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"Straighten your collar.”
“Oh, what next? A tie? Trina, I'm already wearing a dress shirt.”
Trina huffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
Marvin, in turn, rolled his eyes. “It’s a baseball game, not a concert. When you finally convince Jason to play an instrument, then I’ll wear a tie to the event.”
“I did not ask you to wear a tie, Marvin. I asked you, quite plainly, to straighten your collar.”
Marvin sighed, but then looked at Trina’s face and straightened his collar under his hoodie.
“Better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
The two were standing behind the bleachers of the baseball field. The national anthem hadn’t started yet, and both teams were still warming up. Jason was swinging so poorly over in the field and both Trina and Marvin, without consulting the other, had left with the excuse that they were going to go buy some bottled water.
Marvin and Trina stood in silence, waiting for any sort of announcement to sound off behind them. At any moment, they were going to be in the home stands cheering on some 10-14-year-old Jewish boys who could barely go through their Hebrew lessons without much of a disaster.
“You look nice,” Marvin said awkwardly, pulling at the ends of his brown hair.
Trina looked down at her oversized sweater with her pink shirt and flowered skirt. “Oh. Thank you.”
More silence.
“You don’t have to dress up so much,” Marvin said casually, not quite looking anymore.
That caught Trina by surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean,” she asked, wondering if this was some sort of criticism in the making. Marvin could do that. Marvin would.
“I mean, you’re the one who’s remarried. You don’t have to worry as much about looking nice.”
That came out wrong.
“I’m not insecure Marvin,” she said, a bit short tempered. “I didn’t think that a Jewish Community Center little league baseball game was the place I would find a new husband-“ she had begun, but Marvin cut her off.
“No, no. I know that. I meant-… I meant that you don’t have to worry about people thinking that you haven’t moved on.”
“I-… what?” Trina blinked a bit, partially from the dust blowing off the field and partially from the surprise of it all.
“Look at me, Trina. If Charlotte and Cordelia hadn’t convinced me to comb my hair and wear a clean jacket, I would have shown up in a t-shirt and some athletic pants.”
Trina wanted to make a comment about Marvin’s arms, which, objectively, were nice looking. Him showing up in a t-shirt wouldn’t be too bad.
“I don’t get it, Marvin,” she pressed. And she didn’t. She wasn’t catching his meaning.
“I’m doing this for Jason.”
“Elaborate. Please.”
Marvin looked at his ex-wife with her arms crossed across her chest, clearly confused and just a bit angry that Marvin was being so cryptic about this.
“Jason doesn’t have to worry about what people are going to say about you. I mean, aside from the fact that you call him kid names when you pick him up. But I mean, no one is going to single you out as being a bad influence.”
Trina didn’t know if she agreed but she nodded.
“I’m his homosexual father.”
Trina’s eyes widened ever so slightly and she glanced from side to side, almost checking to see if anyone had heard.
There it was.
“See. That’s why.”
A pause and Trina looked up at him with confusion. “What?”
“Jason has to worry about the other kids thinking he’s been corrupted by his homosexual dad. Jason has to worry about what people think about me because I’m the outlier. Trina, you did everything right. You’re the perfect housewife and mother-“
“I-“
“-objectively speaking. You’re a bit of a nervous wreck, but we forgive you.”
Trina remained silent this time.
“When people look at us, as Jason’s family, they need to see that we’re still good people. So if I need to look better than the other dads who come here in their knit pants because I already have one mark against me, I’ll do it. I’ll wear a nice shirt under a hoodie if it means that Jason looks better because of it.”
It never hit Trina like this. Trina never understood it so well. And for a second, she could finallly, maybe, see a part of Marvin that she had missed out on in all their years married.
She smiled a bit to herslef and nodded. “Marvin, you’re really trying to beat out Mendel for dad of the year, aren’t you?”
“One day, maybe he’ll have three. Then I’ll really have competition. I’ll have to wear sports coats to chess matches and tuxedos to little league games.”
“You’re hilarious,” Trina said, turning back towards the stands.
Marvin smiled. “You said that as straight as possible didn’t you.”
“It’s the only way I can,” she replied. “Come on. The game’s starting soon.”
“In a sec.” Marvin nodded her on. “I’m actually going to get that water we talked about. I’ll need it to hide my tears if our son hits the ball."