Life Among Giants (20 page)

Jack was reluctant to bring Kate down to Florida, of course. But in April he relented, really had to—her medical team thought she needed independence. And their family therapist thought Jack needed some himself. He hadn't written a thing in two years, for example, hadn't traveled to a single conference, wasn't buoying himself toward retirement.

She traveled alone, arrived with her guitar and a proper bag, disappeared into my room, no interest in seeing the sights, no sense that she'd displaced me, that I was back in my single futon in the living room, not much talk or interaction at all, just Kate and her guitar and several basic chords, enough to play versions of quite a few old songs behind the closed door. Her singing voice was thin and high, no great talent hiding there, but very moving in its thinness, the saddest possible songs. I delivered her meds night and morning and witnessed her downing them as per Jack's requirement. She didn't fuss about it, just ate the pills like they were glass shards, went back to her music.

Th
en one evening the woman emerged, Kate unbowed, a notch or two too thin, skin sallow, but pretty summer dress and bright lipstick, high heels.

“We never go out,” she said.

I
NVITE THE PAST,
and the past will come: the very next day I got a note from Emily Bright, letting me know she was in town. She'd been following my career. She'd seen Floridiana in a magazine article, seen my name. She'd watched a number of Dolphins games over the years, had gotten glimpses of me. I called her hotel strategically at ten a.m. and reached her just rising.

I'd been following her, too. She had her own dance company, and it had been a great success, as successful as a contemporary dance organization could get in those days of the waning importance of the art, nothing of the sort Sylphide had achieved.

“We've got a weekend down here,” she said.

“I'd like to see you dance again,” I said.

“And I would like to see this restaurant you've opened.”

“Come be my guest.”

“I'll leave a ticket for the show. When?”

“Kate's staying with me,” I said.

“Kate your sister?”

“Yes, Kate. She's been ill, but she's on the mend. Tomorrow maybe? Tomorrow evening would be good.”

“It's at eight. Two tickets then, is that what you're saying?”

“Yes, two. And we can have dinner after at the restaurant.”

“Dinner, yes. With Kate.”

“And Emily? If we could avoid any talk of Sylphide?”

“But she's my mainstay. I was really hoping. So many stories.”

“No, I know. I mean, in some ways she's my mainstay, too. I mean, she is. She's my mainstay. Not that I hear from her much. It's Kate.
Th
ere are things I haven't told Kate.”

“Ah. Still with the old family games?”

“No, it's. It's her illness. I don't want to stress her.”

“I'd have thought she'd know all by now. Not that I know much. Just that our lady likes you.”

“Emily. Is this going to work, or not?”

“Not a peep, David. I'm not your mother, after all.”

I couldn't think what to say.

Emily said, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said that. I'm not who I used to be, honestly.
Th
at's a crack from the past.”

“Do you hear from her much, from Sylphide?”

“Not so much lately, not with the new husband. He's caught her fancy, I guess. He's very rich.
Th
ey have, like, a ship. David, I have to go. Rehearsal in five minutes. I just thought. I'd like it if. We had some time to just talk, the two of us. I feel like there's a lot to say. I feel full of things to say.”

“Maybe say one thing now?”

“I've just been thinking. We were the two. We were the ones who were different. With special talents, you know. None of our own doing.
Th
ese capable bodies. Anyway. She picked us out. Sylphide picked both of us out. It was all choreography.”

I
COULDN'T SLEEP,
began to picture a steamy reunion, Kate home to my place, Emily and I to her hotel, which would be silken and sumptuous. We'd seen one another a few times through my Princeton years, more and less stilted visits as her career got launched in New York, dancing for Sylphide, the
Children of War
show I'd helped put together. Kate knew nothing of any of this. As far as Kate knew, Emily and I hadn't spoken since high school, Sylphide and me the same. But it was more than that. Really a lot more than that. I wished Kate were capable of hearing it, but her friend at McLean had been right: this was the time for listening. I remembered the Rock at Staples High, Emily's particular scent. We'd been falling in love when the murders fell instead, and the cataclysm had struck her nearly as hard as it had struck me. We had that in common, too, two kids on a rock with our hormones pumping, two kids unaffected by all that was to come, last chance.

Th
at next morning, Etienne liked what he saw, reached to pat my head as I stared out the windows: “Boss, keep cooking, cook while you daydream. Tonight your food will taste like
memory.
”

Without a word about it, we conspired to make the night meatless.
Th
is was to be in honor of Emily. She'd have the meal we wanted to make for her, the dishes we'd been enjoined from cooking by Carter and Lionel.
Th
e kinds of things her mother had once put in her lunchbox.

T
H
E DANCE PERFORMANCE
that night was my first glimpse of Emily's internationally acclaimed choreography, even stranger than I expected, a youngish girl in the company all but naked for example, pouring actual water from an actual jug on top of three or four other dancers who just looked cold and uncomfortable to me, like dancing goose bumps. And after that, of course, the stage was wet, and the poor kids were slipping around, in danger of falling. Oh, and no music, just recorded noises. Emily in bare feet appeared late in the piece wearing a kind of metal headdress, strands of tinsel her only clothing (the lithe figure gone to hardest possible muscle), stomping and splashing around the stage.

Kate felt crowded by all the people, didn't like sitting in our perfect seats at the very center of the auditorium: too far from the aisles. She gripped my hand as if we were in a rocket taking off, sat at stiff attention, unclear to me what she was thinking. Me, too, truth be told, stiff attention, not so good for the people behind us, like a seat behind columns. I guess I'd expected an aftershock, damaged overpasses coming down to make way for modern freeways of romance, but what I felt was deep sorrow, nothing really to do with Emily.
Th
e lights went low and the curtain came up, and the years washed over me. Something similar or worse must have been happening to Kate: she left at the height of the standing ovation, hurried down the aisle and over all those toes in nice shoes and out into the night.

I swam upstream through the departing, glowing crowd, handed over flowers in the dressing room, kiss-kissed Emily's flushed cheeks briefly. She barked orders at the crew back there, cursed at the dancers—they were on their way to Texas, a long drive for the bus-and-truck people, who had to leave a full day before their star: Emily would fly alone in the morning. Everyone seemed terrified of their boss, rushing with chins down. She'd shaved her head, a pretty skull hard as bronze, everything about her more metallic than I recalled, like her costume had stuck to her. Her gaze was more forlorn than ferocious; our feelings weren't far apart.

“Can't wait for dinner,” she said, as if food were the issue, false cheer. “I've been craving that Floridiana barbecue, maybe ribs. Twenty minutes?” And back to her dressing room to change, shouting orders all the way.

Kate had apparently walked home, anyway, she wasn't at the car.

And Emily wasn't vegetarian anymore. I called Etienne from the lobby of the theater. “Woman loves barbecue,” I told him. “Woman loves ribs.”

“Oh, we got plenty ribs in the walk-in, bro.”

“You've been cooking for her all day,” I said.

“I've been cooking for Emily all my life.”

I drove Emily over there.

“Okay,” she said. “Very serious question. Is this the same fucking Volvo?”

Obviously not. But it was good for a laugh.

And that was it for talk. What had always seemed stern in her now seemed merely frozen. She stared forward, no doubt processing the Miami run of her show. “Processing”: I was starting to think like B. Crabtree. I drove, trying to bring back the Emily of the Rock. But she'd departed. All the conversation I'd imagined had simply disappeared. In its place, memory pressing on memory. My dad waiting at the bus stop with me. My mother's face reacting to him, that cross face she'd make. She'd put a lot of pressure on the guy.
Th
at was something I hadn't thought of before, all the pressure she put on him to be anything but what he was.
Th
en again, what was he?

“You remember my parents?” I said.

“
Th
ey were nice,” she said. “Complicated. I hardly ever saw them. Your mom at that Yale game. And then.”

“I don't mean to bring it up. Not like that. Just curious. How are your folks?”

“Same as ever. All the same. Still wondering what I'll do when I grow up. David. Just say it. What happened to Kate?”

“I guess she walked home. She's a big walker.”

“I mean.”

“Oh. Sorry. Mental health issues. She's had a hard time. A really hard time.”

“She always seemed so together to me.”

“I guess no one's really together.”

“Have you had a hard time?”

“At times. At times, yes.”

“I was so, so in love with you, David.”

Definitely past tense. I steered the car through traffic, thinking about that, tried to lighten things up a little: “Did we ever say that?”

She thought a long time, four blocks of lights. “We did,” she said. “We said it later. In your room at Princeton. We said it a lot, actually.”

“If Kate turns up.”

“Not a word, don't worry.”

“She doesn't actually know about any of it. I mean after.”

“After your folks you mean.”

“Yeah.
Th
at's exactly what I mean.”

“I felt so guilty.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I mean, we'd just been in their bed.”

“It was nice,” I said.

We pulled up at the restaurant.
Th
ere was Carter's brand-new purple Rolls Royce convertible, his jersey number painted on its doors. Great—the one night he picks to visit. I showed Emily the kitchen, pointed out the details of the view from the dining room. She loosened up very slightly: she could see her hotel from there, admired the lights of the wedding-cake cruise ships off in the harbor.

Carter was out in the hostess station. His gaze when it fell upon me was hostile. Something must have transpired between him and E.T., something perhaps about the food my friend had been cooking on my request, the food Emily didn't want, something maybe about all the queers in the bar drinking persimmon-and-agave Mojitos.

“May I present Emily Bright,” I said, just as my mother had taught me.

Th
ey looked at one another a long time, these two people with shaved heads.

“Join us for dinner,” I said to Carter.

“Yes, join us,” Emily said, ducking her eyes from his in a way I remembered clearly.

“Believe I
will,
” said Carter, suddenly tender.

Emily looked up from the brand new carpet, slow smile.

Carter, too.

Th
e other beautiful princess was home on my deck catatonic. I had to carry her inside, not a word between us, guide her to the beautiful bed she'd bought, put her between the pretty covers: she could sleep in her clothes for that one night (her last in Miami as it turned out), she could sleep in her glass slippers, return in her dreams to the scene of the crime.

I
LEFT FOOTBALL
that January, after one last great year with Miami, including one complete game at the helm (Marino down with a vicious flu), a huge win against a strong Chicago Bears lineup, 315 yards passing, 200 rushing, seven touchdowns.
Th
is was glory my dad would have loved and Mom couldn't have pretended not to notice, the subsequent Super Bowl big fun, too, though I didn't play, just one of the guys pacing up and down behind the bench, shouting and ready to go in if called upon.

Something in the restaurant shifted after my retirement from the NFL: for the first time E.T. could see me as serious. I was no longer a just a football player with a sideline. No, now the two of us were all restaurant, all the time.