Diva
Nineteen
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, I was getting a little anxious. After a weeklong, 3,000-mile roundtrip to Boston, I was bringing my girlfriends—my family—home to my parents’ house in Nebraska. I pointed out sights to them as we entered Nebraska. From the time we turned west on U.S. 30, I was like a three-year-old at the steering wheel, even pointing at the horses and cows in the field.
“There’s where I went to high school,” I said. “Man, it’s changed already. Big renovation this year.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. I didn’t show you my high school back in Lexington,” Melody said.
“We were in a hurry to get you out of town!” Lissa said. “But we’ll go back and you can show us around like tourists. Maybe at Christmas.”
“Oh look,” I said. I’d driven around the streets of Fremont acting like I was just cruising for the benefit of my girlfriends. My real goal was in sight now. “There’s the YMCA. You’ll love it there. It’s where I learned to play racquetball. Three courts.”
Lissa and Melody dutifully looked out the window and I plunged ahead.
“I know… Let’s get a game in tomorrow morning, Lissa. I bet half the town would show up to see us play.”
“Don’t embarrass your girlfriend,” Lissa scowled. Uh-oh.
“I’m sorry. Really. I couldn’t stop him,” I whined. Yeah, Melody doesn’t have a corner on the whining market. I’m pretty good at it.
“Stop who? What?” Melody asked.
“Tony?”
“Dad,” I said. “He’s so excited to have you here to visit he arranged to have a court for us tomorrow morning for a kind of local exhibition.”
I pulled into the Y parking lot and got out of the car, motioning the girls to join me as I approached the front doors. The Y closed early on Sunday afternoon, so they were locked up. Plastered against the glass of the door, though was a big poster that Dad had made up at Kinko’s. The pictures were what he’d managed to download from the Internet.
“U.S. Women’s Open Champion Lissa ‘The Ice Queen’ Grant vs. National Intercollegiate bronze medalist Tony ‘Tornado Alley’ Ames in an Independence Day Exhibition Match…” Lissa read from the poster. “Oh, Tony.”
“Really, I couldn’t,” I complained.
“You are so going to get spanked,” Lissa threatened.
“Hey! What do I have to do to get spanked?” Melody asked. We both looked at her and broke out laughing.
“Just get naked,” I suggested before I thought about what I was saying.
Melody pulled her t-shirt over her head and went for her bra.
“Okay.”
“No, no, no, no!” I said, “Sweetie, this is Nebraska!”
I rushed her to the car and got her inside as Lissa followed laughing at us.
“What would Saul and Deborah think?” she asked as she climbed in the front seat.
“Oh yeah,” Melody sighed. “They’d want to watch, wouldn’t they?”
“You, girl, might look and sound innocent, but you are just plain born evil,” I laughed as we pulled away from the Y. I was relieved to see her smirk at me and pull her t-shirt back on. Rule one: No sex play when the car is running. It was only about ten minutes before we were out of town and I’d turned on the county road where we lived.
“It’s so beautiful out here,” Lissa said. “So peaceful.”
“What’s that?” Melody asked, pointing out the front window toward the west. The sun was in my eyes, so I wasn’t too sure what she was pointing at.
“Well,” I ventured, “I’m not sure if we’re looking due west or slightly southwest. I think it’s Wyoming, but it might be Colorado.”
They were only three or four hundred miles away, and it was pretty much flat from here to there. That got me a well-deserved smack in the shoulder from two directions, but I didn’t care because I was turning into our driveway.
“Tony, it’s beautiful!” Melody exclaimed when she saw that we were at my folks’ house.
“The pictures don’t do it justice,” Lissa added.
“What can I say? They’re only photographs.”
“You should paint it.”
“Maybe I will one day.”
Before we got out of the car the screen door banged on the porch and Mom and Dad were rushing to meet us. They had us wrapped up in so many hugs and kisses that we were never sure who was welcoming whom. Now that I had my family with me, it was sure good to be back.
Dad, of course, had already reached the car to try to grab suitcases or backpacks. I saw him just standing by the open door and went to join him. I pulled out Lissa’s and my backpacks and Melody’s small suitcase. Dad was still looking inside the car.
“I should have bought you a bigger car,” he said.
“Everything fits, Dad,” I answered.
“Yes, but what about your things?” Oh man! The car was packed as full as we could get it with Melody’s things and nothing of mine was in it except the camping equipment. “I think we’ll go down to U-Haul on Tuesday and see if we can get a small trailer,” Dad continued. “You’ll have to be careful because it won’t drive the same when you’re towing. Not as good gas mileage either, but… You are moving back to Seattle, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Of course, Dad. Why would you even ask?”
“Well, you just got a fat envelope from Lincoln yesterday and it looks a lot like your acceptance packet did last year.”
So much had changed since I applied to transfer to the University of Nebraska over the winter break, I couldn’t even imagine going there now. I had a life in Seattle. Six months ago—just six months—I didn’t. I looked at the two women who were my life as they continued to hug and chat with Mom.
“I hope you weren’t planning on me moving back,” I said to Dad. He joined me as we moved luggage toward the house.
“I’d have you committed if you did, son.”
We went into the house through the kitchen and the girls oohed and aahed over the smells coming from the stove. Mom assured them that some of what they smelled—like the four big pies that were cooling on the counter—was for the barbecue tomorrow.
“Tony, take the girls’ bags right on up to the guest room,” Mom said.
“Mom…”
“Tony,” she said. That look… I swear it’s stopped trains. I took the bags up to the guest room with Dad trailing behind me.
“Uh… that one’s mine,” I said to Dad as he set my backpack down in the guest room.
“Mmmhmm.”
“But…” I looked at the queen-sized bed in the guest room and thought about the twin in my room, comprehension beginning to dawn. “Oh.”
I was back down in the kitchen when I heard the sound of tires on the gravel outside sliding to a stop. I looked out the door at the plume of dust that was still settling behind the red pickup. Mom was out the door before me, though, and was waving a wooden spoon in her hand scolding our visitor. The girls followed me out the door.
“Elizabeth Ann! Don’t you come tearing in our drive like a hellion. There could have been children playing out there!”
“Oh my god! I’m sorry! I didn’t think. Did you bring your kids?” she asked looking at me. I shook my head.
“But there could have been,” Mom persisted.
“Yes’m,” Beth said contritely. Then she looked back at me, and, satisfied that she’d been properly humble with Mom, came running up the steps to me. “Pogo!”
“Hi, Dumpling,” I said. “I want you to meet…”
I never got the rest of the words out of my mouth. Beth dropped me like a hot potato and rushed to Melody and Lissa. They stood for a split second looking at each other and then fell into a hug that looked like they were long-lost friends who couldn’t believe they’d found each other.
“You. Are. So. Beautiful!”
Well, that’s the gist of what was said. I couldn’t separate out which of the three girls was shouting it the loudest. I guessed that probably my presence was no longer required so I went inside with Mom. She handed me a stack of plates to set the table.
“Is it okay if Beth stays for dinner?” I asked.
“She’s practically been camped out here all day waiting for you,” Mom said. “If you don’t set her a plate, she’ll eat off yours.”
“So, Lissa,” Dad said as we ate Mom’s incredible pot roast, “a few friends and I were wondering if you and Tony would give us a racquetball exhibition tomorrow morning. The Y is only open till noon on the Fourth and we have the barbecue in the afternoon, but it would mean a lot if you would show us how the game is supposed to be played.”
“Sure, Saul,” Lissa said. “Anything for you.” I rolled my eyes. “I hope no one considers Tony too much of a local hero, though,” she continued, “because I’m going to spank his butt on the court tomorrow.”
I swear I heard Beth moan. I just hoped Lissa meant she was going to beat me at racquetball.
“They’re so beautiful, Pogo,” Beth said as I walked her out to her truck after she said goodnight to everyone. “And so nice!” We’d been sitting in the family room for the past two hours. It seemed that everyone had a favorite embarrass Tony story or ten that had to be told to girlfriends, best friends, and parents.
“I think so, too,” I said. “Dumpling, I know you had a different kind of summer planned, but…”
“It was silly, Pogo. Forget about it. But…”
“What?”
“Could you still paint me? I’ve got an idea.”
She laid out the basics of her plan and I had to admit it was good. This was going to be a very good visit to Nebraska.
“Focus!”
How many times had I heard that in the past three months? I’d let my mind wander to the crowd of thirty or forty people outside the back glass of the court and another of Lissa’s kill-shots had just sailed past me. Don’t embarrass your girlfriend, I reminded myself. If I didn’t play like I meant it, Lissa would be very upset. She might, indeed, spank my butt on the racquetball court, but not if I wasn’t playing for real. I dropped the next shot just below her racquet and took over the serve.
As soon as my hand closed around the smooth blue surface of the ball, something inside me clicked. I stroked the rubber ball with my thumb, thinking of all the great games I’d had this spring and especially of the one with Karl at National Singles. Just see where the ball will be, I thought. Forget about the walls. I smiled and looked over my shoulder at Lissa to make sure she was ready as I walked into the server’s lane. She saw it and smiled. Now let’s play racquetball.
It really wasn’t fair. She was playing on an unfamiliar court with borrowed equipment—my spares. I’d given her five points before I’d gotten my head in the game. But now we were playing at the level we were both capable of. I gained three of the five points back before the game was over. We took five and went right back at it like we’d never stopped.
When you are playing racquetball and are truly in the game, time stops. The world stops. There’s just where the ball is going to be. I no longer saw Lissa on the court, but just the source of the ball’s trajectory. Every muscle ripple in her shoulders and legs keyed into what I was going to do next; where I was going to be; how I was going to hit the ball. When a player is in that zone, he’s unbeatable.
Unless his opponent is in the same zone.
When I had time to think about it later, I realized that Lissa had stepped up a level in her game. She’d entered the zone she’d asked me to teach her. It was a forty-minute game and she took me by one point.
We opened the door of the court to stagger out, with our arms wrapped around each other and applause from the gathered crowd.
“Yay, Lover!” Melody was shouting. Nice safe cheer. She was covered on all sides, though I could see a couple of people give her a strange look.
We were drenched in sweat and I couldn’t think of anything but a shower and a hot tub before the club closed. I had to introduce Lissa and Melody to a dozen people, though, including my art teacher, my racquetball instructor, half a dozen high school friends, and several of my dad’s friends. Most, we’d see again in the afternoon, but everyone wanted to say hi and how much they’d enjoyed the game. The last person I expected to see was Rev. Larkin. He was the Lutheran minister in town about ten years ago, but he’d moved away to a big church in Omaha before I was in junior high.
“Did you come all the way out here from Omaha?” I asked, shaking his hand.
“Oh no. I moved back here when I retired at the first of the year. I think the Synod had enough of my heresies and put me out to pasture, but when I actually had a choice of where I wanted to live, Fremont was the place. And these are?” he asked.
“Sorry!” I said. “These are my girlfriends, Lissa and Melody.”
Rev. Larkin didn’t bat an eye.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I hope we’ll have a chance to chat at the barbecue this afternoon. I’m glad you are keeping Tony in line.”
“We do our best,” Lissa said.
“It takes both of us, though,” Melody added.
Okay. I was a little embarrassed. But you know what? I was fucking proud, too. I was never religious and didn’t go to church more than the other CEOs—that’s Christmas and Easter Only—but Rev. Larkin was a good guy and I was proud that I’d introduced him to my girlfriends without stumbling over it or being embarrassed. And he just accepted it. I hugged both girls to me and said that we’d see him this afternoon. Then we headed to the showers while we could.
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