The Second Season

by The Second Season (epub)

  Anna Nunez, head trainer for the Sonics, steps out of the X-ray room into the hall. She’s stocky in her knee-length basketball shorts, defensive in her posture. She pauses long enough to narrow her eyes at Ruth, ignoring the other reporters entirely. “You’re not getting a quote,” she says. Ruth smiles and nods and, through the door Anna left ajar, spots Robbie Green, president of basketball ops. Ruth knows Robbie. She calls him when she needs a message passed to a Sonic—an apology or a clarification or a promise. When speed dial was a thing, she had his number on it.

  Now he’s standing against the wall opposite the X-ray machines, checking his phone. Ruth averts her gaze and silently counts to three. When she looks up again, she locks eyes with Robbie as if by chance. She enlarges hers, a solemn plea. As Robbie approaches he slides a finger down either side of his mouth, stroking the borders of his goatee. Gripping the doorframe, he leans close to Ruth.

  “Open fracture, both bones,” he whispers. “Turner’s having surgery tonight. He’ll need a rod inserted. No official prognosis yet, but this is it for him.”

  Ruth shakes Robbie’s hand. Trusting Alison and Roxanne to take care of themselves, she runs back to the court, heels clacking on the concrete floor. She’s horrified by the injury and devastated for Emory—she’ll spend the remainder of the game bracing herself for another fall, the way a driver convinces herself a second car crash will follow the first—and yet there’s a thrill in breaking the news. There always is. As she nears the court, she tells Phillip she’s ready with an update.

  “How much time do you need?” he asks.

  “A minute.”

  Sixty seconds is long, much longer than a sideline reporter would typically speak midquarter, but Phillip doesn’t argue.

  “You want a camera on you?”

  “Your call,” Ruth says.

  “Meet Julian in the tunnel.”

  She finds Julian at the base of the stands, cyclopsed by his hulking camera. A low railing separates Ruth from section 103. Someone sees her, and Ruth’s name ripples through the rows, first as a murmur and then as a scream. A woman reaches through the metal rungs to tap her shoulder; someone else strokes the blond ends of her hair. It gets to her, the sheer quantity of people who see and touch her on a given night. Hands on her back, arms wrapped around her shoulders, lips brushing against her cheeks. Sometimes she feels the endless touching will erode her exterior, leaving her smooth and defenseless.

  What Ruth misses most about marriage is knowing exactly where and with whom she belonged. Back then, days ended with her kneeled beside the bathtub, feet going numb against the floor tiles as she massaged tear-free shampoo into Ariana’s scalp. Often Ruth could not believe how tired she was, how easily she could have rested her head against the enamel edge of the tub and fallen asleep. The amount of work that remained—the pajama wrestling match, the power struggle of story time, Ariana’s repeated screams for water interrupting Ruth while she tried to load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters and pick up the toys and call—call who? Call someone—was staggering. Still, there was no doubt she was where she needed to be, doing what needed to be done. When she was finished she would fold up her body and tuck it against Lester’s. For a minute or two, they would not speak of the child, relishing the chance to forget she existed. Then one of them would remember something cute Ariana had said that day. They would laugh. Finally they would watch the game. Because there was always a game. Even during the off-season they watched baseball or the US Open, craving hotdogs and childhood and, by the seventh inning or third set, each other.

  Without flinching, Ruth faces the red light, calm and resolute.

  Julian cues her.

  “I’ve just spoken with a Sonics staff member and can report that Emory Turner has suffered an open tibia-fibula fracture, meaning he has broken both bones in his lower leg. He’ll need immediate surgery, and while it’s impossible to say when he’ll return to the court, this type of fracture takes a long time to heal. It’s clear that tonight was Emory’s last of the postseason—and what a year it’s been for this astoundingly talented young man. Averaging twenty-six points per regular season game, thirty-two in the playoffs, Turner is unstoppable on the offensive end of the court; defensively, he’s still the most impactful player on the team. Mentally we’ve seen him struggle in this series. Like many of us he was blindsided by Cincinnati’s offense peaking at the right time, and certainly he did not expect to be competing against his former teammate and closest friend in the league, Darius Lake. But I have sat down with Emory prior to every game, have watched him cultivate both the mental toughness and humility needed to push through. This is not how any of us wanted Emory Turner’s season to end—it’s a devastating, shocking injury to happen during the NBA finals—but he has a lot to be proud of and we are all rooting for his full recovery.”

  A subtle intake of air. On the exhale: “Lester.”

  Her ex-husband takes over the broadcast. Ruth’s arm drops to her side. She suppresses an impulse to verify that her numbers were correct; she knows they were.

  Sometimes the team who has lost a player to injury is invigorated by the shock. Powered by adrenaline or determined to honor the wounded, they rally and win. Ruth has seen it happen a hundred times.

  Tonight it does not happen. Kasey Powell—who, in the seconds after Emory’s fall, beheld his teammate’s exposed bone and vomited into a towel—misses every shot he takes. The Wildcats play with a rote but skilled efficiency, and in the final twelve seconds it’s Darius who’s tasked with running down the clock. In tomorrow’s papers his expression will be described as inscrutable and emotionless and blank.

  No one will claim it was otherwise.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ruth showers. She rinses the arena’s filth from her skin, the layers of makeup from her face. Her younger self would scorn the makeup. To that well-rested, judgmental version of herself Ruth would never confess the Botox she paid a doctor to inject into her forehead a week before the playoffs. She told Joel. He laughed at her for the twenty-four hours during which she could not raise her eyebrows, no matter how surprised, sympathetic, or skeptical she became. He promised not to tell Ariana, though Ariana had taken one look at her mother over FaceTime and known. Of course she had. Ruth is worried now that whatever they shot into her face lingers in her system and is hurting the baby.

  Shit. The baby.

  Stepping out of the shower, Ruth retrieves her underwear from the floor, sniffs and pokes at the crotch. The material is black, impervious to stains. She runs the underwear under the faucet. The water passing through the cotton is clear. No blood then. No miscarriage.

  A doctor would declare her six weeks along, meaning it happened a month ago. Round one of the playoffs. After Cincinnati’s Game Four win against the Nets (a sweep, though Brooklyn put up a good fight) Joel appeared in Ruth’s hotel room. The trip was part business; he was interested in opening a Juniper in Clinton Hill, but they made time. Her IUD had been out for months, their condom use sporadic and dependent on Ruth’s mental calculations. The math had suggested risk, but Ruth hadn’t felt fertile. It hadn’t been like Ariana’s conception (location: her in-laws’ guest room) when guiding Lester into her body had been as easy as folding her own hands, crossing her own legs. But after a game that went into double overtime Ruth was exhausted, dehydrated. Still hearing buzzers in her head. Maybe she hadn’t noticed her body’s slick, spongy hospitality.

  Wrapped in a towel, perched on the edge of the California king size bed, Ruth calls Joel. He answers on the first ring. Ruth is quiet, listening to the faint, regulatory buzz of her hotel room. Water drips from her hair and slips down her clavicle. She’s waiting to hear how much he knows. Available to him, to anyone who cares, is the footage of Emory Turner’s bone snapping; the authority with which Ruth silenced the dissenting fans, the drunkest of whom were later escorted from the arena by security. If he’s seen it
, and if he understands her at all, Joel will refrain from bringing up the article he sent her.

  She has pushed it from her mind, but the fact remains: She promised Joel she wouldn’t go after Lester’s job. The weekend before Ruth left home for Game One, she and Ariana and Joel were making lasagna in the kitchen while a sports news program murmured in the other room. With their fists full of grated cheese, Ruth and Ari both froze when they heard the anchor say “Lester Devon” and “final season in the booth.”

  “Did you know?” Ruth asked Ariana.

  “No, I swear.”

  “Was he planning on telling us?” Ruth was stunned, her mouth incapable of closing.

  Ariana shrugged.

  “This is huge. People are going to fight tooth and nail for that job!”

  Ariana smirked at her. “Oh. You want his games.”

  “No,” Joel protested, clutching a bowl of spinach. “You’re not serious.”

  Ruth gave him a look, meaning let’s talk about this later, but he kept on discouraging her, bemoaning their shortage of hours together. He tried to recruit Ariana for his team, cajoling her, “Don’t you want your mom home more often? So you guys can eat dinner together and watch British Bake Off and do those creepy face masks?” (Ariana, familiar with the inflexibility of her mother’s aspirations, only raised her hands in surrender.) Ruth lied to Joel then because the lie pleased him and would be inconsequential once she was officially passed over for the job. The lie was also a bargain with the universe: turning the job into a double-edged sword felt like the surest way to get it.

  In general, Joel has an appetite for leisure that runs counter to Ruth’s need to stay in motion. He dreams of an early retirement. He delegates his responsibilities whenever possible, takes vacation often. On a trip to Hawaii, Ruth returned from an early morning run to find Joel sprawled in the sand outside their hotel, deeply asleep and wrapped in the snow-white comforter from their room. Ruth stood over him in awe: Joel had truly disconnected. From his emails, from his to-do list, from the rules governing even his own industry. (Who has ever dared to take the linens from the room?) Ruth suspects she should envy his capacity for relaxation—but she doesn’t.

  Now, listening to Joel breathe into the phone, a desperate anger expands in Ruth’s throat. Her jaw aches. Why does she feel, in this moment, as if history is repeating itself? Joel’s stubborn silence seems to demand an apology she vowed years ago to stop making.

  “Why would you send me that link?” Ruth asks finally, her voice catching on the suggestion of a sob.

  Taken aback, Joel is contrite. “I’m sorry, babe. I wasn’t trying to upset you. I was just confused.”

  “About Bell replacing Lester in the booth?”

  “No. About the possibility of you replacing Lester in the booth. I thought we agreed that was off the table. But apparently it’s a long-anticipated outcome for fans of Ruth Devon?”

  Ruth says nothing.

  “As your number one fan, I guess I’m just wondering, what the heck?”

  “I’m not going to get the job,” she says. “Not with Bell in the running.”

  “But you’re up for it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you hide that from me?”

  Because you asked me to, she wants to say. “It’s not an easy thing to navigate, this resentment you have for my job.”

  “I resent your absence.”

  “You travel pretty frequently yourself.”

  “Chasing you around half the time, sure. Nowhere near as frequently as you do. I actually unpack my suitcase. It has a spot on the top shelf of my closet. It’s shoved up there with an old record player and a tennis racket I’ve never used. It’s kind of awkward to grab—the racket always comes tumbling down with it. Where do you put your suitcase when you’re not using it?”

  Ruth’s eyes close. In the middle of her bedroom floor is the answer.

  Joel takes a breath. “It’s not really a relationship, what we have. I want to marry you, but if you get that offer, what does that even look like?” His tone softens as he edges closer to confrontation.

  “A lot like what we’re doing now, I guess.”

  “Hotel room sex? Falling asleep with our phones pressed to our ears?”

  “Yes,” Ruth says.

  “I want more than that.”

  What he wants is to marry a girl in a white dress. To send out a holiday card. He has never done these things before. Ruth supposes it would be possible to date a man six years younger than herself without feeling each of those years. But if anything, Joel has always struck her as weirdly youthful. His innocence affords him a commitment to the present moment: any meal, any film, any night (any woman?) might be the best of his life. To their relationship he brings an open-hearted enthusiasm that charms her, even as his faith that his life will grant him what he wants exhausts her. For Joel, the world still shines with a smooth layer of polish. Ruth worries she will be the one to scrub it off.

  “I understand,” she says. “I do too.”

  “You do?”

  Because there are so many things she wants in addition to her work—even as she suspects she would die for her work—she says, “Of course.”

  Joel exhales conclusively, though no conclusion has been reached. “I’m sorry about the text. Bad timing. I wasn’t thinking. How was your night?”

  “Intense,” Ruth says. “Awful, actually. Emory Turner broke his leg. He’ll miss next season.”

  “Ouch. Occupational hazard, I guess.”

  Talking to Joel about basketball is never satisfying. She ought to avoid it.

  “Speaking of injuries,” Joel says, and he launches into a story. This morning, Joel and his sister took Mira to the Point Reyes lighthouse. Mira spent most of the hike in an elaborate toddler chariot hitched to Joel’s back. Toward the end, she wanted to get down and walk the concrete steps descending to the lighthouse, to the rocky tip of the cape.

  “She’s getting pretty good at stairs, and Steph was holding her hand so we thought she’d be fine. But halfway there Mira got overly confident and shouted, ‘I go down alone !’ She yanked free of Steph’s hand and immediately went tumbling, head over heels, down at least ten, maybe fifteen stairs. I’m telling you, it was terrifying.”

  Mira lay silent on the cement steps, chubby limbs akimbo, eyes squeezed tight against the brightness of the clouds. Joel rushed to her side, but his sister got there first. With fearful efficiency, Steph scooped the baby into her arms and gasped, “Are you okay?”

  Mira exploded with laughter. “Are you okay?” she echoed, gleefully mocking her mother’s panic. “Are you okay ?”

  For Ruth, this is the perfect bedtime story. Better than scrolling Twitter, as effective as Ambien; having slid beneath the covers, Ruth feels her consciousness burrowing toward sleep.

  True, Joel hates basketball. True, when they go out for drinks he makes her sit with her back to the mounted TV, lest he lose her to the game. His disinterest stings, but it also protects her. Joel’s affection is a respite from the noise of her industry, from the relentlessness of her own wanting. She could survive these nights without the lullaby of his voice. She could live without the furlough of their romance—but she would rather not.

  He doesn’t want to sacrifice sleep, Ruth reminds herself. Or to wrestle with winter coats and stroller straps and car seat buckles. He’s a thirty-six-year-old man with no interest in rebuilding himself, training patience and invulnerability to nerve-fraying screams, swift sneaker kicks to the teeth. For the first sixteen months, Ruth was there, she remembers: you cultivate a mental dial tone. You coach yourself through a long game. You smell the just-soaped skin between your daughter’s ear and the nape of her neck. You rest your head on hers as Max abandons the wild things and returns home to find his supper still hot, though years have passed.

  Ruth says, “I’
m glad Mira wasn’t hurt.”

  “She’s resilient,” Joel says.

  It’s a cliché but also a revelation: kids are mostly okay, whether you catch them or don’t. Whether you unpack your suitcase or leave on the next flight. And in this moment, the six years between Ruth and Joel are everything; she understands him better than he understands himself.

  He won’t mind all the buckles. Sleep deprivation will bring out his worst—but his worst won’t be that bad, and after a midmorning nap and a pot of strong coffee he and his wife will laugh off their hokey, late-night hatred of each other.

  Joel does want children. He doesn’t want them with Ruth.

  GAME FIVE

  Seattle, Washington

  Wildcats – Supersonics

  3-1

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It’s not the first time Ruth has seen a benchwarmer come alive in the finals. It is the first time she’s witnessed Supersonic Peter Cheng make plays in transition. Or pull up above the break for a three. Certainly she’s never seen him get to the rim, evading all seven feet of Anthony Moore with a lefty finger-roll. Did he just smack the floor on defense? Was that a one-legged fadeaway?

  Ruth hits the talk-back button and demands of the production truck, “What is happening?” Phillip replies: “Girl, we are hashtag blessed.”

  A minute remains in the first quarter, and Cheng—a twenty-four-year-old kid two years out of Purdue—has dropped eleven points. In Ruth’s ear Lester is shouting, “Did Peter Cheng just lock up Darius Lake?” while Jay repeats, “Wow wow wow,” like a child’s toy malfunctioning. Ruth is scribbling notes without taking her eyes off Cheng, whose slight frame hasn’t prevented him from going scorched earth on the Wildcats tonight. A sweatband pushes his hair into mischievous spikes. A Band-Aid flaps from his chin. His tongue, which he sticks out after every shot, is an amphibious Powerade blue.

  When Emory Turner went down in Game Four, a Game Five closeout was, in Ruth’s mind, guaranteed. The Sonics can’t win without Turner, not even on their home court. She forgot to account for this phenomenon: the overlooked bench player with nothing to lose unleashing the talent that got him a contract in the first place. But here it is, plunging both teams into the white-hot confusion of a fever dream. Can you even buy a Cheng jersey in the team store? Ruth doesn’t know. A man seated behind the scorer’s table has, on the reverse side of a homemade poster wishing Emory Turner well, scrawled be the cheng.