, the ballpark’s
“Kiss Cam” has set its focus on the two of us.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” the crowd behind us starts to chant.
We stare at each other for a second and I can feel the pres-
sure from the crowd mounting behind us. My mind flashes
back to a different night with Brian, and I start to grow ner-
vous, heat spreading across my neck. We’re not getting out of
this. Before I know it, Brian has planted a kiss on my cheek
and is pulling away. It was like getting a flu shot—the prick
is over and a Band-Aid is already being pressed onto my skin.
The quick peck, in neutral facial territory, turns out to the