The Sweetheart Read online

  “What do I think?” he says. Instead of answering, he drops his hand from your hair to your shoulder, draws you in and covers your mouth with his own. When he finally pulls away and returns his eyes to the road, he says, “I think I’m going to lock you away so I don’t have to pulverize every guy in St. Louis.”

  It’s exactly the response you wanted—so it took him a minute; at least he came around—but it doesn’t make you feel quite the way you’d imagined; it swims around in your gut. You ignore the feeling and run your hand over the Crestline’s two-tone upholstery. “Wow. This is some car.”

  “Not bad, eh? The guys razzed me about getting a ragtop considering where we live and all, but I figure, hey, if I have to be the champion, I should do it in style, right?” Sam points to your bag. “Looks like you’ve been doing some shopping yourself. Whatcha got there?”

  What do you think, Gwen? Should you let him in on the plan?

  No. Better not take the chance.

  “Socks,” you say, clutching the bag to your chest.

  • • •

  It takes a large chunk of your time together just to find a parking spot; you burn up most of the rest looking for a place to eat. The first place you try, a department store cafeteria, is embroiled in a sit-in: currently uneventful but thick with tension and the looming threat of cops and press. St. Louis, you will come to learn, is just beginning what will be a long, slow, painful process for the country: ridding itself of the laws that give you access while keeping others in the corners, under the shadows. While you might be on the right side of this argument, you have little interest in being here, where, for perhaps the first time in your life, you feel conspicuously white. No, better to settle at the lunch counter at a five-and-dime, where the stools are only half full and you don’t have to worry about troubles any bigger than your own.

  An annoyed-looking young man in a paper hat chews on a toothpick, but spits it out and perks up when the two of you walk in. He drops menus in front of you. While you look over your options, the attendant turns around and begins rifling around for something in a rucksack that hangs off the back wall. He finds what he was looking for—a magazine—lays the magazine on top of Sam’s menu, and speed-flips through the pages.

  “Hey, ain’t this you?” He stops on a page and points to a picture. “Ain’t you Spider McGee?”

  “I am.” Sam leans conspiratorially toward the boy and mock-­whispers, “And as you can see, I am in the midst of a supersecret rendezvous with the evil temptress Gorgeous Gwen Davies. It’s imperative that word of this exploit not leave this lunch counter.” Sam turns to the woman on his right and raises his eyebrows with mock seriousness. “Can I trust you?”

  The woman rolls her lips into her mouth to suppress a smile and nods her head a little. Eventually, she raises her pinched fingers to her lips and gives the universal sign for your secret is safe with me, pointedly flicking the “key” in the attendant’s face.

  “Excellent!” Sam returns his attention to the boy, who hasn’t taken his eyes off you. “How ’bout you, Junior? Can I trade an autograph for your silence?”

  The boy already has his pen out.

  Sam dashes off his autograph and flips one page of Wrestling Revue, where there is the faintest image of you hovering behind the ropes while Mimi, the photographer’s true target, swings her opponent around the mat. “Lucky you,” he says to the boy. “Two for the price of one.” He slides it over to you and hands you the pen.

  This is not the right time to try out your new persona. You still have to get through tonight; you still have to convince Joe. But you’re feeling brave. Anything seems possible. You take the pen, draw a heart around your unrecognizable head, and quickly scribble this for an autograph: XOXO, Gwen. And then, an inspired impulse: lifting the magazine to your mouth, you press your red lips against the page, leaving souvenir prints. The boy’s mouth cocks into a funny little smile, which he aims first at the magazine, then at you. When he turns toward Sam, he is met with a flat glare and his smile evaporates. He takes your order and shuttles off to put the magazine back in his rucksack before assembling your sandwiches.

  “What was that?” There’s an edge to Sam’s voice. You don’t like the tone he’s taking—too much fatherly scolding to it—and steel yourself against it.

  “I’m trying something new.”

  “Are you sure it’s such a good idea?” He scratches his head, softens his voice. “It’s not exactly something your character would do.”

  “I know,” you tell him. “But I’m working on that.”

  Sam looks sideways at the counter attendant. “I don’t like the way he looked at you. If it turns out that I do have to beat up all of St. Louis, I’m definitely starting with that kid.”

  • • •

  Poor guy. If he thinks that’s blood-boiling, wait until he sees what’s sitting in the bottom of your shopping bag: a two-piece suit as red as Norma Jeane’s velvet backdrop.

  Over the next decade, the two-piece will make way for its more daring little sister, the bikini, and never look back. By that standard, your new suit, which doesn’t so much as expose your belly button, seems embarrassingly conservative. In fact, when you debut it this evening, the only difference between it and the suits of the three other women in the ring will be the mere two-inch-wide band of torso flesh yours will reveal. Such a small amount of exposure—a glimpse of the ribs, really—but hopefully enough to make sure you are noticed.

  Finding a bathing suit in January took forever. There wasn’t time for a tailor to add any precautionary reinforcements, so you have no choice but to shimmy into the unaltered suit, tape the back clasp as tightly as you can, and hope for the best. Doing this in the makeshift dressing room you share with your partner is an operation that requires both speed and stealth. (If Mimi gets one whiff of this stunt, she will surely nip it in the bud.) Thankfully, you finish the job and slip into your robe before she can pay you any mind.

  Before you know it, you are following her down a darkened aisle, flanked by dozens of dart-eyed, heel-hating spectators, to the ring. Now that it is time to put your plan into action, you don’t feel much like a tiger. You are half-inclined to run back up the aisle and out of the auditorium. There are a million things to worry about—some you can articulate, some you can’t—but the worst and clearest one of all is this: Can I really pull this off?

  Of course you can, Gwen. You will not flinch now, just as you didn’t flinch when David Henderson put you into a pose: turning your face with his enormous hands, pulling down your corset, easing your legs further apart. You met his eyes and held them while he worked. When he was ready for the last shot, he stood back beside the tripod, nodded his approval, and smiled. “You know something, Gwen? I don’t think you’re the same girl you were the first time you came here.”

  “Mr. Henderson,” you answered, the very picture of self-­possession, “I’m not the same girl I was half an hour ago.”

  No, you aren’t that girl anymore. And now it’s time that everyone knows it. Hold up your chin, drop your robe, and strike your pose—one hip cocked and supporting a propped hand, the opposite arm resting against an athletic leg. Pretend to look at the crowd, but make sure you can see the corner of the ring, where Mimi is standing. You will want to catch her reaction when she sees the gift you have made of yourself: the red-lipped smile, the green boots, the new do, the suit, and those extra inches of sex.

  It seems to take a minute for Mimi to realize what is happening. At first, she appears far, far away. She is probably too lost in her imaginings of the future to think of anything else, her eyes too glazed by stardust to see what’s right in front of her. It is only after the initial stir—a few frenzied yelps, shrill whistles, guttural yeaaaaaahs, and even various sisterly approvals like Flaunt it, honey!—becomes an all-out hullabaloo, complete with a lightning storm of flashing cameras and the thunder of the audience’s
response, that her expression begins to turn. Soon, there will be a few minutes of flabbergasted debate by the officials before they eventually decide there is no official rule against two-piece suits. You expect there will be a scolding from Joe and maybe even from Sam. But the possibility of these threats are tempered, if not altogether drowned out, by the look on Mimi’s face right now when she finally registers what is happening, the one that says her carefully plotted career has just hit a serious bump in the road.

  There is no way the story of the evening is going to be the Hollander Helicopter, or even, for that matter, Byers and Stewart’s successful defense of their belt. This is The Sweetheart’s story now.

  FIFTEEN

  While Byers and Stewart preen, belts aloft, in the center of the ring, you and your partner slink back up the aisle. The crowd is disturbingly quiet. Not exactly the exit you were hoping for, is it? You can’t blame them, really. They’re not quite sure what to think about you, the recently defeated heel, and your out-of-place bedroom eyes and rosy-lipped smile. Mimi, on the other hand, is easy to read. She stays two paces ahead of you, choosing instead to direct her rage at random spectators by reaching into the crowd and shoving them to the ground despite (or, perhaps, because of) the complete absence of provocation.

  As you expected, Mimi is not the only person who is less than enamored with your performance. After she disappears in a huff behind the door to your dressing room, Joe, coming seemingly out of nowhere, steps in front of the doorway to prevent you from following her inside.

  “When you take off the suit,” he says, “I want you to come out here and hand it to me.”

  He hasn’t raised his voice, but you almost wish he would. Perhaps that might be less frightening than the undercurrent of rage you sense in his tone. He moves to let you through, and you disappear into the dressing room. Minutes later, you return to the doorway with the suit and hand it to Joe. He surveys the legs on the briefs. “You didn’t even have it altered.”

  “There wasn’t time.”

  “You could have—” he says, and stops himself, regroups. “What if you’d been disqualified?”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  “But you could have been. This was a title match, Gwen! It was too big to gamble on a stupid stunt.”

  Your lips purse as if you’ve sucked on something tart. He has some nerve chastising you like this. So he doesn’t loan money. Fair enough. But if he is really so worried about morality, why doesn’t he pay you a fair percentage? Why does he charge his struggling protégés interest on their debts? If he were really looking out for you, perhaps you would have been less inclined to take matters into your own hands. “You’re the one who said modesty has no place in wrestling,” you say in a voice flattened with spite.

  Joe stares at you, incredulous. “Let’s make something clear, young lady,” he says. “This is my game, and there is only one way that you can play it: by my rules.”

  • • •

  You knew Joe and Mimi wouldn’t be the only ones upset with your stunt. Sam was certain to be peeved, and probably more than a little, given his strong reaction at lunch earlier today. But all of that will disappear, you are sure, when he realizes what you have in mind for the rest of the evening. Later tonight, when he comes by your room, he will find you still dewy from your bath and ready to lose what is left of your innocence. What better way is there to confirm, without ambiguity, that you are his? It will be a fitting end to your triumphant day.

  Of course, in real life, you are too silly with anticipation to stay in pose, and then, when the hour comes and goes, too unsure of the plan to do so. It will be enough, you think, pulling on your gown, to find you in your nightclothes—that will speak volumes. But then more time passes, and eventually, dewy becomes damp and cold, so you climb under the comforter. He’s an hour late, then two hours. There is no reason to fret—it’s a big night, and it will be hard for him to get away. Still, it is your only night together and it is slipping away. You pick up a book and look at the words until your mind shuts off.

  The creaking of the door wakes you. Light shoots in from the hallway and disappears again. The room is too dark for you to see any of Sam’s features, but the silhouette that walks toward you is unmistakably his. When he gets to the bed, he stretches out beside you on top of the comforter, fully dressed. The mattress shifts as he slips his hands beneath his head, crosses his ankles. You wait for him to say something. When he doesn’t, you say, “You made it.”

  “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “I was hoping you would. What took so long?”

  Sam lets out a long, slow breath. “Well. First I had to win a title I didn’t want. Then I had to talk to a lot of people I don’t care about. Then I got waylaid by my uncle, who wanted to know why I didn’t stop my girlfriend from going through with her little exhibition this evening, and I had the great pleasure of admitting to him that I didn’t know anything about it because she didn’t bother to let me in on it.”

  Some emotion gathers in his voice as he speaks, but you don’t bother to identify it. Whatever it is, you are sure you can placate him. You slip a finger into an empty belt loop on his slacks.

  “Sam—”

  “And then, when I finally got back to the room, my knees were killing me, so I popped a few pills and waited for those to kick in while I iced them down.” If he has noticed your hand, he hasn’t let on. “Then I cleaned up and came down here, but I had to circle around a few times so no one would see me sneak into my girlfriend’s room. Like a schoolboy or criminal or something. And now, I am so, so tired that I don’t even want to take off my shoes.”

  So that’s all it is: exhaustion. Well, then, you will just have to energize him. You give the loop a playful tug.

  “Sam—”

  “Did you buy socks today?” he asks quietly.

  This gives you pause. Maybe this is not going to be so easy after all. You search his face in the dark. Maybe he is asking an earnest question. But you are hesitant to give an earnest answer, so you buy some time. “What?”

  “You said you had socks in your bag. Did you?”

  You still have a lot to learn about the language of relationships, its nuances, but this, you understand. You lied to me, he is saying. You don’t trust me. And he is right. You have not met your basic obligations to him. You put the plan first. Knowing Sam, I suspect this is the great problem of his life—everyone’s plans always come before his own. If you want to assure him you are not just more of the same, you should come clean.

  “No,” you say, and retract your hand.

  Sam nods and closes his eyes. “I didn’t think so.”

  There are footfalls in the hallway, and the hum of voices. They recede and then disappear while your own heartbeat picks up pace.

  “I’m falling asleep,” he says. “I need to, anyway. No way I’m making it to Lincoln tomorrow if I’m not out of here by first light.”

  First light? You knew this evening would be a race against the clock, but you didn’t know it would be rigged. Hours have been stolen from you; now even the precious minutes are gone.

  “But we haven’t even—don’t you want to—” There’s no right way to say it, or to express the panic you are feeling. You need this. Completing this act would assure you both of the other’s importance, would carry you through the long weeks ahead. Desperate, you kick off the comforter and thread one of your legs through his.

  This time, your gesture registers: Sam looks down at the tangle of your legs. But that is it. He looks and thinks; he doesn’t move. It is terrible to lie here like this. To wait. Worse, though, is when he props himself up on his elbow, pats your knee, and moves it gently back to your side of the bed.

  “Maybe we should see which way this thing goes first,” he says, his eyes soft and kind. “Okay?”

  He says this gently. Still, it is rejection. Tonight it seemed every p
air of arms in St. Louis drew you in—just not the one that could hold you until morning. Who knows how long you will have to wait for that?

  “Okay,” you lie.

  “Let’s say good-bye now,” he says, resting a hand on your shoulder. “Just in case I have to slip out before you get up.”

  “You could wake me,” you say, but when he presses his lips to your forehead, you understand that he won’t. Soon he is asleep. You stay up as long as you can, hoping you can outlast him. And for a while, it seems you might. Your churning thoughts keep you awake while he softly snores. But you have reasons to be weary, too, and eventually, you run out of gas. When you wake the next morning, he is gone, just as you knew he would be.

  • • •

  That night, you stretch across the bed of a different hotel room and ink two new stars in your map: a purple one in St. Louis and another blue one around Nashville, your current location. Mimi’s suitcase, still packed, sits at the foot of the bed. Joe is gone, too, having rushed off for a meeting with the promoter. Not that either of them was much company on the road. Normally, you don’t mind silence, but right now, the last thing you want is to be left alone with your thoughts, which are growing more panicked by the minute. As exciting as it is to make the papers, you can’t help but worry that you have gone too far to get there. By the time someone knocks on the door, you are convinced that Mimi is going to pummel you, Joe is going to fire you, and you have lost Sam forever.

  It’s Joe, his overcoat still buttoned to his neck. Rather than wait for an invitation, he brushes past you, stops at the foot of your bed, and points at its corner, where you dutifully sit, washed over with dread. While he drags a chair across the carpeting with one arm, popping open his coat buttons with the other, you imagine all the directions this conversation might go, none of them good. He’s going to punish you by giving Mimi an even higher percentage of the purses. He’s going to make sure you are never booked within two hundred miles of Sam, that you never have the chance to win him back. No. He’s done with you altogether. By the time he sheds his coat and settles into the chair, you’re certain he intends to put you on the first bus home.