by Amos Talshir
“You’re going to be spending a lot of time here. Try to enjoy it.”
“Charlie, don’t think a fat guy is necessarily stupid. I’ve been acting like an idiot, but I know very well what’s going on here. I know the world could have flipped completely and that something terrible is happening here. But I feel good. For the first time in my life, I feel good. I know that a fat man who feels pain when he sits down, with a pretty, skinny woman next to him, looks stupid. But these are the most beautiful moments of my life. Whatever happens, it’s been years since I’ve felt this good. You know, it’s been years since I talked to someone like this.”
“What do you mean ‘like this’?”
“I’m thirty-five years old, Charlie. I weigh two hundred and seventy-five pounds. I know I look like I’m fifty. For fifteen years, I never told anyone how unhappy I was. I didn’t talk honestly to my wife and didn’t tell her how much I hated myself, and this is making me feel good.”
“What did you talk to her about?”
“About the bank’s profits. I’m Mediterranean Continental’s finance VP. I love soccer, and I was too embarrassed to go to games because stadiums make me look even fatter.”
“Why?”
“The seats are little.”
Clebber began to laugh, happy to have amused Charlie as well. Both of them twisted around in their narrow seats until Clebber’s laughter triggered a coughing fit and Charlie whacked him on the back. Veronica returned from her jog and stood above them, smiling.
“Do you feel better?” she asked.
“I’ve never felt so good,” Clebber confessed.
“Charlie makes everyone feel good. I told you he made me feel really good, too.”
“True, it’s very nice to talk to Charlie,” Clebber said.
“Charlie, why don’t you take him for a little walk? It’s been a really long time since he got out of that seat. It would be too bad if he loses everything he’s gained exercising.”
The two agreed on an evening walk and began to take the steps down to the pitch.
“Come back before lights-out,” Veronica called out after them.
She sat down in her seat and produced the thriller she had taken with her for the flight from her purse. She always took two books with her—the thriller she would read in bed when she couldn’t fall asleep and the poetry book she browsed in people’s presence, taking care to show it off in case she was bored during the soccer game. In the days that had gone by since the lockdown, she had not even cracked open the poetry book, since she was too tense. She decided to relinquish her principle and, in light of the extreme circumstances, go for the thriller despite the presence of people around her. She was certain she would be forgiven.
She flew abroad frequently, since that was how it worked out with the men she met, less at the gym and more at the dance classes she taught. Most men she met at the gym attended her dance classes at the studio next to the gym. It began with a random piece of advice she gave whoever was exercising next to her and continued with a conversation along the lines of, So what do you do when you’re not at the gym? She told them about her dance classes, and they arrived in order to learn how to dance. They were lured in by her enthusiastic speech, about how it was a wonderful way to enjoy your body and love yourself anew, and arrived to take private dance lessons. She loved her studio and called her students “my chubbies.” Everyone loved to dance with her because she acknowledged the fact that they were having a hard time, and told them, The soul is the one that dances, and the body just accompanies it. She taught them to let the soul take off on the dance floor and forget that they were overweight, and they invited her to fly with them on their business trips abroad. She found it all very nice, but none of them really suited her. Or else she couldn’t make up her mind, or else they were married. And it actually didn’t bother her that only the overweight ones came to her. She really did believe their soul could take off and fly, just like in the poems she loved.
Veronica felt that she was bouncing back. It had been pleasant to freshen up in the restroom, and her jog had renewed her positive energies. Now she would read her thriller, and she didn’t care what anyone thought about her intellectual abilities. She would correct the impression with the poetry book when she read it later on in the evening, and everything would work out. Clebber was being nice to her too, and recuperating in Charlie’s company, and it might even be a good thing if they stayed under lockdown for a while longer. All in all, it was pretty nice in here. It was true that at first, she had been frightened by the shooting and the people killed and the pressure of the pee was pretty annoying, too. But it wasn’t any more annoying than all those men who just wanted to sleep with her at the gym as well as in the building where she lived. Right, she knew, her mother had told her that she smiled too much and men misinterpreted it. She actually wanted a serious relationship. It was time, now that she was thirty-three; she thought so, too. A relationship based on love that would be good and pleasant for her man and for her, too.
They all wanted just one thing from her. But she was actually having quite a pleasant time now. That cute fat guy, Clebber, also treated her gently, spontaneously inviting her to fly with him to the game without demanding anything in return. It was true he hadn’t had the time to demand anything, even if he’d wanted to. He’d actually slept on the plane, snoring a little, with no roaming hands, and since the game and all the panic that had happened here, he had really been behaving well. Actually, he hadn’t really been focused on her. At first, he’d been frightened, like everyone else, unlike their seatmate Charlie, whom she’d been watching for a few days now. Kind of cool and collected. But it was pretty natural for Clebber to get stressed out like everyone else, and he continued to be polite, asking her occasionally if she was all right. She would have liked for him to talk to her more, but he was silent. Everyone was panicked and he didn’t go crazy and that was already a good start. She’d known men who tried to create the impression they were all that, and when something stressful happened, they became ugly and selfish. Actually, that Charlie could be a good influence on Clebber, and maybe this lockdown was a good thing, too. As she’d learned in her Elements of Poetry class, conflict or a significant event was required in order to make a good poem. They would get to know one another, and something deeper might develop between her and Clebber; not with Charlie. Charlie had a son, and there was a wife in the picture, too. Maybe this stadium was an opportunity for both of them, for her and for Clebber.
Charlie was nice, too. He hadn’t even tried to hit on her in the restroom. Maybe he was faithful to his wife; it happened, even though it was rare. He kept his cool, although he had seemed tense to her back there in the restroom. Maybe it was because she’d peed in the same stall with him and then washed herself in the sink, and he’d probably seen a bit too much; a man could get all hot and bothered by something like that.
Why am I even thinking about myself so much? she wondered to herself. They’re shooting people in the head here, and I’m thinking about how my breasts at the sink are stressing him out. Oh, God, how did I wash myself down there right next to him? Have I lost it or what? But he was so nice. The way he held up my scarf like a curtain and helped me bathe. I was tense, but it was nice. I’ve got no reason to be ashamed of my body. Quite the opposite. Now I feel nice here. Two polite men are abroad with me and aren’t harassing me. Maybe they don’t like me enough. I’ve got to stop thinking about it. I don’t really mind staying here at the stadium a while longer. How long? A month, more? They’re nice to me. Maybe Charlie will help me bathe tomorrow, too, and he’ll be less stressed out. Something could happen between us. The truth is, I have to pick one of them. I think it’s Clebber. He’s the one who took me to this party. He’s a safer bet, kind of a regular guy, and maybe there’s a very small chance that he’s single, too.
The posts of the stadium’s floodlights suddenly began to emit the buzz that s
ounded just before the massive lights came on. This was enough to reignite Veronica’s fear of a sudden development. She was aware of such moments: if there was sufficient preparation, she did not panic. If only everything in her life took place after some preparation, she would definitely be calmer. Even back in elementary school, the other students picked up on her weakness and found a thousand ways to abuse her. Their greatest victory came in the cheerleaders’ changing room. Everyone saw that Veronica was the most physically mature girl in class; she herself was the only one unaware of it. It always took her a bit longer to realize what was going on around her. The team’s players would decide with the other cheerleaders on a time when the girls would sneak out of the dressing room. They would position themselves on the other side of the peepholes and slam a basketball into the room at the exact moment when Veronica was latching up her special strapless bra, suited to the cheerleaders’ leaps in their tight tank tops. The ball would careen everywhere, bouncing off the ceiling to the floor with a massive noise, causing Veronica to choke up in panic and drop the special bra that was supposed to flatten her large breasts, so they wouldn’t bounce during the cheers. Those boys were such babies, Veronica concluded privately, and later took her revenge upon them by spurning their advances when they were burning up with desire for her. But it took her time, lots of time, to understand why the girls had played along.
“Envy,” Martine told her, ten years after they had graduated from high school. Martine had been her nemesis in school but turned out to be the only friend she had retained from her youth. Martine was in love with Nicola, the basketball player. Nicola, whom Martine had such a crush on, preferred Veronica, who rejected him because of what he had done to her in the dressing room. In order to trap Nicola, the desperate Martine slept with him and got pregnant. He disappeared and the child was born. Veronica felt guilty and showered her emotions and generosity upon the infant son of the vanished basketball player.
The truth was that Martine was in love with Veronica and not with the basketball player. One day, Martine told her that she realized she had slept with Nicola in order to make Veronica jealous and draw her toward her. Veronica stroked Martine’s thick curls and told her this was complicated for her. Martine laughed and tried to swiftly kiss Veronica’s breasts. Both of them laughed and Martine tried to tell her something but was overcome by laughter. It was late and the baby had already fallen asleep between the two of them on the couch. Veronica got up, leaving the laughing Martine behind, and picked up the baby to put him to bed in his room. She looked at his lips, pursed to suckle in his sleep, and recalled Martine’s attempt to kiss her breasts. Through the window of the baby’s room, she saw the city lights winking at her through another evening of yearning for love.
Millions of men in the lighted windows were preparing for an evening of hunting. She only wanted one who would love her. Out of all the men who would spread out all over the city, she only wanted one, not too special, not the most popular one. He only had to love her. She would fall in love with him easily; if someone would only be nice to her, rather than just trying to get her in bed, she would fall in love with him. But they all just wanted to sleep with her. “You too,” she told Martine when she came back to the couch on which Martine was lying naked, extending her arms to her.
“And if I loved you?” Martine flirted. “Would you fall in love with me?”
Veronica sat down on the carpet at Martine’s feet, as her friend extended a caressing foot toward the back of Veronica’s neck.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.
“Very pretty.”
“Is my body better than yours?” Martine asked self-indulgently, hugging her nakedness.
“Martine, if you loved me, you wouldn’t say something like that. And you also wouldn’t ask if I loved you, if you loved me. You’d just love me. But you don’t. You just want to sleep with me, too.”
Martine laughed hard and said she was already cold, lying like this and waiting around naked. Veronica hugged her and tried to cover her with a blanket. Martine tried to sneak a kiss onto the back of Veronica’s neck, but Veronica shied away. Martine told her that if she slept with her, she would agree that the baby would be Veronica’s too, and that way Veronica could skip love. They rolled around on the carpet and Martine pursed her lips for a long kiss, but Veronica shook her off, frightened.
“I’m going to have a child with a man who will love me,” she declared.
16.
Veronica closed her eyes so as not to be startled by the flash of the floodlights as they were turned on, shielding her eyes with her fingers in order to watch through the gaps as the lights warmed up until they were shining at full strength. In the previous nights, she had not had time to prepare herself for the moment they came on and had been truly frightened by the sudden light flooding the stadium. Now she peered carefully through her fingers and seemed to perceive the motion of small objects hanging from the inner edge of the roofs covering the stands. She tried to sharpen her vision in order to better trap the minute motion of these tiny bodies swinging, a split second before the lights came fully on. She did not manage to perceive the motion in time, and the full, immense luminescence of the lights was already blinding her eyes, trained upon the edge of the roofs.
Veronica was convinced she had seen irregular motion there. But she also knew herself to be capable of inventing frightening sights she had seemingly witnessed. Once again, unease was taking hold of her, causing her to lose her appealing expression and the relaxed pose of her lips, which she so loved to control. She recalled Charlie telling her she looked like Brigitte Bardot. Now she was tense again and knew that uncontrollable bursts of giggling made her ugly, causing her to sound and look idiotic.
She tried to return to the train of thought that had gone through her mind several minutes ago, causing her to conclude that she was happy here, with the two men, Clebber and Charlie, by her side. Maybe it was much easier for Martine, because, after all, men were impossible to understand. What did a woman have to do with a man? What did she have in common with that creaky, hard, rough creature? After all, she felt more like Martine than, say, like Clebber. And yet she was much happier here, near these two men. Far away from her mother’s supervision zone, even if she did miss Martine’s small caresses and the sweet kisses of Martine’s child. She would like to stay with Clebber and Charlie and enjoy the nice way they treated her. All in all, she had everything she needed here. She did miss Martine’s son a little. But he was already fifteen, and also got along without her.
Simon returned to his seat, sitting down next to her. She startled somewhat.
“You could have warned me that you were coming,” she apologized for the brief cry of fright she had blurted out.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Simon said. “But I live here. On the chair next to you.”
“Never mind. Little things like that scare me.”
“It makes sense to be scared under the circumstances.”
“It’s true, everything scares me. Lights that come on suddenly are the worst. Sometimes when I’m sleeping with someone and suddenly he turns on the light, I really freak out. It doesn’t go away. Every time the light comes on, I almost die.”
Simon buried his gaze in his smartphone. He didn’t mean to be rude and immerse himself in the internet now. He was simply embarrassed that this woman, whom he had only recently met, or any woman, would suddenly talk to him about the men she’d slept with. Simon would have really liked to talk about such things, but he hadn’t found the right way to do it. Perhaps he still hadn’t reached the age where you could really talk about it, he thought. Obviously, he couldn’t talk to the girls in class about actually sleeping together. They could make all kinds of jokes and gossip about other girls doing it with other boys, but that wasn’t what Simon wanted to talk about. There was also no chance of him managing to truly talk to Annette about sex and what it was like and
what you felt. He was very tense in Annette’s company, and she wasn’t really interested in him. Maybe this was his chance to talk to a woman about these kinds of things. He raised his eyes and saw Veronica looking at him. Her gaze was direct and open. She wasn’t smiling cynically, or anything like that, as if thinking, What a cool adult I am, talking to a teenage boy about sex. She was looking at him with her eyes wide open, interested in what he thought. He was silent, and she was silent as well, and he thought she was really nice and she thought he was shy and forgot that at that age, every boy was shy. Simon found it pleasant to have her wait for him patiently, looking at him with caressing eyes.
“Why does it scare you when he turns on the light?”
“You don’t get scared?”
“I’ve never slept with a girl who turned on the light,” Simon confessed. “I mean, it’s not that the girl didn’t turn on the light, it’s just that I’ve never slept with a girl…”
“Too bad, it’s the greatest fun,” she said, clamming up again.
Simon peered out at her through his long lashes and tried to figure out if she was making fun of him or trying to make him feel better after his honesty. He had never gotten so far—actually talking to a girl about sleeping together. To a woman, in this case. Suddenly, he felt himself utterly engulfed by this pretty, athletic woman sitting next to him. The entire closed stadium and the snipers piercing heads and missing Mom and Emily all became flowing water, swept far away from him.
He looked cautiously into the woman’s wide-open eyes and hoped she would continue strolling with him to those red places in which he wanted to drown.
“I think it really is the greatest fun,” he said, and she smiled at him.
“How do you know?” she asked gently.
“I don’t.”
“Is there some girl you’d like to do it with?” she asked, her eyes tracking the violet blush that began to spread from his ears to his neck. He pulled at his earlobe and pursed his lips into the shape of a whistle she did not hear, merely feeling the stream of air flowing from him and colliding with her throat, under her chin.