Ball

by Tara Ison

  “This is it?” says Mrs. Steinman. “This is the worst that happens to this man?” She is furious, tearful.

  “Well,” says LouAnn, “at least we can start sleeping at night.”

  “Maybe we can get The Wall Street Journal to reimburse us for the video equipment,” I say.

  “I want an explanation for this,” says Mrs. Steinman. “I want this man to look me in the face and tell me why. Why he would do such a thing. I don’t understand.”

  LouAnn shrugs. “Maybe we’ll hear it at the trial. Maybe it’ll make more sense.”

  A FEW MONTHS later, Missy calls.

  “Hi, honey,” she says. “God, we haven’t talked to you in so long! How is everything?”

  “Fine,” I say. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh, Chuck’s working crazy hours, you know. Oh, and he’s running for City Council, did we tell you that?”

  “Ah. Great. Landslide. He’s on his way. He’ll rule the world.”

  “I know,” she says proudly. “I’m trying to help him as much as I can. I’m working part-time at his office. And, doing all the wedding stuff, you know. There’s so much to do, it’s great, it’s keeping me busy. The invitations go out next month. Is there anybody you want to bring?”

  “Zosia?”

  “Oh, I wish. No dogs allowed,” she says with a laugh. “It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be amazing.”

  “Oh, I bet.”

  “That’s actually why I’m calling. I’m trying to decide what to get Chuck for a wedding present, and I figure you know him so well. . . . I know you’re really busy, but would you go looking with me? I have a couple of ideas. . . .”

  “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

  “I was thinking maybe this Saturday. If you have time. Oh, I wanted to ask you, whatever happened to the Nazi guy? The one they caught?”

  “He’s gone. He never showed up for trial.”

  “Really?”

  “He took off for Argentina. Well, he’s gone, so that’s what the cops think. They’ll never find him.”

  “Wow. Well, at least it’s over. At least you can get on with your life.”

  “Right.”

  “So, anyway,” she says, “come on, I need your brain. You should know. What would make him happy? What does Chuck really want?”

  MULTIPLE CHOICE

  He spotted her immediately from—his word—afar. The Famous

  a)Playwright

  b)Congressman

  c)Musician

  had espied her sylvan, fragile beauty at once, he tells her on their first date, an old-Hollywood-glam steakhouse, sanguine leather booths and five à la carte asparagus spears for twelve dollars, and heels and nail polish and mascara she was unused to but felt circumstances demanded, these unique circumstances, having been singled out, discerned, plucked from the madding crowd by this Renowned and Brilliant Man. It was her singular grace, he says, that he could not help noticing—even from afar, yes—the delicate strain of tendons at her throat, the soul-rich, beckoning light from her eyes as she

  a)listened to the staged reading of his new, long-awaited play, a drama of history’s oppressed women now empowered, resurrected from obscurity, the unrelenting theme of his canon (and she has long admired the unabashed passion of his work, never mind the ticket/donation at the fund-raiser for a local women’s shelter was the equivalent of seventeen days’ rent),

  b)licked envelopes at his grassroots reelection campaign HQ (the drudge role she’d volunteered for to flesh out alone-but-not-lonely weekends, although a sincere admirer of his legislative agenda, of course, his long-ago, one-term House of Representatives crusade for the rights of the poor and meek of his district and the earth),

  c)sat by herself front row at his comeback coffeehouse concert, twirling a thin lock of hair (and tears welling to those heart-beating, heart-breaking lyrics of his, admiring the chivalric warble in his voice, his troubadour’s promise of courtly love and eternal-though-tortured devotion in all those unironic, yearning songs of her yearning adolescence),

  and so he had to seize the rare and precious moment, he tells her. He had no choice. He could not allow this recognized her to just slip by and away. So that is why he sent, could not help sending

  a)his personal assistant

  b)an intern

  c)a roadie

  to approach her, proffer the invitation to this dinner, something he is still apologizing for over a purple gash of tenderloin. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, he swears. I didn’t mean to have you summoned. You are not some random

  a)fan

  b)constituent

  c)groupie

  to me, not at all. I was intimidated by you, he confides. I am just so out of practice at being back in the world these days. Forgive me?

  But there is no need for apology; she understands, is sure of his assessment. It confirms her most secret, or hoped-for, sense of her true value, her rarified self. She knows she is not some incidental happy-hour appetizer, the careless newsstand grab of a free weekly. She suspects she is superiorly intelligent, despite a lack of obvious results, a showy CV or lucrative job that would finally unburden her of those student loans. Her beauty is subtle but evident to the discerning eye, an eye her thirteen past lovers/boyfriends/FWBs had never quite honed. Her potential is simmering—there will be a top-tier graduate school down the road, she assures herself, or a wildly creative flowering, perhaps a dedicated career with an environmental nonprofit—gaining its strength and unique bouquet, and look, here at last is a man who has recognized her incipient exceptionality, an older, wiser, ways-of-the-world man, with a parfumier’s sophisticated nose and an appreciation of quiet style. She forgives him his clumsy gaffe. But, emboldened, she encourages his unease. She puts him graciously in his place; of course she does not trust him, she tells him, given his reputation. Of course she is suspicious, given his timing, this sudden return-splash to the public eye of his. Are you now truly

  a)sober?

  b)legally divorced?

  c)drug-free?

  she queries. Is his act really together now, is he sincere? She evaluates his responses with stern professorial squints. She offers insightful critique of his faults. He is eager, flustered, little-boyish, cannot finish his steak, urges her to doggy-bag it and the remaining asparagus spear home. He would think less of her were she not so wary of him, he tells her, and he is grateful for both her spirit and her open mind. He is delighted by her integrity. She does not even know how powerful she is. He will prove himself, if she will just give him a chance. They agree he is worthy, or at least potentially so, and she agrees to bestow upon him more of her precious, rarified time.

  ON THEIR SECOND date—rare, unsustainable sushi—he reveals his deepest-pain story, what once triggered and drove his legendary self-destructiveness but has also and since been the fueling, bolstering heartthrob of his life’s work. She has heard the story before—she once viewed long, channel-surfing seconds of a cable documentary on him, his struggle to overcome the distressful childhood to Make Something of Himself—but that is just superficial, salivating press, he tells her, media mumbo jumbo, the Journalism 101 exercise unable to penetrate mere persona. No, he must share his most intimate self with her, alone; he cannot hide from her his private pain, not if he wishes her to understand, or—far more important—to reveal her own pain, the pain he sees in her soul-bruised eyes, the pain he does so fervently wish her to share, to trust him with, and so he cannot help telling her himself about

  a)his sister, older, adored, and the ripening scent of womanhood he went boyhood sniffing for, her female bathroom smell, black soapy hairs in the tub drain and sticky panties in the hamper, how she stumbled past his bedroom door late that one night, a yell to the sleepy, unwatchful parents that she was home safe from her date, how he lay silent and listening and heard her enter her room, heard the door close and the click of the lock, heard her window creak open slowly, deliberately slow, heard her stumble-crawl through and out to d
isappear again and the slow, disappearing roll of tires on pavement and then she was disappeared forever, stolen taken abducted, an abandoned car found with a mere smear of her blood but they never found her, more of her or her body, and he is tormented to this day forever by her absence and absent scent, for his silence that fateful night, for not watching over her, keeping her at home, safe,

  b)his mother, so unmoored after his good-riddance godless dog of a father was gone for good this time, and he was five years old, six, the Man of the House, she’d whisper, Sleep with me tonight, honey, you’ll protect me, won’t you? and he grew yearning and used to her moist nylon nightie heat and oniony whiff, seven years old, eight, but how he came home that one day to the sound of urgent naked flesh-struggle inside, how he burst in and hurled himself brave at her naked hairy attacker, but then she screamed at him—at him!—to Stop it, goddamn it, stop, get out, grabbing and holding him down, pulling down his pants and her angry hand smacks, slamming on his naked buttocks, her damp, naked white breasts shuttling across his back and being banished to his little-boy room to listen listen listen to her with that pumping swarthy man, then to her with all the other come-and-go scumbag men, those animals, while he’d sweat and grope and pump at himself and could not protect her from her own degradation, the descent into slattern filth and booze and drugs and final vein-burned fate and he was truly left all alone for good,

  c)the woman he found, he was innocent childhood backwoods exploring that day, was all, branches for a fort or Y-stick to fashion a slingshot, when he stumbled, tripped, was tripped up by the thick twig of a blue-veined marble arm beneath brown leaves, the nest of dark clotted hair, what he had to describe and relive over and over, how he fell onto and thus found the chilling torn body, his screaming screaming for someone to come, till his hoarse cries were heard and he was found, curled on top of her naked sweet rot, fingers gripping her hair, her cold face, her icy breasts. An unknown, unidentified woman, they told him afterward, some random no-name Jane Doe, some fated whore, just a body a body a body used and broken and discarded by bad, brutal men.

  And she takes his trembling hand, I am here, she tells him tenderly, I am here, and he clutches, grips, weeps over his fatty toro.

  I was right about you, he says. But how can I earn you? You could have any man in the world. How can I deserve so much grace?

  EXPANSIVE, CRYSTAL-VASED FLOWER arrangements are delivered, overwhelm her studio apartment with their cloying lily gasp. Parchment and ink missives arrive each day, for he eschews the digital chilliness of social media or text. He buys her a several-months’-rent dress she reluctantly accepts but cannot imagine wearing anywhere but some grand event he might escort her to, someday. He offers to get her transmission fixed, to pay her rent, pay off her debts, then delightedly begs her forgiveness when she refuses with huffy pride, is giddy when she sends back the pearl-and-platinum choker in its iconic robin’s-egg-blue box. He takes her to

  a)the taping of a program for NPR, the interviewer rhapsodizing on his cultural legacy, his role as a shaper of American theater and recontextualized, contemporized historical perspective, the much-needed reemergence of his moral vision, his voice,

  b)a parking-lot rally in support of migrant workers and undocumented immigrants, where the verbal sway of his impassioned rejoinders to xenophobic right-wing picketers and his impromptu Bible-quoting debate on the defining Christian tenet of shared brotherhood gets spontaneous applause, gets primetime network and then viral airplay,

  c)an added date for his comeback concert, now becoming an actual tour, now a sold-out amphitheater full of nostalgic boomers and cynical hipsters seeking honed arrows for their toughened hearts, celebrating the rediscovery of his wandering-minstrel lyricism and authenticity,

  while she stands to one privileged insider side and smiles and nods her support in response to his anxious, searching-for-her-in-the-pauses eyes. Afterward he is exhilarated but dismissive of the hoopla and noisy acclaim—It is not about that, he tells her, the joy is knowing she was there, with and for him. It was, paradoxically, a moment of their greatest intimacy thus far. He strokes her arm, intimately, describes to her the

  a)upstate New York estate he will purchase for her, after this play goes Broadway and Tony and Pulitzer, with verdant grazing land for goats and long, hand-in-hand private walks and she can fill her days making chèvre or going to grad school and getting a doctorate in whatever discipline she likes, while he writes and writes, for the greatest, most inspired work of his life still lies ahead, he knows that now, and evenings before a roaring stone fireplace with wolfhounds or babies at their feet he will read those fresh-inspired pages aloud to her, his Lover, his Muse,

  b)Georgetown townhouse they will make their havened own, when this campaign is done and won and he rises to and wins the next-on-the-list prize, a Senate seat, and he will storm the capital on behalf of the downtrodden and disenfranchised while she volunteers at animal shelters and veterans’ hospitals and church soup kitchens, raises their golden children and elegantly DC-hostesses at his side, his Dolly, his Eleanor, his gracious helpmeet bride,

  c)charming Craftsman bungalow they will settle in after this album drops and he’s back on steady rotation, a giant Stickley bed and early-L.A. architecture like the profiles in those heavy, high-gloss magazines, and daytimes he will compose and record epic love songs dedicated to her in his state-of-the-art studio out back while she writes poems or novels or paints or sculpts or weaves or has kids, she can do anything she wants, for she is an Artist, too, his Brilliant Other,

  the woman he cannot wait to introduce to the world as his. And every night they will make love for hours in mutual ecstasy and he will hold her safe in his arms while they weep gratitude for the relief of their shared pain, their island-in-the-stream togetherness, for their—his word—metamorphosizing love.

  She coughs. Let’s maybe take this a little slow, she tells him, a little nervous. Okay? And let’s just keep this between us for now? You are a public figure, but I am a very private sort of person, I guess. I guess I’m not used to all this.

  Of course, he assures. He knows what he offers is overwhelming, intense. He respects her privacy, her delicate sensibility. Everything will be up to her; everything will be hers. He is happy to give her as much time as she needs, although it is wrenching, excruciating for him to rein in his racing, galloping heart. He senses she finds him slightly ridiculous, and perhaps he even is. But he is serious, he insists. And he is somewhat hurt, to be honest—a brief shadow to his face—by her lingering skepticism. But she will see. She will open herself to him. She will learn to trust again. And then, once they are truly, fully faithed together, he will achieve his Greatest Things. She will at last be fully, deservedly realized in the world. And he leaves her at her apartment door, merely hand-kissed and cheek-stroked.

  I am delighted to court you, he says.

  And she is a little grateful for the reprieve, his willingness to keep resetting the clock at courtship and tentative, respectful ladyfair kisses goodnight, and she is—increasingly very—relieved because she tries but cannot ignore the age difference, the lack of actual attraction or sexual pull, or even the faint but growing, creeping-in crawl and distaste at the smell of his skin and breath and hair—when, she wonders, does older merely become old?—and she is happy to encourage this urgently leisurely pace to give her time to adjust, adapt, yes, that’s all she needs, because this vision and dangle of an existence lived at such peaks, such unbound emotional extravagance, is of course overwhelming, just as he says. A touch of altitude sickness is all.

  But what if he is right, she wonders, worries, and this is the—one? only?—call to liberation from negligibility, her gifted destiny revealed at last, her inevitable grand role to play, the ultimate Wikipedian narrative arc of her life?

  HER FRIENDS AND co-workers and parents voice hesitant—envy-tinged, she suspects, or is that surprise at his choosing, at this sudden starshine upon her plain Jane face?—concerns; what about
his past, they ask her, those old, vague pre-TMZ rumors of addictions and instability and bitter divorces and breakdowns and adolescent run-ins with the law?

  Exactly, that is past, she assures them. It is Ancient History 101, it is why he disappeared from the public stage for so long, to confront his demons and finally work all that through. He has been totally upfront and honest about everything, and hasn’t he channeled his furious, damaged genius into positive action and change? Look at what he is creating in the world—hasn’t he risen above such skeptical misunderstanding, such hurtful snark? It is the price of greatness, she supposes to them, sighing, the burden of his brilliance. She allows her own voice to be tinged with status, with ascendency, and the next night shows up determinedly and steeled by Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay at his door to offer herself in reward.

  IT IS HER fault, she feels, the awkward and unsync’d grapple of it, then the ultimate, mortifying failure. He is unable because of her lingering bourgeois superficiality, she is sure, her tentative, going-through-the-sexual-motions motions. Chemistry is, well, just chemicals, she chides herself, just Bunsen burner hype, schoolgirl mythology. Get over it. Love is of spirit and souls, and so if her flesh is passive, unmoved—cringes, actually—and her lungs strain for air during his groping, mewling, her-pleasure-is-everything exertions, it is no wonder the potency of his own response is weakened, disempowered, if his own pleasure in her is dulled. She apologizes.