The Sweetheart Read online

  Once you are safely in the kitchen, Ms. Riley whispers to you, “What a meathead. If he’s not at work, he’s sitting on that couch taking up space. I must have lost my mind, letting them move in here.”

  When Cynthia finally enters the room, you can’t help but eye the hearty bump that precedes her. Here is the girl you knew, now weighed down by maternity. She is breathing heavily; her prettiness is distorted with effort. You pull out a chair for her, and she smiles her gratitude at you.

  You ask the ladies about themselves, but they both declare that for them, it’s the same old same old; they want to know what’s going on with you. You tell them what you want them to know about—your press, your belt, Sam—and keep the rest to yourself.

  “That’s some life, Leonie!” Cynthia punches you on the arm. “What a life!”

  When you’d imagined this moment, you’d expected (and, let’s be honest here, eagerly longed for) a smidge of jealousy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear. Cynthia means to be supportive of your choices, of course, but there’s something exaggerated about this gesture, something forced. Your choices are not ones she would make for herself.

  “What about you?” you ask. “This is good, too, right? You’re happy?”

  “Are you kidding?” Cynthia’s hands rest on her belly; she smiles down at it. “I couldn’t be happier.”

  Is that a note of effort in her voice? Is it possible that she is not as confident in her decisions as she was this past summer; that she simply wants to prove her mother wrong about Wally? That would be comforting, wouldn’t it: to believe that ambivalence is settling in for Cynthia, just as it is for you. But one look at that face and you know the truth. This isn’t a character she’s playing; this is what she feels. And here you were hoping to impress her. Instead, you find yourself envying her contentment, her certainty. You could surely use a little of that these days.

  “It’s too bad you have to head back so soon,” says Cynthia. “Are you sure you can’t stay until the New Year, watch the Mummers Parade? I’m sure your father would like that.”

  The possibility of seeing a band of men in blackface playing “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” on banjos is not much of an incentive to stick around, but the idea of staying has its appeal. After all, you and your father have heedlessly squandered valuable time. You try to mask your real emotion with a smile. “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Speaking of your father,” says Ms. Riley, “he came over here a few months ago with your contact information, said he wanted me to have it in case anything happened to him. Just a precaution, he said, but it worried me a little. Is everything all right?”

  You remain silent for a while, shuffling your feet beneath the table, trying to decide where your responsibilities lie. This is your father’s business; he wants to handle it his way. But you are frightened, and it seems to you that he is, too. Before you can frame a sentence, Ms. Riley cocks her head to the side, gives you a thorough examination. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe you could just keep an eye out,” you say to her. This seems to you a reasonable compromise, one that provides a measure of protection without revealing much. “Drop in on him once in a while?”

  “Why?” asks Cynthia. She senses drama, and she wants in. “What’s wrong with your father?”

  Ms. Riley silences her with a look, and then takes your arm at the crook of your elbow. “Sure thing, Leonie. I can do that.” She pats you twice there, at the soft fold of your arm, before pulling away.

  There was a time when you had so wanted this woman to be your mother, when you and Cynthia had pulled all matter of silly stunts in an effort to persuade her and Franz to fall in love. Now, you are just grateful that she hasn’t let this keep her from extending a little much-appreciated maternal affection to you.

  • • •

  The next morning, back at 30th Street Station, in front of the spinning numbers of the arrivals-and-departures board, Christmas with your father comes full circle, with you falling apart and your father providing the fortification of his arms. A moment like this provides relief for two people who want to show each other love but never quite get it right. Perhaps most of your time together has been strained, but whenever you are within the walls of this station, you are both at your best. You’ve got your hellos and good-byes down pat; the only thing you need to work on is everything in between.

  “You never told me about this boy,” he says. “If it keeps up with him, you know you have to bring him here. I need to look him over.”

  You understand what he is doing, that he is as frightened as ever but eager to hide his fears away. Even in this moment, just before you hop on board, the one person who still matters to him disappearing into the world outside of Philadelphia, a world outside of his reach, he keeps any pain he is feeling to himself. For all the problems with this, its familiarity is reassuring. This is the father you know.

  “I know,” you tell him. “Don’t worry. I know.”

  For now, you will go back to Florida. Somehow, you will get money to send to your father. You and Ms. Riley will get him over this hump, and then something will come through for him. It has to. You will return to your life as Gorgeous Gwen Davies with new energy and purpose; you will make something happen. But you will come back soon and let your father give your boyfriend the once-over, let him participate in your life the way a father should. On this trip, you will be better. He will be better. Next time, you will get things right. You are sure of it.

  THIRTEEN

  In Joe’s office, as you sit on the edge of a chair in front of his desk, waiting less than patiently for him to finish tallying the results of your most recent efforts—it’s payday—your eyes rake over the backdrop of publicity shots. Eventually, they settle on your own, the one Monster Henderson took all those months ago. It seems tacked up hastily and forgotten, too low and far on the perimeter for your liking. What will it take for Joe to move you up? Perhaps these latest numbers will get his attention. Your recent bookings have been plentiful and attractive, and the longer he takes, the more encouraged you feel.

  This should be good. You hope it is, at least—for your father’s sake. The two weeks since you returned from Philadelphia have afforded you the best possible opportunity yet for saving a little dough. By some small measure of fortune, all of your bookings were located between central Florida and north Georgia, so you’ve been able to spend more nights than usual at the school, which runs you half the price of a motel room. There’s no Johnny around either, so when you do have to sleep on the road, Mimi’s willing to share, which significantly boosts your coffers. Joe’s also been generous enough to let Mimi drive his DeSoto to many of the matches. He charges for the gas, of course, but it ends up being less than, say, a bus ticket, and decidedly faster and more comfortable. For once, everything has been working in your favor.

  Your stomach rumbles.

  “Hungry, eh?” Joe laughs. “I’m not surprised. You’ve been eating like a bird lately.”

  “I’m okay,” you say, fingering the heads of the brads in the upholstery, but you aren’t. The truth is you are running on fumes. In an effort to pinch every possible penny, you’ve cut back on your meals, making the occasional lunch out of ketchup and saltines, skipping breakfast altogether. No matter. You are sure that Joe is about to put a fat stack of bills in your hand, and you will be able to wire money to your dad before you leave tomorrow—Joe is driving you and Mimi first to St. Louis, where he has somehow managed to finagle a match with the biggest names on Billy Wolfe’s roster, the tomboyish and technically proficient June Byers and the Betty Grable of the Mat World, Nell Stewart, for the Women’s World Tag Team Championship, and then to Nashville to defend that title. Once the money is safely on its way, you will go to the diner to enjoy the most satisfying hot dog and egg cream of your life.

  “Here you go,” says Joe, beaming as he lifts a crisp fifty out of his cash
box and holds it out like a prize.

  “That’s it?” You are going to need every penny of that just to eat, sleep, and get where you are supposed to be for the next two weeks. “That just doesn’t seem right, Joe.”

  “What do you mean? Of course it’s right. See for yourself.” Joe hunches over his calculator, pulls his glasses down to the end of his nose, and starts typing away, narrating as he goes along. He adds the price of the purses first, and then quickly whittles this number down: first his commission, then your expenses. Not only do you owe him for gas as well as your most recent evenings here and charges at the diner, but, according to his records, you are still paying off expenses from the previous month. You’ve been behind the eight ball ever since that convalescence for your jaw; you were never paying off the most recent debt, but the debt from the month before, which, of course, means Joe has to punch in a few more numbers to add the interest. When it is all said and done, he says, “Here,” and turns the calculator around so you can see. “Take a look.”

  You pull up the tape and inspect it for yourself. “Here,” you say, pointing to what is surely an error. What a relief. You just knew something had to be wrong. “You only gave me twenty bucks for each match. Purses for tags are around a hundred, right? If you get forty percent and Mimi and I split the rest, I should be getting thirty.”

  “Gwen,” Joe says, his voice dropping down to that low tone he reserves for bad news. He even goes so far as to put his hand over yours. “Mimi is a more established wrestler than you. She’s the reason I can book you as often as I can.”

  “Are you saying”—how is it you have gone this long without knowing?—“she makes twice as much as me?”

  “For now.” Joe gives your hand a little pat, and then picks the calculator up and returns it to its rightful place on the desk. “On the bright side, you and I are completely square, and you’re booked up for a while. That pile’s only going to get bigger.”

  That may be true, but you need that pile to get bigger right this minute. You didn’t want to ask for a handout—you have a vague memory of him ixnaying advances when you signed your contract—but you don’t have much choice. All you can do is hope he will find it in his heart to make an exception.

  “I’m sorry, really I am,” he says at the end of your sob story, “but I have a strict policy about this. I don’t break it for anyone.”

  If only you could stop there. You don’t want to press the issue, but you are desperate enough to play this card: “My mother is dead, Joe. I’m an only child. There’s no one else who can help my father. I’m it.”

  Joe goes into lockdown: his jaw sets, his eyes go flat. He needn’t say anything—what’s left to say after that expression?—but after a long pause, he says, “I’m sorry, Gwen, but it’s a hard, fast rule for a reason, and I’ve been clear on it from the beginning. I expect you to take care of your own business and be ready to leave tomorrow.”

  “Got it,” you say, refusing to let your voice crack.

  “Tell you what.” He pinches another dollar out of his box and places it on top of the fifty with a magnanimous smile. “Go get some lunch. Can’t have you starving yourself to death.”

  It would feel good to refuse that dollar—to be too proud to accept this meager offering, to refuse to be paid off so easily. But you can’t go on like this—that much you know—so you swallow hard, snatch the bill, and shove it into the pocket of your coat.

  On your way out, Betsy, who is seated at a desk, the phone receiver pressed against her ear, flashes one of her lopsided, motherly smiles at you. This one is not of the typical variety you have come to expect, neither sanguine (don’t let it get you down) nor cautionary (take care of yourself out there). No, this one seems more matter-of-fact, more like the one you remember from your first night here: no one said it was going to be easy.

  How are you going to manage to get the money you promised your father? Joe’s refusal puts a fork in one of your very last options. As you walk toward the diner, you flirt with the notion of hitting Sam up for the dough. You will see him in a couple of days in St. Louis, but can you really go to your new boyfriend for a loan, especially when you haven’t seen him in over a month? If he felt you were overreaching, he’d either have to refuse you or concede, both of which could create additional stress your delicate long-distance arrangement couldn’t handle. No, you decide: it is too much to ask. You don’t want to save one man only to lose another. The only other person you know who might be in a position to grant you a loan is Mimi, and that is a nonstarter. Under no circumstance will you ask Mimi for charity in any form. Perhaps you should simply trust that you can scrimp and starve yourself for another few weeks, this time with better results.

  Oh, who are you kidding? All it takes is the sound of those patty melts sizzling on the flattop to deflate that idea. Your father needs help now, which means there is only one thing to do.

  • • •

  When Monster made his offer to you all those months ago, you filed it not in your memory’s active records but in its dead storage as if it were an old tax return, the kind of thing you never expected to retrieve but kept around just in case. Now, here you are, desperate enough to consider ignoring your values and risking all of your relationships.

  You’ve spent most of a lifetime attempting to hide your body from the world. It took weeks of deprogramming just to walk upright into the ring and drop your robe with some semblance of confidence. Even now, at the end of a match, when you return to whatever makeshift space you’ve been given for a dressing room, you often spend a few minutes with your head between your knees, fatigued not from the physical exertion but the monumental effort of pretending to be comfortable in your own skin. How might a girl like you, nearly paralyzed by self-consciousness, pose without at least the minimal protection of her wrestling suit? The very thought of it now, as you return to your room and close the door behind you, makes you draw your arms into your body.

  But as you stand there, patty melt weighing guiltily on your belly, the record player you brought back with you sitting idly on the dresser, Tony Bennett at the ready, you understand that this is not your real problem. If it were, you would just harness some chutzpah and get to work. No, the real problem is not the event but its aftermath. There is no way to control what happens to the pictures, which mattresses they’ll be hidden under or what locker doors or garage walls will display them. There is no way of preventing them from passing under the eyes of anyone—Joe, Spider, or even, God forbid, your father. Anything is possible.

  You place the needle in the groove, turn the player on, and sit cross-legged on the floor. The music fills the small, wood-paneled room. You close your eyes and try to imagine what your father might say in such a scenario, but the man you conjure cannot speak. He can only wheeze and clutch his chest on your neighborhood sidewalk.

  If Henderson is willing and able to let you pose for him tomorrow, you could wire the money before you leave and buy yourself at least a month’s worth of peace. You will just have to do it and hope the pictures get lost among the many distractions available out in the big, noisy world. The record skips and crackles to its finish, and then continues to spin in near silence, as you pick up the telephone.

  • • •

  Later that afternoon, while you wait for Mr. Henderson to answer the door, a gust of wind makes its way under your coat, lifting the hem. When you rush to cover yourself, you get a glimpse of your legs, wrapped in slightly pilled, out-of-season white nylons, which you have worn at his request. I have to learn how to fall down? When you said those words to Mimi on that first day in the gym, you could not imagine a need for such a lesson. Now, you get it. If this isn’t falling down, you aren’t sure what is.

  To your surprise, Joe’s secretary, Betsy, opens the door wearing a shapeless, somber-colored shirtdress. She squints and smiles at you, but if there’s any message in today’s smile, you can’t read it.
“Betsy?” you say, panic setting in by degrees. Is Betsy staying for the photo shoot? If so, isn’t there a risk that this will get back to Joe? “What are you doing here?”

  “Just helping out, dear.” She takes you by the elbow and rushes you in, out of the cold.

  “What’s in the bag?”

  She’s pointing at your hands, which are in front of you, cupped around the front of a wrinkled paper bag. “This? A book. Mon—Mr. Henderson’s book, actually. He gave it to me, but I think it was kind of a mix-up.” Betsy reaches down and gently pulls the bag from your hands. She slides the book out while you chatter on. “He may have gotten the wrong idea about me.”

  “Did he?” Betsy hurries the book back into the bag. “Tell you what. Let’s not say anything about that today, shall we? Our secret.”

  You squint your eyes. “I’m not catching your drift.”

  Betsy opens a coat closet and removes a wooden hanger from the pole. “I just think we should let David believe what he believes for the next little while, okay? Here. Let’s get your coat off.”

  It’s a curious tone, like the gentle prod of a mother coaxing a forgetful child. You have half a mind to keep your coat just to show that you can, but it seems uncommonly warm to you inside, so you hand it over. Betsy hangs it carefully on the rack, shoves the book into the pocket, and ushers you down the hall.

  In the living room, all of the lamps are on, the heavy drapes pulled closed. The Bolsey is already set up on its tripod with, you are certain, a fresh roll of film already loaded.

  Monster comes in from the kitchen carrying a silver tea service. “There she is!” He sets the service on the coffee table, pours the tea, and asks if you take cream and sugar. You do. “I can’t tell you what a delight it is to have you here,” he says, handing you a delicate-seeming cup and saucer before settling into a stuffy-looking wingback chair. “A delight, but, I have to say, something of a surprise. I hear you have a big match coming up.”