by Danyel Smith
Eva was contrite. She wiped her cheek with her shoulder. Scratched her left ankle with her right foot.
“You want to control the ball? Or you want the ball to control—”
Swoosh!
Slider.
Eva swung so hard she hit her shoulder blade with the wooden bat. She bit into her tongue. She rolled her shoulders backward a few times. Raised her bat again to position and swallowed a little blood.
“Okay,” her father said, warmer now. “You didn’t close your eyes. But you’ve got to look at it, Eva. I ain’t raised no incompetent. Look—”
Swoosh!
Fastball.
Crack!
“See. Now. Do it again. If you can hit it—”
Eva glared at the flapped hole from which the ball shot.
Swoosh!
Then she watched the ball.
Eva would not disappoint her father. Teachers were faceless and satisfied with cooperation. Eva and her father had lived in three states in six years, so her friends were blurry and had vague, common teenage goals—they wanted to be “a lawyer,” “a vet,” “married,” “a singer.” Eva was not to the point of articulating it, but she wanted to know the world. She wanted to be around music. And she believed in mastery. Being the best was important. The win. She also wanted the means to leave wherever she was for someplace else whenever she wanted to—with no advice or permission from anyone.
Assess the situation, her father often said, quietly get a plan, and lead the way. In his brisk, cruel way, Mr. Glenn encouraged Eva’s ideas and aspirations. He was uneasily envious of the opportunities that lay before his daughter due to the year in which she was born, but felt it his duty to prepare Eva for championship and riches. Eva wanted to be “a DJ” on some days, “a scriptwriter” on others, or to be in “computer science.” Her father repeated often that to be a doctor or a teacher was fine, but to excel in a “cutting-edge” business—now that was a life. That was the Future. That was what his daughter would do, who she would be. So Eva caught fly balls like they were wafting wads of cotton. She bat fourth, brought runners in. She wasn’t scared of a hard, white sphere. Eva was a team player when it was required, but mostly she looked out, as her father coached her, for Number One.
Slider.
Crack!
“Dad!” Eva was excited. Felt a rush through her body. She raised her bat again.
“You like it, don’t you? It comes at you like it wants you, like it could kill you. But if you—”
Swoosh!
Fastball.
Crack!
“That’s my girl! And if you can hit it, you can catch it.”
Swoosh!
Eva watched it. The ball seemed to move through clear gelatin.
Curve.
Her eyes followed. The ball was a swelling globe of light.
This is easy, Eva thought. Make up your mind to be unafraid. Keep your eye on the ball. The control rests with me.
Crack!
“Dad, I’m doing it!” Discipline works. Work, works. Eva was all happiness. “That one’s going home! I can’t believe! Does everyone know this? That all you have to do is watch the—”
Swoosh!
“Eva, bat up. Pay attention.”
“I’m just saying—”
Swoosh!
“Bat up!”
“Dad, it’s what? A trick? A rule?”
“Shut up, Eva. Raise your bat.”
The words bit into her now. I’ll shut up, and then one day I’ll tell you to shut up. Eva tightened her grip, feet spread just past her shoulders, toes slightly pointed in, knees bent, hands away from her body and back, just around her shoulder. Bat up like it was attached to a banner:
I’LL DO IT AND WHEN I DO IT YOU BETTER FUCKING BE PLEASED.
Swoosh!
Slider.
She imagined it big as a bowling ball, slowly rolling toward her on a waist-high table. She’d sweep the bat across the table, make contact, and finish high with her swing.
Knock the shit out the goddamned park. Cage or no cage.
Crack.
“You learn this, you learn everything,” Eva’s father said curtly. “You got another forty minutes.”
Swoosh!
Curve.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Eva’s body jerked again. Then fingers tapped on her suite door. She didn’t know if an hour had passed since Dart left, or a minute.
Eva waited. Tightened her robe around her. The taps came again.
“Who—”
“Who you think?”
Eva opened the door, and Ron stepped in like he was crossing a creek. He’d changed from his suit into a soft athletic ensemble and leather slides. Between the whiskey, the sudden bigness of Ron, the lingering whiffs of D’Artagnan, and the white flowers on the white rug, Eva needed to sit down.
“Looks like a party in here. Boyfriend mad?”
“Dart’s not my boyfriend.”
Ron sat on a chair, kicked off his shoes. He always sat in a room like it was his. “Homeboy’s got problems. Real ones. Myra said—”
“Myra said.”
“Pour me one, too. Myra said Dart’s on meds. For his brain.”
“So are you,” Eva said, handing him a toy bottle and no glass. “So am I.”
“Why was he all up on me tonight, then?”
“He’s gallant.” She swallowed half her drink. Who’s counting. Maybe the baby.
“He’s hostile.” Ron sat back, geared up and pleased to talk about himself. “I have my problems … expressing emotions other than anger—sometimes. And I’ve seen somebody for that shit. I’m talking about a chemical imbalance—as far as Sun’s brother. That’s what Myra said.”
“It’s the lead for her next column?”
“Your boy’s moods swing. He’s known for that. On top of just being weird as fuck.” Ron couldn’t leave it at that. “Him and his sister.”
“Your shindig must be over.” Eva took another hard swallow. Who’s counting?
“My shindig starts now.” Ron would have no unfilled moment in his day. Eva wondered, for the first time since she’d known him, what Ron dreamed when he slept. She wondered, for the hundredth time, if he saw her when he looked.
“Go home,” she said. “Or wherever. Don’t you have a white girl you could be putting through this drama?” Don’t you have your Tampa MC over at the Hurricane Club?
Ron ignored her. Eva’s question was old between them, and had been rhetorical since their beginnings. “Put those shoes back on for me,” he said. “The ones you had on.”
“This is not the night.” Eva was spinning high. Hot around the eyes. She pressed the back of her hand against her neck. Who’s counting? It’s what her mind shouted at her.
“You didn’t like my present? Why you not drinking what I sent? You don’t want me to go.” He unzipped his jacket. “For what? ‘Cause you were just with homeboy? I care about that fool? You need me now, after that creepy shit. I’m sure it was creepy, right, Eva? It was creepy.”
Eva pulled the bedspread over her legs. Maybe the baby.
“I know how you do, Evey. Clean as a whistle. Condom queen. HIV monitoring. You just out the shower right now. I smell the soap, sweetheart. Come talk to Big Ron, baby. Feel nice.”
Eva looked at him walleyed, her brain awhirl in her skull.
“I know you saved some for me.” Ron got up, poured Eva another drink. “Best for last.” He knew she’d had a lot but felt she was choosing to act drunk. Ron had seen Eva run shows and close deals after having had more.
“You have some other shit,” Eva said slowly, “you could be doing.”
“Put them shoes on for me.” Ron returned to his chair. “Showing all that ass, all that leg tonight. Put the shoes on, Evey Put ’em on. Show Daddy your talent, baby. Come on.”
Eva took tiny sips of the drink he’d prepared for her. He can make himself sound tender, saying t
he ridiculous things he says. She reveled in the familiarity of her and Ron’s situation.
The shoes were right by the bed. She could already see her toes spread in them—nails lacquered a near-white pink, a shiny amplification of their natural state. Strap around the ankle, dainty-looking but resilient. It was how Eva liked to think of herself, or, more exactly, the merge of those qualities was something Eva admired in other women. In her woozy mind Eva saw her legs lengthened by the mile-high heels, ass set up high and hung, it would seem when she had the shoes on, like a halved plum from her lower back. Quads tight, hams loose, knees locked. Soles of her breasts brushing her ribs, but still firm enough to bounce—
Yeah … Rock … Skate … Name of song??? Can’t remember. Can’t remember group or album or date of release. I am … gone. I am happy I am sad. I want to dance I want to lay down.
Eva was drunk.
There’s a difference between high and drunk and I’m high.
She touched the strap of one shoe, and then paused. Ask me some more.
“Don’t stop, Eva. Stand up when you put ’em on. With your back to me. Don’t bend your knees. Don’t mess up my picture.”
Eva almost fell over. Roll … Bounce…
Heated through and wobbly, she gloried in doing what she was told. Eva walked over with the short terry robe open, and their bash began. From her knees they kissed, each pickled mouth opening wide, then wider. Ron stopped mauling Eva’s body long enough to hold out a bracelet. A black leather cord drawn through a wooden plaque the size of a paper clip. The inches between Ron and Eva were already humid and fragrant with the successful sex they always had.
The bracelet stopped Eva. She dropped back, sat on her butt, and looked at it. On one side, half an orange sun against a minuscule rosy blue sky. On the other side, another half-sun, the tiny skies darkly maroon.
“Where’d you find it? I mean. Thank you.”
“I found it is all you need to worry about.”
Eva slid the bracelet on her wrist. It’s personal, she thought with relief, to me. Her damp bath towel already on the floor, she quickly spread it. Down near the spilled flowers Ron tried to push Eva through the floor. She clawed at the towel, relished the pressure of Ron’s weight, smashing her flatter and flatter.
“You know I hate you.” Eva said it like she was telling him she wanted him to stay inside her for hours.
Ron’s raised himself up and locked his elbows. He kept moving inside her to the slow march tempo that could often make her come. “Don’t hate me.” His words were slurred.
“But I do.”
“Just love me,” he said all lushy then bent his arms and lowered his mouth to her ear. “Love me, Princess Eva, for a change.”
Her elbows burned against the magic carpet. She raked her nails through it. It was flying, she was flying through a balmy never-never land where there was no need, no desire to embrace or be embraced, coo or be cooed at, no need to utter anything except satisfying, sentence-long tantrums that masqueraded magnificently as praise. Eva loved drunken sex. The act was intensified, the weak spots glossed over, and the words strong and without meaning.
I wanna sex you up. Color Me Badd, soundtrack to the motion picture New Jack City, 1991. Eva’s brain was cranking back up. It happened when her buzz faded even a little bit.
Back-to-back, Eva sexed up Dart and Ron. No-tor-ee-us.
Eva pulsed. She and Ron were getting to the place they both wanted to go.
Yes. There it is.
Then, Ron.
Eva’s body, rocked.
Her mind, fucked.
For the thousandth time she’d demonstrated her ability to rise to the occasion, to perform through inner crisis. And for that she got what she truly craved. It was just like the people had shouted to Sunny at the showcase: Go ’head or Work it out! or You better do your thing!
Same thing as Stroke me sweetie, Bring it on home, I love the way you feel, You better fuck me like you know how. Like you need me. Show me. Your talent.
CHAPTER 6
Alcohol woke Eva up. She didn’t have to look to know Ron was long gone. She glanced at her travel clock.
Six-twenty?
It took Eva some minutes to realize she might vomit. When she felt it behind her nostrils, Eva ran to the bathroom. Almost everything from the day and night before came up.
Eva leaned against the sinks. Waited. When Eva vomited, there was always a weak round one, then a powerful, all-cleansing round two. She straightened up and wiped her mouth with a hand towel, then held it to her throat, bunched at the center like a giant handkerchief. Warmth rushed her body. Her underarms and cleavage were clammy. Eva waited.
Never had morning sickness. When I was pregnant before. Has to be the Scotch. Drank a lot last night.
Six-twenty.
I was drinking two hours ago.
When was I throwing up all the time? Not for a while. Maybe when I was twenty-two, new to the game and drinking White Russians.
Even if I am pregnant, how pregnant could I be? No one has morning sickness when they’re two weeks pregnant. If I’m pregnant.
Eva took shaky, deep breaths. She twisted a faucet, watched food-less vomit trail down the sink, and thought about when she was pregnant by a boy named Michael who everybody called Mix because he was a DJ. Mix was twenty, and when Eva called to tell him she was pregnant, he was honest about his fear and confusion, and he told Eva not to worry. She heard Alexander O’Neal in his background. I can’t go a day without my sunshine. Eva loved that song, loved the name of the label he was signed to: Tabu. Eva was eighteen.
“I’m right here for you,” Mix said.
She called him the next day and got his machine and then got his machine and got his machine for about nine weeks. That’s how Eva counted time when she was pregnant. It’s how everyone counts time when they’re pregnant. Eva was counting, and it was nine weeks, and Mix went to college not fifty miles from where she went to college, so she could have gotten out there, but even in the midst of the nausea, she had an inch of pride. Eva knew Mix was getting those messages. And so Eva told her stepmother she was ten weeks pregnant, and told her boss at her on-campus employment, and they both advised abortion.
“You have so much ahead of you,” they both said, in different ways, and, truth be told, Eva did.
Eva made the appointment, and the night before the appointment, Mix called.
“I spoke to Lynn,” he said. “Day before yesterday.” Lynn was Eva’s boss. Mix was friends with her, too. Eva didn’t have the energy to be angry with Lynn for telling Mix whatever she’d told him. “She told me you decided.”
“I had to decide. It’s tomorrow morning.”
“Can I pick you up and drive you there?”
“Yeah. Don’t be late.”
Mix arrived at six o’clock in the morning in his Fiat sedan with the tore-up clutch and drove her over to a place where they made Mix sit in a room with magazines on tables and commuter news television, and they took Eva to a small room to watch a video about the procedure. They did an ultrasound, and then told Eva without batting an eye that there were twins in there. And so Eva said to herself, Here’s your big moment. Here is your time to make your own decision with no advice from anyone.
I’m not ready, said the flush that burned, then dampened her.
Eva’s body was screeching, trying to convince her mind. Don’t want a baby. Don’t want an abortion. This is real. It’s bad. It’s sick. It’s wrong.
Eva said to the two technicians, and she had the clear jelly on her stomach and it was cold, she was cold within and without, and she was pregnant with twins and her belly was still flat at eleven weeks because that’s how she was counting time, and Eva said, “Maybe I should say something to my boyfriend.”
One of the techs, who didn’t even look her way this time, said, “It’s up to you, miss.”
So Miss Eva asked for Mix, but word came back from the receptionist that Mix had been told he could go, and
to come back in four hours, and so, really, it was up to Eva.
“I’m cool,” she said to the tech. Eva was shivering.
“You’re cool?”
“With going ahead,” Eva said.
It was 11: 01 when she got the IV in her left hand and went into the surgery room, and the doctor said, “Count backward from ten,” so Eva counted weeks backward and when she woke up it was 11:07.
“How long is it gonna take?” Eva asked the nurse, who wasn’t actually a nurse but an aide or a junior nurse or whoever wore pink or flowered scrubs in place of white. Wore fake gingham prints and soft clogs and loose ponytails. The doctor wore sneakers and a mask: was just big blue eyes and a smooth forehead. How’re you this morning? All in the course of a sure-footed, red-Nike day. You won’t miss a step, Eva. You’ll make your finals, no problem. Those words would come later, from a nurse practitioner. Less than a doctor, more than a nurse. Eva was frustrated with the gradations. Who was a nurse, anyway? One who looked like one who nursed? Where was she?
“It’s over. You’re done. Rest.”
Eva felt no pain. She was hazy, and in her haze, Eva wondered why they’d told Mix four whole hours, but then she woke up at 2:17 and they gave her pads to bleed onto and gave her salty chicken broth made from a foil-wrapped cube, and crumbly Lorna Doone cookies and saltines, and Eva sat at a round table with four other girls. The five of them like giant first graders in smocks and with their snacks, talking about how boys don’t share. About how boys play, but then they want to play rough.
Eva had been going with Mix for a year and a half. He was the sixth boy she’d had sex with, although she’d told him he was the second. He was the first boy she gave head to, and for Eva and her school girlfriends of the time it was a womanly milestone, a graceless grab at new levels of fun and negotiation and, for girls raised to be all they could be, a quenching dip into surrender.
On her eighteenth birthday, Mix had taken Eva bicycling at Santa Monica beach. At around eleven that night, they went to a party at what people were calling an “underground” club, and Mix had told the DJ to say, “There’s a birthday girl in the house! Happy happy to Eva!”