Icarus. (17 page)

What if…

"You ready to boogie, Jack?"

Jack looked up, his regretful reverie over. Kid stood in the entryway, on the edge of the living room, looking in at him.

"How'd you get in?"

"The key," Kid said. "From when I cleaned out the office. I drove here, so I just parked in the garage and came up."

"You have a car?"

"Borrowed a friend's," Kid said. "I'm running around all day today and it's a lot cheaper than cabs." He dug into his pocket, pulled the small, squat elevator key out, and held it in his palm. "Where do you want me to put it?"

"It's Mattie's," Jack told him. "Put it on the little table there so I'll remember to give it back to her."

Kid nodded, placed it on the side table in the hallway. "You're looking pretty serious today."

"I'm feeling pretty serious today."

"Thinking too much is bad for you, Jack."

"It depends what it is you're thinking, doesn't it?"

"Oh, right. Sorry. I guess you were sittin in here just thinking your happy thoughts."

"I'm paying you to be my physical trainer, not a psychiatrist."

"Sometimes they go hand in hand."

"But not this time," Jack told him.

"Okay." Kid shrugged, sloughing off any acknowledgment of Jack's self-pity. "Then let's get physical."

– "-"-"OVER THE NEXT month, Jack learned that his pain was inextricably tied to his improvement. And Kid was right. He'd begun to enjoy it in a strange and elusive way. As excruciating as it was, he could feel it bringing him slowly, inch by inch, closer to life.

Kid came, without fail, five days a week. Seven o'clock every morning, and they spent an hour together, sometimes two, Kid pushing Jack as hard as he would let himself be pushed. And then he'd give Jack another hour's worth of work to do on his own, a specific plan to do every afternoon. More exercises. More pushing. More pain. Sometimes, when he had the time, Kid even came back in the afternoon to oversee the second session. And often he'd show up on the weekend, occasionally cajoling Jack into an extra workout.

While they worked together, they talked. Gradually, Kid let his reserves down, began to open up and fill Jack in on his past. He also began to let Jack into his present. Jack, in turn, realized how much he'd missed the regular human contact he'd grown accustomed to at the restaurant, how much he'd missed having a daily dialogue with someone. The relationship they'd had years ago began to establish itself again. Kid began to rely on Jack to act as the father he'd lost at such a young age. And Jack began to think of Kid the way he had when Kid was a teenager – as his own son.

The ice was broken ten days into the training session.

"Come on. Push yourself!" Kid was exhorting him. Jack was curling two-pound weights, which felt as if they were two hundred pounds. "Does it hurt?" Kid asked.

"Christ, yes."

"Good, it's supposed to hurt. It's not your injury – it's surprise. Now give me more!"

"Eleven…" Jack breathed. And, arms trembling, eyes closed in concentration, he slowly forced his body to repeat the exercise one more time. "Twelve…" And then all the air swept out of him. His arms dropped to his sides and the weights dangled until Kid swooped them up. Jack sat for a minute, breathing heavily, then Kid handed him a bottle of water, which Jack raised gratefully to his lips then took a long swig.

"You can't be afraid to fail," Kid said. "It's the paradox of training. You have to embrace failure. You have to work until you do fail. If you don't fail, you don't get strong."

Jack, exhausted, nodded. He got it. He didn't like it, but he sure as hell got it.

The cell phone hanging from Kid's neck emitted a birdlike chirp of a ring.

"Excuse me," Kid said, then spoke quietly into the phone. Jack heard only Kid's end of the conversation. "Hey… Yeah, that's why I left the message… I'm really, really sorry… I know, but I got a management seminar at four, then I promised to fill in for Kim at the Saddle… Yeah, Friday, I promise… I promise… You're the best. Bye-bye."

He hung up, turned back to Jack. "All right, let's do the last set."

"Management seminar?" Jack asked.

Kid nodded, almost sheepishly. "I'm getting my MBA."

"You're shitting me."

"For real."

"Why didn't you tell me? And do they know you left most of your brains on the football field?"

Kid shrugged. "It's NYU – I'm on a minority scholarship for slow white quarterbacks who couldn't hit the side of a barn. And that's why I didn't tell you."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I've got an idea." Before Jack could get out a word, Kid said, "Yes, I'll talk to you about it. But when I'm ready. When I've got the thing really planned out."

"But there is a thing?"

"I think so," Kid said. "I really do think so. Now stop stalling."

Jack did twelve more reps of light curls. He didn't pause at eight this time, didn't need the break, just gritted his teeth and kept going.

"You're my idol, Jack. That was very impressive."

Jack accepted the compliment with a quick nod. It took him a few seconds to gather himself before he could speak. "How are you paying for it? For grad school?"

"By the hour." Kid tapped his cell phone. "I'm back to personal training and that's why I hate bailing on a client. But she lives in Park Slope, way the hell out, and it's the Entertainer's birthday – and you do not disappoint her, believe me."

"Who the hell is the Entertainer?"

Kid breathed out a little laugh and said matter-of-factly, "She's a member of the Team."

"Okay. Let's keep going. What the hell is the Team?"

"Sorry. It's kind of a joke. They're the women I go out with."

"Plural?"

Kid nodded. "These days, it seems like it."

"At the same time?"

"I don't seem to be too good at the one-on-one thing. At least, well…" He shook his head. Something he wasn't ready to talk about. "So, yeah, I guess, at the same time."

"I didn't know you were such a stud."

"It's not always by choice. But for the moment it's what I've got instead of…" Kid stopped, bit off his words, and turned his head away from Jack.

Jack took a deep breath, then finished the sentence. "It's what you've got instead of a wife and a home, instead of a family."

Their eyes met now. And Kid nodded.

"It's what you've got instead of what I had," Jack finished.

"I'm sorry," Kid said.

"I think these weights are too light" was all Jack said in response. "Next time let's move up to five pounds."

– "-"-"TWO DAYS LATER, Kid's cell phone rang again in the middle of the workout.

"I won't answer it. She can wait," he said.

"How do you know it's a she?"

"It's always a she."

"Kid, I'm now officially intrigued."

"With my love life?"

Jack nodded. "Who's on this… this team?"

"I feel funny talking about this to you."

"Consider it part of the therapy," Jack told him. "I've been thinking about it. It might be good to hear about what's going on in the real world."

Kid held back the smile. But his eyes gloated. "You're paying me to be your physical trainer," he said, "not your psychiatrist."

Jack gave a grudging smile back. "Sometimes they go hand in hand," he said.

Kid hesitated, then said, "Okay. But it did start as a kind of goof. One day I realized I was seeing a lot of women. Four, five, six of them. And individually they were okay but when you put them all together, took the best of what each one had to offer, well, they made a kind of perfect woman. It was like a baseball team, you know. You don't need a real star as long as you've got a real team."

"So what's the lineup?"

"It's fluid. And you gotta be flexible. Like I said, you can't just go out with the MVP's all the time."

"That's very magnanimous of you."

"Just being practical. You gotta go with your occasional gritty veterans, a designated hitter or two, the franchise player…"

"And the Entertainer? She a franchise player?"

Kid shook his head. "Short relief. My closer."

"You're unbelievable. What's her name?"

"No names, Jack. Trainer's code."

"What are you talking about?"

"For real. I'm telling you personal stuff about her, maybe about some of the others. I mean, I know you won't go gossiping or talking about this, but you never know, you might meet one of them someday and I wouldn't want to embarrass her."

"That's very gentlemanly."

"Good for business, too. It won't help me get work if people know I'm out spilling my guts about them to all my clients. I'll tell you about them, but it's all nicknames – the Entertainer, the Mortician, Samsonite, the Rookie…"

"Very descriptive."

"There's some logic behind it," Kid admitted. "I'm pretty careful about my nicknames. I pick 'em for a reason. The Rookie'll change – that's just until I know more about her, until I can really peg her."

"Are all these women clients?"

"Most of them, yeah."

"That's how you meet them?"

"Mostly. Sometimes at clubs, after-hours places. Bars. I met the Rookie at an after-hours club, then saw her again in an art gallery. Sometimes I meet 'em just walking down the street." He grinned. "What can I say? Women like me."

"Keep going."

"Gimme fifteen leg lifts and we'll gab."

Jack began to strain, sitting on the Universal leg-lift machine. As the small stack of weights slowly began to rise and fall, Kid began to elaborate.

"So there's the Entertainer, you know about her."

"I don't know anything about her."

"What do you want to know?"

"Something. What does she do?"

"She's a dancer."

"A few more details, please."

Kid thought for a moment. "Okay. She's got a great body, she chews with her mouth open sometimes, which drives me a little crazy, she surprises you sometimes with how smart she is, and she's a little bit sad."

"Why sad?"

"Because she has to live a secret life." When he saw Jack's look of confusion, he went on. "She's got things she can't tell anybody."

"Not even herself."

It wasn't a question and Kid nodded, pleased that Jack understood so quickly. "Especially herself."

"That is sad," Jack said.

"The saddest thing there is," Kid said, and Jack was suddenly surprised to realize that this wasn't really part of the conversation, that this was, in part, Kid talking directly to Kid. Then his eyes focused back on Jack and he put another two-pound weight on the machine. "But, hey," he said, "that's what makes her an interesting closer. Great stuff – but she's too damn wild to depend on."

– "-"-"SEVERAL MORE WEEKS passed and Jack's body was aching all the time now. But it was an ache that excited him. He could feel his body responding, getting stronger. It seemed as if strength was surging back into him almost on a daily basis. It made him work harder, force his body to absorb more punishment. It made him realize the possibilities and hunger for more of what he was just beginning to taste.

It was in the middle of one particularly grueling session, perhaps the biggest push he'd made yet, that Mattie wandered into the workout room.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, "but I'm off to the store. Is there anything special you want me to get?" she asked Jack. His only response was a weak wave of the hand, grateful that she'd rescued him, giving him a few seconds respite from the torture Kid was putting him through.

"Mattie," Kid said. "How is it you haven't aged a day since I first met you?"

"Stop messing with me," she said, but she grinned as she said it. She could not get angry at Kid. She had told Jack several times how glad she was that he was back. How much livelier the apartment had seemed since he'd returned.

"And you've gotten even more beautiful," Kid told her. "What's the secret? A pact with the devil?"

"I'll give you the devil," she said, but her grin grew even wider. "This is your last chance to tell me what you want."

"Whatever you get is fine with me," Jack told her.

She turned to Kid and said sternly, "And you don't deserve anything special" – she wagged her finger at him now – "but I'll think about buying you something too if you tell me what you like. No promises now, but I'll think on it."

"A weekend with you on a romantic island, that's all I want."

Mattie swatted at him with her hand. "You are bad," she said, but she had an extra little skip in her step as she headed toward the front door.

"She likes you," Jack said when Mattie was gone.

"She's got good taste."

"She does. Mattie's very fussy about who she approves of."

"She was always nice to me. I think she used to feel sorry for me. She always used to ask me about my mom, making sure she was okay. And she used to want me to talk about my dad, too. I remember one time she told me that when her dad died, she tried not to think about him. She thought that would make the pain go away. But then she realized that only made the pain worse. What made it better was to remember."

"That's good advice. Hard to follow, but good."

"I guess. I still find the forgetting a lot easier."

"What is it you're trying to forget, Kid? What the hell's been so hard for you?"

Kid looked down at the barbell on the floor. "It shows, huh?"

"Something shows. I don't have a clue what, though."

Kid said nothing for a few moments. Then, as he bent down to add weights to the barbell, he turned to Jack and said, "Do you miss her? I mean, do you miss her all the time?"

"Yes." Jack was surprised how quickly he blurted out the word. He thought he'd tell Kid to stick to his team and leave him the hell alone. But suddenly he found he wanted to talk about Caroline. Maybe it was hearing Mattie's advice. Memories were welling up inside him and he felt an overpowering urge to get them out into the open. "It's almost unbelievable how much I miss her."