Girl in the Arena (13 page)

I get to my feet, the headache worse at the higher altitude. Again he starts to reach out, as if he might offer me assistance, but he pulls back. I see that the designers have executed all of his external features perfectly, down to the way he slouches. He even has that slightly turned front tooth.

—I can provide you with an interactive brochure, he says.

—Just assure me that Allison hasn’t seen you since you died and became a salesman.

—What do you mean I died? I died?

—Yes.

—It’s possible my obituary pages are down. Funny, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if I’m dead. Usually the equipment corrects once I’m reinstalled.

I straighten out my train yet again, trying not to trip.

—Did I get in a car accident? One of those big pileups?

Tommy never enjoyed driving. I feel an impulse to place a palm against his chest, to check for a rapid heartbeat, to calm him down. But I know, despite recognizing the familiar mannerisms, the diction, the chapped lips, my hand would go all the way through him and touch the baseboards of the sink.

—I’ll tell you another time. Until I can turn the Living machine off, we should find a place for you.

—But I’m starving.

—Okay, well, take your plate out to the baths.

—If you have any knives that need sharpening, you could put me to good use. I can handle any size blade, any thickness.

—Go around the hedge so no one sees you.

—Sure thing. And Lyn?

I stop and look at that face again, the eyes, the scar dividing one cheek, and I’m aware that this will probably be our last meeting, and that it really shouldn’t hurt like this.

—I’ve missed you, he says.

—Don’t say things like that.

Once he’s on his way, chocolate-covered strawberries roll off the edge of his paper plate and drop onto the flagstones. I take a deep breath and go back through the swinging door.

CHAPTER 15

I pause for a moment to look at myself in the hall mirror. It’s funny how you can forget just how bald you really are, how vulnerable. I need to go upstairs and lie down. I need to drift away from the episodic life. But first, I have to get Uber straightened out. As I approach the living room, I call out, —I’ll go up and tell Allison we’re done.

But Uber is no longer sitting in the easy chair. He’s moved over to the piano, his face obscured by the lid. He’s turned off the camera and the monitor.

—I was just saying, I’ll let Allison know we’ve concluded our visit.

Uber stands to his full height, walks over to the box with my gift, takes the crown and places it squarely on his head. Then he pulls this down, maybe in an effort to make it fit snugly. The few remaining thorns snap off, a ring of them spill onto the white carpet. A trickle of blood runs down his forehead from the sharp wire holding the crown together. It trails just past the corner of one eye, and down his cheek.

In the quiet, I notice the sounds of the paparazzi outside.

—I’ll never be able to forgive myself, he says.

—I’ll get the first-aid kit, I say.

And I can’t help but think that if he isn’t flat-out crazy, maybe he really did have some attachment to Tommy.

—Wait! he says.

Uber lunges in an effort to grab my arm. Tripping over my dress, I sail forward and land stomach first.

I begin to think our relationship is purely physical.

—Are you okay? he asks.

I sit up quickly and avoid his outstretched hand. Uber crouches down in front of me. Lousy déjà vu splits my brain—there’s too much Tommy in this gesture—but Uber’s approach is a strictly clumsy imitation.

All I want in this moment is my bed. Knock the whole house down to the foundation, just let me sleep. I can’t take on this guy’s worries. In order to ditch him, I ask if he wouldn’t mind getting me some water.

I tell him there are paper cups in the downstairs bathroom, so he doesn’t go into the kitchen and spot 
Tommy
. I’ve got to turn the Living machine off.

—I’ll be right back, he says.

I’m halfway up the stairs when Uber bounds after me like a young dog, water slopping out of a Dixie cup.

—I’ll try to keep this short, he says. —It’s kind of urgent. Well, not urgent. You’ll probably understand. Or maybe not. I just have to say it.

The guy’s in a complete knot, and though I don’t want to, there’s a part of me that can’t help feel sorry for him. I down the water and let the cup parachute to the foyer that’s no longer really ours. Then I continue to climb the stairs, Uber and his intentions in tow, until we reach the second floor.

—I’m not here out of convenience, he says.

—Out of inconvenience?

—You have Tommy’s sense of humor.

—He had mine.

He closes in now.

—Your mother told me they’re taking your house.

—We’ll be fine, I say.

—I haven’t told anyone this. I’m thinking of leaving the country... for good, he says, his voice quaking.

—I have no idea why you’re telling me this. But the media would hound you to death. You’re still under contract, right?

As soon as the question slips out I start beating myself up for caring.

—I’ll figure something out, he says.

—I hope you keep your tetanus shots up.

—What?

—The wire. That’s a pretty deep cut.

He looks embarrassed as he remembers the crown. He tries to pull it from his head, but it’s tangled in his hair. He looks frustrated, like he wants to punch someone out, himself maybe. As I help him unravel the thing, he tells me that sometimes his melancholy Irish side gets the better of him.

—But I always spring back quickly, he says.

I really don’t know how to answer Uber. I prefer to have a solid enemy, nothing dilute. This is starting to feel dilute.

I hand him what’s left of the crown and I’m aware of the sound of the trains coming from Thad’s room now. My brother starts to shriek in a happy way. I see that the ice cream dishes have been put out in the hall, as if Allison is staying in a hotel and housekeeping will be by to pick up. We are in a state of decline.

—Come with me, he says when we get to the top of the steps.

—Come with you?

—Abroad, Canada. I don’t care.

It seems everyone wants me to go ex-pat suddenly. I feel like I’ve been called up for a draft.

—There have to be other ways to get a headline, I say.

—I don’t care about headlines. It’s just, and I know this sounds corny, I’ve tried to think of other ways to say it. When...

—It’s not necessary. You don’t have to say a thing. Please don’t say anything.

—When I met you, I had the sense that I knew you, that I’d known you for a long time.

I lean against the wall and try to imagine how, in a handful of days, I’ve leapt out of my old life to find myself in a place of pratfalls and awkward declarations. And the funny thing is, I know this guy’s being straight with me, that his heart is suddenly on the line, and who knows, it’s possible I might even like the guy for being such a big dope if circumstances were different. But they’re not.

—You’re irrepressible, aren’t you? I say.

—At least come with me tomorrow, he says, smiling a little.—Your mother tells me you’re a good shot.

—I’m all out of skeet.

—I have skeet.

I wonder if I actually need to remind him.

—I can’t be with a man standing on my father’s grave.

I watch him wince and hang his head, about to say something.

Thad’s door opens just then and Allison slips out, looking back as she typically does, to make sure Thad will be okay without her for a few minutes. When she sees us, she comes over to examine the blood on Uber’s face, her eyes moving back and forth between us, no doubt looking for signs of marital optimism.

—I was just showing Lyn how a crown of thorns is worn.

I guess I got a little carried away.

—I’ll get the first-aid kit, she says.

—I have one in the car. I was coming to say good-bye, to thank you.

—We’re very glad you came. Lyn? she says, expecting me to agree. —You look tired, dear.

Bewildered is more like it.

—I think she should rest for a while, Allison tells Uber.

—Call you in the morning? Uber says to me.

I want to ask what kind of show we’re in. It feels like a comedy.

—I’ll probably be asleep, I say.

—Lyn is exhausted, poor thing. Time for a good long rest. We look forward to hearing from you in the late morning.

I decide not to correct her 
WE, 
happy to let Allison be the one to see Uber out. Once they’re downstairs, I dash into her room and turn the Living machine off, the lights on the panel shutting down one by one. I already feel an odd pang about sending 
Tommy 
back even though, from my vantage point, I can’t see him dissolve.

I grab one of Allison’s sleeping pills from her bathroom and go to my bedroom, get the dress off, and take a few pictures of my bald self in the mirror for posterity. I send Mark a quick text to update him, climb into my pj’s and fall asleep, and keep jerking awake and finally fall like lumber dropped into a mill, ready to be stripped of my bark and drawn down to the size of a toothpick, until I’m nothing but sleep.

CHAPTER 16

—Wake up. Wake up, dear.

I’m aware of my mother and Thad crowded on the edge of my bed, Allison rocking me from side to side. Usually I wake to the radio alarm, to reports of suicide bombers, new strains of illness, hackers playing on my cranial nerves. Allison gave up on wake-up calls years ago.

—God, what time is it?

I crack one eye to look at the clock. I have been asleep all of fifteen minutes. I pull a pillow over my head.

—I know you won’t wake up until tomorrow afternoon, she says, removing the pillow. —So we should talk about Uber.

—We should sleep. I took one of your pills. Or did I take two?

—I’m tired, Thad says. —Can I sleep on your trundle bed, Lynie?

Normally I would remind him that he’s eight now and that he’s too old to sleep in his sister’s room. But I sense this is about grieving, so I say it’s okay.

—You need to get your own pillow.

—I’m going to get my own pillow, Thad says.

When he goes off to find it, Allison springs on me.

—He asked for your hand in marriage, did you know that?

She looks like someone who has gone through an extreme medical procedure and lost many unwanted pounds too quickly.

—He already has Tommy’s hand.

—You didn’t say that.

—I didn’t suggest that I... suggest that I... I’m so tired.

—Sometimes life asks us... we’ll talk tomorrow. Everything will be all right. Is your head okay? she asks.

—Hurts.

—Do you want me to call the doctor?

—Sleep.

—He said you won’t marry him.

—The doctor? I ask.

When I finally open my eyes, my mother appears to be split in two, her two selves wavering about.

—Uber, dear.

—Can I shut my eyes now? Unless they’re already shut.

—Absolutely. But I want you to think about this, so you feel you have a safety hatch: you really wouldn’t have to put in more than a couple of years with him.

She begins to rub my arm.

—And we’d make sure you were heavily insured. It’s not such a bad thing being a divorcée of a famous Glad. Remember that woman we met in Chicago last summer, the one who divorced the Brazilian champ? Men fell all over themselves just to get her a bottle of water. And sweetheart, you have no idea—the endorsements you and Uber will be offered. In a couple of years everything will be straightened out. You’ll see.

—I know you’re scared, I say.

Thad is back with his pillow. I’m aware that Allison wants to say more. Instead, she makes sure that Thad takes his shoes off. He never likes to slip into the covers as I do. He likes to rest on top, ready to launch, so it will take a while for Allison to coax him.

She gets up and pulls the trundle out now. When Thad slides down onto the little bed, he has those big eyes going and I know he might be in this expressive state—staring at me—for hours. She kisses him several times in that gentle way he likes, and she says good night.

When Allison’s heels recede down the hall, I tune in to the sounds of the media outside. They call my name in the thick summer air like a pack of cicadas, asking me questions, asking me what I’m going to do.

*

When I think about what I’m going to do, it’s hard not to think about the way she did things. Of course Allison had no idea what she was getting into when she met my first father, Frank. That was before the GSA existed. Frank was a podiatrist who had the respect of his community and a strong desire to find a second wife, as his first had died young of a malignant tumor. And Allison was a new patient with a deeply embedded ingrown toenail. He was, it turned out, the head of his local GSE chapter, something Allison found out several months after they married, when I was well on my way. There was a large collection of booties and onesies stacked in my nursery, waiting, when he sprung this on her. I think her fear of being a single parent allowed her to accept the news of his secret life with anguished calm.

Frank went out on a Thursday night to Glad—that loose transitive verb that never adequately describes those first bloody competitions—and his body was found that Friday morning outside the local cemetery, as if his spirit had walked for some distance and had waited for the morning guard to come along for a proper burial. Someone must have dumped him there the way people will take a dog and throw it out of their cars by the side of the road, expecting whoever lives nearby to take it in.

A week later a man and woman showed up at my mother’s door. No doubt I was clutched in her arms, pulling hard at her hair. She thought they were missionaries and intended to send them away, then FBI agents when they showed her Frank’s photograph. But they were official GSE comforters. The woman had lost her own spouse to the competitions, and she explained that the other families had put money into a helmet for Allison.

Reluctantly, Allison let the man and woman in and fed them cherry coffee cake—one of Frank’s favorite boxed recipes—and listened to what they had to say. They showed her a short soundless film of her husband dressed in a homemade outfit, which made him look like a field-hockey gladiator. Then they presented her with an envelope full of cash. Mouse, the male half of the comforters, had only been in the sport six months. He had a compassionate disposition, spoke to her tenderly, and before he left he asked if he might stop by again, unofficially. He always arrived with armloads of groceries, bags of disposable diapers, hammer and nails to make any household repairs Allison could use, and a level of tenderness she had a hard time resisting.