The Match

 

  

The Match

 

They met Mondays at a park outside of the city, the one with a tennis court pocked like the moon. He liked her sensibility and how she met him with a smile, with something else hidden behind her eyes. He wanted to ask if she liked her job, how her day had been, but never went on to press. If she appeared happy, he wouldn’t ruin it. Questions about life tended to bring weight to the court. And when she was light, light as moonbeams, he felt light too. 

She arrived three minutes late, car blasting with rock music so loud he heard her before seeing her. Not thrasher rock, not pop rock. Something else. Something young, but he didn’t know what. When she walked past him to the court, clean towel in hand and racket slung across her shoulder, he turned to follow without a word, watching her short bob bounce with every step. 

“Hello, Louise,” he said.

“Hello, stranger.” 

She never said his name: Curtis. Maybe she felt it was too intimate to say out loud.

“The court is ours,” he said.

“Then, let’s play.”

Leaves fell across the tarmac like feathers. The smell reminded Curtis of his childhood, of collection and destruction. The rake, slowly dragging across grass and dirt, scarring roots and rocks, its metal fingers grabbing the leaves, ripping into the dirt, a slow drag, the death of fall, always told of winter coming soon. The passing of All Souls’ Day. Of birds flying, leaving a strict silence. The migration of everything.

She’d asked him straight off to hit the first serve. He’d agreed because it gave him a chance to show off. A good serve was valorous, and to have it come back swiftly, to hit it back swiftly, the steady come and go, it all started with him and that one good arm. Rarely did he miss that serve, or hit the net. Rarely did she miss hitting it back. They were both good for a long pass. Maybe that’s why she agreed to play with him, because his serve and her tenacity. 

Louise’s husband, Yousef, worked in finance. Used to play football, and was a real solid type. A silver fox. Thick hair, graying beyond the temples. Reliable, formidable. Like rock. Like granite. So much like the Twin Towers they worked in each day. South tower, that is. Curtis thought of these things while they played. He liked turning people into symbols. His mind ran constant, like a dripping faucet. He and Yousef had gone to college together and created a bond of friendship, but it wasn’t exactly friendship anymore. It was something else. More business-like, more like being associates or mirrored comrades of the past, but not friends. When Louise had come along, perhaps that was what had changed things. Curtis couldn’t quite be sure, but something, the air, the secularity, their closeness, had evaporated into a new element. And neither spoke about it, or tried to change it, they just let it be.

The best thing about Louise was that she was easy and friendly, not at all like Yousef, so it had become a sort of exchange. Not bad, just different. 

They didn’t talk about Curtis’s wife, Alice, who had been sick for years. She habitually skipped the spousal Christmas party, as well as the tropical-themed Bar-B-Q in July for clients as well as friends. They didn’t talk about her, or mention her absences, and Curtis didn’t mention her sallow, acne-pitted skin, stringy hair, or the bumpy red marks hidden with designer, long-sleeved blouses. It was a difficult subject to bring up, raised his GERD, made him feel uneasy and faded, and one reason he came to play tennis with Louise was to forget Alice, and all of that anyway. 

No, they didn’t mention Alice, nor did they mention Yousef. 

A few months ago, they had started going to lunch after each match, and then after that, out of some aberration of themselves, they rented a room at a nearby Hilton, and made love. It was a relief, a reward. A reward for the winner, though Curtis always felt guilty later if that particular person was him, and he lost the match the next time on purpose as a kind of self-punishment. And yet, why should he feel guilty? All for doing something that felt good and made him human, which other people did all the time. But he was different, had always been, so it felt sinful. It was sinful. Someday Alice would find out, and then what? God, was she broken before, what would she be after?

He threw the first serve and watched it catapult toward Louise, her hair shining like caramel as she shot forward to make the hit, and he wondered what things would have been like if they’d married instead. What would it be like to rise in the morning in the same bed, to not worry about an overdose, or if his wife would end up in court, or worse, prison, after writing another bad check at Macy’s? Louise would be soft and open, secure, that’s what she would be, and no weight or guilt, just them waking up and accepting each day, even if it was a bad day.

The ball flew to his side and he attempted to thwok it back, but it nicked the edge of his racquet and careened into the net. He laughed and retrieved it with an air of embarrassment. “Sorry,” he apologized, and swiftly hit it across. That had never happened. 

They had a decent run, playing through a distraction of children who’d come to play at an adjacent jungle gym, and another couple who’d joined them on the next court. An older couple who were there for the exercise, not to talk or look at each other, although they seemed to enjoy it well enough. Once Curtis caught Louise watching the couple with a sort of fascination while drinking her ice-blue Gatorade, hair wet on the temples and one shoelace untied. Afterwards she took her time tying the lace, sitting on the court like a child left behind, tongue pushed to one corner in concentration. When she stood, she caught him—he’d been staring at her legs—and turned away.

She ran a hand up her arm and to her neck. “Who’s ahead?” she asked, and massaged some invisible enemy under the skin. 

“Oh, that—that would be me,” Curtis said. “You hit it out of bounds last time.”

“Right. You’re right.” She let go of her neck and then swatted the ball across the net to him, skirt flipping curtly behind her. 

He asked later, as they stood by her car, “What was it that fascinated you about the older couple? I saw you watching them.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was the way they played, as if the whole thing was completely orchestrated. Like they’d played the same exact match many times and hadn’t changed one part of it. They were in complete unison, in a dance, and yet they seemed fine with the monotony.” 

Curtis dared to touch her on the shoulder. Her flesh was warm with deep muscle friction, yet growing Autumn-cold. “You think it would be boring and unpredictable? To be together that long?”

“Maybe,” she replied, and slipped inside her car. “Meet me there?”

“Fine. I’ll meet you there.” He shut her door with a soft click.

After lunch, and at the hotel, the desk clerk acted in a perpetual annoyance, which suited things. It helped to project the negativity of their actions onto him instead. It was always the most embarrassing, most revealing moment. Curtis signed his anonym, as did Louise—he’d chosen Trevor and she’d chosen Stella. And he always paid cash.

Then they took a shower and made love. It was a simple arrangement.

Not exciting, nor groundbreaking.

Sometimes while they had sex Louise asked him to be rough with her. Not physical violence, merely rough penetration and worst of all she liked to be called derogatory names. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t enjoy doing it. But it was what she had asked, so he complied. 

Then it would be forgotten, and they’d laugh and make jokes while getting dressed. The depression and guilt would seep in later, around dinner, just around twilight when the day was gone and only a cold draft of silence permeated things. Alice, with her silence, and the sunken eyes, those hapless, ever-accusing eyes, because why couldn’t he help her, love her, do more for her as he’d promised to? That was what kind of man he was. But, god he’d tried. 

Twilight held the promise of a dark loneliness.

Curtis stopped Louise before she grabbed her shoes. “We never talk,” he said. Now her skin felt warm and dewy, like his.  

“We talk in bed,” she teased, hair tossing back.

“Yes, but that’s not—I don’t know. What am I trying to say? Oh! I’ve been wanting to ask how things are between you and Yousef, but I can’t seem to ever get it out.”

“We’re fine,” she said, sliding a pale foot into one sneaker after first untying the laces. They looked like webs, her fingers, the spider. “The truth is we fight, we don’t see each other as much as married people should, and we’re both cheating on each other—if that’s any indication. I think he’s seeing another co-worker. Seems to be a pattern.”

Curtis nodded. He knew all about the co-worker, and was shocked Louise had found out as well. 

“Do you ever feel guilty about us?” he asked.

“Sure, of course. We’re sinners. We’re dirty, vulgar people,” she said. “But somehow I don’t feel bad about it. Only mildly.”

Curtis joined her on the bed. He waited for her to be done re-tying the laces. Now her fingers were deft crochet hooks, joining and pulling. Two bunny ears, circle around, go through the mouth; pull tight—that’s what his mother taught him. He himself had taught his son to stick two pieces of Velcro together—not quite the same. Curtis wished now that he’d bought him sneakers with laces, and hung around more instead of leaving him with Alice, but now Trevor was seventeen and didn’t care about learning things or being around fathers. He was a big boy—in college. Gone.

An empty house. Home sweet home.

“I feel guilty, constantly,” Curtis said, and turned to see the time on a bedside digital clock. When he twisted back around, he imagining himself setting a hand on Louise’s thigh. Did he want to do it because he loved her, or because he needed something, to be soothed, to connect? Did he love her? He didn’t know anymore, or himself anymore, or what he got up each morning to accomplish. It was set in a pattern and he merely finished the list. A touch, one daring touch, meant so much more than anything. It meant softness and vulnerability. It meant, communication. Why didn’t they communicate? They made love. But it wasn’t love. And why wasn’t that enough?

He’d failed at so much. And now he didn’t know what was left to give or to receive. 

Louise stared at his hand on the bed then slid/pushed off to go grab her purse. 

“It’s getting late,” she said. “You know how traffic is. Are you ready?”

Curtis stood. He slipped the room key—a plastic card—into his slacks. “We still have a few minutes, but I have a meeting and need to get back early. Louise—”

“Yes?”

“If you ever divorced Yousef, what would you do? Play around, stay single . . .”

“I’d go live on an island.”

He knew she was joking. “Alone?” he asked.

“Yes, alone. No one there but me. I’d like to see what it’s like to not have to worry about men.”

“Oh.” Her answer had been more direct than he’d expected. “What are we?” He wouldn’t ask if she cared for him. 

“We’re sympathizers. You know, we help each other. It’s been rough. Marriage is rough.”

Curtis nodded. “Alice was pregnant two years ago and I figured it wasn’t mine, so I asked her to have an abortion.”

“I don’t know what to say, Curtis.”

“It was a violation. I’m a hypocrite.”

“And if it was yours?” Louise asked.

“Then, I’d be sad. I am sad. It probably was and the only part I played was providing the sex, not anything else. What does that make me?”

“An asshole,” Louise said, then made an addendum. “We all are.”

She reached for the door.

“I’ll go home tonight, Louise, and I’ll feel like killing myself.”

“Don’t kill yourself.” 

“I’ve never told anyone before.” He came toward her and dropped his head onto her shoulder. When he did, he felt relieved, but also weak. “I wouldn’t actually do it.”

Louise didn’t turn around to comfort him, perhaps that would be too much. For her, at least. Instead she stood still as a tree, breathing in and out calmly. Curtis, wanting to forfeit everything in the piquant scent of her neck, lifted his head and decided not to apologize.

“I wish I was stronger,” he said. “I wish I knew how to leave.”

“But you won’t. You can’t. She needs you. That’s the way it is.” 

Outside it had turned cold. A sky devoid of aberration had turned a concrete grey, and on the street a bitter wind threaded through Louise’s damp hair. Beside the driver’s side door Curtis bent down to lay a lackluster kiss her on her lips, the first one ever in a public setting. She allowed it, eyes closed.

“Next week?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. Haven’t we played enough? We’ve sort of figured each other out—I know your moves, you know mine,” her voice weaved into the sounds of the street. 

He nodded. A cycle ending. A match ended. Another one would begin. But with who, and when, and did either of them have enough stamina to proceed with someone else when the real issue was that neither one of them had the tenacity left to play another set? After all, he’d won. How many times could you come out even?

“Yes, I agree,” he said, shutting her door. “But, call me if you change your mind.”

When she turned the key in the ignition the music started up, so raucous it made tremors at his feet. 

“Drive safe!” he shouted at the closing window, then threw up a casual wave. He watched as she sped away into a line of cars, all going one direction.