The Second Season

by The Second Season (epub)

  “Ruth, don’t stress about this. What I can promise you, with absolute certainty, is that we’re bringing you back next season. Maybe not as an analyst, maybe on the sideline again. Bottom line is: nothing that happened tonight is going to threaten your role as a reporter. Got it?”

  Ruth hears a groan, as if Phillip has pulled a muscle in his neck or let a beverage slip from his hand. Ruth assumes Phillip is alone in his hotel room, ice cubes now melting into the woven Pendleton rug. The furniture draped in suit jackets and ties; the nightstand crowded with cups and the punctured aluminum packaging of allergy medication. His wife, ten years younger, has stopped joining him on the road since the birth of their twins. When it comes to marriages that feature wide, treacherous age gaps, Ruth tries but can’t withhold judgment. She no longer believes age is only a number denoting trips around the sun. Or that it was an accident of timing, Ruth being born thirteen rotations after Lester. What she does believe is that a man who spent his youth doting on his career—or, maybe, doting on nothing and no one—searches deliberately for a younger woman. Because if you’re a straight man, what difference is there between thirty and marrying thirty? A woman’s fertility, her time, her energy—it’s all yours for the taking.

  Ruth takes a breath. “I just want to reiterate . . . I’m committed to being a full-time analyst. I know it’s a huge step, but I’m ready for it.”

  Phillip says nothing. Ruth is sure her assertions have rankled him. She is supposed to be casual, not so desperate. She is supposed to chill out.

  “Ruth?” In the few seconds of silence Phillip has shed his authority and closed the space between them. His warmth proves he is on her side, and also the existence of an opposing side. Some forgone conclusion he has so far resisted. “All I can say is, if you don’t get the job? It won’t be because you don’t deserve it.”

  Ruth thanks him, as if he has told her something she doesn’t already know.

  The text says

  Room service? I’m in 708.

  Ruth slides her phone beneath the covers and doesn’t reply. She’s cozy. The whiskey has cut through the adrenaline that kept her heart slamming long after the buzzer. Instead of responding to Lester she sends Joel a heart emoji, which he won’t see until morning. She would like to text Ariana a whole screenful of hearts but refrains. There exists a precise volume of communication to which Ariana will respond willingly. One emoji too many yields crushing silence.

  Ruth tries to sleep. The Juniper Seattle is a historic building, close to the market with views of the Sound and (on sunny days, it is rumored) Mt. Rainer. The floors are the original polished oak, the beds made as smooth as a just-opened jar of peanut butter. But her room’s temperature is governed by a gaping vent above the window: at irregular intervals the vent roars to life, bellows hoarsely, and finishes with a demoralized sigh. No matter how many nights Ruth spends here, she always forgets the vent shortly after check-out, only to become reacquainted with it during her next stay as she tosses and turns, gets up to pee, lies in the dark scrolling, scrolling.

  She opens Ariana’s Instagram. This feels okay, at first. The photos are airbrushed, her daughter’s posture so stiff and unnatural that Ruth can almost dismiss the images as fiction. A fantasy. The pictures are someone’s interpretation of sex, sure—a bra strap sliding down a shoulder, a sweater riding up to reveal painted-on abdominal muscles—but to Ruth, who knows what her daughter looks like slumped in a passenger seat or inhaling a burrito, it all seems staged. Ruth’s primary emotion is secondhand embarrassment, same as when a younger Ari was obsessed with emulating the canned vocals and half-hearted gyrations of certain pop stars.

  Now Ruth is zooming in on a picture of Ariana kneeling in the foamy sheets of the Atlantic at low tide. Knees far apart. One hand dangling over a breadstick thigh, the other touching her own face. When was this taken? The photography looks professional, yet no one bothered to erase the bean-shaped birthmark from Ariana’s left hip.

  The birthmark was the first thing Ruth knew about her daughter.

  She sends the link to Roxanne Phalen, senior sportswriter and Ruth’s closest friend at the network. Somewhere in the hotel Roxanne reclines on a bed identical to Ruth’s, maybe cyber-stalking her own teenage daughters, all of them sweetly stout and at no risk of being scouted as they lounge poolside in tankinis, giggling beneath heavy bangs. Frequently Roxanne acts as a vessel for Ruth’s surplus of anxiety, always ready to cringe, clutch her diastasis recti, and moan in sympathy. That Roxanne can’t keep a secret does not matter in this context, Ariana having opted to bare all.

  Pretty girl

  Roxanne replies.

  Ruth

  I hate this.

  Roxanne

  Of course you do!! She looks THIN. Is she eating?!

  Ruth

  Like a horse when we’re together. I guess that’s her natural figure—Lester’s mom was always slender. It would kill me if she had an eating disorder.

  Roxanne

  I’m sure she doesn’t. If there’s one thing she got from you, it’s that CONFIDENCE. Is someone looking out for her during these shoots? Her agent?

  Ruth

  I don’t know.

  Roxanne

  Is she enjoying it?

  Ruth

  I don’t know.

  Roxanne

  Try to get some sleep, Mama.

  Ruth is no longer committed to sleep. She is rising from the bed and sliding her bare feet into Nikes. In room 708, Lester will have an Ambien for her. And maybe, if she’s transparent with him, information about her contract. But certainly the Ambien.

  She does not reply to his message—though there’s another one now:

  Where are you?

  Not replying is an unnecessary precaution; Joel doesn’t snoop through Ruth’s inbox. The guy is almost pathologically non-jealous. Granted, in describing her bygone marriage, Ruth tends to emphasize past conflicts and downplay her lingering affection for Lester. A divorcée’s prerogative. It has occurred to her that Joel might view her, or Les, as fundamentally depleted, lacking the spark to charge even late-night room service with sexual tension. But that can’t be right: Joel once informed Ruth that her fondness for hotel sex qualifies as a fetish. And no one imagines Lester Devon immune to the newest generation of sideline reporters, all of whom have correctly intuited that the uniform includes cleavage, never dabbling, as Ruth did, in androgynous business wear.

  Another possibility is that Joel underestimates the number of hours Ruth logs with her ex. Between pressers and greenrooms and airport lounges and hotel lobbies, Lester is Ruth’s most constant companion. She neither hides this reality from Joel nor paints him a picture. If he watched the games, or typed her name into a search bar, or pressed her for the details of her days, he would already know.

  Ruth leaves her phone charging on the nightstand and takes the whiskey. She steps into the brightness of the deserted hallway. Room 708 is seven floors down, directly beneath hers. The elevator doors slide open with an indiscreet ding.

  The elevator is not empty. Against the mirrored wall slumps Emory Turner, one enormous hand buried in his curls, the other cupped around his phone. Between the conference finals and media day, Emory went to the barber; Ruth has already noted the clean edges of his signature low fade. Distracted by his strength and his size—during his rookie season, Emory, still a teenager, grew a final two inches—journalists rarely observe that the man is classically beautiful. That his Black skin is baby-smooth, practically poreless, or that his smile evokes crisp suits and red carpets.

  Ruth exclaims his name with high-pitched girlish delight—her voice, in this moment, unaltered since high school. Annoyance creases Emory’s forehead as he moves to stall the elevator doors. “You going down?” he asks.

  Ruth is frozen. With confusion, because Emory Turner does not seem to recognize her. With self-conscio
usness, because if he does recognize her, she is wearing leggings and no makeup and carrying an open bottle of liquor by the neck. And with alarm, because Emory Turner should not be here. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two girls. To step foot inside the Juniper tonight is to cross enemy lines. It’s reckless; anyone could see him and snap a picture and set rumors aflame: Emory Turner is blackmailing Darius Lake into losing the finals on purpose. Emory Turner is having an affair with a Wildcats PR assistant. Emory Turner is taking clandestine meetings with Cincinnati’s front office in advance of his free agency.

  Emory’s features are strained with impatience. He repeats his question.

  Ruth has heard that women in their forties are invisible. A woman her age could kidnap a child, shoplift a Le Creuset dutch oven, or spit on a cop, and witnesses would disbelieve their own eyes. Ruth, being famous, being primped and pampered and televised, has neither enjoyed this phenomenon nor withered as a result of it. Maybe occasionally, pushing a shopping cart through the aisles of Target at 8:00 a.m. on a Wednesday, her yoga pants and ponytail the uniform of suburban motherhood, she has felt youthful eyes measuring her as they would an upcoming pothole in the road, registering not a woman but a certain amount of space to be avoided. More often, people see her and whisper—or stutter or scream—her name.

  Now she feels it, the invisibility. Emory Turner is looking through her. Ruth has had dinner with his wife. She has held his daughter and laughed when the infant rooted against the silk folds of her blouse. In locker rooms she has seen Emory in nothing but a towel held noncommittally around his waist. If she’s being honest, she has seen him without the towel too, though she always looks up, up toward the impossible height of his shoulders, his jaw. Because she is a professional. And a prude.

  The man who described Ruth Devon as the GOAT on national television is staring into the hallway, seeing only the inconvenience of an awestruck fan.

  “No,” Ruth says. “You go ahead.”

  Emory nods and steps back. Standing straight, his head nearly collides with the elevator’s ceiling. As the doors slide shut Ruth thinks she sees a change in his expression—a spark of recognition, a surge of regret. This could be wishful thinking.

  Ruth is tempted to tell Roxanne about the sighting. Roxanne has been working on a piece analyzing the effects of the season’s biggest trade deal, and she’s hungry for the kind of details that braid each player’s performance with his personal life. But without knowing what Turner was doing in the Wildcats’ hotel, the detail would be merely intriguing. And if Emory did, after all, recognize Ruth standing dumbly in the hall, he would know who outed him. What the players think of her concerns Ruth more than it does Roxanne. In part because Ruth interacts with them on television, in emotional moments when most men struggle to mask their true feelings. And in part because she wants them to like her the way she likes them.

  Ruth waits a moment before pressing the button, ensuring the elevator unloads its passenger before returning. By the time she hears the whir of the elevator’s ascent, she has changed her mind. The tips of her ears feel hot. She is suddenly, profoundly tired—and certain that Lester has nothing she needs.

  GAME TWO

  Seattle, Washington

  Wildcats – Supersonics

  1-0

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At the beginning of the second quarter Ruth becomes aware of the heat. At first she thinks she is imagining it. She often breaks a sweat on the sideline—stress, shapewear—and although this is the third in a string of unusually warm nights in Seattle, the temperature in the arena should be perfectly calibrated. But perspiration gleams on players’ chests, soaking their jerseys translucent. Fans fan themselves with bent programs, groans of discomfort rolling like thunder over the stands as people peel off their complimentary Space Needle–branded T-shirts.

  Phillip’s voice crackles through Ruth’s IFB: “I’m getting reports that the AC is down in the arena. Can you confirm?”

  Minutes ago the Wildcats were up five. Now they are down three. Darius Lake misses a jump shot and lands clutching his left calf. He’s hopping, mouthing something to Anthony Moore on the bench. Darius has been mic’ed for the game; whatever he said will soon make headlines.

  “There’s no air in here,” Ruth confirms. “What did Lake just say?”

  From the cool of the production truck, Phillip answers, “ ‘They’re trying to smoke us out of here.’ ”

  “I’m going to figure this out.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Phillip says. More than an order, it’s a vote of confidence.

  Ruth leaves her seat and speed-walks into the tunnel, smiling but ignoring the cries of her name, the phones stretched over the railing in solicitation of selfies. She intercepts Linda Zhang, Seattle’s VP of communications, who has already shed her blazer and rolled up her sleeves. Linda continues toward the court, avoiding Ruth as assiduously as Ruth avoided her own fans. “Any idea what’s up with the AC?” Ruth shouts as Zhang flees. “Not a good time,” Zhang calls over her shoulder. “If you give me a minute—”

  “Don’t have a minute,” Ruth says. She is already flagging down Charlie the security guard, a man with the dimensions of a refrigerator, whose mutton chops almost conceal his chubby cheeks. The two of them have often talked as Ruth waits to be let onto the court during shootaround. Charlie is a former marine who loves fly fishing, cars, and the NFL; Ruth is reasonably versed in all three. Mopping his brow with a napkin, Charlie agrees it’s hot. His keycard opens a series of metal doors as he escorts Ruth to a far-flung maintenance office. Through her earpiece Ruth can hear Lester talking about Darius Lake’s muscle cramps. Willie Glass is taking a free throw, and Lake is waiting on the other end of the court, fingers laced through the net, preserving energy.

  The door to the maintenance office is cracked open. As Charlie raps on the frame Ruth pushes through and introduces herself to the men inside. “Ruth Devon. Wondering if I could get an update on the AC blowout. What’s happening?”

  Two men look up from a shared desk buried in energy drink cans and clipboards. A roll of brown paper towels unravels toward the floor. One man takes his time adjusting to Ruth’s presence, overwhelmed by her efficient tone. But the younger of the two jumps to his feet, mouth ajar. “Oh my God. Shit. Hi.”

  Ruth waits. To balance out his reaction, he will now err on the side of overly casual. He’ll call her by her first name, ask her how she’s been.

  “Ruth. How—how’s it going?”

  “Great. Just wondering what’s up with the AC.”

  The kid’s boss, a white man with a sallow, asymmetrical face, leans back and strains the spine of his swivel chair. “Something’s fucked with the electrical system. Our guys are taking a look now. There’ll be an announcement when we sort things out.”

  Ruth lifts an eyebrow. Charlie the security guard has already deserted her, and she is the only woman in a room so dim and airless the vibe is more bunker than office. With one ear she’s listening to Lester explain that Darius Lake is asking to be taken out of the game. In moments of bewilderment Lester’s voice takes on a vulnerable, childlike quality. Ruth thinks of the text on her phone from three nights ago, which she never answered and which they have not discussed.

  Where are you?

  The message evokes one hundred voicemails left on cubic Nokia cell phones. To read it is to succumb to a wave of phantom panic: All these years on the road, has Lester been trapped at home with Ariana? Pouring too-hot bathwater over their daughter’s head and forgetting to brush her teeth? No. She owes Lester nothing—nothing, that is, except a read on the temperature in the arena.

  “You’re kidding,” she says. “It must be ninety degrees on the court. The players are in pain. Some communication from the building would be appreciated.”

  A sneer lifts one corner of the boss’s mustache. “Try to stay calm. You’ll have your answers by the time your art
icle’s due.”

  “I’m not writing an article.” Ruth speaks slowly now, her condescension masquerading as patience. “I’m reporting from the sideline of Game Two of the NBA finals. Which is happening now. In this arena. Right now.”

  “Dude,” hisses the kid. “She’s Ruth Devon.”

  “Well, I guess we better let Ruth Devon get back to the game.” The man says her name like it’s a bullshit alias. Jane Doe. What’s-her-face.

  Ruth looks to the kid, giving him a chance to counter-offer. Is his eyebrow ring uncomfortable? Ruth didn’t think to get her ears pierced until she was in her late twenties, when Lester inexplicably gave her a pair of gold hoops for her birthday.

  “I’m sorry,” the kid says, defeated.

  Ruth waves him off. She understands, intellectually, that maintenance staff are not required to invest their hearts in the NBA finals. Their job is the same whether the arena hosts a basketball game or a sold-out Beyoncé show. But on a personal level, the indifference offends her. Darius Lake is sitting out the last seven minutes of the second quarter; Cincinnati is down ten. A malfunctioning circuit breaker has the power to alter the course of the finals, and it is Ruth’s near-religious belief that anyone who does not care should be ejected from the building.

  As she emerges from the office into the hall, her body anticipates the relief of manufactured cold. There is none. The humidity fogs Ruth’s glasses. She leans against a cinder block wall and takes a breath. She needs to return to the court for her interview with Supersonics coach Andre Morris. She trusts him not to snap, not to sabotage a telecast with nine full seconds of dead air, but that doesn’t mean she knows what to expect. His team is up, sure, but he’s also sweating through a ten-thousand-dollar suit. She has seen coaches unravel over less.

  Ruth is from Virginia, grew up in a two-bedroom prefab without central air. On July nights she would return from the park, leave her cut-offs and Swatch watch and frankie says relax T-shirt in a heap on the bathroom floor, and stand beneath the coldest spray the shower could produce until her mother invoked the water bill. She is intimately familiar with the heat. Over the past three days in Seattle, as the temperature rose and news anchors reveled in record-breaking highs, Ruth barely registered the weather. En route from the hotel lobby to the cab, the cab to the arena, the arena to the production truck, she felt the warm air embrace her like an old friend.