The Sweetheart Read online

  It is easy for me to imagine you in this moment, your mouth open, your ponytail stretching down your back as you tilt your head back to look at the universe above. I only wish that I could see now what you saw then: the water in front of you, the sky above, and your whole life ahead of you, sparkling.

  • • •

  After Joe walks you quickly around the grounds to orient you—the gym is this concrete-block building here, his office is in this cabin here—he escorts you into the diner, which, believe it or not, is even drearier than your room. Black paths are worn into the heavily trafficked carpet. The orange vinyl booths are outlined in greasy nautical rope. All of these are empty save one, where three young women chat over the remnants of their dinner. As you follow Joe past their table, you sense furtive glances.

  “I was just about to give up on y’all,” calls a woman from the flattop.

  Joe walks you over and introduces her as Betsy. “My girl Friday,” he says, but she is hardly a girl. There are faint lines around her eyes and some of the hairs that have escaped her hairnet are gray. Betsy wipes her hand on her apron and extends it over the counter. “Looks like you made it in one piece.”

  “I think so.”

  Betsy’s smile gets your attention. Not just because it is unusual—one of her front teeth is significantly larger than the other—but also because there seems to be some maternal concern embedded in it: I sure hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. She seems like someone who will look out for you, which is one more reason to feel good about being here. “You must be starving. What can I get you, hon?”

  Moments later, a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes arrives at the booth where you and Joe have taken up residency, and for a while, everything and everyone else disappears. You don’t just eat this food: you inhale it. It is not until you lick a finger that you remember where you are and who is watching. When you look up, Joe stares back. “You have a healthy appetite,” he says. No kidding. You had no idea you could devour so much so quickly. You slow down and chew your food at what you hope is a reasonable pace. “I meant that as a compliment,” he says, laughing a little.

  A bell on the front door signals another arrival, and when Joe looks up and waves over whoever has arrived, you can’t help but turn to see for yourself. The woman entering is stocky, with a dark complexion and a heavy, textured mane of hair she has attempted (and failed) to confine to a ladylike bob. Perhaps you do not immediately recognize her—in her publicity shot, taken years prior, she is crouched and snarling—but from the way the other girls labor at continuing to talk without making eye contact, you understand that she is someone to be reckoned with. She walks toward you with a forced stride, its power restricted by her high heels and pencil skirt. She seems a wild animal restrained, a trained bear balancing on a ball.

  There is no single person who will feature more prominently in your life as a wrestler than this woman. She will be in the opposite corner for your first bout, a modestly attended card (just weeks away!) at the local armory, and the last one, just a year later, when the two of you will make history in the Memphis arena under the watchful gaze of over nine thousand marks.

  “Joe,” she says, “can I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Can you at least say hello to my newest protégé? I’d like you to meet—”

  “Yeah, yeah. The gymnast. You told me.” This mockery is the only acknowledgment you get. It seems you are not worthy of either end of an introduction. She doesn’t care to hear your name, nor does she bother to share hers. “It’s important, Joe,” says the woman.

  “Fine, fine,” he says, sliding out of the booth. Before he leaves, he turns to you and says, “It’s on the house tonight, so get some pie or coffee or whatever you want. Tomorrow, come by my office around ten so we can talk before you head to the gym. Bring your suits. All of them.”

  All of them? You are lucky to have one.

  Once the bell rings them out, you relax and return to your plate, anxious to finish and head to your room for some much needed rest. But before you can shovel in the last bite, you find yourself encircled by the women from the other booth, who, judging by their Capri pants and wide eyes, are closer to you in age and experience than the woman who spirited Joe away. With these girls, you feel less need to put up your guard.

  “Hi,” says the blonde. “You’re the new wrestler, right?”

  You nod, even though it still seems strange to think of yourself in these terms. “Leonie,” you say.

  The girls slide themselves into your booth uninvited, introduce themselves quickly—the blonde is Peggy; the brunettes, Bonnie and Brenda, are sisters—and begin bubbling with questions for you and anecdotes from their own lives and recent adventures. All of this girlfriendliness makes you nervous. Previous experience has taught you that groups of women don’t easily welcome new members into the fold. To be sure, the sisters do seem to be sizing you up, but Peggy has a smile that would be suspicious only to the thoroughly jaded. She slurps her vanilla Coke and tells you that tomorrow night will be Bonnie’s first match.

  “I have to fight that cow you just met,” Bonnie whispers. “That’s how it works around here. Your first match is always against Mimi, and she always wins.”

  At last, you have a name. “That was Screaming Mimi Hollander?”

  “In the flesh,” says Bonnie. “I should know. She plays a starring role in most of my nightmares.”

  “You worry too much,” Peggy says to Bonnie. “You’ll be great.” She slaps her on the thigh before turning to you. “Brenda and I are going to the match tomorrow night to cheer her on. It’s about an hour out of town, but Brenda has a car. Want to tag along?”

  “I guess so,” you say. “I’ve never actually seen women wrestle before.”

  “What? Then you have to come. You have to!”

  Betsy swings by the booth to ask you if you want some pie. What you really want is to go back to your room and fall into bed, but Peggy begs you not to go just yet, the coconut cream is to die for. The possibility of friendship is too appealing to say no, so you stay for another half hour, growing dizzy with sleepiness and sugar.

  When you finally wish them good-night, you walk back to your dank little square of a room and open your trunk. There it is: the gift from your father, a little Philco Bakelite AM/FM radio. He’d given it to you just the night before, mumbling something about your mother and music and summer nights. You pull it out from its nest of sweaters and set it on the nightstand, but you don’t plug it in. Instead, you lie on your bed, head spinning, listening to the frogs and crickets, absorbing the weird world into which you have just leaped.

  • • •

  The next day, Betsy waves you into Joe’s office, and you walk in, holding your bathing suit in a sweaty hand. Joe tosses it in a bag, explaining that his wife will need to do some work to it before you can use it in the ring, and pulls out a contract. He reiterates his original offer: salary and expenses for the first month and, if you change your mind, a train ticket home. If you decide to stay after that, you’ll have to pay your own way, including travel. He has a hard and fast rule against advances, and he’s heard every sob story out there, so don’t bother. Finally, his booking fee will be forty percent of your purses.

  “Standard,” he assures you, and hands you the pen.

  Had you been listening, you might have found this gasp-worthy, but your attention has moved to the area behind his desk, which has been wallpapered with wrestling pinups that flap with each periodic blast of the oscillating fan. This morning, waking up to your depressing new home, your only connection to your father and your former life a radio you had yet to turn on, you felt homesick and once again plagued by doubt. But here, surrounded by these confident, hard-thighed women, your sense of opportunity returns. Many of these images are the same ones that lured you here; now, they seem to beckon you into their ranks. You take the pen and sign on
the dotted line.

  Once you’re done, Joe whisks the contract away and deposits it in his desk. “Good,” he says. “Now that you’re officially one of us, we can discuss the rest.”

  • • •

  The rest can be boiled down to these two syllables: KAY-fabe. The origins of the word are sketchy at best, part carny slang, part pig Latin. Kayfabe. Be fake.

  That’s right, Leonie. It’s fake. It’s not sport, it’s story. The rivalries are manufactured, the outcomes predetermined. The athleticism is real—you’ve seen this with your own eyes—but the rest is scripted. From this moment on, your primary responsibility will be to protect wrestling’s first and only tenet: never, ever break character. After all, that’s what you’ve been admiring up there on the wall. Not women, characters. There are “faces,” the heroes, and “heels,” the villains. That’s it. Women are too messy, too complicated, Joe explains. Characters are simple. And now, you’re on your way to becoming one, too.

  • • •

  Last but not least, Joe lays out his strict code of conduct. The women he manages are, first and foremost, ladies, by which he means both “classy” and “feminine.” That means gloves, heels, and nylons to and from matches and no “loose behavior” on the premises or on the road. Relationships with men should be discreet; relationships with women should not exist. If he gets wind of any questionable behavior, you are out. Get married and congratulations but you are out. Get pregnant and you will be out before the door can hit you. Deviate from the script in any way and guess what. Out.

  “But I won’t have to worry about you, will I?” he asks. “You’re a good girl, right?”

  “Of course,” you say, shocked that anyone might assume otherwise.

  “Good.” Joe slaps his desk. “I’ve got a promotion tonight, so I won’t be able to start you on the program until tomorrow. See if Mimi will show you a few things. She knows up from down better than the rest of them. If she’s stubborn about helping you, just do what she does.”

  As he says this, Joe looks up at Mimi’s publicity shot, the one he included in his first letter to you. It is just as ferocious as you remembered, her jaw set, her body poised for attack. Her ensemble is similar to all the others in every way except for one: instead of wearing heels, she wears wrestling boots. Black boots stitched in white, to be precise, just like her suit.

  “So, go to it,” he says, waving you on. “Get to work.”

  • • •

  The gym is a swirl of activity: girls drop-kicking medicine balls, punching heavy bags, pushing each other back and forth into the ropes. You will discover that the number of residents here changes by the hour, but at the present moment there are eight others, all of whom are here, obediently heeding Joe’s imperative. (In case it has been lost somewhere on the short journey from his office, there is a hand-stenciled banner on the wall to remind you: get to work). The cinder block walls echo the sounds of contact, human and otherwise, and the air smells of used towels, Hypnotique perfume, and boot-clad feet. Peggy and the sisters are there, as is Mimi, who’s on a mat in the corner doing sit-ups. With more than a little trepidation, you walk over to her.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Yeah, actually, I do,” says Mimi, counting under her breath “seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four . . .” You look up to the ring, and Peggy, leaning against the ropes, waves at you. You should blow off Mimi—what was it that Bonnie called her? Oh, yes: that cow—and join your new friends, but Joe’s advice rings in your head. You wave back, but then you get down on the mat beside Mimi and begin doing sit-ups yourself, trying your best to crunch in unison with her, finishing at Mimi’s count of one hundred. You flop back on the mat, hoping to catch your breath before your real instruction begins, when Mimi flips onto her stomach and begins to do push-ups. Seeing no alternative, you turn over and start your own set—a slower, less graceful, and notably shorter set (you barely pump out half as many) but a series nonetheless.

  “Fine,” says Mimi. “Over here.”

  She picks up a medicine ball and throws it to you. You fold under its weight but retain your grip.

  “Well?” says Mimi. “Throw it back.”

  It takes an incredible amount of effort, but you manage to oblige her, and the two of you go back and forth like this a number of times. After the ball, you jump rope for what seems like an eternity. You try to keep up, but your arms begin to feel like molten lead, and you are forced to drop the rope and massage your shoulders. While you rest, you watch Bonnie ride Brenda’s chest across the mat as Brenda struggles in vain to keep one shoulder up, groaning all the while.

  “Come on, Brenda,” yells Peggy. “Dig deep!”

  “Any chance I’ll get in the ring today?” you ask Mimi, your eyes locked on the ring.

  Mimi stops and wipes her brow with the crook of her arm. “Not if you have a lick of sense,” she says. “Wait for Joe. He’ll start you off right, with falls.”

  “Falls?”

  Mimi takes a long drink from her Thermos. “Yeah, falls. You know. How to go down, hit the mat.”

  “I have to learn how to fall down?”

  “Well, no. You don’t have to learn anything. You could just stay stupid.” She follows your gaze to the unfolding drama of the ring. It seems Brenda is finally succumbing to Bonnie’s pressure, and they both grow louder and shriller as they realize the pin is inevitable. Mimi sighs. “I really don’t have time for this,” she says. She takes the jump rope from you and throws it with hers into the corner. “I got to get in some bag work. Why don’t you go up there with the fruit flies, since you know so much already.”

  Mimi heads over to the heavy bag. You should join her there, but you just can’t quite bring yourself to do it, not with more exciting possibilities available. And so, after Peggy slaps the mat three times, signaling the younger sister’s victory over her sibling, you make your way over to them, eager to be where the action is.

  • • •

  Later in the evening, while you are in your room waiting for the girls to come for you, you keep yourself busy by straightening the clothes in your drawers. You haven’t brought much with you, so this is about as much as you can do to make it feel more like home. At the appointed hour, three energetic raps arrive at your door: Peggy, just as she promised. “Hello again,” she says. “Long time no see.”

  Yes, it’s been all of an hour. You spent most of the day watching her practice hammerlocks and toeholds with Bonnie and Brenda. One by one, you retreated to your rooms to doll up for the evening, as you’ve been instructed—gloves, heels, the whole nine yards. When you climb into the back of Brenda’s car, you are wearing your best dress, bright red and belted with a full skirt and darted bodice. The dress was an impulsive purchase, made only days ago when you spotted it in a department store window after your last day at the diner, your apron pocket unusually full from the generous farewell tips of the regulars. It seemed reckless at the time, but now, you’re glad of it.

  “You look darling!” says Brenda.

  “Doesn’t she?” says Peggy. “Here. I have just the thing to finish it off.” She pulls a lipstick from her clutch and offers it to you. After you lean over the seat and use the rearview mirror to guide yourself as you paint your lips in a matching red, you hand it back to Peggy, but she waves it off.

  “Keep it. It’s just one of those new plastic-cased ones. The color looks just smashing on you. I never could pull it off.”

  The compliment makes you blush, but the gift makes your day. You’ve never made friends this quickly. You spend the hour-long drive hearing the girls bemoan the dearth of date-worthy boys in the area and share the gossip of your new world—the boss is cheap, and Lacey Bordeaux is dumb as dirt for not realizing Johnny is stepping out on her—but listening to little of it. The warm buzz of conversation is enough for you; its substance hardly matters.

  The venue is n
othing like the arena in Philadelphia. This is small-town, make-or-break wrestling, where a fruit fly like you will either hone her craft or pack her bags. It takes place anywhere and everywhere: a park, a high school gymnasium, a hotel lobby, an Elks lodge, or, in this case, a brick National Guard armory surrounded by browning palmetto trees. You and the girls file in with the rest of the crowd—locals mostly, men and women who work on the water, whose lives are routinely turned upside down by the elements, and who are likely glad for the chance to wear their best clothes, to forget about their own lives and lose themselves in a different story, one where justice is doled out with more frequency. Eventually, you reach the ring, where Joe stands on the apron, speaking directly into the ear of the ref. The three of you find seats near what will be Bonnie’s corner, and you settle in for your first ladies’ wrestling match, absorbing the enthusiasm of the audience. You feel your own sore hamstrings ache with possibility.

  The women’s match is the first on the card. The names come over the PA system, and the women run down their respective aisles. First is Bonnie, smiling and pumping her fists, waving to the three of you as she gallops along. She garners polite applause from the crowd merely for being pretty and representing the forces of good. As you’re going to learn, an audience does not give up its heart lightly. Before any wrestler can expect a more enthusiastic response, she will have to earn it: she will have to entertain. If she can successfully accomplish that, they will cheer for her until the end of time. Tonight is Bonnie’s chance to prove her worth.

  Next is the heel, the scapegoat for their deepest rages and disappointments. She is draped in a fur-trimmed robe, her face a steely scowl despite the rising tide of insults. A few reach your ears. “Bulldog.” “Ugly-­ass bitch.” “Goddamn man with tits.” When she climbs into the ring, into her corner, and slides off her robe, she remains stone-faced, as if none of it has registered. Nonetheless, something inside you twangs with pity. I don’t suppose it’s easy being Screaming Mimi Hollander.