Girl in the Arena (22 page)

Here it’s difficult to look at Uber, and I don’t even try. I just stare into my water glass.

—And suddenly, or not so suddenly, this thing she built, this whole life, was starting to kill her. And ever since Tommy died, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to make sure Thad never has to see another fight. And how I really think I want to write about it, not be in it anymore. The problem is if I’m no longer part of if it, then my family suffers. God, I’m sorry. I usually don’t talk this much.

Uber pushes his chow mein into his eggplant.

—So you’re saying you’d make a lousy Glad wife?

—That’s what I’m saying.

—Good. Because I don’t want to be with someone who could pass Wife 101. My mother was her own woman. Always. They had their fights, but in the end, I think my father liked having a real partner. And then when he got Alzheimer’s, it was a good thing that she’s so resourceful. She used to read a ton. We had a big library like yours. She had first editions of Faulkner, Wharton, Steinbeck... I think that’s how she made the whole thing bearable. I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet her.

I express my anger again that Caesar’s used his parents that way.

—Caesar’s told them they were surprising me with this special day in my honor. It wasn’t until after they arrived and a rep talked with them in the car on the way over to the stadium that they learned what was actually planned. They were then told that my competition load would double if they didn’t go along. My mother knew I was eager to get out, so she went along. I didn’t find this out until afterward.

—They’re like the worst of the government now, the worst of the military, I say.

—What I was trying to say the other day, about taking off, I think you could say I have renewed conviction.

Uber fills our cups with tea and pushes a fortune cookie my way that I decide to take home for Thad because he loves the way they snap open. We talk for a while about growing up Glad, the strange mix of admiration other kids sometimes expressed and the feeling of never fitting in—the constant need to defend what our parents did—the times we wanted to be like everyone else, the times we didn’t, the fights people picked with us just to see if we’d do something crazy and pull out a sword on the playground. And when we didn’t produce those weapons we were liars, we weren’t real Glads.

He tells me about his first memory of seeing a fight in the arena and I tell him that most of that was erased from my brain except for the blue benches and my mother’s slow undoing. We had both known mean teachers at our schools who treated us differently than the other kids. We had both tried to date non-Glads but never found it worked very well.

I think he’s holding up better than I would with all that bandaging. But we finally start to wind down and he says, —I’d really like to see you again, and he reaches out and takes my hand. And for some dumb reason, I don’t pull away.

—Even if Tommy’s death wasn’t between us... Allison married seven men and each one of them told her they were eager for the time they could stop fighting and lead a normal life. I think... I won’t go there.

—If I could get out of my contract early, say, if I were done, you might consider seeing me?

—I have to take care of my family and get my head on straight and that’s all I can think about. God, it sounds like I’m holding a press conference. But I do have to take care of us. My mother’s always been a little wobbly. She’s really a mess now.

—I’ll work on my end. Maybe we can check back in a while, see how it’s going?

I don’t say no, and then we both agree that we’re going to have to put Caesar’s off for a while, so they think we’re considering a Glad marriage.

When we leave the restaurant, it’s really pretty late and we decide to drive over and take a walk by the Charles. It’s a relief to feel the cool evening air.

Eventually we get back to the van and circle round to the cabstand so I can avoid showing up at the house again with Uber. He puts the transmission in idle and I thank him for dinner. And then I just kiss him full on the mouth, the taste of gauze and aftershave and spicy dumplings and strong tea around the edges. And if we were in a crowd of reporters they’d ask if he tastes like my father’s blood and then I’d probably just go home and maybe I’d cry a little but probably I’d look for Thad and see what he needed, because it’s a whole lot easier to think about his needs than anything else.

But we didn’t have any witnesses and I said good night and flagged down a taxi.

CHAPTER 26

On the ride home I’m thinking about Uber and how it was too easy to talk with him and how much I don’t want to be grilled by Allison tonight. I have the driver pull up to the back gates with his headlights off and I start to think I should carry a baseball bat. I hope the paparazzi aren’t waking Allison as they swarm and shout at me, and tonight I have absolutely nothing to say.

One of the guards escorts me and sees that I get in through the kitchen and I go upstairs and tiptoe past her room, the lights blazing under her bathroom door, the TV on full blast in her bedroom. She’s been waiting up the way she always does when I go on a date. I have to break her of that habit.

I decide to check on Thad first.

He has plenty of stuffed animals tucked under his covers, some dropped to the floor. I can tell he’s had his hair washed by the smell of his shampoo and the slight dampness on the pillow. I bend to kiss his temple. He will sleep for hours. I turn his TV off and shut his door, and brace myself for Allison.

Outside her bedroom I realize I’m staring at a photo of my first father, Frank, with his plastic trident and the padding of a hockey goalie. That’s how he dressed in those early Glad days. I touch the glass over his face. He had the slight cleft chin I have, and we shared the small gap between our front teeth, as if we both had something that was trying to split us down the middle. There are no audio recordings of him, and I have no memory of his voice. He doesn’t speak directly to me in that way that dead people sometimes offer persistent advice or ridicule once they’re gone, a little comfort. And I suddenly have this feeling that I haven’t asked the right questions about him. So I don’t know if I got my rebellious nature from him—if there’s a logical excuse in the blood. Maybe he got lost in history books the way I do. I decide I’m going to quiz Allison for more details. She loves it when I ask about my fathers. I think those nostalgic moments assuage a lot of guilt. And maybe it will keep us off the topic of Uber for a while.

I think I hear her calling me from the bathroom but maybe it’s the TV—it’s SO loud. I knock on the door and when she doesn’t answer I knock a few more times. After a while I push on the door and it comes open.

She’s slumped near the toilet, head down, her back to me. All I see is the form of her curved spine in her lemon-colored nightgown and her legs sprawled out. My heart drops away, my head, my stomach, everything drops, and I think she could be doing one of her faux deaths, so I’m calling to her loudly. Maybe she’s taken a small combination of alcohol and prescription drugs that have put her in a stupor. She did that once before, and she slumped just this way.

I don’t even see the blood at first. Everywhere and I don’t see it. I don’t know how that can happen. The lights are those kind that last for months. And I wonder, did I just think that, about the lights? I can’t imagine I’d think about that.

And then I realize a phone receiver is pressed against my ear. It occurs to me that I’ve dialed Tommy’s private number like he’s working out at the gym or took his car in for a wash where they have brushes the size of small fir trees and soap that changes colors as it activates—things Thad loves. Maybe I was thinking if Tommy heard my voice pushing to get out of my chest—trying to tell him about Allison—that he would rush home from wherever he is and cover her up so I don’t have to be the one to do this.

But I’ve got it now. Tommy’s dead and he can’t do a thing about Allison.

I’m still here holding the receiver against my ear, right outside Allison’s bathroom now, thinking I should find some Kleenex and blow my nose and maybe go downstairs and wash my face and put the receiver down, all of those things in some logical sequence so I can get the dial tone to stop ringing in my head. I don’t think I’m trying to call the police. I wouldn’t do that unless she had a pulse.

The walls that she had once painted a mushroom color, the white sink and ceiling, the toilet cover she has washed and bleached by the woman who comes in to do the twice-weekly cleaning, the towels Allison has made sure to replace as soon as one thread comes loose or the smallest drop of makeup won’t scrub out, those things are all covered in blood. I can see that now. When I crouch down, I say her name softly so she won’t get mad at me. As I move around her, I finally see her face.

I have to step into the sticky blood to hold the wrist without the gun and feel for a pulse. I realize, as I back out of myself and float up to the ceiling, that there is no hurry to call anyone. I take a clean towel from the shelves and cover her head. Another towel over her legs where her skirt has risen up.

And I think about how every three or four months she gives those imperfect towels to the woman who cleans—the woman Caesar’s sends—it seems they’re always changing these women, and before they change we send them off with everything we’ve got: old towels and clothing, toys and magazines, plastic containers, old television sets.

Sticking out of the wastebasket is one of her personal note cards with her embossed initials at the top. It’s a letter she’s started to me. So I pull it out of the trash even though my hand is crazy with shakes. And I look at Allison and I tell her I’ll read it later. I tell her Thad and I are going to be all right. 
You’ll see
. 
We’re going to be all right
.

Putting the letter in my pocket, I step out of my shoes and go through her bedroom and lock the bathroom door and I’m standing in her bedroom barefoot. I look in that wastebasket and there are two more letters she started and I take those and fold them and put them in my pocket as well. That’s how I find the first three suicide notes. And I still haven’t called the police because I need to take care of Thad and I need to think. That’s one thing she’d want me to do for sure, to think about how I’m going to handle this with the media and Caesar’s Inc. and Child Protective Services if they show up.

I find one letter in her lingerie drawer facedown. I find two in the highboy. Back downstairs. Three in the office, one in the kitchen trash. I find fourteen in all. None of them complete. Just starts, just intentions of letters, none of which had apparently hit the mark.

I wash up at the sink. I wash my feet. Then I call Julie.

*

Julie tells me to turn on the kitchen monitor to Thad’s room, so I can hear him if he wakes up. Lloyd and Julie will be here in a few minutes. She directs me to the hall closet where I should get a warm sweater or jacket.

—Anything. Take anything, she says. —And put it on.

She tells me to put my arms in the sleeves of anything. I am to go back to the kitchen and open one set of French doors onto the patio, it doesn’t matter which set. I turn the lights out in the kitchen.

—You need to sit outside and get some oxygen.

She wants me to stop hyperventilating. Julie instructs me to sit in a chair on the patio with the French doors wide open so I can hear the monitor.

—Whatever you do, she says, don’t turn on the outside lights. That would only draw the paparazzi. Just sit out in the night air and whisper with me. Just listen to my voice if you can’t talk. You’re going to get through this, Lyn. Lloyd and I are here for you, baby.

So I sit in the dark and look at the phone I’m holding.

—Who’s calling? I ask.

I notice it’s a mild night and I wonder if it’s going to rain tomorrow. No one has been able to figure out how to turn the timer off on the sprinkler system since Tommy’s death.

—You’re still talking to Aunt Julie, dear. Now really listen. It’s important that you don’t go back upstairs unless Thad wakes up. Don’t talk to anyone if the other phone should ring and don’t answer a knock at the door. We’ll come the back way. I’m on my phone and I won’t put it down for a second until we get there. We’ll just stay on the line and keep talking together.

—Julie? Did you say you’re coming over?

—We’ll be there before you know it. We’re on our way. You let Lloyd and me handle everything, sweetheart. We’ll take care of every last thing. You’re going to be all right, I promise. Thad and you are both going to be all right.

There’s enough of a moon out so I can see the dark outlines of Allison’s plants. Maybe she planted too much narcissus this year, the smell is very intense.

—Julie? I didn’t know you were on the phone.

—Yes, Lyn, this is Julie.

—You’re crying, I say.

—I’m just feeling sad, Lyn. But we’re on our way over right now. We’re in the van. I’m going to stay on the phone with you the whole way. I don’t want you to think about anything except taking deep breaths.

I look at the phone in my hand.

Maybe I had been trying to call out.

CHAPTER 27

Thad holds my hand during the entire memorial. If Allison could come back from the dead long enough for the service, he would hold her hand the whole way. She was, after all, the one who got him through everything.

Although I still don’t think he understands that Tommy is gone, I believe he knew even before he woke up that morning that Allison had taken her own life. Julie made certain he came nowhere near Allison’s bathroom, and she helped to specify a closed casket, not that anyone wanted it to be open. But the image of Allison’s face, the blood, I think those things streamed through his brain though he didn’t see her in that bathroom even once. I think he 
saw 
what I saw in the way that he captures the unseen. I hope I’m wrong. I feel completely wrong now about everything. About my inability to tell her how much I loved her in those last days.

No mention of 
Uxor Totus 
is made at the service. Nothing about it in the memorial booklet, and I’m relieved about that. Instead they remember the young Allison. At the entry to the funeral parlor her full-color photo on a large poster board. She was around thirty then and wore a cool gray Oleg Cassini knockoff, her hair swept up and off her neck, and she looked remarkably happy.