Then the pastor says, “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.”
Great, this shit again.Next to me, Brayden shifts around like he can’t get comfortable. “That’s not…” he begins but can’t seem to find the end of the sentence. On my other side, Blake is sitting with his hands stationed on his knees, studying the row ahead of us with great intent. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was counting the seconds until this was over.
Barb, on the other hand, is throwing me glances. Once, then again when the pastor follows that verse with one about the roles each person plays in the church. That young women should focus our work in the home.Is this aimed at me somehow?
I can’t ask Brayden, not when the pastor moves on, exhorting young men to be self-controlled. Brayden is a model of control now. He’s sitting upright, gaze fixed on the stage, eyes tracking the pastor as he makes successive laps across it, the lav mic clipped to his lapel catching his every syllable.
The pastor continues: about roles we all have, which sound less like some divine plan than parts we’ve been cast in for a terrible play. How any upset to this natural order yields only corruption,depravity.
Someone beside me makes a disagreeing noise. At first, I assume it’s Brayden. But when I turn, Blake’s mouth is set in a firm line, his knuckles on his knees pulled white. He gives me a look I’ve seen once before: from Pastor Tim at the Las Vegas chapel. Blake’s look is the southern straight-guy version ofgirl, run.
I can’t run. I can barely stretch my legs out. Every time Barb sees I’ve committed the unforgivable sin of wearing open-toed shoes, she frowns even more disapprovingly. She probably wants me to cross my legs at the ankle and fold myself away.
Girl, run.
It’s too late for that now. So I stretch my legs out as much as I reasonably can and listen to a pastor in a twenty-thousand-dollar watch tell me that the kingdom of heaven is mine if I just remain humble and submit.
A few days later,Brayden appears at my bedroom door, hovering as if he needs a specific invitation inside. “I was wondering”—he shifts his weight between his feet like he’s working up to saying something—“if you wanted to come to today’s game.”
Whatever I thought he was going to ask, that wasn’t it. “Uh, I’m kinda busy.” Which I am. I have to run over to Morningside to meet with an advisor about transfer credits; I have to swing by the grocery store and to finally see about getting something to put on the walls; I have to look through the three options Lexi sent for girls’ brunch. I have to answer Barb’s daily Bible chat text, even if mostly what I want to say isfuck off; I have to?—
“A lot of the wives go,” he adds.
I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s been acting…weird since the party. Asking me to go to a game to show the world we’re happily married seems more normal, except for the way he’s standing there, weight on one foot as if he’s nervous I’m going to sayno. Per the terms and conditions of our arrangement, I don’t get to say no. I mentally redo my schedule. If I shift the meeting with an advisor earlier and swing by the store on my way back, I should be able to make the game. The walls will have to wait.
“Sure,” I say finally.
Brayden’s face does something—I’d almost think he was smiling if not for the way the expression drops a second later. “Okay, cool.” He also doesn’t budge from the doorway.
“Was there something else?” I ask. Because if I’m going to fit everything in, I needed to get started a half an hour ago.
“No.” Brayden himself pushes off the doorpost, then adds, “Not right now.”
What does that mean?But I don’t have time to ponder that, so I throw myself into getting ready instead.
During the game,I sit in the family room with a few of the other wives. Most have kids with them who run around making adorable noise.Please don’t let me get a migraine. Please don’t let me get a migraine.
Lexi is here, smiling, holding court as various wives and girlfriends circulate. She beckons me over. “Sav, come meet the girls!”
So I spend the next hour or so dividing my attention between a monitor playing the game and a swirl of model-pretty blondes and brunettes, all in cute custom-made Peaches gear. I’m in a T-shirt that I bought today from the team store, a generic Atlanta shirt with a sparklyAon it. The only thing they had in my size that wasn’t either an oldBlakeForsyth T-shirt on sale or something for Asher.Adler, I correct. I should call himAdler.
“What a cute shirt!” Lexi exclaims, then pokes me in my side where I missed cutting off a tag.
“Thanks,” I grind out, then addget something with Brayden’s number on itto the ever-growing list.
I turn my attention to the game playing on the monitor, just in time to see Asher—Adler, whatever—hit a single and jog to first base. During the next pitch, he strays a little off the bag, then jumps back when the pitcher throws over, shooting the pitcher afuck youexpression. Maybe the pitcher takes offense to that—or maybe he’s just good at these kinds of throwovers—because he does it again. Only this time, Asher is off the base and the umpire loudly declares him out.
“Fuck,” I swear quietly—there are kids around—but not quietly enough.
Lexi hears. She’s sitting next to the third-baseman’s wife, dividing her time between her phone and her son drowsing on her lap. She’s dressed in a cute romper, her hair perfectly flat-ironed, her husband’s number on a pendant on a thin gold necklace. “You must be a real fan, huh?”
With the implication that I wouldn’t—shouldn’t—care about how Asher does otherwise.
I swear again, this time internally.I don’t really care about baseball.“I want the team to do well.”
“Of course.” Her mouth purses knowingly.
Well, two can play at that. I lower my voice as if conveying a secret. One of my dad’s negotiation tricks: make people feel like they’re in on something, even when they’re not. “I didn’t know who Brayden was when I first met him. I didn’t even watch my first real game until after we got married. I’ve been trying tostudy up so I know what Brayden’s talking about.” Which is true—the game watching part. Not the part where Brayden talks to me about anything happening on the field.
