Sudden Death (24 page)

Carmen drove to the grocery store and stocked up. She liked food shopping. When she carried the bags through the door, Harriet was on the phone.

“Hi,” Carmen called out as Harriet hung up. “I’m making spareribs tonight. How hungry are you?”

“Not very.” Harriet’s head was up, but she looked tense.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was talking to Dr. Speicher, remember him?”

“Head of the religion department. Why were you talking to him?”

“I wanted to find out how bad it really is.”

“Yeah?”

“He can’t hire me back. He said forget teaching anywhere.”

“Stop worrying about it! I make enough money to buy the fucking department. And I don’t get it. They knew you were gay when you worked there.”

“Well, I lived in a closet with an open door. I never said I was gay, but I never said I wasn’t. Now I’ve said it.”

“Forget it.”

“Choosing not to work in order to follow you is one thing. Not being able to work is another.”

“I told you to forget it. I pay all the bills anyway. It’s no different today than it was yesterday.”

Harriet was hurt. “You begged me to come on the road with you, Carmen. I never asked you to pay my bills, but who in God’s name can afford to follow you all over the world? It bothers me that I can’t get work now.”

“If I win the Grand Slam, neither of us will ever have to worry about money.”

“That’s your life, not mine.” Harriet smiled sadly.

This thought disturbed Carmen. Her life was her lover’s life. Her lovers always accompanied her on the road, each yielding to the peculiar demands of Carmen’s profession. In return, she paid the expenses. A life separate from her own seemed impossible … and it seemed somewhat traitorous. “When I’m on the road you can learn something new. Something where being gay won’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

Harriet, on the surface, brightened, “I guess I can audition for the telephone voice that says, ‘At the tone the time will be two
P.M.
’ ”

Carmen hauled her carcass through the first rounds of the Amelia Island tournament. Reporters buzzed around; a few proved obnoxious. Ricky headed them off when he could. Carmen and Harriet left their condominium in the middle of the night and moved in with Ricky and Jane. No one would dare mess with them there.

Carmen played golf every day. She played Boggle, Scrabble, cards, and darts when she wasn’t playing golf. She’d practice tennis, play her match, and then hit the greens. Often Ricky would accompany her. He liked the pace of golf.

Jane and Harriet spent all Jane’s nonworking hours together. The only players that would even nod a greeting to Harriet were the two married ones and Beanie Kittredge. The others, gay and scared shitless or straight and confused or sadly sexless, popped their bodies into reverse when Harriet was within sight. Harriet pitied them their cowardice, but she pitied Carmen even more. Carmen was running mostly from herself. There were moments when she couldn’t look Harriet in the face. Harriet understood Carmen’s dilemma. Carmen hoped it would all go away.

Harriet felt helpless and was helpless. She knew she’d have the unsavory experience of watching her lover run into a wall at eighty miles per hour. The question was, where and how? Some people can run until they’re forty. Some fill up with bourbon. Some give up and die. Better to crash and crash so goddamned hard that you change yourself and change for the better, thought Harriet, but it was hard to watch. There was also the frightening possibility that someday Carmen would crash, period.

“Thanks again for letting us bunk out with you two,” Harriet said as she and Jane sat down under a beach umbrella.

“Week’s not over yet. You get the bill at the end or we take it out in trade.” Jane put her fingers to her temples.

“Now, there’s an idea.” Harriet looked at her. “Another headache?”

Jane ignored the question, stared into the sky, and said, “Rawls, what are you going to do?”

“Live.”

“That’s never in question. You’re probably immortal.”

“Nectar and ambrosia.”

“I mean it. Carmen’s coasting over the lesbian issue. True, the tennis world gathered around to protect her. Did you read Susan Reilly’s statement to the press?”

“No.” Harriet turned so she could lie down facing Jane.

“She railed against the press for being bloodhounds. She said Carmen was not a homosexual.” Harriet made a gagging sound. Jane pinched her nose with her forefinger and thumb and continued. “And she said people shouldn’t be judged by their associations. Why, she, Susan Reilly, had gay men friends.”

“Did she sign the statement, ‘Your lying, fucking friend’?”

“It may help Carmen.”

“Ha! It keeps the issue in front of everybody, and it keeps Susan in front, her favorite place, smelling like a rose.”

“You’re right, though, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I miss Baby Jesus so much I could die.”

“She’d rather be in Cazenovia than on the road.”

“Yeah. What’s percolating, Jane?” She wrote letters in the sand.

“American libel laws are one thing. British laws are another. You two are going to be roasted in England. That’s what’s percolating.”

Harriet sighed. “I told Carmen I wanted to stay home from the French Open and Wimbledon for that reason. She went on a crying jag our first night here. A true jag. I can’t leave her.”

“Go with her and she’ll cry, too.”

“I know, but I can’t let her down. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”

“Possibly.” Jane smiled. “Harriet, I’ve known Carmen longer than you have. You may know her intimately, but I know her patterns. She’s always got to have somebody. I’m not saying she doesn’t love you or need you. But I am saying she’s terrified of being alone. She ought to live by herself for one year to prove she can do it. You may not be helping her by running every time she calls. You can’t make her happy every second of the day.”

Harriet lay quietly for a few minutes. “Yeah.”

“I’m only telling you what I see.”

“How can I leave her alone for the first two events of the Grand Slam? They’ll attack her whether I’m with her or whether I’m not. Better I stand by her and deflect what I can.”

“Deflect or absorb?”

“It makes no difference.”

“Harriet, I’m your friend, and I’m telling you you’re being an asshole.”

“For saying I was a lesbian?”

“Dense!” Jane threw up her hands. “No! If you go, you hurt both her and yourself, and if you stay, it’s the same. You’re in a no-win situation.”

“Hell, I don’t understand my life.”

Jane put her chin in her palms. “Actually, I don’t know if I understand mine either. Look, I’ll be blunt. Carmen’s easygoing, ready for fun, temperamental at times. She gets bored very easily and scared very easily. She responds to being scared by running away or by covering it with hyperactivity. She’s running away from the lesbian issue—fuel supplied by ninety-nine percent of the circuit, thank you very much—and she could run away from you. Don’t be fooled by these last few days of calm.”

“Me! I’m the only person she can depend on.”

Jane shrugged, palms upward.

“She loves me.”

“I know she does as much as she can, given her profession and her age.”

“Jane, why are you at me? So far, Carmen and I have been pretty good together. The only problem we had was my work.”

“Resolved in her favor. Suppose something doesn’t resolve in her favor?”

“I have faith in Carmen. I love her.”

At Amalgamated Banks, Dennis Parry read Kuzirian’s column with more than curiosity. After all, they loaned Carmen Semana $600,000. If her corporation’s profits depended on her popularity, Amalgamated’s loan could be in jeopardy. Who’d want to wear her clothing line?

The phone call from a frightened Dennis Parry yanked Miguel’s stomach into a knot.

“Dennis, don’t worry. The next installment is due in two months. You’ll have your seventy-five thousand dollars right on time.”

Dennis hung up somewhat mollified.

Miguel was shaking. Would the scandal be reflected in the next quarter’s sales? Miguel didn’t bank on Amalgamated. He banked on his sister.

Sitting in a golf cart watching the sunset, Carmen turned to Harriet and said, “Why is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No.” Harriet breathed in the salty air. “Florida sunsets are spectacular. Look at that orange and pink and purple.”

“Yeah.” Carmen touched Harriet’s arm. “Do you think we’ll ever have fun anymore?”

“I believe all things pass. This, too, shall pass.”

“Sounds like something a nun would say.”

“I’m no nun.”

“Sometimes I look at you and wonder what you are.”

Harriet, wanting to lift the mood, said, “Think of me as an angel with lice on her wings.” But Carmen didn’t laugh.

Mercifully, Carmen and Harriet had the week off after Amelia Island, and they returned home. Spring was flirting with Cazenovia. As it was so far north, the crocuses were only now blooming. Daffodils stuck their heads up in the flower beds around the lovely home. Even Miguel found himself charmed by the emergence of the town from its blanket of snow.

Carmen surrendered to the television. Hours of watching helped her unwind and escape the necessity of thought. Harriet launched herself into the attic closet in an orgy of spring cleaning. Unbeknownst to herself, she, too, began to put away her dreams.

The attic, cool and crisp, contained a huge cedar closet. Baby Jesus splayed herself across a shelf after making certain to nest in Harriet’s prized cashmere sweaters.

Harriet loved the attic with its gables. The four-mile expanse of Cazenovia Lake lay smooth as a mirror. From the window she could see the lights in homes across the water. Legend had it that Hiawatha fished in the lake. A steam ferry sunk by irate citizens haunted one end of the lake.

Baby Jesus knocked a sweater to the floor. Harriet picked it up to fold it and, much to her surprise, found herself crying. The cat jumped on her shoulders and tried to lick her face. Harriet wiped her eyes and walked over to a gable window.

Must be all this tension, she thought.

Sitting perfectly still on the inside of the window was a giant luna moth. Its wingspan was easily seven inches. The wings and body were pale mint green with the shoulders and
swallowtail edged in maroon. In the middle of each swallowtail pulsated a maroon dot that looked like the yin-yang symbol. The moth’s fat legs were deep maroon while its antennae blazed like yellow ferns. Its iridescent eyes burned. The luna moth was early by nearly six weeks, but nonetheless, there she was.

Harriet and Baby Jesus, mesmerized by the creature, didn’t move. At last Harriet opened the little window, and the giant moth fluttered into the dusk, seeking freedom or oblivion.

When the two of them thumped down the stairs, Carmen looked up from the tv.

“You were up there long enough.”

“When Baby Jesus assists you, a job takes twice as long.”

“I heard she wrote another novel.” Baby listened impassively as Carmen continued, “
Catapult
, a novel about kitty warfare!”