by Anne Lamott
She bought herself a Coke at the snack bar, and it woke her out of the trance. She won the first set of her first-round match easily. Martha Allen was young and green and inconsistent. She hit every shot as hard as she could and missed half of them. Rosie won a number of points by just returning the ball a few times in a row. She won the first game of the second set, serving two aces and whacking two backhands down the line for winners. But then Martha, during the change of sides, looked over at her daddy. He was wearing a Panama hat and sitting on the bench that ran the entire length of the ten courts in a row—and Rosie saw him give Martha a sign, to signal her in some way. This is against the rules, Rosie wanted to cry out. Panic started, the jungle drums, movies of losing the entire match to tiny little Miss Martha Allen who couldn’t keep the ball in for more than four rallies in a row, who hit puffball serves. Rosie lost the game. That’s what the father had signaled: slow things down. Push. Lob. Patty-cakes.
Rosie, her face flushed, told Martha quite firmly, “You know, your dad can’t coach you from the sidelines.”
“He’s not coaching me,” said Martha, smiling nicely, flashing her pretty, even teeth.
Rosie won her serve, but Martha served again like the old women at the club who wore wrinkle patches over their crow’s-feet and panty hose to play in. Rosie lost three quick points in a row. Standing at the service line, waiting to serve, Martha looked over at her father. Rosie followed her gaze. The father blinked rapidly at Martha and then turned to smile tenderly at Rosie, blinking rapidly at her too as if to assure her that no one here was blinking in code to anyone else; he was just blinking at everyone—a tic in the eye, a blinky tic.
What the blinks apparently meant was that Martha should start serving now with so much spin that the ball bounced off the court as drunkenly as a Mexican jumping bean, and in just a few moments, Martha had won her serve.
Rose felt utterly alone, spooked. Please God, she prayed. Help. She remembered Rae saying, We don’t always know what God is doing when he or she is silent, but we do know that God can be trusted. So Rosie prayed, Please send me an answer, send me a sign. And at two games each, as her panic mounted, Luther arrived.
He sat ten feet away from Mr. Allen, these two tall men on the benches behind the court—one in the Panama hat, looking like a banker; one with the badly shaved head, dressed in a raggedy black windbreaker, smiling his private smile. A high sound escaped from Rosie’s closed mouth, and her forehead furrowed with hopelessness. She served and double-faulted, served the next one into the net, pushed the second serve barely over, and then engaged in a cream puff rally that she lost when she tried to change the pace. She knew she was trying too hard, and her mind whirled with advice and blame.
Luther sat watching intently in his slouched bleary way. Mr. Allen sat poised on the edge of the bleacher, moving his head robotically back and forth to follow the rally. Luther was perfectly still. She tried to ignore him, sitting there like she belonged to him, like he was her dutiful master. Still, she found his presence strangely comforting. She lost the game, though, and before too long, the set.
Martha lay her racket down on the court and walked toward her father. They high-fived, beaming, and went off somewhere to talk. Rosie stood staring at her feet wondering, where was her mother, and where on earth was Peter? But he said, she thought miserably, like a four-year-old: he said. Then she looked over at Luther, and he looked into her face somberly. Gently, he beckoned her with a crooked finger to come.
She looked at him.
He crooked his finger at her again. Come. She nodded her head with supreme sarcasm: yeah, right. But there he was, perfectly still, his gaze steady on her face. He crooked his finger. Rosie looked around. No one else was watching. By the other courts, parents sat frozen with concentration. Way down the line of courts, Rosie saw Simone playing the top seed, moving around the court like a chubby clown, with nothing to lose since she wasn’t expected to win. Rosie put down her racket, walked to her thermos, took a long cold sip, longing for her mother, not knowing where to go. After a moment, she left the court. She had to pass Luther to get back to the clubhouse.
He smelled dirty, sweaty, male, a little bit like alcohol, like her mother used to smell the morning after she’d been drinking.
“What?” she said to Luther. “What do you even want?”
“Hey, you’re too in your head,” he said. His voice was as warm and rough as bark. “Change stations.”
“What?” What did he think—that he got to be her pro? “Peter says to use my head,” she said primly.
“Look where it’s getting you.”
Rosie looked into his face, his eyes so brown the pupil didn’t show, the iris surrounded by tiny red lines, thick yellow patches in the whites, sleep in the corners, his eyes ringed by black lashes, which were ringed in turn by bags and darkness. She’d never actually stood so close to him before, never smelled his smells so close before, never seen how long and black his lashes were.
“Don’t stand there in your head, going ‘Look at the ball. Do this, do that, hit sooner.’ That’s why you’re losing.” What if someone heard him coaching her, what would they think? Everyone else had these handsome pros, mostly men, all tan, all in white shorts with soft blond hairs on their muscular brown legs, and here was this crazy dark wino … “Come back,” he said in his rusty whiskey voice, and she tilted her head toward him. She remembered a photograph at school of a Native American medicine man, kind and hypnotic around the eyes inside all those creases, that darkness. “Frame it,” he said. “Frame the ball on your side as it comes over the net; then frame it on hers. Slow it down. Track it through a frame as it comes back to you.” He held up an imaginary camera and took a picture of her.
Click, she hears. Maybe he makes a soft clicking noise; she isn’t sure. She sees a frame, a viewfinder around the ball, the ball moving slowly toward her, plenty of time to get into position. And in that moment her mind shimmers with insight, clarity, truth. Click, her mind goes, click, click, coming into focus.
SHE went and bought a bottled water and sat by herself on the bench. Looking down the row of courts, she thought of those drawing books from when she was really young that taught you how to draw perspective—train tracks, for instance, widest near you, narrowing to a point on the horizon. And on each court she saw either two or four children, smashing balls back and forth, bouncing lightly on their feet, mostly grim as soldiers. And her mind shimmered again with the vision of this world, this tournament world, as a factory, cranking out great tennis-playing children, great unhappy tennis-playing children. She thought maybe she might quit playing tournaments, and she wondered vaguely how her mother was doing, if she was still in bed. She saw Rae taking care of her mother, keeping her company, and she felt a sense of warmth, and calm, and quiet. She went back to framing things through the viewfinder: a cypress, a little finch. She framed her hand, and she framed a cloud in the deep blue sky.
MARTHA bounced onto the court as if on a pogo stick, and she continued bouncing up and down lightly on her feet, then twisting side to side, doing some stretches, like she was on some TV exercise show. Rosie felt embarrassed for her. Mr. Allen was at his station on the bench, looking at his watch when Rosie reappeared, and he glanced at her as if he were about to shake his finger at her: shame shame shame. Rosie smiled.
Martha had served the last game before the break, so Rosie now went to the baseline, stared at her feet, took a deep breath. Then she looked up at Martha, who was waiting for serve, bouncing in readiness, tight as a spring. Rosie began her windup, tossed the ball with her left hand, and framed it, framed the ball as it hung in the air, and time hung there in the sky, which held the ball; it hung there in her sights, like an ornament, and then like a cat finally bored with a mouse, she smashed the ball across the court. It was in, way in, and so hard that it knocked the racket out of Martha’s hand.
SIMONE lost in straight sets to the number two seed, but they were still in the doubles. They were hous
ing together, and there was a dance that night at the club; tomorrow Rosie would play someone seeded higher than she, so the pressure was on the other girl, whom Rosie had beaten once or twice over the years. She called her mother from the pay phone at the club.
“Mommy,” she said. “I almost lost to Martha Allen. Her father was coaching her from the sidelines; he gave her signals. She won the second set, six-two.”
“Oh, God, darling, how awful. But you won?”
“I won six-two in the third. I just cleaned her clocks.”
“And that’s so hard to do, to win the third when you’ve lost the second. How did you do that?”
“Well. I’m afraid to tell you.”
“Tell me.”
She was silent for a moment, hearing her heart beat. “Luther was watching.”
There was a pause on the other end; the line crackled. Her mother said nothing.
“After we split sets, Martha and her dad went off together, and I had to pass Luther to get back to the clubhouse, and he said this thing to me—he said, ‘Frame it,’ like put a movie camera frame around each shot as it came over the net to me and as it went across the net to her. To help me focus. To slow the ball down. And when we went back for the third set, I couldn’t miss.”
“Oh, Rosie! No.” She could hear the panic in her mother’s breathing. “Rosie, Rosie. You need to totally avoid Luther. I need you to absolutely promise that—”
“But, Mom, I had to pass him to—”
“I know. I know, honey. But still! No more.”
“I know, but, Mommy?” She took a deep breath. “No one else was there to help me. And none of you knows tennis. Can’t you even hear how great what he said was? How much it changes everything for me?”
“Oh, Rosie. I hear that. Of course I do. And I will be there for you next time, soon. But in the meantime—”
“I know, I know. You don’t have to say it again.” There was a long silence. “But you have to let other people be there for me sometimes.”
“I know, Rosie. But is Luther next on the list, after me and James? Aren’t there any half measures? What about Peter?”
“Peter never showed. And it really hurt my feelings.” Elizabeth’s heart sank. “Asshole,” said Rosie, and Elizabeth laughed very softly. “Mommy?”
“Uh-huh?”
“I need you to be doing a bit better than you are right now.”
AND she did feel better, for someone who was crying so much of the time these days. After hanging up the phone, she went outside, weeded and watered. She watched a hummingbird dart into the sage, disappearing into the purple flowers.
Rosie and Luther had talked to each other; Luther had helped her today. How dare he? And what next?
Passing a wisteria bush, she found at her feet a ruby-crowned kinglet, lying dead on leaves and weeds, and she bent to study it. The bird was a male; she could tell by the red crown patch. He was tiny and, except for the ruby crown, drab—until she saw the beauty in the gray and olive feathers, the white on his wings, white round his eyes, and she remembered his high thin notes.
She brought it into the house and showed it to James. He stroked the wings, moved the limp head to look at the crown. Elizabeth leaned in closer to watch him study the bird, and she thought about telling him the latest Luther story, but for some reason she didn’t. She remembered Rosie at three years old with her head caught between the slats of Charles’s office chair, hot and defeated, saying rather calmly, “I need help with me.” Elizabeth, recalling this now, heard it as a prayer and repeated it to whomever or whatever might be listening. She watched her husband gently stroke the kinglet with his finger. “Do you know where you’re supposed to bury birds?” he asked. “In trees. High up as you can. So that they’re closer to the sky.”
three
JAMES had hoped that this was a three- or four-day process, this business of Elizabeth having a little breakdown or whatever she was doing, going to a lot of meetings but not paying any attention, crying a lot in between. But as it went on and on, it began to wear him down.
Rosie was worn out also and bored with it all. But she was watching quite carefully. Her mother seemed surrounded by cotton batting, the kind parkas were lined with; she was focused in on herself. Rosie watched her mother disappear into the bedroom and put sad folk songs on the tape player—too much Judy Collins. She was annoyed with her mother for not snapping out of it but also annoyed with James. She could see that he was still thinking he was at center stage. He was trying to get Elizabeth to react to him with his tiny acts of kindness. Rosie saw him as a mime that no one was watching—acting understanding, and then amused, and then annoyed, just dancing around, day after day, looking guilty and then mad, like first he was thinking, It’s my fault, then, It’s her fault, then, under his breath, “Women,” then to Lank on the phone, “Marriage.” But none of it got through to Elizabeth.
It was so hard for Rosie to watch. She tried to describe to Rae one afternoon how offended James was that Elizabeth was lying down so much, how frustrated he often acted. “Women are so much better at hiding despair, aren’t they?” asked Rae. “Biting their nails, getting fat.” Rosie nodded gravely.
AN old poem began to play in her head, a poem her daddy used to read to her: James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree, took great care of his mother, though he was only three. James James, said to his mother, “Mother,” he said, said he: “you must never go down to the end of the town if you don’t go down with me.”
But her mother had gone to the end of the town.
One day James was so quietly loving and tender that Rosie’s heart was stirred with gratitude. And then the next day he picked a fight. He kept working into the evening, even though he said he was going to make dinner, so he was too hungry by the time he finally got a salad Niçoise made. Then he brought it up on a plate to Elizabeth, with whom Rosie was lying in bed, reading separate books. But when he put the tray over her lap, he jiggled it and the glass of iced tea fell over into the plate of salad, and he shouted swear words as he lifted the tray back up.
“Why can’t you just get out of bed and eat at the table with us?”
“I wasn’t hungry,” she said.
“Well, you have to eat.”
“Why don’t you leave?” she said, and then she started crying because he did.
Rosie stayed behind, scowling contemptuously at James. “Oh, Rosie,” her mother asked after a while. “Can you leave me alone for ten minutes? I just need to get myself together.”
The house was a mess, and Rosie walked around looking at the chaos as if she had herself spent all morning cleaning it.
She stood in the doorway looking stern and disgusted.
“James was a jerk,” she said. “You’ll be fine. He’ll be back.” She went and got a little washcloth from the bathroom, wet it, wrung it out and dabbed Elizabeth’s eyes.
He called from town, full of remorse and love. “I’ll come home if you want,” he said. She wanted him to come home, and he did. He arrived with French fries and strawberry shakes. The three of them lay in bed—it was still light out—and ate their fries, dipped in ketchup.
Elizabeth had folk music on the bedroom boom box. “Doesn’t this music make you sad?” James implored.
“It’s what I feel like hearing,” said Elizabeth.
“I know, baby, but—”
“Would you stop nagging at her, James? What do you want, for her to listen to your Village People tapes?”
After a moment James smiled.
Two days later Rosie got home early from Simone’s to find Elizabeth and James in their bedroom with the door closed, arguing again. School started in a few days. She didn’t need this. She needed her mother to get better—soon. She got some cookies and went to her room, where she lay on the unmade bed above the chaos on the floor. After a while she heard her mother’s voice rising and looked toward the sound. She lay there thinking about the look on Luther’s face right before he told her his gre
at secret, before he taught her how to frame things—his medicine-man face. She sat up on the bed so that her back was against the wall, and she framed the picture of her dad that was on the wall by her bed, and she framed two tiny yellow tea roses in a bud vase her mother had left on her desk, just like the roses she’d given Charles before he died. But at the same time she was straining so hard to hear her parents that she looked like a child with an ear infection.
“Because that is what the truth is,” her mother wept.
“You’re talking about something that happened five years ago. Something that didn’t mean anything to me.”
“But why have you lied all this time about it? It meant something to me. That you slept with other women when you were seeing me.”
“But even if there were,” said James, “it was five years ago! We were dating. You wouldn’t say you loved me. Why is this coming up now?”
“Because I finally got around to it. And are you saying you fucked other women because I wouldn’t say I loved you?” her mother shouted. “I was shy! I was recently widowed.”
“Recently widowed? It had been four years! And why did you suck it down? Why didn’t you get angry a long time ago?”
“Because then you might have left us.”
“But now it’s so old, I can’t even respond to it … I’m sorry! I’m fucking sorry to death! Okay?”
Suddenly her mother bellowed, and Rosie bolted off the bed, sure that James was killing her, choking her—no, then she couldn’t shout so loud—and then she heard loud muffled thuds, as if he had begun to pummel her, and Rosie ran toward her mother’s room and burst in. Elizabeth was on her knees by the bed, pounding the mattress with her fists, and James was standing a few feet away, gripping a handful of hair on either side of his head as if he were trying to pull it out, and they both turned toward the sound of their door opening and the wrath of God shining on Rosie’s face.