Time seemed to move backward, then forward again, then stop. Jay’s mind reeled from questions about his deepest nature, to what he had gotten wrong about his marriage, to his week in South Africa, to the fortunes of his team, to whether Dag was going to survive. And how was Jay going to survive what had happened to Dag? Although scalded by guilt, the level he endured minute-to-minute rose and fell in contrary proportion to how often his thoughts turned to what Nicole had done.
In this manner, nose packed tight with gauze, disquiet spiking inversely to his diminishing energy, Jay passed the hollow night in the clutches of jet lag—remember, he had arrived home from Africa hours earlier—and intense physical discomfort, able to breathe only through his mouth, battling despair that reached inside him to separate tendon from bone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Dag had nearly canceled. To spend several hours at a political dinner in the company of Jay Gladstone held no appeal but he was keen to meet President Obama and believed if the evening went well perhaps Church would forgive him for the Moochie Collins incident. The coach acted like he had absolved him but Dag knew it was a façade. A champion like Church Scott could not abide knucklehead behavior. Dag knew how the man thought and, despite their unequal status—in the hierarchy of professional basketball certain stars outranked the coach—Dag still craved Church’s respect.
Babatunde had taken his tuxedo to be cleaned and as Dag stood in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom, he shot his cuffs and admired the reflection. His physique showed clothes beyond the imagining of those who designed them. Broad shoulders tapered into a trim waist and endless legs. His size sixteen feet, ensconced in patent leather slippers the size of Alaskan salmon, made a well-proportioned base. His mood was already better because practice had gone well. Dag’s shooting stroke looked smooth and, although his hand was sore, the degree to which he favored it was not readily evident. If the team scrapped its way into the playoffs, he would be at full strength. Dag posed hips rotated, an over-the-shoulder gaze. He smiled at his own vanity.
When the Maxwell brothers sailed over the George Washington Bridge in the McClaren, Trey at the wheel, Mobb Deep blasting from the speakers, Dag felt the familiar swelling in his breast as he watched the curtain rise on the lights of the Manhattan skyline. He turned up the music so its strength would better reflect his own. As Trey downshifted on to the exit ramp, Dag vowed to charm Gladstone into a larger contract, play out the deal, and then ascend the golden escalator to the elite corporate realms embodied by the glittering metropolis that unfolded before him.
Dag got out of the car at the hotel and told Trey he’d phone him when it was time to go home.
“Tell Obama I say what up,” Trey said.
“Most definitely,” Dag said, adjusting a cuff link.
“And don’t cause problems.”
Dag told his brother not to worry. “I got this,” he said.
Because the president was going to attend, security was unusually heavy. A perimeter had been set up around the Waldorf Astoria but Dag was not asked for ID. Rather, several guards welcomed him as he walked past. Wherever Dag went, there were stares because of his size but when people recognized him, commotions of varying intensity invariably ensued. Even in places like the Waldorf Astoria. After he passed through the second screening area just outside the lobby he was approached by three Asian businessmen that had seen him play an exhibition game in China the previous year. Dag signed a few autographs, allowed himself to be photographed by a white family from Georgia who arrayed themselves around him like a blanket, signed more autographs, then proceeded up the ornate staircase that led to the second-floor ballroom.
Five hundred fashionably turned out people filled the space, a mixtape of races, if not incomes. Chandeliers the size of pianos lit flocked wallpaper, gold molding, white linens. Celebrities (Missy Elliott, Samuel L. Jackson, George Clooney) and politicians (Bill de Blasio, Kirsten Gillibrand) happy to bask in the president’s reflected light. A female volunteer, young, eager, and black, utterly tickled to be in close proximity to D’Angelo Maxwell, escorted him to his table near the dais where Church Scott, his wife Sharon, a stunningly beautiful white woman to whom he’d been married twenty-five years, Nicole Gladstone, and three other white couples he did not recognize were engaged in conversation. Dag and Church were the only African-Americans at the table. Everyone was drinking wine. The people he didn’t know greeted him enthusiastically. They all looked as if they had been born at the Waldorf, comfortable and shining. Dag barely acknowledged them. He was not thrilled there were strangers at the table. Where was Jay?
The owner’s wife gestured to the empty seat next to her and indicated he should sit there. Dag had planned on showcasing D’Angelo Maxwell, Inc., for her husband this evening, to atone for his screwup and to demonstrate to Jay that he still had enough juice to be the face of a professional sports franchise, a brand name that deserved to be compensated at the highest rate. But Jay had stood him up without so much as a phone call. He thought about walking out. He did not relish an evening of small talk but was prescient enough to realize that a hasty exit would only compound his problems. If he had to spend the evening talking to Nicole, he would. Tonight, she was dressed in a mid-length, rust-colored silk wraparound dress with a plunging V-neck.
Dag lowered his frame into the chair. As soon as he did, Nicole placed her hand on his shoulder. Dag turned and saw large hazel eyes beaming in his direction. They had never been this close before so he had never noticed the flecks of gold in her irises. A tiny flake of makeup balanced on a long lash. He had the strange urge to brush it away. Before this evening, they had only exchanged a few words over the course of several encounters at team events. She leaned toward him. Her smell was intoxicating, fresh, and delicately floral. When she spoke, he felt her warm breath on his neck.
“My husband sends his apologies,” she said. “He’s in Africa.”
Dag shook his head. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.
“Don’t act so disappointed.”
He realized that she thought he was playing.
“I am a little disappointed,” Dag said.
“Well, at least the president hasn’t cancelled.”
It would have been preferable to Dag if the president had been the one to not show. Gladstone was the man with whom he needed to mend fences. He loved Obama, but right now Jay was a larger presence in his life.
A waiter appeared and filled Dag’s wine glass with red. Dag took a sip as Nicole drained what was left of hers and asked for a refill. He was glad for the red wine. It would not be easy to drink quickly. He saw Nicole eyeing his injured hand. He hoped she wasn’t going to ask him about it.
“Does your hand hurt?”
“It’s a little sore,” he said.
“What you did was chivalrous.”
“You ought to tell your husband so he doesn’t suspend me.”
“I would if I were speaking to him.”
She smiled and he couldn’t tell if she was flirting. Whatever she was doing, it was making him uncomfortable. He was attracted to her but why go there? When a waiter spoke to Nicole, Dag turned toward the coach’s wife and asked whether she had met Obama.
Sharon Scott liked to talk to him and he indulged her. She informed him she had met the president on a previous occasion and was smitten; did Dag know him? He told her that they had never met. Church leaned across his wife and confided to Dag that the second biggest reason he wanted to win another NBA championship was that it would improve his chances of getting an invitation to play golf with Obama.
“We need to get you on the links, D’Angelo,” Church said.
“So you can kick my ass?” Dag said. Church and the women laughed. “I like to dominate.”
“You’d be a heck of a golfer,” Church said.
“I’m a golf widow in the summer,” Sharon informed the table.
“I ride horses,” she said.
“I don’t like horses,” Dag said.
“Because you can’t dominate them,” Nicole said.
“Exactly,” Dag said.
“You ever try polo?” Church asked Nicole.
“Not yet,” she said. “But I’m always up for a new experience.”
“Sort of like golf on a horse,” Dag observed.
“Two things you can’t do,” Nicole said.
Church lifted an eyebrow. Sharon said, “Oh ho!” amused by Nicole’s impudence.
Dag was taken aback by the remark. He did not traffic in self-deprecation and to have someone else lampoon his flaws, no matter how jocular the intent (or how irrelevant the flaws), was slightly disorienting. But she smiled when she said it, and lightly touched his bicep. When she removed her hand, she brushed his arm with the backs of her fingers. If she was trying to placate him, it worked.
“I bet I could learn both,” he said.
“I bet you could, too,” Nicole said.
“You’d probably be better at golf than polo,” Church said.
“If you ever want a riding lesson,” Nicole said, “I’ve been around horses since I was a girl, so let me know.”
Dinner was served and just as Dag was eating his dessert, Senator Schumer stopped by the table to say hello. Dag proudly introduced the politician to his tablemates. It pleased him to be on familiar terms with a U.S. senator and to see the reaction of his companions. The politician joked once again with Dag about joining the Knicks and Dag, who had consumed a couple of glasses of wine, played along this time, far more at ease than he had been during their first encounter at Jay’s club.
“I’m reporting you to the league,” Dag said and the senator cackled in delight.
Church’s wife had been looking at George Clooney all night and was thrilled when the movie star introduced the president. Church said, “My wife wants a free pass for Clooney,” and everyone laughed. Obama charmed for fifteen minutes and his remarks about the economic recovery, the Middle East, and his Republican opponents had the audience singing from the hymnal. Nicole and Dag were both enthralled and he had to resist the urge to reach for her hand. Several million dollars were raised. Before coffee was served, a Secret Service agent approached Dag and reported that the president had asked to meet him.
As Dag got out of his seat, Nicole said, “I’m coming, too.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the agent said.
“If my husband is going to meet the president,” Nicole said, indicating Dag, “Then I’m his plus one.”
Church and Sharon were trying to suppress their amusement.
The agent spoke into a microphone on his lapel. He registered the response he received in his earpiece. To Nicole, he said, “All right, let’s go.”
Nicole had met Obama previously and the president, Dag, and she shared a laugh about how she pretended to be Mrs. Maxwell. Obama wished Dag luck in making the playoffs. Nicole said she hoped she would get a chance to see him again on Martha’s Vineyard this summer. Obama thanked them for coming and turned his attention to Halle Berry.
Back at their seats Dag marveled at Nicole’s buoyancy as she described the encounter to their tablemates. The evening was far more convivial than he had anticipated. Nicole was older than he (how old was she, anyway?), but no less magnetic for it. Had she been single, he would have made it a point to take her out.
When the evening ended, they left the ballroom together. She grazed the area above his elbow with her shoulder and he felt a frisson. As they passed from the ballroom to the foyer, she sleepily murmured: “Would you like me to teach you to ride a horse?”
They had both consumed several glasses of wine so Dag wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. He glanced down and saw the diamond lights of the chandeliers flickering in her eyes. The expression on her face was enigmatic. Women hit on Dag with planetary regularity but this was an entirely singular experience. He waited for her to laugh or punch him in the arm. She did neither. Instead, Nicole’s lips curled into an enticing smile, equal parts innocence and lubricity. It acted in concert with the wine and made him more receptive to her proposition than he might have otherwise been. Dag called Trey and told him he would be playing an away game tonight and did not need a ride home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Jay flew from the guest house, Nicole slithered into the dress she had earlier peeled off. Then she sat down and waited for her husband to return. Although the sex with Dag had been a letdown—he was too drunk to produce an erection, and when one finally arrived he was done three seconds later (the wild bucking Jay witnessed was her attempt to remedy this)—she enjoyed his company, his tenderness, and his humor. But she had no illusions about pursuing any relationship with him. A little too much wine had led to rash behavior, and there was no doubt it would not happen again. She intended to express further contrition, ongoing contrition, endless contrition if need be, and dedicate herself to the salvation of their teetering marriage. As she waited, the feats of self-abnegation she imagined grew in intensity. Whatever prostrations Jay required, she would perform.
But as the minutes crept by with no sign of him her thoughts turned in another less charitable direction. Why had she gone to bed with Dag in the first place? It wasn’t because her marriage was going swimmingly. The last time she had seen Jay was when she stalked out of their bedroom the night before he left for Africa. Their fragile ceasefire had been negotiated over brief phone calls and emails, and had not been certified by physical proximity much less consummated with armistice sex. It didn’t exactly justify her behavior, but it was not as if Jay was blameless. Self-erasure was not her style. The longer Jay failed to return, the less inclined she was to throw herself at his mercy. Where were Jay and Dag? Had they patched things up and gone out for a drink? Unlikely, but why had her husband not reappeared? If he didn’t want to save the marriage, why should she?
With her heels dangling from two fingers over her shoulder, Nicole sashayed barefoot up the hill toward the house. How much time had passed since Jay ran off into the night? In the distance, she heard a siren wail. Probably some old duffer with a stroke, she thought. The wet grass was slippery beneath the soles of her feet. The certitude with which she held to the notion of non-surrender had already begun to abate, and she was back to the idea of begging. Her thoughts were thrown into further disarray by her inability to suppress the desire to have more sex with Dag (when he wasn’t drunk), although she understood that that was a foolish idea and tried to put it out of her mind.
Warily, she entered the house through the back door and called Jay’s name. When he did not respond, she went from the living room, to the den, to the library with its shelves of bound leather volumes, the media room, the dining room that had so recently seen the Gladstone Seder, then the kitchen she had designed to her exact specifications.
Nicole climbed the stairs, still calling, “Jay, Jaaaaaayyy—” She tried to keep the plaintive tone at bay, but it was difficult. The emptiness of the house was starting to feel creepy. She understood if he was not answering because he was angry. He had every right. She could only imagine her reaction if the situation had been reversed and she had walked in on him having sex with her friend Audrey Lindstrom. She would have been shattered. Thinking of lovely, lithe Audrey, whose husband doted on her, recalled Audrey’s pregnancy (Who cared about being lithe when you could be pregnant?), and her despondency deepened. It wasn’t as if Nicole had led a life devoid of mistakes, but she had not risen to her current position by making bad decisions. She was appalled by her behavior.
The bedroom was empty, and the master bath, and the other bedrooms, and Jay’s home office, walls lined with photographs of the two of them taken on holidays in Aspen, Nantucket, on the yacht they had chartered in the Greek islands. Where had he gone? She pulled
her phone from her purse and called him. It went directly to voice mail, and she left a simple message, asking him to call her. Then she texted:
I love you so much.
After she pressed send it occurred to her that perhaps that sentiment was insufficient, so she googled forgiveness. A moment later, she texted:
“Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.” William Shakespeare.
But that didn’t quite convey what she was feeling either and was more than a little self-serving. Back to Google. What she found was too long to text, so she furiously typed an email:
Jay, my love, Stephen Hawking wrote, “My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.” I am spiritually crippled, but if you’re willing to help me, I can heal.
As soon as she hit send, she knew that it was too mawkish, but under the circumstances, it seemed justified.
Nicole wanted to take a shower and scrub the evening off her skin, but when she shed her gown and stood in her sheer bra and panties, her first reaction was to throw on a pair of jeans and a blouse. In the event Jay returned, she didn’t want to be naked. After waiting another ten minutes, she checked her phone and saw that Jay had not responded to her attempts at communication. She packed an overnight bag, pulled her Range Rover out of the garage, tuned the radio to the country station, and drove into the city. She never listened to country music when Jay was in the car. Perhaps because it hinted too strongly at her Virginia roots, the rural aroma of pastures and stables. Nicole rode English style now, but that’s not the way she had learned. As a girl, she rode like a cowboy, high in the stirrups on a big western saddle.
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