The Sportin' Life

by Nancy Frederick

  I might have put those things aside as well, except for the weekends. Most weekends Jerry liked to go hunting or fishing. That meant that he had almost no time for me. Any other woman might have wondered if he were seeing someone else, but I knew that just wasn’t so. Jerry believed in devoting six hours a month to love, and I got all six. Every time we were together, it was lovely, and we both felt a strong emotional pull. Loving Jerry was easy and natural, and I was sure he returned my feelings.

  It seemed like such a shame that he was unwilling to devote more of himself to love and happiness and less to work and money. Again and again we discussed the situation. He assured me that he loved me and that I was exactly the kind of woman he wanted to marry. I believed him. But how could I see us together for the rest of our lives when we weren’t even together now, at the relative beginning of our love affair? Maybe in the future he would decide that three hours a month would be sufficient to devote to love. That would mean that we couldn’t even see a double feature together. What if we got married and had a child? How could I assume that Jerry would be there as a father when he wasn’t there as a lover and therefore probably not as a husband. It seemed hopeless.

  It was obvious that I should end our romance, such as it was, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It had been so long since I was in love, and like some kind of fool, I always believe that love is such a powerful force it will cause those who harbor it to change their actions for the better, in the interest of happiness and all that is good in life. I kept waiting for it to happen with Jerry, but it never did.

  Finally, when he decided to go mountain climbing over New Year’s, I decided to go hunting. Maybe there was a mammal in Los Angeles for me, and when Ace showed me that singles’ networking flyer, I decided to attend their party. Ace and Delilah were planning to watch Gone With The Wind, something they were wildly enthusiastic about. Violet was thrilled to be included in their party, and even invited two of her friends to join them and then sleep over. I could have stayed at home with my family and it probably would have been more fun, because I admitted from the start when Ace gave me the singles’ information, that I hate those events. I hate bars and anything that passes for an adult version of a fraternity party. But since it just wasn’t going to happen with Jerry, and soulmates were not lining up around the block, it seemed like a chance I ought to take.

  This one was being held in Cutters in Santa Monica, a nice airy place, and it seemed at first maybe I was wrong. Here in California, where every guy you meet is gorgeous, a singles’ event should be wonderful. I took one look around and was amazed. Where were all the gorgeous men? I had hardly seen an unattractive person since arriving on the West Coast; maybe they were all locked away until tonight. It seemed that a terrorist could do a service to the gene pool of Los Angeles simply by dropping a bomb on this event. Maybe there’s something wrong with me to look at a group of people and make instantaneous judgments, but I can certainly recognize what I like in a man, even if I can’t find one who fits the description.

  The evening looked disappointing, and I was considering making my retreat in time for Scarlett and Rhett’s first meeting, but instead I decided to get a drink and sit and watch the proceedings. Maybe all the attractive men were arriving late. There is nothing like observing a group of people engaged in social rituals. It’s just about the same as watching a play or a movie. It’s so easy to read the participants and make a scenario out of the evidence before your eyes.

  In front of me was a woman in her mid-forties, and I prayed fervently that by the time I reached that age I wouldn’t be attending these events. She was pretty and dressed in a flashy but expensive outfit, with every hair in place, and her makeup drawn flawlessly. She sat with great anticipation, and each time a man approached to ask her to dance, she smiled as though the truest joy in all the universe had dawned within her heart. It didn’t matter whether he was marginally attractive or a total reject; every invitation meant something special to her and was received as a vindication. She was a belle of the ball, and it was clear that she needed to be single to perpetuate that status.

  The more I looked around, the more I saw the same dynamics repeated again and again. Even those people who were younger—late twenties or early thirties—had the same hard edge as though they were war weary and had been several times too many around the dance floor. It was the saddest thing to observe, and sitting in that room drained all my energy as I felt the pain and sorrow surrounding me. It was obvious that I didn’t fit in. I never learn. Each romance fills me with the same innocent and foolish spirit of expectation. I still believe in magic and wonder, and it is that which does me in every time.

  There was nothing for me in that group, and so I rose to leave, when I spotted Fauna, Ace’s friend who’s been having such a hard time because of the recent death of her boyfriend. No matter how many affairs I’ve had that ended disappointingly, nothing I’ve experienced compares to the pain of having a man you love die, and my heart went out to her.

  Fauna was wearing the most amazing getup I had ever seen outside a movie, and I guessed she wasn’t thinking clearly at all because of her loss. We stood around talking for a while and then went to the buffet, which was really nice, to get some food to sustain ourselves for the atrocities yet to come. Fauna must have had quite a lot of champagne, because her voice was a little slurred and she seemed not to walk all that well. I hoped that some food, and then some coffee would make her feel a bit better.

  We sat at a table making aimless chatter, and although I wanted to help her as much as possible, there didn’t seem to be anything for me to do, mainly because we had never developed a friendship like she shares with my brother. I thought about suggesting that I drive her home, because I was sure that she was in no shape to drive, when Lou came over and began speaking to us. I was hoping that he and I could put the bad feelings behind us, because after all he was OK to talk to and as a friend, but we didn’t have much of a chance to say anything significant. Lou was enraptured by Fauna, and she seemed to be as interested in him, why I couldn’t imagine, except possibly because of his intensity, the same thing that appealed to me about him. They went off to dance, and I hoped that Fauna would have a good time for an evening so that she could take her mind off her pain for at least a little while. Lou wouldn’t let her drive, I was sure, so there was nothing more to worry about.

  The crowd had filled in, and indeed there were a few men who didn’t look executable, but nobody who called out to my soul. I walked once around the floor, and planned to make an exit, thinking I could still catch an hour or so of the movie, when I spotted a guy who looked familiar.

  He looked like Kevin, only not as good. I stared at him briefly, and our eyes locked. Usually that will mean that the guy will come over to you, or at least that’s what happens in New York. Here, you can make eye contact and nothing will happen, possibly because guys can look at you and be mentally focused elsewhere, or maybe I’m not their type, I don’t know. I felt the pull between this less attractive version of Kevin, and I couldn’t help looking back and meeting his eyes once again. It was eerie. It was uncanny.

  When he walked over, I expected an introduction. Instead it was a reunion. It actually was Kevin. What had happened to him? He looked older and rather dissipated. He looked smaller. And thinner. Can a guy actually shrink in a few years just from too much womanizing?

  I stood there facing Kevin, participating in a conversation and the flood of feelings I had buried over the years washed over me like a tidal wave, causing seasickness. I was nauseated and in shock at the same time, and so I retreated behind the wall of ice that serves me so well as poise.

  Kevin asked me questions and made conversation in his most charming, most affable manner. It was as though he were thrilled to be in my company again. As though I meant more to him than he could possibly express. He did all the right things. He asked after Violet. He remember her age as though he had seen her only yesterday, not so many years previously. />
  I answered his questions and returned every serve so that the conversation moved along, slowly, but along. And all the while I listened in astonishment to Kevin reminisce about the time we had shared. It was as though the memories meant ten times more to him than to me. He was a virtual rhapsody of reminiscence, and I was puzzled beyond repair. Had I dumped him? Had I disappeared from his life for no good reason? If it all meant to much, why had it ended?

  I stood there bewildered, nauseated, and trying to make sense out of what he was saying. I always believed that Kevin had loved me as much as I had loved him, and that was the source of the missing piece about our romance that I had sought desperately over and over again, trying to find an answer that would relieve me of my pain and sorrow, but never finding any. I listed to him talk and suddenly saw him clearly—he was out of his mind. Who acts like that except a crazy person? There was no good reason to explain our affair and my broken heart because there was no reason at all. This guy was nuts.

  The longer the conversation went on, the easier it was to see that he was not the person I had believed him to be. I looked at Kevin and could hardly recognize him with his shrunken, dissipated look of a middle-aged roué. He looked like he needed a vitamin shot, immediately. And as I listened to him talk about the moments we had shared, I realized something. They were as clear in his mind as though they had happened yesterday. He did not distinguish between yesterday and years ago, despite the fact that he could pull dates out of his mind as though he were going through an electronic calendar. Was he an idiot savant of dating or what? He still was expecting me to be loving and dewy-eyed, the way I was when we were together. And until I saw him, that was just how I felt.

  Eventually Kevin and I parted, and I went to my car. I breathed in the cold night air with relief, like someone coming up on deck to clear his head while in turbulent seas. The nausea diminished slowly, and the rock that filled the pit of my stomach began to melt.

  I felt the tension and the pain leave my body, rise up through my flesh and fly out my shoulders, as though I were under the care of an exorcist. The demons that had inhabited my heart were released. I had been in love with this guy for years. My love for him dominated my life when we were together and in the time since it had dominated my life even more. It didn’t matter that I had been sure of being ready to meet a new man and fall in love. Kevin stayed in my heart like an angry sentinel who was on guard to prevent the door from opening.

  Suddenly everything was clear. I had been so filled with my love for Kevin and the subsequent heartbreak that I was unavailable for new, genuine love. No wonder every guy I met was a reject. When you only attract rejects, there is no worry about falling totally in love and no worry about becoming heartbroken. I had become a nun, no matter how many men I dated or slept with, and it was because of Kevin.

  But now Kevin was gone. He wasn’t the soulmate of my heart. And he wasn’t the devil who tried to destroy me either. He was just a poor, pathetic, slightly crazy guy with looks and charm and a need to be loved, a need he satisfied by pretending to be in love so that he could get love in return. Maybe he even felt the love, but since receiving love was so much more important than feeling it, he had to keep moving on to new women and new conquests. And then he had fuel for his memories, memories like those he shared with me tonight.

  I shook my head in wonder and relief. That was the end of Kevin’s story. I didn’t have to ponder his motives or search for a map to his psyche any longer. Kevin was gone and I was free of him.

  A part of my life had come to a close, and a new part was beginning. This was my rebirth, and I was flooded with joy to recognize and welcome a new era into my life. The pain was over and I had truly survived and come out intact on the other side. I was ready to accept something better in my life at last.

  I looked up at the pink California night time sky. The air was clear and cool and comforting. I got in Ace’s Honda and turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard for the drive home. The traffic was sparse and I drove along effortlessly, my foot never leaving the gas pedal and a string of green lights as far as I could see.

  Here are the opening pages of Touring the Afterlife—enjoy!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Years ago, after her father exploded along with the malfunctioning gas stove, Addie cheerfully went next door to live with her best friend, Joanie. It had always been her dream to be a member of the Bonnet family, and at last their home was her own.

  To prove the level of her acceptance, Burble, the family cat, slept right on the end of her bed, and Addie was thrilled. Of all the places he might have chosen to curl up each night, Burble nestled with Addie, snugly pressed against her feet. She was number one.

  “Look,” she exulted to Joanie, “I’m his new favorite person. He always sleeps on my bed.” But Joanie had laughed and replied that no, the cat wasn’t sleeping on Addie’s bed, she was sleeping on his. She wasn’t Burble’s number one; she was just the extra body in the bed that he had previously claimed as his own.

  Everyone needs to be somebody’s number one. Addie didn’t have a clue what true love consisted of, but she knew without a doubt that everything that was wrong in her life came down to the simple fact that she was nobody’s number one, nobody’s favorite, and never had she been anyone’s first choice. Isn’t everyone entitled to feel that one person on this earth had made her number one? Clearly not, but it was a nice dream, and at the heart of everything that plagued her, this was the central dilemma.

  Addie wondered what it would feel like to know that there was and would always be that one person in her life who chose her first and foremost, who placed her in that coveted number one spot. It wasn’t really a matter of trust, but of choice. If only she could share her life with someone who could have chosen anyone else, but instead had chosen Addie, had seen her and had known that she was the best, the first, the only—his number one choice.

  In college, when she married the cast off husband of her favorite professor, it seemed that she’d finally become number one. But did it work out? Not for long enough and she’d moved on, again and again. Her husbands had become like world wars—less painful to recall by number than by name. None had made her his first choice, and Addie admitted that for her only Trey really mattered, and he had left her for some young slut.

  But it wasn’t Trey galling her today, it was Quatro, the fiend who’d promised to be her partner, her helpmate, to expand her spectacular success and convey her into the pantheon of celebrity. Instead he’d looted her bank account and brought her to the place where she was now—nearly bankrupt, her splendid home lost forever, and everything she owned in a storage unit—except for a wall of cartons in her office. She looked around at the chaos, recognizing it as emblematic of the larger issues in her life. Did this look like the surroundings of a person who had any hope at all of being somebody’s number one? No, probably not.

  Addie sat at her desk, scribbling on her mostly blank appointment calendar. Her clients had deserted her. She wasn’t their number one, either. She focused all her rage on her husband, wishing he could be found, wishing she could be the one to return him to justice. How good it would feel to tell him off, to fling at him all the emotional debris now shrouding her mind and heart. He deserved to hear how he’d let her down, how much pain she had suffered because of him. Trust could be a scary thing, no matter what, but when it turned to treachery, it was devastating. If only there were something she could do, some way she could punish him for all he’d inflicted upon her.

  A few years ago, on an airplane, while on a press tour to promote her latest book, Addie had read a thriller that detailed exactly how to commit suicide and set someone up for murder. It was a seductive idea. She knew what and precisely how much to take, and long ago had procured the necessary items. In troubling moments, she would review the plan and each step to take, but something had always stopped her from acting upon it. Even though her personal life had endured a series of crushing nose dives, everything else had still been
too good, her success too spectacular. But under the surface was a sort of resonance, a certainty whose time had not yet come, and there lay Addie’s reality. At some point she would need it, at some point, she would do it.

  The ringing phone jarred Addie out of her reverie. “Dr. Schlumberger,” she said, absentmindedly assuming it was a client and thus forgetting to say ‘Dr. Schlumberger’s office,’ as she usually did, but of course it was a creditor, and she was then unable to shield herself behind the persona of a fictional secretary. “Yes,” she said calmly, “What can I do for you?” She listened to the voice, refusing to buy into the stress or to let herself be manipulated by the caller. “You’re kidding,” she replied. “That can’t be possible.”

  She rose, walked to the couch, folded an afghan knitted for her by her last remaining client, all the while murmuring conciliatorily into the phone. Addie might have kept toying with the caller, but a knock at the door forced her to end the conversation. “I just got in from Europe, and have recently fired my business manager. So I will look into all of this and see that everything is taken care of. Thanks for letting me know.” Before he could press her for payment promises, she hung up the phone and opened the door.

  The young man was the image of Mick, as he was in his twenties, golden and glowing. He smiled at her and under her breath she whispered, incomprehensible, “Trey.” He reached a hand toward her and Addie leaned in, expecting to be enveloped in his arms, awash in a flood of intense, dizzying emotion.

  “Adrianna Schlumberger,” he asked, bewildering her. Why would he ask her name? Had she changed that much? Her face alight with love, with expectation, she smiled, thinking he was teasing her, not remembering that she hadn’t eaten or slept properly in days, not realizing she wasn’t herself. She took the envelope he handed her, still foggy, still confused.