The Second Season

by The Second Season (epub)

  “You want my job,” he says.

  Lester closes his eyes, savoring the pleasure of stunning her. Maybe it’s all each of them has ever wanted—to leave the other speechless.

  “I didn’t know you knew,” she says.

  “I guessed.”

  “I see.” Except he never guesses.

  “And Phillip told me in Seattle.”

  “Bastard.” And it does sting, the betrayal. Were they laughing at her? Praising her? Wagering on her? Ruth can’t imagine a scenario that isn’t patronizing.

  “You can’t ask to take leave your first year in the booth. They’ll say congratulations and offer you a photocopy of your old contract. They’ll pick someone else to call those games.”

  Ruth folds in half, stretching her spine as she reaches for the toes of her sneakers. If she stays pregnant, this pose will prove impossible in a few months. Staying pregnant would be the most passive approach to her problem. All she has to do is nothing, and her body will build a human being from scratch.

  Lester kneels. When Ruth lifts her head, they are eye-to-eye. “Look,” he says. “I don’t want to tell you what to do. I’ve tried that before and it didn’t go so well for me.”

  The janitors have dragged their last trash bags through the nosebleeds and onto the concourse, letting metal doors clang behind them in erratic succession. Ruth expects darkness to obliterate them before Lester can finish saying what he’s saying. But the lights stay on, because Lester put in a call. Ruth will always listen, because he will always have put in a call.

  “The network asked me to weigh in,” he says.

  Ruth looks at him. Hope assures her that Lester Devon gets what he wants—if he wants Ruth in the booth, then into the booth she goes. Despair pulls up the tape of Lester running his mouth on air, free-associating as some kind of self-guided talk therapy. Despair uploads the footage to YouTube and types the caption: lester devon reveals ex-wife’s pregnancy to america.

  “What did you tell them?” Ruth asks, bracing herself.

  Lester puts a hand on her knee. “I told them it should be you. I told them to give every last one of my games to Ruth Devon. Next year, if it’s anyone but you and Jay calling the finals, I swear to God I will change the channel. I will get a Twitter and I’ll tell all the other twits to change the channel too. You’ve worked harder than anyone else. You know more about the players than their own mothers. You’re generous and you’re open-minded, and, Ruth, it pains me to say this, but I’m saying it: you have forgotten more about the game of basketball than I will ever know.”

  This is the same man who, upon accepting the seat he is now vacating, told Ruth she was not a good analyst. Too buttoned-up, censored, and cold. Ruth doesn’t believe in transformations. Growth, sure. Skills development, absolutely. But within the last week alone, Lester has been both the man on the conference call arguing for Ruth’s promotion and the media personality improvising a near-death to her name.

  He puts a second hand on her second knee. She appreciates the closeness of him, the physicality of him. She would like to take those hands in hers. Heat would seep from her belly to her pelvis and she would feel that first-love certainty of her body requiring his. She doesn’t deny this longing or think much of it; her lust coexists with a disinterest in the inner-workings of Lester’s mind. If she’s honest, she doesn’t want to know, doesn’t care, how he feels about her pregnancy.

  She can’t afford not to care about his influence at the network.

  “I appreciate that,” Ruth says. “And I don’t have any concrete answers for you right now. What I will say is that, if they make me an offer? I can’t really imagine turning it down.”

  Lester rearranges his eyebrows, still wanting something. A sports fan who loathes suspense. “Can I ask you one more question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Does Fernandez want a baby?”

  Without pausing for breath, Ruth says, “Joel wants to marry me.”

  It’s not an answer to Lester’s question but—for her own sake as much as to torture him—Ruth pretends it is. Too late she realizes the admission is not in her best interest; indulging Lester’s belief that her career is something he can snap into a velvet box and present to her with a shit-eating grin is, easily, her best shot at getting the job. She ought to avoid complicating the picture in his mind. She ought to throw herself at the man’s customized Adidas as if he were her only hope at happiness.

  It is satisfying, though. The way Lester is shocked into honesty, his features in defenseless disarray as he says, “I never pictured you getting married again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In Ariana’s most recent Instagram picture, she fixes the camera with a look Ruth is certain no one has ever given a human being with whom they wanted to have sex. It’s a look of disdain, or of starvation. A drugged stupor that nonetheless reads as sex. When she first sees it, Ruth is in awe of Ariana’s coordination. To maintain control over the arch of her eyebrows, the pout of her lips, the angle of her shoulders, the jut of one hip, the contour of an ass check, the flex of her thighs, and the point of her toes—all while frozen in the act of removing the lower half of her bathing suit—must have taken rigorous concentration. But the longer Ruth stares at the picture, the more she hates it. The young woman on the screen is not Ruth’s daughter. The young woman is a simulacrum of sex, a product, a fantasy.

  A fantasy for whom Ruth is wholly responsible.

  She shoves her phone beneath her pillow. If she were still in Seattle, the view from the Juniper would soothe and distract her. But Cincinnati is a ghost town at this hour; even the fast food restaurants have extinguished their extraterrestrial glows. The room itself is generic, the art on the walls abstractly innocuous. Ruth should log into Second Spectrum and watch highlights of the game. She should google “pregnancy vs perimenopause.” She should sleep.

  It’s tempting to imagine her second child as a photo negative of her first: This new kid can’t hold still until he has thrown a ball across the yard a hundred times. He sniffles softly when upset, never resorting to physical violence, never smacking himself in the face or biting Ruth hard on the shoulder. Pride creeps into his voice when he informs his friends that his mom is Ruth Devon—yes, that Ruth Devon. But the fantasy requires Ruth to negate all of Ariana’s traits—therefore her son answers the phone in an unenthused monotone. He keeps his distance from Ruth, preferring to watch the game on the opposite end of the couch. Rarely does he crack a joke. Never does he laugh at himself. Worst of all, he is rude to his grandmother.

  The question in the back of Ruth’s mind has been “Could I be a good mom?” It’s the wrong question. The correct question is “Am I a good mom?” and the answer, potentially, is no. Because she has not spoken to her daughter since Game Two. Has hardly thought of her since the air conditioner blowout.

  Two seasons ago, Ruth was working the conference-semis at the Staples Center. Sonics versus Clippers, Game Six. Twenty minutes to tip-off and the floor was crowded with bodies and basketballs and cameras trailing their cords. Ruth was in a pantsuit, perched on the edge of the media table and talking to an engineer about his new baby at home, his third son. She was wearing her IFB, awaiting any last-minute instructions from Phillip, and she was mentally rehearsing her opener—an update on a big’s strained hamstring resulting in changes to the Clippers’ starting lineup. Her pocket buzzed. Ariana’s name and selfie flashed on the screen. Ruth didn’t have time, technically, but one way she tried to make up for her long-distance mothering was by always—as long as the clock was not running—picking up her daughter’s calls.

  “Hi, sweetie. Game’s about to start. Everything okay?”

  Ariana’s choked sobs took Ruth back to those mornings in the driveway, taxi cab idling. Ruth ducked her head and let her surroundings fade. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Two more sobs before Ariana mana
ged to gasp, “Noah. Broke. Up. With me.”

  Emory Turner jogged by, chasing an errant ball. At the free-throw line, Darius caught Ruth’s eye and waved. The players were still in their warm-ups, dark green splashed with pink to raise breast cancer awareness. The sound system was blasting Anderson .Paak.

  Noah was a gangly kid who wore three-hundred-dollar hoodies but appeared to cut his own hair with a steak knife. He and Ariana had started going out in January. He’d bought her gifts for each of their monthiverseries: A stuffed elephant. A necklace. Another stuffed elephant. On Ariana’s nightstand lived an empty bottle of Orangina, which their housekeeper kept trying to throw out and which Ariana had repeatedly, tearfully fished from the trash for reasons Ruth supposed she could surmise. In a modern world devoid of matchbooks and ticket stubs, the remains of a beverage, the glass rim of which the kid’s lips had touched, was a keepsake. She got it. She wasn’t clueless.

  Ariana’s sobs sounded like glass breaking. A canyon of regret split open in Ruth’s chest. Her eyes burned and her own chin wobbled, and Phillip, lodged inside her other ear, said, “Christ, they changed the lineup again.”

  Ruth hit the talk-back button. “You have to be kidding me.” No time to rehearse a new segment, she would have to improvise. She needed the details, stat.

  “Oh, fuck.” Because she was still talking into her cell phone.

  Ruth had thirty seconds. Basketball had warped her sense of time. Could she apologize and console her brokenhearted daughter in thirty seconds?

  She released the button on her mic and said, “Not you, Ari. Not you. I was talking to my boss. I know you really cared about Noah. Your first breakup, it’s the hardest one. I remember how that feels—like the best thing that’s ever happened to you is gone. Forever. But I promise it won’t always hurt this bad. You’ll feel better before you know it.”

  Ariana’s silence communicated that Ruth’s efforts were inadequate. Often, Ruth’s tolerance for her own maternal inadequacy was high. Not tonight. Over the phone Ariana’s grief was raw, uncultivated. And she was sixteen. For how much longer would Ruth be the first person Ari thought to call?

  Ruth’s heart raced as she delivered the promise. “I’m coming home tonight, okay? I’ll get a red-eye. I’ll be there when you wake up.”

  Not happening. Career suicide—and yet she was relieved. Knowing she was soon to do right by Ariana would enable Ruth to focus on this game.

  “Okay,” said Ari. Not with a rush of gratitude, but with a whimper.

  Ruth spent the game praying for a closeout—but the Clippers dominated on their home court, necessitating a Game Seven in Seattle the night after next. A game Ruth was contractually bound to work, but for which she would be in Washington DC, having already used her phone to book a midnight flight out of LAX. She would finish her post-game interviews and skip the press conference. She would pull Phillip aside at the first possible moment and tell him something had come up. A family emergency. He would understand, he would have to, because he was a new dad. A human being. And he adored Ruth Devon as much as anyone.

  “Absolutely not,” Phillip said, chopsticks frozen beneath his chin, noodles dangling. Ruth had found him in the greenroom scarfing down a late dinner. She was still dressed for work but had her backpack slung over one shoulder, an accessory that made her feel like a kid appealing to an authority figure. “It’s Game Seven. It’s the conference-semis. You out of your mind, RD?”

  “My kid needs me,” Ruth said, deliberately leaving the details opaque, willing Phillip to imagine an expulsion from school or a cold hospital room. Anything but Noah’s simpering suburban smirk.

  “I need you. Fans need you. The players need you. Jay and Lester need you.”

  Would Phillip prefer she send Lester home in her stead? Ruth was tempted to ask.

  Instead she said, “I can think of a dozen women at this network who would be thrilled to take my place Monday night. A dozen women who have earned that chance. Give the game to Dominique, okay? That’s my recommendation. I’m going home tonight. I’ll be back for the conference finals. You have my word.”

  Ruth’s plane touched down at Dulles at seven-thirty. By nine she was pushing through her own front door, bracing herself for the full-bodied affection of her mother’s golden retriever. She found Cheryl sitting cross-legged on the living room couch, surrounded by pages of the newspaper, reading glasses pushed high on her head. She looked for all the world like she lived there—which, Ruth reminded herself, she did.

  “Ariana told me you were coming home, but I didn’t believe it.”

  Ruth steadied herself with a breath, unwilling to snap at her mother and crack open their never-ending argument. No matter what Ruth said, Cheryl would always be right.

  “Where is she?” Ruth asked.

  “Still sleeping,” Cheryl answered.

  Upstairs, Ariana’s room was a den of sorrow: an abandoned bowl of ice cream melting on the nightstand; the contents of several tissue boxes crumpled and strewn across the floor; curtains drawn tight against the May morning. Ruth climbed into Ari’s bed projecting confidence but unsure how close she was allowed to get. How close Ariana would want her. Ruth remembered the minutes after Ari was born, when a nurse had finally relinquished the tightly-swaddled infant and Ruth went to peel the pink hat from her daughter’s head to see if she had hair. “Don’t do that!” admonished the nurse, reaching out as if to slap Ruth’s hand.

  Ruth’s hackles went up. She pressed Ariana to her chest. “My baby,” she had said, or perhaps hissed. “Not yours.”

  “My baby,” Ruth whispered.

  Ariana rolled to face Ruth. Her face was pale, patchy with inflammation. Ariana looked at her mother, sniffled, and in the endearing/infuriating tone of a toddler pushing boundaries asked, “Can we go to the beach?”

  It was a Sunday morning. Ariana had school the next day. Getting in the car and checking into a rented room was the last thing Ruth wanted to do with her stolen time. She said yes. Incapable of saying no, she booked two nights in an Ocean City spa hotel. She imagined jogging on the beach and sweating in the steam room and ordering room service, all while Ariana filled her in on the details of her first, fleeting romance. Had the teenagers fessed up to loving each other? Laughed at inside-jokes? Fought often? Gotten detention for kissing in the hall? Had Ariana lost her virginity to this skinny, Dead Poet Society–looking boy? (Please, no.) Ruth hadn’t liked Noah, but now that he was out of the picture she was prepared to mourn him. To accept and acknowledge his place in the narrative of Ariana’s nascent love life.

  The fantasy was optimistic. Turned out, Ariana did not go to the sea to wallow but to forget. With Ruth she was warm and chatty and generous, asking about her mother’s weeks on the road, her father’s most recent viral misstep (referring on-air to a particular point guard’s tendency to flop as “woman-like”), and whether a rookie on the Phoenix Suns was really dating a former contestant on The Bachelor. Ruth both enjoyed and did not enjoy these conversations. It was heaven to sit beside her daughter on the hotel bed, tangling her fingers in the ends of Ariana’s hair while the TV murmured and the ocean roared and the forgiving lamplight rendered the whole scene prematurely nostalgic, already gone. But she also wanted to open her laptop and compare her latest set of notes to the numbers on Second Spectrum, the recaps in The Athletic, the bottomless speculation on Twitter. She wanted to close her eyes and strategize. How mad would Phillip be when she returned to the West Coast? How best could she assuage his anger?

  By Monday Ruth had stoked herself into a panic. She had texted Phillip twice to apologize. Twice he had ignored her. Ariana made Ruth promise not to watch the game, and though Ruth secretly resented the request, she knew watching the game would effectively transport her to the arena in Seattle; daughter forgotten, Ruth might as well get back on the plane. Instead, late that night, she followed Ariana to the hotel’s indoor pool, where they
climbed into a hot tub with an ocean view. Ariana reclined with her neck against the slick turquoise tiles, her eyes hidden behind two circles of cucumber.

  “Will you take a picture?” Ari asked through her teeth. She had mastered the model’s ventriloquism, even then.

  “I left my phone in the room,” Ruth said. She was dying to check the score.

  “Mine’s in my robe.”

  Fully indentured, Ruth heaved herself from the water and dripped over to the lounge chairs on which they’d abandoned their things. The screen fogged over as Ruth took the picture. And retook the picture. In between takes, Ariana plucked the vegetable from her eyes and, with a damp finger, swiped through the images until she felt Ruth had gotten the angle right. When Ari opened the app, Ruth saw her follower count and gasped. The number had doubled since she’d last checked.

  “Jesus. When did that happen?”

  Ariana’s smile was bashful. “A few weeks ago. This girl reposted some of my content, and it kind of took off.”

  “This girl?”

  “Like an influencer.”

  Ruth watched as Ariana posted the picture and proceeded to refresh the app repeatedly, her lips twitching toward small smiles as the evidence of her popularity filled the screen. In two years Ariana would sign with her agency, but for now Ruth still considered her daughter’s modeling a bad habit, one the demands of college would vanquish.

  At the thought of college, Ruth’s stomach sank. Ariana should have been in school today. Didn’t she have homework? How were her grades? When were parent-teacher conferences? Why was Ruth so bad at this? Women often described motherhood as a full-time job. For Ruth, it wasn’t even a hobby.

  “Put down the phone for a second,” Ruth said.

  Ariana placed the phone at a safe distance from the water. She turned to her mother with an exaggerated smile.

  “All those people looking at you, commenting on your appearance, does it ever make you feel . . . I don’t know, overexposed?” Ruth asked.