How to Keep Rolling After a Fall

by Karole Cozzo

  After we have coffee and sorbet for dessert, we get back in his car and head farther downtown. Before long, when I look out the window, I see Asian supermarkets, red-and-yellow pagoda-style buildings, and paper lanterns strung between the streetlamps. “Chinatown?”

  Pax nods. “Uh-huh.”

  My brow furrows. “And this is all part of your master plan for the evening?”

  “Maybe.”

  Pax pulls up to a valet stand in front of a club or restaurant or something, with red and blue neon letters that spell out YAKITORI BOY. I glance down at Pax and bite my lip. “Uh, I think I’ve had enough sushi for my first night.”

  He just grins and squeezes my hand once. “Nah. We’re here for something else.”

  Pax leads the way through the door and navigates the narrow interior to an elevator in the back. We take the elevator to the second floor, and when the doors open, we find ourselves in the middle of a rowdy karaoke bar. Nearly every seat is filled, and a huge chalkboard near the stage reads, RULE NUMBER ONE: YOU MUST START WITH A SAKE BOMB. RULE NUMBER TWO: SING IF YOU ARE GOOD. IF NOT, GRAB A DRINK AND THEN SING.

  A couple notices us looking for space and kindly surrenders a small bar table in front of the stage so that we have a place to sit down. Pax brakes his chair and tells me, “This is one of the few legit karaoke joints in the city. So the website says, anyway.”

  Then he leans close enough to wrap his arm around me and whisper in my ear, close enough that his lips graze my skin and the clean, guy smell of him makes me want to pull him closer still. “You said you used to feel at home onstage. Maybe you still can.”

  I stiffen at once. “I’m not singing.”

  Pax pulls back and huffs but leaves one arm slung around my shoulders. “I’m not asking you to get up on the O.I. High School stage in front of the graduating class.” He gestures around the room. “No one knows you here! Do your thing!”

  I cross my arms and shake my head. “I’m not singing.”

  A frustrated little sigh escapes his nose, and he leans back and away from me. “Fine, then. We’ll just hang out for the entertainment value.”

  And I have to admit, it is entertaining. We’re treated to a few Asian businessmen butchering karaoke classics like “Achy Breaky Heart.” There’s the bachelorette party, with the drunk-as-a-skunk bride hamming it up to “Like a Virgin.”

  And then there are the serious singers, the ones who came to play, the ones who, ever so slightly, leave my fingers itching to wrap around the microphone.

  Pax, in typical Pax fashion, doesn’t let my reluctance about the whole thing dampen his spirits. He watches with a bemused smile on his face, hooting and hollering, pumping his fist in the air. I watch him, finding him beautiful in the flashing lights.

  After two Shirley Temples from the bar, I stand up and grab my bag. “I’m gonna go use the ladies’,” I tell him. “Be right back.”

  I don’t take long—I use the restroom, take advantage of the complimentary mouthwash, and reapply my lip gloss. Even though I’m fast, I’m not fast enough, and when I exit the bathroom and start back down the corridor toward the lounge, I hear an all-too-familiar voice on the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, any minute now, my good friend is going to walk down that hallway. I’m gonna point her out, and when I do, I need you all to do everything in your power to get her up on this stage tonight.”

  I hustle as fast as I can in my awful shoes the rest of the way and then plant my feet on the edge of the room. “Pax!” I hiss loudly.

  He spins around and points the microphone in my direction. “There she is!”

  The chant starts up at once. “Sing! Sing sing sing sing!”

  Pax joins in, laughing and clapping and chanting. “Sing sing sing sing!”

  He rolls over in the direction of the bachelorette party, still talking into the microphone for the benefit of the crowd. “Come on, ladies. Help a brother in a wheelchair out.”

  “Oh, that is so wrong!” I yell. “That’s cheap!”

  “Sing sing sing sing,” the bachelorettes cry, martinis sloshing over the sides of their glasses. They swing their feather boas and chant some more. “Sing sing sing sing.”

  I hate you, I mouth.

  But it only makes him chant all the louder. It makes them all chant more loudly, and after another minute of unrelenting chanting, reality starts to set in. There’s no way out of this, short of running from the restaurant. And my ride back across the bridge is currently leading some sort of uprising.

  “Fine!” I finally scream over the racket. “I’ll sing.”

  A round of applause kicks up at once, and as I snatch the microphone out of Pax’s hands and storm toward the stage, I have to admit, I don’t altogether hate the sensation. I approach the DJ and flip through the book, pointing to the first song from my former performance repertoire.

  Before he cues the song, the DJ reaches back onto the bar and produces a squat glass of brown liquid, a shot glass floating within it. “Rules are rules,” he says, handing it to me.

  “I’m not—” I try to protest, but he cuts me off.

  “Shhh … Rules are rules.”

  I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in months. And in that second, a shot doesn’t seem like too bad an idea.

  I quickly down the heinous combination of sweet sake and flat beer. I feel it in seconds, by the time the powerful opening strains of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” are thundering from the speakers behind me.

  Or maybe it’s not the alcohol at all that’s responsible for the transformation. But as I start singing, as I let the music take over from within, as I dance around the stage under the hot lights with my skirt twirling around my hips, I’m intoxicated in a way I haven’t been in a long, long time.

  It’s not just about the applause, I realize. I just really love this.

  I feel happy … and alive … and good. I feel like me. I feel like a me I know again.

  When my eyes meet Pax’s, his tell me that maybe he likes this me.

  They tell me again that I wasn’t an idiot that day on his couch.

  Even though it’s an epically long song, it ends a little sooner than I’m ready for it to. I get a standing ovation from the crowd, and the closest thing to it that Pax can offer me. A second sake bomb is shoved into my hands, and I down it quickly before I curtsy, and bow, and savor a final few seconds onstage.

  When I return to my seat, Pax wraps me in a crushing hug and says something to me I’ve kind of started thinking I’d never hear again.

  “Proud of you, Nik.”

  About a dozen songs later, I walk on unsteady feet—thanks to the drinks and my stilettos—toward the corner with Pax at my side.

  Suddenly, he grabs my hand. “Stop!”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, heart hammering, imagining a huge rat about to run across my toes.

  “My master plan—I did have one.” He swipes his arm through the air in front of him. “Forget the sushi, forget the singing.… This is why I brought you here.”

  I glance around, trying to figure out what he’s talking about.

  “Close your eyes,” he orders.

  I do as he says.

  “Now listen.”

  I listen. I hear beeping horns, and hollered conversations, and buses grinding to a stop. I feel the air blow across my body as cars whiz by. I feel the subway vibrating beneath my feet, feel the heat pumping out of the vents beside me. I absorb the buzz of a natural electricity of its own making.

  “You don’t have to give up the dream of your future,” he reminds me slowly, enunciating each word.

  I leave my eyes closed, listening, believing for a second.

  “You can still have it. It’s right here. It’s not gone.” Pax pauses for a minute, and I hear the urgency in his voice, how badly he wants me to believe him. “I just … I just wanted you to feel it. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to try to show you. I just … wanted you to feel it. It may not look the exact way
you once imagined it did, but your dream can still be your dream.”

  Still my lids stay closed, so the tears behind them don’t have the option of falling.

  “The stage can still feel like home, maybe even when home doesn’t feel like home,” he says. “And the city’s not far away. It’s right here. Within your reach.”

  When I finally think I’m able to, I open my eyes and stare into his. I squeeze his hand, as tightly as I can, to thank him for what he tried to do for me tonight. What he did do for me. “Thank you,” I tell him.

  A couple of tears sneak up on me and manage to make it to my cheeks. I turn and wipe them away. I’m not crying because I’ve realized my dreams are still mine for the taking, still within reach. I’m crying because my heart is breaking, thinking that the one thing I so badly want might be just beyond it.

  * * *

  It’s probably a combination of the drinks and the crash that follows the adrenaline rush of performing, and I end up slouched against Pax on the way home, my head on his shoulder. Somewhere on the Atlantic City Expressway, his right hand covers my left on the seat between us. It’s bittersweet, but I allow myself permission to ignore the bitter and savor the sweet, closing my eyes and enjoying the weight and warmth of his hand on top of mine.

  We’re only a couple of miles from home when I murmur, “It did still kinda feel like home.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Singing again. Dancing again.” I shake my head against his arm. “I never thought it would. But it didn’t feel like I was playing a character to be up there. It felt like me.”

  “Yeah … I get it.” He sighs. “I can still get that feeling sometimes … in the water.” He glances over at me and grins. “Lord knows I can’t feel much, but…”

  I giggle, and then in a moment of inspiration, I sit up straight. “Don’t go all the way into Ocean Isle. Get off at exit seven. Go to the center.”

  “The center?” Pax asks.

  “Yeah.” I shrug. “I got to feel at home tonight. It’s only right that you should, too.” I smile. “So let’s go swimming.”

  He looks at the console. “It’s ten o’clock.”

  The time doesn’t register with me, even though it’s only thirty minutes until my curfew.

  Instead, I fish through my purse and hold up something triumphantly. “I have my access card.”

  “But you don’t have a bathing suit.”

  “My underwear covers up just the same,” I tell him, remembering that what I have on under my dress is pretty modest, all things considered. “Besides,” I say, glancing up at him, “it’s not like you’re interested, right?”

  I mean it as a joke, sort of, but Pax doesn’t laugh. He looks sort of wounded, and his lips part in surprise. “Nikki—”

  “Come on,” I say, cutting him off. “Just drive.”

  * * *

  I swipe my card to open the automatic doors, and we enter through the gym. I’ve taken my heels off and am tiptoeing around, even though it’s largely unnecessary. The residential wings have a separate entrance, and at this hour of the night, most of the security is focused over there. Still, I feel my heart pounding and hear myself whispering when I tell Pax, “I’m gonna get changed and grab towels. I’ll meet you at the pool.”

  He just nods once in response.

  Inside the locker room, I grab a stack of clean towels and set them on a low bench. Then I reach up between my shoulder blades and struggle to inch my zipper down. I pull the fabric over my shoulders and wiggle back and forth to ease it over my hips.

  And then I stand there and stare at myself in the mirror. I can barely make out my reflection in the low light. But I can detect the curves of my body, and it’s easy enough to imagine the guilt in my eyes.

  This isn’t what I’m here for.… Is it?

  I’m here for Pax, I tell myself. I’m not here with some misguided hope that by prancing out there half-naked, that by getting him in the water and allowing him to feel like someone he used to be, he’ll start rethinking things. I’m not thinking that, right?

  I turn away from the sight of myself, grab the towels and wrap one around my body, and head out to the pool deck, greeted by the smell of chlorine. Pax is already out of his chair, sitting on the edge of the pool, fiddling with something.

  When he hears me approach, his head whips around. “Let me get in first,” he sputters, voice high and unnatural. “Just … turn around.”

  I don’t really understand what prompts his near hysteria—I got a quick glimpse of normal-looking boxer briefs, those impressive muscles, and nothing more—but I do as he asks, turning around and tightening my towel around my ribs as I wait, listening to the gently lapping water.

  A minute later, I hear a soft splash and then, “Okay.”

  The second before I drop my towel, I become self-conscious and suddenly wish I could ask him to turn around for a minute himself. Ultimately, I just take a deep breath, drop the towel, and dive into the water as quickly as I can. Then I pop to the surface, trying to contain the shrieks that are threatening to escape. “Ahh! It’s cold!” I flail about and try to get acclimated to the water.

  “It’s seventy degrees. They keep it really warm for all the old people. It’s not cold!”

  I show him the goose bumps on my arms. “Well then, the air is cold—I’ll tell you that much.”

  Pax dunks his head under the water and reemerges, slicking his hair back off his forehead. “You’ll get used to it,” he assures me.

  Momentarily, I feel nothing, stunned by the sight of him coming up from the water. With his hair out of his face, his handsome features and perfectly sculpted shoulders make me think of one of those ancient busts of world conquerors. He’s actually beautiful, water drops on his lashes, lips wet and red.

  Pax uses his strong arms to propel himself, staying afloat easily. “You know what’s a weird sensation?”

  “What?”

  “When you actually start sweating in the water. Used to happen all the time during polo matches. They kept the water much colder than this, but you can still feel your body overheating. Wild.”

  I grab a kickboard from the side of the pool to lean on as I kick. “What position did you play?”

  “Center. Offense.”

  “Of course.” I remember what he was like at the rugby match. “I’m not surprised.”

  “It’s amazing how much the same everything feels in the water. Part of it’s just the obvious. I can’t see my legs, and I can’t feel them. I don’t have to think about them. But I think it’s the weightlessness that does it. In the water, I feel like I can do everything I used to do.” He grins. “Like beat you to the opposite end of the pool.”

  I shake my head and hug the board. “That’s not a fair race. I’m a good swimmer. I even used to do some of the ocean races.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. “Not a fair race?”

  It’s all the warning I’m given before he takes off, with no wall or floor to push off, just the sheer force of his upper-body strength, and I’m left in his wake. I toss the kickboard aside and bound off the floor to get started, but even though I really put in a lot of effort, I can’t catch him for the life of me.

  He easily beats me to the wall, and that’s where I find him, hugging the cement lip, laughing and smiling in extreme self-satisfaction. His eyes are sparkling, and his cheeks are flushed. His chest heaves above the water, his breathing sexy and labored. I end up only inches from his slick body, and my own struggles to breathe evenly have very little to do with the race.

  I look at him as I hold on to the wall, and before long, his laughter fades. “It was only a race. Why do you look so defeated all of a sudden?”

  It takes me a long minute to answer him, and I bob in the water, staring at the shifting surface, trying to work out what I want to say. Eventually, all I come up with is the truth. I look him in the eye. “I can’t pretend away the thing that made me try to kiss you a couple weeks ago.”

  His face transfor
ms, and his eyes end up looking pained. “Nikki—”

  I shake my head, not wanting to hear the excuses again. “I know what you said, about needing to focus on your personal situation, but I can’t buy into that. You’re probably one of the sanest, most together people I know, and I don’t—”

  “Nikki.”

  This time his voice is insistent, and I shut up.

  “Do you know why I asked you to turn your back?”

  I shake my head.

  Pax looks at me, saying nothing for a minute, seeming like he’s struggling with his words. He looks down and away from me, something I’m not used to from him. “I had to cap my catheter, all right?” he says quietly.

  After another minute, he shakes his head and continues to stare into the distance. “It’s all fine and good at, like, arm’s length. But someone gets close enough, and there’s no hiding the gory details.” He looks back at me and lifts his chin. “Here’s the reality: I can’t tell when I have to pee. There’s a tube that comes out right above my hip, and except for the brief periods of time when I can cap it and try to ignore it, I have to use artificial plumbing. Real sexy, right?”

  I’m kind of shocked at his brashness, but it’s not like it’s some big news flash to me. I mean, I Googled paraplegia weeks ago to get a better sense of what Pax deals with on a daily basis. “So?”

  “So. Sure,” he responds, shaking his head “It’s no big deal to talk about. But don’t act like it’s something you’d actually want to deal with. Who would? I have to, and I can accept that, but it’s not like anyone else is obligated to deal with this crap.”

  When he looks at me again, his eyes are scared and uncertain. “So I haven’t asked anyone to. Since all this happened, I haven’t let any girl get close.… Not close enough to … touch me.”

  I inch closer to him. My hand finds his rib cage under the water. Slowly, I slide it down toward his hip, keeping my eyes locked with his, my fingertips grazing the end of the plastic tube before my hand comes to rest on his hip. “It’s such a small, insignificant part of you,” I whisper, feeling pain squeeze my heart. Because I’m touching Pax and I like it. I’m close and I want to get closer. And I’m afraid that at any second he’s going to tell me to stop.