by Kate Manning
I said nothing.
“The point is, Charlotte, is he really interested in you?”
To me it seemed he was. Also I didn’t care. I am interested in him, I thought. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just like him. I don’t even notice the black-white part. I don’t want to think about it.”
“But,” she said, “you’re going to have to think about it, if you keep it up.”
The nerve of her. It’s not her business, I thought. But Glenda was right; she saw it was on my mind: why Milo liked me, why I felt so disorganized by him. I saw the looks people shot at us when we were out around town. Every color looked. Or was it that I was looking now myself?
The truth is: I liked what people saw, me with a black man, a famous man. I saw him with my old magpie eyes. Milo was a prize. I stood out next to him, a pearl on velvet. Not that I’m proud of it now, but I thought that way then. I thought, no, knew, that for me to be smitten by a black man was automatically illicit, a bad-girl thing to do. Nobody ever told me this, but I knew. My parents—they would not take well to Milo, despite their teaching that we are all God’s children.
“He’s that black one,” my mother said, when I mentioned who I was dating. No questions, nothing to say after that. Well, fine. It’s true I was glad to shock them.
But it’s also true that my heart leapt up. Every time. I was glad to see Milo, his smiling face finding me across a room, sliding his eyes across the table, beaming from the window of the waiting car. I liked his company, his jokes. I have a chair that needs upholstering. He made me laugh. Still, every day was a mined meadow of motives and feelings, wondering how to sort out the rights and wrongs of my interest in a man.
It was wrong to see color. But I saw it anyway. On my way to go out with Milo that summer I saw people sleeping in doorways and checked for some of their skin showing from under a blanket. More often than white, the skin would be brown skin. I saw harrowing sights that were apparently quite ordinary. Children begging! Ulcerated sores on legs! Occasional pools of blood! Women holding out cups, or their brown hands, shaped like cups. What did any of that have to do with skin? With me or Milo Robicheaux? And what did he think, as he walked along? I didn’t ask. I went through the doors of some swank-filled restaurant or some nightclub or into the vaulted rooms of Lincoln Center, and the air changed. It was conditioned, cool, scented with perfume or the aroma of fine cuisine. It was still and calm or full of music. And Milo right beside me was proof, wasn’t he? that I was not responsible for what I saw outside, in the sweltering or freezing streets. That I was, in fact, better than those white others, doing my part.
I never said any of this. Not to anybody.
Also it’s not like I was the only one. Invitations arrived in the mail at Milo’s Fifth Avenue address, from white people inviting him to sit on the dais, to present the award, to sponsor the cause. Hostesses of dinner parties wanted to sit next to him, introduce him to the assembled guests. His friends were all white, though you wouldn’t call them close, just colleagues from work, other athletes, people he interviewed, his agents, Jed and Mark. Wherever we went, he was nearly always the only black person. He didn’t seem to care, so why would I?
Still, all that summer I was wary and nervous about Milo. What did I mean to him? What, as my father would say, were his intentions?
One Sunday morning in August these questions woke me up full of panic. It was worse than an alarm going off. I sat straight up. There was Milo sleeping. His muscles made hard hourglass shapes against the sheets: shoulder, biceps, forearm; thigh, knee, calf. He was just a man. Only Milo. I gazed at him, thinking that, just some man, but twisted with this frightened feeling. I tickled his ribs with my fingernail, nudged him. He opened his eyes and smiled, seeing me there.
“How do you feel about me?” I said. My lips were right by the whorl of his ear.
“I feel about you,” he said, groggy, running his hand down my flank. “I’m feeling about you.”
“Milo, but—”
“Don’t say butt,” he said. “Say buttocks.”
“Milo.” He was impossible.
“Say fesses.”
“What?”
“That’s French for these parts.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” He wowed his eyebrows, half asleep. “Now shh,” he said. “Close your eyes.” He dozed again with his face in the crook of my neck.
“Have you ever been in love?” I asked.
“No,” he said. He was nearly snoring.
“Tell,” I said. “What about that French one? The actress.”
“She was French,” he said, annoyed. “She lives in France.”
He kept trying to shut me up in the usual way but I wouldn’t let him. “What about the one in the picture?”
“What picture?”
“The one that used to be on your mirror, in the yellow dress.”
“Oh,” Milo said, “that’s my sister. That’s Bobbie.”
Not the girlfriend, I thought. The sister.
He opened his eyes. “Were you worried?”
“She’s pretty,” I said, a little smile on my lips.
“Ha,” he said, seeing it. “You were worried.”
“It was right on your dresser.”
“You were snooping around!” he said. “What else did you snoop?”
“Nothing,” I said. “There’s nothing to snoop. Your stuff is still in boxes. You’re a big question mark. You leave no evidence!”
“Good,” he said.
“You don’t even have fingerprints.”
“Oh yes I do,” he said. “And I will leave them all over you.”
“But answer,” I said, holding his wrist. “How do you feel?”
“Do you see anyone else here in this bed?” he said, annoyed. “You’re the one who’s in it.” He kissed me so that I was silenced by hints of his teeth and his tongue and the weight of his legs saddling me, so I didn’t care if it had meaning as long as he kept on. I realized then I could not judge him by his words, his cryptic answers, or his evasions but only by how he acted, what he did. And that morning he grabbed me by the hips and pulled me under him. He centered me. In the morning light I watched his face the whole time and he never opened his eyes so I saw. That he was helpless, that I had him right then in those moments. Seeing the curl of his lip and the turn of his head to the side—the way a musician does when he is listening to the feel of each note—seeing that took me right along with him. So when he did open his eyes, and saw me, saw how gone I was, watching, some flicker of panic or terror crossed his face as he was carried away by the oh God, the drowning, narcotic feeling, and me saying Milo, Milo.
Later, he turned to face me, considering something. “You watch me,” he said after a while. “You’re always watching.”
He was right. I was. I thought that if I could only watch him, asleep or awake, that would be enough; I would know him. I would be happy, saved from longing. But it had been weeks now, months, and I was not saved. What did it mean, that I was with him, and every moment felt a sense of danger? I knew he could hurt me, break my heart. And what’s more, I liked that feeling. It was thrilling. Was that love? We never said the word at all.
One Friday night, in late September of that year, VD showed up. VD had skied with Milo from way back, from ’76. He was an Olympian but not a medalist, a wild downhiller from Wyoming. His name was Rick but his last name was VonDrehle, so of course, everybody called him Venereal or Disease or plain VD.
“He’s my best friend,” Milo said.
I first saw Rick at the Odeon, a place whose name never failed to make me think of odious and deodorant. VD at the Odeon. The two names went together in my head now like a title. Milo and I were at the bar, me leaning my head on him, dripping my hair on purpose down the front of his dark linen jacket and him looking over his shoulder for Rick, who was late.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Milo said, smiling. “Look at him.” He was pointing with his head toward the d
oor. “Shit. You could spot that guy a mile off. He does not have a clue what to do in here.”
Rick was rangy with no fat on him. He was such a mountain man he had on some ancient red flannel shirt worn as a jacket, a bandanna on his neck, jeans drooping off his backside. His dark red hair was mostly held back in a shocking pink ponytail holder, except for the parts that ringleted around his freckled face. He had a big nose, with a bump on the bridge of it. He kept looking down.
“Hah! He hates the city!” Milo said. “Hates it. He is lost in here.” Rick was looking at his shoes or the floor, not looking for us. Then we saw he had a dog with him.
“Shit!” Milo said. “He’s got Cheyenne.”
“What?”
“His dog.
“Hey, VD!” Milo shouted over the bar noise.
Rick saw us and came over with a yellow Labrador and a crooked smile. “Smilin’ Milo! Heeeeeeyyyy. Wassup?” Rick said, in black English, which, as far as I’d noticed, only white people talked with Milo. You never heard Milo talk that way. Milo said shur. He said rully, as in he’s a rully fine athlete. He said ex-cel-lent in three syllables, about whatever pleased him.
“Rick, man,” Milo said. They hugged each other a long time. Cheyenne wagged her tail and tunneled under a bar stool.
“This is Charlotte Halsey” Milo said.
“Hi,” I said, and shook Rick’s hand.
“And that’s Rick’s woman, there.” Milo pointed at the floor. “Careful, she might start sniffing you.”
“Fuck you, ya whoremonger, Robicheaux,” Rick said, taking Milo affectionately by the neck. “You never could tell dogs and women apart.” He looked over at me and said, “With the very dramatic exception here of Miss Halsey.”
“Dog or woman?” I asked.
VD blushed. “Not dog,” he said. “Definitely.”
Milo laughed and we went and sat in a booth by the back, where the smoke wasn’t so thick. Rick was coughing.
“So will ya look at you, Ice,” he said to Milo, reaching across and feeling his jacket. “Look at these threads. You’re a fashion dude now, eh?”
“She’s the fashion dude,” Milo said, and pointed at me.
“He said you were some kind of model,” said Rick. “Do you, like, know any other models?”
“What he means is that he would be willing to stay in New York if only you would introduce him to your coworkers,” Milo said.
“No, I can’t stand the place, man,” Rick said, “not even for women.” He explained he was in town on the way to Italy. He looked sheepish, as if he were admitting something.
“Italy!” Milo shouted in his announcer voice. “Italy. Italy. Italy.” This had some coded meaning for them, apparently.
“Italia,” said Rick. “One sixty-nine!”
“One sixty-nine,” Milo intoned. “Number One Hundred and Sixty-nine! Sixty-nine!”
This made them both howl. Milo had tears in his eyes. “Sixty-nine! Italy!”
They went on like this till Milo could hardly speak, he was laughing so hard.
“What,” I said finally, “is the meaning of one sixty-nine?”
They explained it was once Rick’s number, a really bad seed number, a back-of-the-pack, rutty, icy race number that had something to do with a young lady named Lucia. The 169 girl. Apparently Lucia had had a nocturnal opportunity to wear Rick’s racing bib, which Rick had not been able to forget. Now he was going back to Bormio to find her.
“The problem is,” he said sadly, “I don’t know her last name.”
“Well, what this calls for,” said Milo, “is a road trip.”
“Road trip,” VD said, happily now.
We ended up in Milo’s car, barreling at midnight toward Lake Placid, where former assistant U.S. Ski Team coach Bill Winks had a ski school. They weren’t even sure Winksie was home. But the idea was: We were going to go see him, ask if he remembered the 169 girl’s name. It was a seven-hour drive.
VD was folded up in the miniature backseat of the Jaguar. He had Cheyenne and the beer. Milo wasn’t drinking anything; he was driving with the radio cranked, weaving in and out of traffic in time to the music, slowing down fast to fit between hurtling cars in other lanes. I kept gasping, saying Oh, dear God under my breath, holding the dashboard and covering my eyes.
“What is this? A slalom?”
“Yeah! See that?” he said, grinning. When we got to the clear stretch of thruway Milo said: “Now comes the schussbomb, which is for serious people.” He stepped on the gas.
“Yow!” said Rick.
“Milo!” I said.
The needle hit 100 miles an hour. It was dark with hardly any traffic. Milo was quiet. Rick sang softly to Cheyenne in the back. Slowly I let go of the dashboard. Milo took one hand off the wheel and put it on my neck. “Road trip,” he said happily.
“Drive,” I said, and returned his hand to the wheel. The pavement rose up hypnotically in front of the headlights, the heater wafted cooked air up around me. I fell in and out of sleep, breathing up the smell of beer, hearing the low music, the hiss of a can opening, Cheyenne whimpering, Milo and VD laughing, their words a warm soft buzz. Kitzbühel, Bormio, Rossignol. Piece of ass. Blow job. Snow job. White girls. Fuck you. You never did. Fuck you. Why? None of your fucking business why.
I don’t know when I realized they were actually fighting.
“It’s true, though, right?” said Rick. “You never did.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Milo hissed.
“She’s asleep,” Rick said. “Sorry. I’m wasted.”
They were quiet a long time. Milo was driving faster, angrily. I could hear the engine pulling, tires bobbling on the rough patches, a deep breath.
“I grew up where I grew up,” Milo said. He sounded sick and tired. “I’m with who I’m with. Who I meet. I’m not apologizing for that.”
“I was the one apologizing to you, Ice,” Rick said, remorseful. He kept saying he was sorry. I heard him whispering to the dog. Cheyenne girl, I’m a jerk, you know that? Big-time human dog, that’s me. He cracked another beer and fell asleep, snoring. The car was quiet. I sneaked a look at Milo and saw his hands on the wheel were clamped hard, his long fingers pianoing and agitated.
Well, the coach was not home. His big house, when we finally found it, was empty and dark, so we made our way back to the Olympic Motel in town, where we stayed for the rest of that night. We woke up late, and on our third round of drinks the next afternoon in the Saranac Bar, Milo started in on VD again about Italy, the 169 girl.
“Hey,” I said. “What about Milo? Did he have, say, a 122 girl?”
“Code of silence,” said Milo. “Omerta. Say nothing.”
“It is well known how well known our friend Milo was all over the goddamned globe,” said Rick. “But I must say that you, Charlotte, are the first actual girlfriend Milo’s ever had.”
“Right,” I said. “Like anyone would believe that.”
But Milo wasn’t laughing now. “Drop it.” Anger snapped in his eyes so I couldn’t tell whether it was because he just didn’t want to talk about girlfriends or that he didn’t think of me that way.
Rick flushed and backed off the subject. “Milo is just a ski machine,” he said. “That’s all he’s ever really had time for.” We drank considerably more wine and went to bed, drove seven hours home the next day.
“So Rick said I’m the first girlfriend you ever had.”
Milo looked up from his steak. We were out to dinner the next night, in a restaurant with paper sheets for tablecloths, sets of crayons in shot-glasses.
“VD doesn’t know jackdog about anything,” Milo said.
“Am I?”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Are you my girlfriend?”
“As opposed to what?” I said.
“As opposed to, say, my sack rabbit?”
“Your sack rabbit?”
“My squeezebox?”
“Your what?”
&
nbsp; He was smiling.
“Milo,” I said, “I just asked if it was true. Am I?”
“Well, am I?” he said back at me.
“What?”
“Maybe I’m your ethnic phase?” He said this with his most alarming sweet charm, calm and quiet.
“Let’s go.” I threw my napkin down, stood up, pushed the chair backward, got my wrap from the coat check, headed home. We were near enough to walk there. He ran after me but I wouldn’t speak.
“Is he bothering you?” somebody said, as I walked fast away from Milo.
“Shut up,” I said to the stranger.
“I was just trying to look out for your safety, honey. Ya bitch.”
Milo took me by the elbow and we went up to my apartment. Claire was gone for the weekend, so I wouldn’t have to pretend nothing was going on when something clearly was. Here it comes, I thought. Now I’ll find out.
“You are not my ethnic phase,” I said, sitting on my bed. “How dare you? How can you think that? It’s so tiring, and sick, having to think about it.”
He nodded patiently. “Yes it is, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, exhausted.
I pressed my thumbs into my eyelids, colors swimming in front of me like gasoline on puddles. I stood up and walked to the window. Down below was the city, sparkling like fairyland, with the dark rectangle of the park a blank in the middle of it.
Milo came over behind me and rested just his forehead against me. The hard bone of my skull pushed back against the plate of his brow. The inhale and exhale of his breathing filtered through my hair.
“So what did Rick mean?” I asked again. “That I’m your first girlfriend. Am I?”
“That depends on you,” he said.
I turned him around toward me. “Is this what you want to know?” Kissed him. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ll be what you want. Whatever that is.”
“Yourself,” he said. “Yourself.”
“Whoever that is,” said invertebrate Charlotte. “You tell me.”