The Necessary Hunger

by Nina Revoyr

  I'd been surprised, when she moved in, to discover that she spent so much time alone. Also surprised by how absolutely she was committed to basketball. This they never see, I thought as she sprinted up the block in the soft yellow glow of the streetlight. This they know nothing about. They might have an idea it exists, from repeatedly witnessing the will that carried Raina, and sometimes even them, through the toughest moments of a game or practice. But the preparation, the endless, tireless repetition of even the most monotonous or exhausting drills, the shooting free throws so late into the night that the neighbors leaned out their windows and complained—this they had never laid eyes on.

  Basketball—the crisp sound of the ball swishing through the net, the rough feel of leather against my hands. That night, after five straight days of sprints, taking a breath of air was like drinking something luxurious, sweet, and filling. I felt light on my feet; I could tell that I'd dropped three pounds in the last couple of weeks, and that my heart rate was gradually slowing. Our bodies were in the best condition that they would ever be in. But as these after-dinner sessions became a nightly event, I began to wonder if there wasn't more to Raina's obsessiveness than just the need to stay in shape. It seemed to me that Raina saw her body as a tool, as an instrument she could use to get what she really wanted, which, I think now, was validation. I was happy to be pulled along. That winter I could have run or shot or played twenty-four hours a day. There was no better task, no more delicious exhaustion, and Raina was right there beside me.

  I suppose we also threw so much of ourselves into these night sessions because we were afraid we'd never play each other in a real game. The competition between us could not be measured or decided on a scoreboard. It was much less direct than that now, or maybe more direct, because we didn't have scores or time limits or the presence of other people to interfere with the testing of our wills. It was not a matter of who scored more, or who won; it was a matter of who tried harder, who gave. The former could be affected by a million different variables; the latter was fundamental, unchanging.

  It was a competition, though, that Raina won hands down, and I knew this before we even started. There are two main ingredients in the composition of an athlete—ability and degree of commitment. Enough of one can sometimes make up for the lack of the other, as in the case of Larry Bird, who did not possess unusual speed or jumping ability but was still one of the greatest players ever to play the game. I had one of these ingredients—degree of commitment. But Raina had both. And what's more, she even outdid me in the one ingredient I'd always taken pride in—or used to, until I'd come across her. Raina's drive and discipline made my stomach turn with shame. Sure, I was out there running sprints under the streetlights too, but the difference was that I would never have been doing this if she weren't there, whereas she would certainly have been doing it if I weren't. I loved basketball, but I could have given less to it, while Raina's love for the game was pure and complete and she did not see anything else. She had the kind of hunger that is necessary for any venture into greatness. But the only thing that I had was her.

  That night, after a particularly draining effort, we dragged ourselves into the house around eleven. Raina went upstairs to take a shower, and I headed toward the living room, dribbling the worn-out ball on the linoleum. I was concentrating on the details of our workout—the way Raina had tugged at the bottoms of her shorts between sprints, the way she'd closed her eyes and lifted her face to meet the wind. I thought I should preserve these images, and so I hoarded them away in my memory banks like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter. I don't know how I knew I'd need them later in my life. It was instinct, and I didn't question it.

  "Don't bounce that ball in here," Claudia called out from the kitchen. She came into the living room wearing a big blue nightshirt and furry yellow slippers, and joined my father, who was watching the news.

  "Sorry," I said, picking up the ball.

  My father looked at me, gave a weary sigh. "Don't you two ever get tired?"

  I sat down on the carpet and rubbed my calves, which were starting to cramp. Ann came up and licked the sweat off my chin. "Wassup, homedog?" I said.

  "Why can't you just take it easy at night?" my dad continued. "Or do some more homework? I mean, you already practiced all afternoon at school."

  "And at the park," added Claudia.

  "Tournament coming up," I said vaguely.

  "You know," my father said, sounding serious, "there are other things in the world besides basketball."

  "Like what?" I asked.

  "Lots of things."

  Claudia sat up straight and looked at me. "It's good to see you and Raina working so hard at something, but sometimes I think you take it too far. It's like you're both afraid that if you let up for even a second, your whole life is going to fall apart."

  I stayed silent and kept petting the dog.

  Finally Claudia just shook her head. "You two are crazy."

  My father reached over and took her fingers into one of his mammoth hands. "Blame it on your daughter," he said. "Nancy doesn't usually take this quite so seriously."

  Claudia laughed. "Neither does Raina. She didn't used to be this way. I mean, she always took basketball seriously, but not like this. Not to the point where she was doing sprints at eleven o'clock at night."

  My father looked at me. "It's just a game, Nancy," he said.

  But I didn't react to him right away. I was thinking about what Claudia had said—that Raina didn't used to be this way. She didn't used to go running in the middle of the night. Was her sudden desire to do so completely related to the importance of her senior year and her need to impress the scouts? Or could it possibly have something to do with me? I never knew. Of course I never asked. But I was smiling when I looked back up at my father. "You're right, Dad," I said, "it's just a game."

  * * *

  I should say that around this time Claudia noticed something. Not anything dramatic, since there was really nothing dramatic to notice—just some tiny clue, or accumulation of clues, which must have let her know that what existed between Raina and me was not your average pseudo stepsibling relationship. I realized this one Saturday morning, after I emerged from my room and joined her at the kitchen table. My father was still in bed.

  "Morning," she said. "Raina up yet?"

  "Up and gone already."

  "Really? Where'd she go?"

  "With Toni, I guess. I think they went biking or something."

  She lowered her eyes and sighed. Her hair was held back by two silver clips, and her face, free of makeup, seemed lighter. With her head bent like that and the sadness in her face, she suddenly looked her age. I was surprised by this transformation—Claudia usually looked so well-put-together—and sitting there, I realized how little I actually knew her. I had always thought of her primarily as Raina's mother, and then as my father's girlfriend—a girlfriend who was, at that moment, losing a friend because of him. But I didn't even know, really, what she thought about that. The woman before me had her own life, her own pains and hopes and fears, and as I watched her looking down at the table that morning, it occurred to me that I had little idea of what they were.

  "Everything all right?" I finally asked.

  Claudia sighed again, looked at me, looked away. She rubbed her hands together as if they were cold. "I'm not sure Toni is worth all of this . . . effort Raina makes."

  We'd never spoken of Toni, or for that matter of anything related to her daughter's personal life, and I was startled that she'd brought her up now. I tried not to show it. "Toni's all right," I lied.

  "Maybe," said Claudia. "I worry about Raina, though. She's so intense about things. You both are." She glanced at me. Those intelligent eyes showed curiosity and concern. She really was a beautiful woman.

  I took a sip of my coffee and hid my face behind the mug. "Yeah, well, what do you expect? We're both only children."

  "I suppose. I guess I'm just being an oversensitive mother. Maybe it's
a cliché, Nancy, but I do really only want what's best for her." She paused. "I know that you do too."

  She smiled at me, warmly, and right then I knew that she knew. I have no idea how she figured it out—maybe she was simply more observant than other people. Maybe it was the super-sensors a mother extends toward her only child. Or maybe she just knew a lot about love. At any rate, I was not about to ask her how she'd come to possess this knowledge. I felt a burst of panic that she'd tell my father, but then immediately knew that she wouldn't—both for my sake, but also for his, because Claudia, like Raina, would never make people deal with things they were not yet ready to face. More strangely, as my cheeks flamed, I understood that she preferred me to Toni; I realized she actually approved. Still, the kindness of her smile terrified me. "Of course," I said finally. "Raina's my buddy."

  * * *

  Toni must have noticed something too. I can think of no other reason for the strange talk she corralled me into about this time. Toni had been coming around to our house semiregularly all that fall, about two or three times a week. I didn't see much of her because she usually just picked Raina up and didn't stay, and on the rare occasions when she was in the house for more than a few minutes, I retreated into my room. I don't think Toni came by as often as Raina might have liked—not because she wasn't particularly welcomed by the rest of us—although she wasn't—so much as because she seemed to have a full social schedule quite outside of her relationship with Raina.

  Anyway, I knew that something was up when suddenly Toni started paying attention to me. She had always ignored me before, or said hello distractedly. But then one afternoon in mid-December I came home from practice and found her sitting in the living room with Raina. I was carrying Clyde, but as soon as I saw that Toni was there, I opened the connecting door to the garage and set him down inside, as if exposure to her would cause contamination. On the coffee table there was a bag of homemade peanut butter cups from a nearby bakery, which Raina loved and which Toni always brought for her when she came.

  "Wassup, kiddo?" Toni said when I walked in. This was her usual manner of addressing me, which would have been enough to make me dislike her if I hadn't disliked her already.

  "Hey," I said, glancing from her to Raina, who looked sullen, and wondering if I'd interrupted an argument.

  "How's the hoops?"

  "Good. We're 3 and 0."

  "Cool," Toni said, in the tone of voice that people use when they couldn't care less about what you've told them. She sat with her knees spread and her arms extended in either direction on the back of the couch; Toni always took up a lot of space. As we looked at each other, I had the fleeting hope that an earthquake would hit just then, destroying only the wall behind the sofa and burying Toni in the rubble. But earthquakes never happen when you're thinking about them. I often worried that one would hit at a particularly embarrassing time, like when I was taking a shower or sitting on the toilet. I was only slightly more scared of earthquakes than I was of Toni.

  "Why don't you go change your clothes, honey?" she said now to Raina, who got up and left the room without acknowledging me. Toni grinned. "She's pissed at me. People sayin I been runnin around on her."

  "Oh yeah?" I said, looking at a spot on the wall behind her.

  "Women," Toni started. Then she cocked her head and looked at me, as if noticing me for the first time. "You got yourself a woman, Nancy?"

  "Nope," I said. She knew damned well I didn't.

  "Well, they keep you busy. They cool, though. Only thing is, when you got a woman and everybody knows about it, it's like the relationship becomes public property or somethin. People start, like, watchin it, you know? Pickin it apart. Pretty soon you hear it got dragged out at some party, and then the next thing you know people start givin you advice and shit, like Dear fuckin Abby. I don't like that mess. You know what I'm sayin?"

  "Yeah, I guess so."

  "And see, the thing is, Nancy, no matter what people think, no one knows nothin about other people's business. No one knows shit. You understand?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I understand."

  She leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes, and pressed her fists together, knuckle to knuckle. "No woman could ever mean as much to me as Raina. Ever. You got it?"

  I thought, Then why do you shit on her? But I nodded yes.

  She kept looking at me, even when Raina returned in street clothes and announced that she was ready. Raina's shoulders were hunched and her face appeared drawn. She wouldn't meet my eyes, but she looked at Toni, despairingly; some pained communication passed between them. The dog trotted in and laid her head on Toni's leg. I felt betrayed. But like I said, Toni had a way with women.

  After they left, I wondered about Toni's little tirade. Why had she directed it at me? Did she think that I was one of the people responsible for the blemishing of her image? Well, I wasn't. I never said anything to anyone about Toni—not for her sake, of course, but for Raina's, and also, because I never wanted to be associated with any of the slander that got back to Raina, I suppose for my own as well. I wondered if Toni had just been posturing in her little pledge about Raina, but there was something about the frankness of her stare. Was she telling me the truth? Maybe. And yet she constantly stood Raina up, lied to her, made little effort to hide her interest in other women. I could not explain this behavior, nor could I explain Raina's reasons for putting up with it, beyond the fact that Raina seemed to love people the same way she loved basketball—for themselves, for what they were, and not for what they gave her; not because she expected anything in return. It wasn't even Toni's "running around," though, that made me think she wasn't good enough for Raina; it was that it was clear to me that she didn't understand her.

  This was how I saw it, anyway. I could have been wrong. It's a common tactic of spurned lovers to assert that their beloveds' chosen partners aren't capable of understanding them, with the assumption being that they, however, are.

  * * *

  On the last Wednesday night before Christmas vacation, I was in my room doing some much-needed studying when I heard Raina come into the house and slam the door. I looked up for a moment from my Courts and Law notes. There was some muffled talking in the dining room; then Raina started trudging up the stairs. I knew she was angry by the sound of her ascent, each step sharp and final as an exclamation point. I thought she'd go straight to her room, as she usually did when she came home upset, but to my surprise I heard a knock on my door.

  "Come in," I said, trying to sound like I was deep in thought.

  She opened the door and leaned against the frame, her hand still curled around the knob. "Hey. What you doin?"

  I looked at her. Her whole body was stiff, and she stood there twisting the doorknob so hard I was afraid it might come off in her hand. It must have been a bad one, I thought, for her to come to the first available person, me, for some company. "Nothin much," I said.

  "You busy?"

  "No, not really."

  "You wanna go for a drive?"

  I had two tests the next day and a math assignment due. To go with her would show a blatant disregard for my studies, and also mean breaking a promise I'd made to my father to be more serious about school. It could result in my failing the tests, and therefore possibly my classes, which in turn would mean I couldn't graduate in June. "Okay," I said.

  We told the parents we were leaving and went outside. I wondered why Raina hadn't just gone by herself in Claudia's car, and was momentarily thrilled at the notion that she wanted to talk to me. Then, seeing the empty driveway, I remembered that Claudia's car was in the shop. So much for that theory. Still, you don't question good fortune when it drops in your lap, and so as we walked down the driveway and into the street, I had to hold back a smile.

  We took my car, or rather my dad's car, the old blue Mustang, keeping all our windows rolled up until we were out of the 'hood. Raina didn't seem to care where we went, so I got on the 405 north and headed for Hollywood. Neither of us s
poke. Twenty minutes later I took the Sunset Boulevard exit and drove east, pushing eighty around those wide, hilly curves. There was no reason to take such a risk beyond the fact that this was Sunset, and that it gave me a terrific sense of pleasure to feel the way the car hugged that dangerous road. Raina didn't seem to mind. When we got to Hollywood Boulevard, all big-haired prostitutes and neon, we looked out the windows and let the sound of the radio fill up the inside of the car. I turned left and climbed up the dark Hollywood Hills, revving through those silent residential streets with their houses looming and still as sleeping giants. I parked in a clearing near the top, and the two of us stared down at the lights of the city. They lit up the ground to the south and the east; to the west they just stopped, met by the blackness of the ocean. Finally I looked at her.

  "Beach?" I asked.

  "Beach," she answered, and with that I started the engine, zoomed down the hill, and drove like a maniac toward Santa Monica. We stopped at a liquor store for a six-pack—all thoughts of my tests were out the window—and then parked in one of the big lots just north of the pier. I smiled at the irony of being there with Raina; this was the very same spot I'd gone to think about her so many times before.