The Sweetheart (3 page)

The boy glances over, looks you up and down. Your heart's in your throat; you can taste it. “Get bent,” he says to Freddy.

Your cheeks flush with mortification. “Freddy, we can just stop if you want. Let's just stop.”

Freddy, clearly exasperated, pretends he doesn't hear you—obviously, that wouldn't be very
professional
—and makes a new plea, this time directly to Cynthia. “C'mon, C. Be reasonable. Let's switch.”

Cynthia meets Freddy's eyes, her glare sharp enough to puncture. She seems to be weighing her options, an action that takes a torturous amount of time. Finally, she says, “Good idea.” Before you know what is happening, Cynthia has disengaged from her partner, embraced not Freddy but
you,
and led you into the middle of the dance floor, leaving the two guys standing next to each other in a daze.

“Get a load of their faces,” Cynthia says, dancing you around so you can see. The tall boy appears stunned, but Freddy is clearly humiliated. Not only have you come out of this unscathed, but for once, you are positioned to look down on someone else's embarrassment. Oh, Leonie, isn't it simply delicious? You can't help yourself; you have to laugh.

“I know!” says Cynthia. “Isn't it a hoot?”

Cynthia's lead is more intuitive, more confident than Freddy's, remarkably, and the two of you fall into a surprisingly natural (although exaggerated) groove. The other dancers fall away until you are the only couple dancing amid the bewildered stares of your former partners, the wide eyes of the other dancers, and the dreamy grin of Bob Horn. Your blood is electric with alarm, but Cynthia radiates cool. Toward the end of the song, Cynthia guides you into the sweetheart position, and when you look down at your friend (and it does seem that she is your friend again), the two of you lock eyes, and she whispers, “Do it, Leonie!”

Ordinarily, you wouldn't do a thing except get out of the spotlight as quickly as possible, but you've somehow managed to absorb enough of Cynthia's confidence to do the unimaginable. After Cynthia spins you out, you break away and show off the one talent that you have and she does not by launching into a series of back handsprings. You go over one, two, three times, ending directly in front of one of the cameras, your arms in the air. A sound bursts out of the spectators and echoes riotously throughout the studio. It is a sound with a life of its own, its own heartbeat; a sound you find yourself craving the instant it begins to subside.

Here it is, Leonie: your defining moment. It will not last long (not in real time, at least), and soon you will be disciplined for it. The bulldog doorman will make it clear you are not to come back—you've gone and shown all of Philadelphia your bloomers, for goodness' sake—and your father, who will make it home ahead of you after all, will interrogate you until you confess, and then punish you with a week of disappointed silence. Even Cynthia the snake charmer won't walk away unscathed. Her membership card will be taken away, which will effectively end her relationship with Freddy. Of course, as the two of you walk home that evening, she will declare triumphantly, “I'm free!” but in the next month, she'll realize she's pregnant with Wally's baby. But your whole life pivots on this event. Perhaps you cannot yet articulate just who it is you want to be, but you know that when that person makes herself known, she will be accompanied by that sound, the music of thunderous applause.

TWO

F
our months later, the performance still plays on a continuous loop in your memory. It is easily the wildest time in a life that has otherwise been a total drag, a state to which it has since returned and seems destined to remain. If not for this dread, you might have been unreceptive to your father's unusual proposal: on this hot night in August, your father comes home from work, sits in front of another dinner you have prepared for him, and announces that on the following evening, he wants the two of you to attend a wrestling match.

Your face betrays your surprise. Ordinarily, you would be thrilled to get an invitation of any sort from your father, but wrestling? If ever a thing should go against his sense of propriety, you would assume wrestling would be it. In response, Franz shrugs his shoulders, swallows his food. “Some of the Italian guys on the line really like this one guy who's wrestling tomorrow night. Apparently, he does these flips through the air.” He makes demonstrative circles with his fork. “They say you've got to see him to believe him.”

In a million years, you never would have guessed your father could be so easily persuaded to do something so frivolous. The only signal you've ever been able to read clearly is the one he uses when he seeks solitude, an itch that a man who has to sleep on his own couch doesn't often get to scratch:
If I turn the radio on, leave me alone
. And while your father remains a mystery to you, on rare occasions, as he unwinds to the sound of Rosemary Clooney or Perry Como and you are trapped in your bedroom, he turns up the radio and calls out, “This one's for you, Leonie.”

Lately, you could use a little of that tenderness. You've seen Cynthia only once since that fateful
Bandstand
performance, when you were returning home from your new job, serving breakfast at a chromed-out diner on North Broad, a pie balanced on your fingertips. Cynthia and her mother were outside on the stoop. You offered your pie; they invited you in for coffee. Cynthia looked radiant, the luster of her hastily formed new life not yet tarnished. Ms. Riley, her hair in rollers, appeared weary and disappointed. Just months ago, it must have seemed Cynthia had heeded all her warnings and was barreling toward a brightly lit future. Instead, she was repeating the follies of her mother's youth. You put your hand on the barely protruding abdomen, which was as incomprehensible to you as the act from which it came, and congratulated your friend with as much sincerity as you could muster while Ms. Riley looked away. Returning home to an empty house, you wondered if the fixedness of Cynthia's course was in fact worse than your own rudderless existence. It seemed you were headed toward nothing at all. So now, even though you would probably take more pleasure in reading a book than watching a wrestling match, you agree to go along for the ride, appreciative of your father's gesture and open to anything out of the ordinary.

•    •    •

The next evening, the two of you pack into the arena at 46th and Market with thousands of others. Wafting through the densely populated, un-air-conditioned auditorium are the manly aromas of spilt beer and Brylcreem. There is little light—the better to focus the audience on the spotlit ring, you figure—and you have to force your way through the crowd of men and the occasional pencil-skirted woman to find seats. When you find two together, you start to squat into one, but Franz stops you with his arm and uses a handkerchief to wipe it off. The gesture strikes you as both old-fashioned and dear, and it fills you with tenderness. When he's done, he motions with his arm—
Now, you can sit
—and you follow his command with as much elegance as you possess.

The first match on the card is the midgets. The one with the scruffy beard and blue briefs is Short John Silver; in the other corner is the hairy-chested and unfortunately named Willie Weeman; the two men toss each other over their shoulders while the spectators laugh and shout insults and obscenities. At one point, the referee, a giant by comparison, separates the wrestlers by palming the top of each of their heads while they swing viciously at the air. And if this sight, and the crowd's responsive chuckles, weren't enough to break your heart, this finishes the job: just two seats ahead of you, one man turns to his friend and whispers something in his ear, and the friend responds by silently holding up his right hand and measuring an inch of space with his finger and thumb, sending both of them into spasms of laughter.

You press your fingers to your worried mouth and turn to your father. Franz continues to stare ahead at the ring, but his mouth hangs open. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,” he says.

It will be disappointing if you have to cut short this rare time together, but you would be alarmed if your father drew any other conclusion.

It takes another five minutes for Willie Weeman to pin his opponent's shoulders. The ref pounds the canvas while Short John Silver's legs bicycle above him. Mercifully, Willie holds the pin. The match is over.

Franz lifts his hat off of his lap and places it on his head. “You want to get out of here?”

You should say yes. You
want
to say yes. So, why don't you? Perhaps you are hoping this night can still be redeemed, perhaps you want to believe the audience can redeem itself. So, instead you say, “Let's just finish out the card. We haven't seen that guy you were talking about yet.” Your shoulders lift and drop. “Who knows? Maybe he'll change our minds.”

That guy
you are referring to, Leonie, the headliner for tonight's event, is none other than high flyer Antonino Rocca. Rocca, you will later learn, is an Argentinean of Italian descent, a combination that makes him a big draw with two of the Northeast's largest ethnic populations. He might rightly be credited with reviving wrestling in the New York territory. He regularly sells out Madison Square Garden, often the biggest draw on the card even when there's a headlining championship bout, and yet he will never win his own world belt; the promoters fear that the very thing that makes him a hero in this region, his ethnicity, simply won't translate in the National Wrestling Alliance's two biggest territories: the heartland and the Southeast. When he climbs into the ring, you decide that he's built something like Burt Lancaster—broad in the shoulders yet narrow-waisted—but with hairier legs, bushier eyebrows, and a more sizable schnoz. His feet are bare. When his name is announced, the large Italian contingent stomps its feet; their collective scream is passionate and primal.

If anyone can redeem the evening, this is the man. Two people who appreciate the athleticism of tumbling can't help but be mesmerized by someone who can leap into the air and deliver back-to-back slaps to his opponent's face
with his feet,
which causes Franz to leap onto his own.

“Did you see that?” he says.

“Yeah.” You stand up beside him, along with most of the crowd. “Yeah, I did.”

From that moment on, you and your father are transfixed, balancing on the tips of your toes to take in as much as you can over the sea of heads. At one point, Rocca drapes his opponent—a man, it should be added, of considerable size—over his shoulders, spins around, and helicopters him into the air, and then slips artfully out of the way before his opponent crashes to the ground. The two of you howl with approval.

After this, it becomes difficult to see anything. Some of the women have taken positions on the shoulders of their husbands and boyfriends; others stand on the seats of their chairs. You stare at the seat of your own chair, but the echoes of your past prevent you from taking the first step.
Give it a rest, Stretch. Some of us are trying to watch.
You would remain on the ground if not for your father, who sees you wavering and makes a face.

“What's stopping you?” he says. “Go ahead.”

Franz offers you his hand, and you take it, squeezing it a little as you let him bear your weight. He steadies you until you are in position, and then you return the favor and help him climb onto his own seat. The two of you raise your heads above the crowd just in time to see Rocca work the ropes for his finishing move, which happens so quickly, you can hardly tell what occurs: all you see is Rocca leaping from the top turnbuckle
over
his opponent's head, and a series of legs going over heads, until the hapless goof is pinned to the mat. And then, miracle of miracles, your father momentarily forgets to feel self-conscious about being physically close to you. He puts his arm around your shoulder and pulls you roughly to his side with the congratulatory one-armed hug of a true fan, which would stun you if you weren't so transported yourself.

After the match, the two of you walk out of the auditorium to the subway and hop onto the Broad Street line, talking nonstop for the entire ride in excited, sputtering half sentences (“Did you see the . . . ?” “Yeah, but how about when he . . . ?”). You get off at your stop and walk a block or so before your father asks if you want to go back to the subway station and wait for the rain to pass, and you turn your face to the sky.

“It is raining, isn't it?” you say. “I hadn't noticed.”

Franz smiles and drapes his jacket over your head, and you clutch it closed beneath your chin. By the time you walk the ten blocks to your home, you are both soaking wet. But you hardly notice: you are both still busy reliving all of Rocca's amazing feats. For the rest of your life, you will remember this conversation as the longest and most intimate the two of you ever shared.

•    •    •

You are still reveling in the moment the next morning, when local wrestling promoter Salvatore Costantini steps into your diner in search of breakfast. For the time being, you want nothing more than to do it again—to sit in the audience, your father by your side. But this man will give you reason to dream much bigger. As it happens, you arrive at his booth—blue-and-white uniform crisp, ponytail swinging—to drop off a plate of scrapple just as he finds the article about the bout in the paper, along with a photo of Rocca midair, legs and arms spread, fingers touching toes.

“Isn't he amazing?” you say, pointing to the photo. “Were you at the match?”

Costantini looks up from the paper with an expression that is starting to become all too familiar. This figure of yours, the one that keeps the boys your age away, also has a way of attracting the attention of a particular kind of man. Your body is both a force field and a magnet; you're not sure which is preferable, but in this case, it serves you anyway: Costantini might have given you a curt response to shoo you away so he could get back to his paper—he is surely anxious to see how the match played in the
Inquirer
—but it seems he can't resist the opportunity to impress a pretty girl.

“It was my promotion,” he says, grinning.

“No kidding!” you say. “You want a warm-up?”

Of course Costantini wants a warm-up. When you return with the coffee pot, he says, “You look familiar. Have I seen you before?”

In the few short months you've worked here, you've heard this line and dozens of others enough times to see through them. You were prepared to like the guy for putting on a good show; now you decide your initial impression was on the money, so you say, “I don't think so,” and turn on your heels. But then Costantini snaps his fingers loudly, which can only mean (a) he is being genuine, and (b) the answer has come to him.

“I know where! You were on that show, with the dancing. I remember you—you and the other girl, doing the flips.”

“Yeah, that was me,” you say, more than a little embarrassed.

“You were really something!” he says, wagging his finger at you. “Where'd you learn that? You some kind of athlete?”

“Why?” you ask, still suspicious. “You writing a book?”

Why?
Because Costantini is always on the hunt for talent, not only for his Pennsylvania territory, where it is still illegal for women to wrestle, but in DC, which is decidedly pro-woman. And a woman like you, a woman who can get attention with both her looks and her physical skill, might be just what he needs to lure spectators away from rival DC promoter Vince McMahon. Costantini slurps his coffee, his eyes fixed on you.

“No,” he says, “but I do think you could be a wrestler yourself.”

This statement is so ludicrous that at first, you laugh it off. But his expression doesn't change; it seems he's serious. You listen to the sentence again in your head, first breaking it down into digestible parts—
I, think, you, wrestler
—and then putting the parts back together again. He thinks you could be a wrestler.

“So, women wrestle, too?”

“Not around here they don't, but in lots of other places they do.”

For all the pleasure last night brought you, at no point did you imagine yourself in the scene. But when Costantini plants the seed, it quickly sprouts. Why couldn't you be the one in the ring, on the ropes? You are in need of direction. Maybe this is the way to go. “And you think I could do it?”

“Not everyone can move like you did on that show,” he says. He pulls a money clip from his pocket and peels off a twenty-dollar bill. When you tell him you'll be right back with the check, he holds up a hand to stop you. “This isn't for the food,” he says, slapping the bill on the table. “It's for you, if you can show me another one of those flips.” He taps his finger on the table and smiles. “Let's see it.”

You don't know whether to congratulate or kick yourself. If you take a spill in front of the regulars and the line cooks, you will never live it down. And you're still not sure about this guy; you don't know what he's after. But twenty dollars is a lot of bread, more than you bring home most weeks. So go ahead. Step back from the booth; slide your tray onto the counter. Warn the nearby diners to stay in their seats. Breathe in, breathe out, and then bend your knees, swing your arms, and go over, body arched, muscles strained, skirt opening to the world, before coming right side up again and landing squarely on your saddle shoes. Hold your arms up in a
V
:
victory
. Revel in the applause.