Truths of the Heart (3 page)

WLSC-AM radio in Lansing. Kickoff six here, that's nine there.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Don't forget to pick me up tomorrow, get in at 5:30.”

“Got it.”

“Love you.”

“Me too.”

Finished with her salad, Rachelle drove, northeast of the M.S.U.
campus, to her home which overlooked quaint Lake Lansing. The house, at 5900
East Lake Drive, was a two-story custom designed chalet constructed of cedar
logs. The lower street level was a two-car garage. The property, on an end lot
twenty feet back from the water’s edge, was beside two acres of wooded
township-owned land. On a quiet bay with vista views of the lake, the distant
tree-lined shore was mirrored picture perfect in the quiet water. An occasional
deer or heron wandered in the back yard. At night, breezes wafted across the
lake rippling the water at the shoreline.

The house Rachelle's, Carl had been living here since March. After many
weeks of frustrating rehabilitation at a Detroit clinic, Carl had gained use of
his right arm but, like the team doctor had said, his throwing velocity was gone,
so was his accuracy. Marriage to Rachelle never a question in his mind, he had
proposed before the injury. Wanting to live in Detroit, he goaded Rachelle to
quit teaching, sell the house. For Rachelle that was an out-of-the-question,
not-on-the-table option, period. She loved her house, East Lansing, M.S.U., her
colleagues; it was home. She knew, too, a little nugget from the tragic death
of her father, that once something precious is gone, it is gone forever.

Not-on-the-table-options settled, Carl moved to 5900 East Lake Drive, Lake
Lansing. But in May, when the Lions hired him to team up with Corky on the
radio broadcasts, Carl's three-time-a-day lament became, “I told you we should
have moved to Detroit. See see see!”

Sharing the modest plush surrounding with Rachelle and Carl was suave cat,
T.S. Eliot. Five years old now, T.S.'s large blue eyes were more at orbs and
counted the molecules in everything that moved. He pretty much lived the life
of a pampered rock star with a maroon diamond studded collar with silver
Identification tag:

T. S. Eliot

5900 East Lake Drive

Lake Lansing, MI

Phone: 313-224-4454.

Email:
[email protected]

T.S. was content with his surroundings and tolerated Carl. Carl, on the
other hand, had never been happy living around “Moo U” (his slur for Michigan
State) and, since he could remember, hated cats.

Pulling into the garage, Rachelle maneuvered to park as far to the
right wall as possible to avoid, when opening her driver side door, nicking the
spotless silver paint of Carl's BMW convertible. She had seen him freak out when
anything got within a foot of his car, especially other car doors.

Briefcase in hand, she ascended the three steps and entered the
kitchen. Stainless steel appointed, the room sparked with white tile flooring.
An oak dining table sat in the center. The kitchen the bottom of an L, the
vertical slightly larger than a tennis court, great room had two distinctive features—a
two-story window view of Lake Lansing and, extending twenty feet to the
cedar-beamed ceiling, a ten foot wide flagstone fireplace. The floor oak
planking, the center of the room was covered by a large oriental rug. On the
rug sat three white stuffed easy chairs, a glass coffee table, and a cushy white
sofa. The wall of windows offered a post card view of the Lake’s shimmering
water and distant shore. Sliding doors opened to a wraparound deck with steps
down to a 15x30 swimming pool. A narrow brick path snaked down to the lake and
a wooden dock to which, securely tied fore and aft by white nylon rope, bobbed
Rachelle's twelve-foot Sunchaser sailboat,
Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The great room log walls were decorated with water color
paintings—sailboats, sea and landscapes—by Rachelle's father. One large red,
black and white abstract oil, a gift to Carl from a lady-in-awe fan, hung
closer to Carl’s made-to-specs block-glass cocktail bar. Three high-back stools
faced the bar's onyx top. Detroit Lions glass ashtrays sat on the top. Flanking
the mirrored back bar, on cedar log walls, a dozen framed photos of Carl in
various football action shots–passing, running, posing–hung neatly in ordered
rows. Also scattered around, on glass shelves, was an assortment of his gold
and silver trophies—footballs, helmets, stadium replicas—awarded to Carl in his
glory days. To one side of the trophies, stretched out on the wall, was Carl's
Number 8 Lions football jersey. In the center of it all, his pride and joy, the
Heisman Trophy rested in a Plexiglas case along with a recorder/playback unit
and dozens of recordings—interviews, game highlights—from Carl’s football
career. The recorder unit fed a twenty-one inch TV that hung above the
back-bar.

To the left of the bar, a wrought iron staircase spiraled up to the
second floor. At the bottom of the staircase, a door, painted Detroit Lions
silver, led to a half-bath where, pasted on the walls, were newspaper clippings
of Carl's college- and pro-football-playing heroics.

In the kitchen, T.S. rubbing her legs, Rachelle retrieved her journal
from her belt pack, put it on the counter, and checked the answering machine.

“Rats.” Carl was right; she had forgotten to turn it on.

T.S. eyed her blandly.

She checked caller ID. Yep, Carl had tried to call, three times.
“Rats.”

T.S. jumped on the counter, sat, and yawned widely.

She said, “Why didn't you answer the phone, Mister?” As if she might be
an overnight guest, T.S. gave her a pious look.

“I live here too, you know.” She stroked his elegant head.

He looked at his blue
T.S. Eliot
engraved food bowl that sat on
the floor.

“I know, I know.” She opened a can of his favorite Fancy Feast—ocean
white fish with shrimp—and spooned the puree in the bowl.

He jumped down and, after a protest-pause, began to dine.

For herself, Rachelle poured a glass of white merlot, went to the great
room and sat on the sofa. Looking over the latest issue of
The Communication
Journal,
she sipped.

After reading the lead article, her wine finished, she figured a dip in
the pool would be nice and went to the staircase and, T.S. behind her, spiraled
up to the second floor. At the top she went to the three-foot wooden railing
that overlooked, fifteen feet below, the great room.

Leaned back by her fear of heights, she looked beyond, out the two
stories of windows, to the shimmering waters of Lake Lansing. She loved the view
but this day, for some reason—melancholy, distant solitude—she turned and went
to the bedroom suite. Wall-to-wall white carpet covered the floor of what Carl
called his “love nest.” A double king bed, with blue and silver Detroit Lions'
bedspread, dominated the room. At each side of the headboard, white shaded
ceramic lamps sat on maple end tables. A white telephone sat on Carl's table. A
window with white curtains offered a view of trees and could be opened for cool
night breezes. A “Carl’s touch” TV/CD stereo combination faced the foot of the
bed. A Casablanca fan hung from the center of the vaulted beam ceiling.

Off to one side, a sitting room had a mauve love-seat sofa and a small window
with wood blinds beneath which sat a desk with a PC/printer setup.

A few steps from the sitting room, Carl's second favorite hangout after
his bar, the bath featured a raised Jacuzzi tub and stall shower.

Rachelle and Carl shared a walk-in cedar closet dominated by Carl's suits,
pants, sports jackets, and a shoe rack on which sat, shoe-horned and arranged
in four stepped rows, his custom-made foot ware.

With T.S. watching every move, Rachelle stripped and selected a peach
color one-piece swim suite. Her body easily a match for any twenty year old’s,
she declined even at Carl's urging thong bikinis.

Her suit on, the presentation stunning, she grabbed a blue beach towel,
went down stairs, outside, down the deck steps, and stuck her toe in the
swimming pool.

T.S. sat on the deck watching her.

“Come on, chicken.” She dove in, swam two laps, and got out at the shallow
end.

T.S. still on the deck, yawned.

“You should try it sometime.”

He yawned again.

“Yawn, brawn.” She said.

A warm evening, slight breeze, she toweled off and walked down the pier
to
Percy Bysshe Shelly.

T.S. raced down the steps and, in front of her, jumped on the bow.
Staring at her, he seemed to be saying, “What are you waiting for, let's go.”

“Why not.”

Calculating a light wind out of the northwest, Rachelle untied the bow
and stern lines, got on board, and hoisted the sail. Shimmering water, the sun
setting in ripples of gold, the breeze in T.S.'s face, they reached the south
end of the lake then turned and began running to the northwest and home.

After securing
Percy Bysshe Shelley
to the dock, the evening
still warm, she decided to take another swim in the pool.

T.S. watched her glide through ten laps of the tepid water. Finished, sitting
on the shallow end's underwater steps, she beckoned T.S.

He twitched his tail and went toward the steps that led up to the deck.

“You are such a snot,” Rachelle said, stepped from the pool, and began toweling
herself. She noted the sun setting in streaks of reds and grays against a
haunting purple sky. Unusually poignant, she thought.

Inside, T.S. following, she made a note in her writing journal of the
sunset. Then, taking her journal with her, she climbed the spiral staircase,
took a leisurely hot shower and, for pajamas, put on one of Carl's silk dress
shirts. She opened the bedroom window. A pleasant breeze wafting the room, she
lay down on the bed and snapped on a lamp.

T.S. Eliot curled up beside her, she checked the time: 8:30. She
thought to herself,
What was that start time, 6:00 West Coast, 9:00 here,
have a half-hour before Carl's game begins.

She flipped the Casablanca fan on slow, fluffed two large pillows, lay
back and, revisiting her father's favorite book W. Somerset Maugham's,
Of
Human Bondage
, she read:

Cronshaw turned to Philip. “Have you ever been to the Cluny,the museum?
There you will see Persian carpets of the most exquisite hue and of a pattern
the beautiful intricacy of which delights and amazes the eyes. In them you will
see the mystery and the sensual beauty of the East, the roses of Hafiz and the wine-cup
of Omar; but presently you will see more. You were asking just now what was the
meaning of life. Go and look at those Persian carpets, and one of these days
the answer will come to you.
”

She remembered, from a previous reading, the answer Philip had finally realized.
She turned to a dog-eared page and read his thoughts:

The answer was obvious. Life had no meaning. On the earth, satellite of
a star speeding through space, living things had arisen under the influence of
conditions which were part of the planet's history; and as there had been a
beginning of life upon it so, under the influence of other conditions, there
would be an end: man, no more significant than other forms of life, had come
not as the climax of creation but as a physical reaction to the environment.

She skimmed to an underlined passage:...
then the sage gave him [an
Eastern King] the history of man in a single line, it was this: he was born, he
suffered, and he died. There was no meaning in life, and man by living served
no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born
….

She closed the book and stroked T.S.
Is that what father had been
thinking?

Her eyes drifted to, turning slowly, the blades of the Casablanca fan.

CHAPTER FOUR

The final gun sounded the game over, Carl Bostich crushed out his Kool and
Corky wrapped it up for the radio audience: “There you have it folks, final
score, San Francisco 42, Lions 10. Well Carl, with the regular season start
next Saturday, the big bad Chicago Bears in town, looks like our Lions pigskin boys
have some work to do.”

“I'll say.”

“But the really big event is at half time, huh babe, tying the knot.”

“Yep, tying the knot.”

“Whooo-eee, all you Lions fans back home in Michigan, if you just
landed on the planet, this here ole-pal-o-mine, next week, is tying the knot right
on the fifty-yard line of Ford Field. I think there are a few seats left. If
you're listening, Rachelle, there's still time to run for cover.”

“Playing for keeps, Cork.”

Corky threw it to a commercial break, turned to his sidekick,
stretched, and said, “Well Carl, time for a dry martinoo, some sushi, and a
long stemmed bimbo … not necessarily in that order.”

Carl put his hand over his microphone, “Hey, are these mikes off?”

The producer said over the headsets: “Everything cool, man.”

Cork: “Relax big guy.”