Blue Screen (19 page)

I
T WAS WINTER IN PARADISE
. And the recency of LA made it seem more so. The gym at Taft was sort of gloomy. Erin was in the batting cage. The big kid who had pitched to her the first time I’d seen her hit was standing on the pitcher’s mound. This time there was a catcher, too, in his catcher’s outfit, squatting behind the plate. Someone had taken away the little batting-practice fence that had been there before. Roy Linden leaned against the cage, watching.

“Be a simulated game,” Linden said to Erin. “I’ll call balls and strikes from behind the cage. Won’t be right on it, but you’ll get an idea. Pitcher’s going to try to get you out. You going to just make contact. Line drive is a hit. Ground ball or pop-up is an out. No need to hit it to New Hampshire.”

Erin nodded. She had on cobalt shorts and top with a matching headband. She was wearing spikes. Linden moved directly behind Erin, with the batting-cage screen to protect him.

“You discussed this with Mr. Linden,” I said to Jesse.

“Yes. He liked it. He’s pretty sick of Erin.”

Linden pointed at the pitcher.

“Play ball,” he said with the hint of a smile.

“And he’s discussed it with the pitcher?” I said.

“The pitcher will be trying to get her out. Linden told him, nothing fancy. Fastballs should do it.”

“Linden agrees with you that she won’t be able to hit?”

“Yes.”

The pitcher threw. Erin didn’t swing. The ball cracked into the catcher’s mitt. Erin turned and looked at Linden.

“That’s a strike, Erin,” Linden said.

She turned back, set her feet again. Swung the bat again.

I said, “My God, Jesse, she can’t hit that.”

“True.”

“Nobody could hit that.”

“They could,” Jesse said. “It comes fast but it’s straight. No movement.”

The next pitch came just as fast. Erin swung this time and didn’t hit it.

“And you could hit that?” I said. “When you were playing?”

“Sure.”

“And you weren’t even a great hitter,” I said.

“No. I hit enough to survive. But I was going to make it with my glove and my arm.”

The ball cracked into the catcher’s mitt again. Erin had swung and missed badly.

“Find his release point,” Linden said to her. “Pick up the ball coming out of his hand.”

Erin nodded. Staring out at the pitcher, she crouched a little more in her batting position. I thought the pitcher had a little smile on his face. But I wasn’t close enough to be sure. He pitched. She swung and missed.

“I can’t see the rotation,” Erin said to Linden.

“Don’t worry about rotation,” Linden said. “He’s throwing nothing but fastballs.”

Pitch. Swing. Miss. I could feel it in my stomach. This was awful.

“And this pitcher couldn’t make the big leagues?”

“Guys like Barry Bonds,” Jesse said, “Manny Ramirez, would hit .800 off this kid. They’d pay his salary to keep him in the league.”

Pitch. Swing. Miss.

“This is awful,” I said to Jesse.

“Hard game,” he said. “It’s one of the things about sports. It’s clean. Either you can do it or you can’t.”

“Not just sports,” I said.

“No, a lot of skill things. Ballet. Singing. Whatever. You may get further than your talent allows because somebody like Buddy comes along and packages you and sneaks you around the hurdles. But you still can’t
do
it. Things have their rules.”

Pitch. Swing. Miss.

“Like love,” I said.

“I thought all was fair in love,” Jesse said.

“You can love someone however much, and if they don’t love you, you can’t make them.”

“They can’t love you because you want them to,” Jesse said.

“I know.”

“Mutual interests help,” Jesse said.

“Like being in the same profession?” I said.

Jesse smiled.

“Like that,” he said.

Erin swung and missed and threw the bat away and began to cry. The rest of us in the gym seemed to freeze. The pitcher and catcher were motionless.

“Oh God,” I whispered to Jesse.

“I can’t hit it,” Erin said, crying. “I can’t hit it. I can’t hit it. I can’t fucking hit it.”

Linden’s voice was gentle, but the gym was so still that it carried.

He said, “No, Erin. You can’t.”

D
R
.
SILVERMAN
was in black today. Black sweater, black suit. She had on a small silver necklace. She gleamed with grooming, in, of course, an understated way. As I talked she watched me with complete attention, apparently absorbed by everything I said, every hand gesture, every shift in my position.

“With my pants down,” I said. “In a public dressing room on Rodeo Drive.”

Dr. Silverman nodded.

“I mean, my God,” I said.

She nodded again. I didn’t quite know what I was trying to say.

“Have you ever done anything like that?” I said.

I knew the question was inane as it slipped out. She smiled. She knew it was inane and she knew I knew it.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“I know, I know,” I said. “It’s about me, not about you.”

“But why do you ask?” she said.

I thought.

“I probably asked it so you’d push me to examine my own reactions,” I said.

“Talk about that,” she said.

“I feel, or maybe I feel, like a whore, you know? I mean, that wasn’t lovemaking. That was…that was just fucking.”

“Define ‘fucking,’” she said.

“I suppose I have some sense of it as exploiting a partner for your own pleasure. Not having sex because you love them.”

“Like you and Tony Gault?”

She didn’t forget anything.

“No, that was just for fun.”

She nodded.

“I don’t love Tony.”

She nodded and raised her eyebrows. I knew that meant
So?
in shrink sign language.

“Maybe I am starting to love Jesse.”

She nodded.

“And it scares me. If I will do that, what’s next? Sex in Harvard Square? At noon?”

“So you’re worried about the sex?” she said.

“Sure…no…of course not. I’m worried about losing control. About loving him too much and giving myself over to him.”

“And at the moment you were worrying about loss of control, you had this exotic sexual experience.”

I nodded. She nodded. She raised her eyebrows again. I didn’t know what to say.

“Sometimes,” she said, “we dramatize our interior state by what we do.”

We sat. I studied her face. I couldn’t tell how old she was, except I knew she was older than I.

“So, my experience tells me that being in love with someone may make me submerge myself….” I said.

She nodded slightly. That meant
Go ahead
.

“And then we have sex in a store, and I fasten my fears onto that.”

She nodded. I sat. And then there it was. I saw it all, in full, at once, like turning on a light.

“I have always thought,” I said, “that if you were in love, the only purpose of sex was to express that love, and anything else was fucking.”

“There’s a lot at stake,” she said.

“A lot,” I said. “Every time you have sex, it has to prove you love each other.”

“Freighted with anxiety,” she said.

“Unless you don’t love each other,” I said.

She nodded.

“Then it’s easy,” I said.

“Sex is better with someone you don’t love?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “No. Both.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Well, I mean, it’s easier in some ways if there’s just sort of a friendship. No big deal. Nothing to prove. Have a nice time,” I said. “But on the other hand, it lacks something. With someone you love, it’s not just fun, it’s…important.”

“Good news and bad news,” she said.

I listened to my breathing for a while.

“I suppose,” I said, “that if I were fully, ah, integrated, I could seek the pleasure and let the love take care of itself. You know, I mean, lovemaking isn’t just sex. If you love someone you are making love all the time. When you talk. When you eat dinner together. When you laugh or walk along. And when you are having sex.”

“And if the sex isn’t what you’d hoped for?”

“It doesn’t mean we don’t make love.”

She smiled at me.

“Sometimes,” she said, “the fish just don’t bite.”

Wow. She’s approving.
I felt empowered.

“What if there were no sex?” I said.

She shook her head ever so slightly, as if diminishing the gesture made it less directive.

“Sex is part of love,” she said.

“Do you believe in love?” I said.

I knew it was a question she would probably turn aside. Much too intimate a revelation for a shrink to make to a patient.
Why do you ask?
she would say. Or she’d paraphrase.
There are certainly strong emotions centered on relational blah blah…

“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

I
MET ERIN FLINT
for lunch at the Bristol Lounge in the Four Seasons Hotel. No bodyguards. No entourage. No Buddy. Just Erin, who turned every head when she walked in and came across to my table by the window. Up close, her face looked tired and sort of tight.

I stood to shake hands with her and found myself putting my arms around her. She felt stiff.

“No bodyguards?” I said.

“No. They’re for Buddy,” she said. “He pretends it’s me. But it’s him. He’s scared of something.”

“What?”

“I have no idea,” Erin said.

“You okay?” I said.

She shook her head.

“You were there,” she said. “With the local cop.”

“Yesterday? Yes. That was awful for you.”

“I bet the men liked it,” she said.

“I don’t think they did,” I said.

“You don’t know men like I do,” she said.

“Perhaps not,” I said.

A waitress arrived. Erin asked for white wine. I ordered iced tea.

“Buddy still wants me to do it,” she said. “He says even if I’m not Jackie Robinson I can still be Eddie Gaedel.”

“Who’s Eddie Gaedel?”

“A midget that batted once for the Saint Louis Browns and walked. It was a publicity stunt.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I’ve made five movies that did really well. I been in
People
magazine, and
Entertainment Weekly.
I was on
Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
…”

The wine and iced tea came. Erin drank some of her wine at once. I remained calm about my iced tea.

“And he wants me to be a fucking publicity stunt,” she said.

“How do you feel about that?” I said.

“I want to go someplace and sit in a hole.”

“Maybe you should get out of all this,” I said.

“He knew, didn’t he,” Erin said. “That cop.”

“Chief Stone,” I said. “Yes. He used to play baseball.”

“And Roy knew.”

I nodded.

“It was Buddy’s idea,” she said. “You know? When he bought that baseball team. He had a great genius moment. He hired Roy Linden to teach me. He invented a past for me about playing softball and all that crap.”

“You never played?” I said.

“No. Not until they started teaching me.”

“In your life?” I said.

“No.”

“My God,” I said, “Erin. You look like you’ve played all your life. Do you realize what an accomplishment that is?”

She shook her head.

“I was never going to make it. A woman’s got no chance.”

“Most people never make it,” I said. “Most don’t get to where you were. Man or woman.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She got another glass of wine.

“I need to talk with you about Gerard,” I said.

Erin nodded. I knew how she felt. She wanted to be in her hole, far away, alone. She didn’t care what I wanted to talk about.

“Gerard set most of this up,” I said.

She nodded absently and looked out the window onto Boylston Street. There was light snow falling. It was melting on the roadway and collecting a little on the grassy areas of the Public Garden across the street.

“Part of the deal,” I said, “was you and Misty had to sleep with Buddy.”

“‘Sleep with’ is a nice way to say it,” Erin said. “He liked it that we were sisters.”

“Was it unpleasant?”

“It still is,” Erin said. “And now I got to do it alone.”

“You don’t love Buddy?”

I felt foolish asking, but I didn’t know how else to ask.

“Buddy’s a pig,” Erin said.

“But it was part of the deal,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

“It must have been unpleasant,” I said.

She nodded.

“Thing about being a whore,” she said. “You fuck a lot of pigs. You learn tricks. Make them think you like it. Keep yourself out of it, you know? So it doesn’t, you know, register in your head.”

“Are you straight, Erin?”

“I guess so,” she said. “I banged a thousand guys and no women.”

She drank some wine. She did not make eye contact. She stared out at the snow falling pleasantly on the Public Garden.

“Did you enjoy any of them?” I said.

I wasn’t sure where the conversation was going. I wasn’t sure it was entirely about Erin, either.

“Gerard,” she said.

“Your pimp.”

She nodded.

“He slept with Misty as well?” I said.

“Yeah, sure, but not at the same time.”

It was snowing harder in the Back Bay. But it wasn’t a driving snow. It was the kind of snow that would probably stop in a few hours and would never accumulate all that much. The streets would be clear, and the city would look pretty until the snow got dirty.

“Gerard was here,” I said, “in Boston, during the time Misty was killed.”

She looked at me for the first time.

“He was?” she said.

“You know he was,” I said. “He came to see you.”

She looked at me. I waited. She looked out at the snowfall. Then she looked at me again.

“I didn’t want to get him in trouble,” she said.