Displaying items by tag: Robert P Hiatt

I’m not crazy about Sundays to begin with, and this particular Sunday, with me being awkwardly in love didn’t help. Every Sunday, all day long, I keep thinking about having to go back to school on Monday, and how I’ll have to wait until baseball practice on Wednesday to see Betsie Newton again. So there I was, lost in my same old Monday-is-tomorrow, Sunday evening funk-mood, walking home from my friend Alex’s house, when I heard someone calling me in a sing-song voice: “Rob–ert…” 

I barely heard it.

“Rob–ert…” I looked behind me and I saw someone riding a bicycle toward me. She was pedaling slowly. Soon I could make out that it was her: Betsie Newton. “Well, now I don’t have to wait until Wednesday after all,” I thought.

And I smiled.

Betsie is my little league coach’s daughter. She started coming to games and practices with her father and brother a couple of weeks ago, and things have gotten progressively more complicated for me ever since. I should have known that it was her, since she’s just about the only person that ever calls me “Robert.”  Most everyone else calls me Bob. My mood improved significantly, and I tucked my shirt in.

I turned and waited for Betsie as she eventually, finally peddled to where I stood.

“Hey, how’s it goin’?” she said. She smelled like strawberries.

“Okay, I guess. I’m just hoofin’ it home for dinner.” I looked vaguely in the direction of my house. Alex’s dad had invited me to stay for dinner, but I didn’t even bother to call my mom and ask her if I could stay; I knew she would probably say yes and then torment me later with subtle, soft psychological torture designed to induce maximum guilt, so I declined. You see, Alex’s mom pissed-off my mom for an undisclosed reason, and even though Alex’s mom didn’t even live there anymore, I guess it became a kind of ‘guilt-by-association’ kind of thing.