Page 37 of Caught in a Storm
Burnt Flowers performed the national anthem at Yankee Stadium before a game once. It was the postseason. Margot doesn’t remember the round or level or whatever. It was cold, though, and the game didn’t start until nearly 9 p.m. Derek Jeter looked like a skinny teenager back then. He gave the band a thumbs-up on their way off the field to a respectable level of applause. Nikki had gone on a few dates with him the summer before.
“Good kisser, that one,” she shouted into Margot’s ear. Nikki had managed to display her entire midriff, despite the October chill. “Whatever, though. I think he still has a thing for Mariah Carey.”
Margot was always at her best during proper concerts—full-on, exhaustive performances. The one-off things like national anthems and late-night talk shows always felt rushed. The Yankees gig was over in ninety seconds, give or take. Jenny did her best Hendrix impersonation with her guitar while Nikki sang. Anna’s bass got drowned out by Jenny’s amp, and the little kit the grounds crew dragged out for Margot hardly seemed worth the trouble. The field was nice, though. She remembers that—bright green grass with damp dirt the color of clay.
That odd minute years ago represents the sum total of Margot’s experience with baseball. She knows only the most basic things, like the bats and balls and throwing and spitting. She didn’t mention this to Billy, though, because it didn’t really matter where they decided to go. She just wants to be with him and to see if he’s as nice as he seems.
She was nervous earlier, as they stood outside the record shop. She had no idea which way the stadium was, so she was helpless, and she could feel her ears jutting out from the sides of her new cap. Plus, she hasn’t been on a date in three years.
Time is the worst: the way it stacks up so fast. One day you decide that maybe you’ll take a break from relationships to focus on yourself, then suddenly, thirty-six months have passed, and you wonder if you’ve forgotten how conversations work.
Margot briefly dated an actor after she and Lawson divorced. He worked mostly in the theater, so he wasn’t nearly as successful as her ex-husband. Lawson hung over their short relationship like a ghost, fueling impossible comparisons and inferiority complexes. There was a hedge-fund guy nearly as old as her father, who collected music memorabilia. The symbolism wasn’t lost on Margot. She may as well have sat in his enormous study behind protective glass. There was an aging chef with tattoos who drank and an acerbic stand-up comedian who also drank.
These men told her how smart she was—how cool—but Margot understood that that was their way of telling her that she wasn’t as pretty as they wished she was.
Margot is famous, and famous women are so very often famous for being beautiful, but Margot is famous for hitting things. If she wasn’t pretty enough for them, fine, because they weren’t worth her time anyway. They didn’t make her happy. None of them were good people. None of them were nice.
* * *
—
The walk from Charm City Rocks to wherever this baseball stadium is is lovely.
They’ve been walking for twenty minutes, and Billy knows something about every block, like an easygoing tour guide. “Federal Hill used to be a nice little neighborhood,” he says. “Now it’s mostly drunk kids right outta college.”
“Hey, dude, check it out!” shouts a drunk kid who looks to be just out of college. “It’s the drummer and that guy from the Internet!”
They aren’t in Federal Hill long, because the neighborhoods clip by quickly, like breezing past small towns on a train. They pass a playground of shrieking children, a small church that looks very old, and a convenience store. Baltimore is like if someone carved out a slice of Manhattan and made it into a whole city.
Margot stops to look at her own reflection in the window of a liquor store. She never wears hats, but she’s surprised to see that this one looks nice on her.
“See, told ya,” Billy says. “You’re wearing that thing.”
Billy isn’t particularly tall, but there’s a ranginess there that she likes. He’s taken his cardigan off and tossed it over one shoulder. Historically speaking, Margot isn’t a big hand holder. Holding hands is overrated. It throws off your balance and makes you look needy. She can imagine holding his hand though, maybe, someday.
They walk on, and a woman smoking a cigarette says, “Go O’s!” when she sees Margot’s cap. It’s the third time someone has shouted this since they started walking.
“Why do people say it like that here?” Margot asks.
“You mean the accent?” Billy asks.
“Yeah. They draw it out, like, ‘goaow aows.’ ”
He laughs. “That’s pretty good. Yeah, OG Baltimoreans add completely unnecessary letters to some words. But then they take away letters from other words. Right now, you’re not in Baltimore, you’re in Balmer. Water is wooter. No idea why. If it were Tuesday right now, it’d be Toosdee. And your name isn’t Margot, it’s Marghaow. Like with an h and an a, maybe even a w thrown in there for no good reason.”
“That’s how Beth at the bar said it. And she kept calling me hon.”
“Of course she did,” says Billy. “Hon’s big here, and Beth’s about as OG Baltimore as it gets.”
“Why don’t you have an accent?”
“My grandma,” he says. “She said Baltimore accents hurt her ears, like wrong notes on the piano. It stuck.”
Up ahead, a big brick building stands against a darkening blue sky: Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Yankee Stadium has always looked cold and corporate to Margot. This, though, looks like someone’s elaborate home.
Margot drank two little bottles of wine earlier on the train, but she only ate a fun-size bag of potato chips, so she’s hungry to the point of shakiness. They stop at a food tent outside the stadium with a hand-painted sign that reads Dolla Dolla Dogz. A traffic cop blows a whistle and dances as he directs a stream of cars into the parking lot. Billy orders them two hot dogs, and when he hands Margot hers, he seems unsure of himself. “Wait, is this okay?”
“Is what okay?”
