The Sweetheart

by Angelina Mirabella

  “That’s the plan. Give me another sip of that water, would you?” she asks. This, you are only too happy to do. “I’m going to be fine,” she says, licking her lips. “You’re the one to worry about.”

  “Yeah, well.” Perhaps she means for you to reassure her, to let her in on the latest plan for reinvention spinning around that newly dyed head of yours, to hear your confidence in it. The problem is this: you don’t have confidence, or a plan, for that matter, and you don’t have the stomach to fake it. The last thing you want to do is tell her a lie, so you leave those words—Yeah, well—hanging in the air until she falls asleep.

  • • •

  The waiting room near the hospital entrance is not at all comfortable, but it has the advantage of possessing a trash can, so it is the perfect place to sit and clean out your purse while you bide your time. You just couldn’t bring yourself to stroll through those sliding glass doors—not just yet. Sam’s longer, broader, glass-half-full view of things has served you well these past few days, but you are not yet ready for another dose of optimism. You need a minute alone to think, to sit inside the wreckage and assess the damage.

  While you are still slumped in your seat, gathering your resources, the doors open and in walks Joe. He stops to mop his brow with a handkerchief while you hold your breath, but it’s no use: he spots you. He stands there, hands in pockets, and waits for you to come to him, which you do with more than a little hesitation.

  “Good of you to come,” Joe says.

  “I don’t know about that.” Joe stares at you for a long while, waiting for more. Perhaps he thinks that you owe him something. Perhaps he wants more explanation, or at least some pleasantries. You would like to oblige, but these are more than you can manage. The best you can do is this apology: “I’m really sorry, Joe.”

  “I know you are, kid. I am, too.”

  “You had this whole thing worked out—” You don’t dare think, let alone say, the rest of the sentence: and I blew it for all of us.

  “I did. But you know what? I’ll just have to work something else out.”

  “You will?” This is both reassuring and disappointing. If a championship can go forward without you, it means you were never as instrumental as you imagined. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far yet. If you’ve got any brilliant ideas, I’m all ears.”

  “No, not really.”

  “That’s too bad.” He slips off his glasses and runs his handkerchief over the bridge of his nose. He asks, “What about you? What’s your plan?”

  “Can’t say I have one.”

  Joe returns his glasses to his face and nods his head in a matter-of-fact way. He pulls out his money clip, counts his dough, and performs a few mental calculations before peeling off a couple of bills—enough to cover all that he owes you and then some—and then another and another just like it. When you open your mouth to protest, he takes your clutch from your hands and stuffs the bills inside: this is not negotiable.

  “You have stuff in Otherside you’re going to want back,” he says. “I can send it to you, or you can come get it. Whenever. There’s no rush.” He places his heavy hands on your shoulders, and for once, you don’t mind them there. “If there’s anything to talk about, we can talk then.”

  You would like to tell him not to hold his breath. You will never feel ready to open up to him, let alone wrestle again—not under the new terms. But you sense that he already understands this, so instead, for only the second time in your life, you dare to kiss him. Later, you will decide that it is this gesture, the way it hurls you backward in time to that first peck on the ear, and the story Joe told you in that moment, that will give you an inspired idea, one that has the potential to not only fix his immediate problem but also change the course of history for all involved, including him.

  “I have the answer,” you say. “I know who can fight Mildred Burke.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What about the best wrestler you’ve ever managed?”

  The look on Joe’s face makes clear he is deeply suspicious of this idea, that perhaps he even entertained it himself and dismissed it. He is not a man who welcomes scandal, and Lacey, who is likely still at El Rancho, where you left her, will come with one that will cast its shadow in all directions. But in the year you have known him, he has grown less averse to risk, more willing to change with the times. These trends will only continue; before the decade is over, he will sign his first African-American wrestler and make Mimi his business partner. Whether he is ready for that kind of risk today remains to be seen, but it seems to you if there is anyone worthy of a risk, it is Lacey. She has paid her dues and then some. Maybe some could begrudge her the title, but not you, and certainly not Mimi.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t even know where she is now.”

  His face might betray his doubt, but in those words, you hear a man who can be convinced. This can’t be easy for you, Gwen—selling Joe on a champion other than yourself—but it is your best chance. You can’t make it right, but you can do one right thing.

  “Luckily for you,” you say, “I do.”

  • • •

  In the parking lot, Sam leans against the Crestline, arms crossed, and talks to Johnny. It is a relief that they have found each other. Otherwise, the sight of Sam waiting in the Memphis heat—hair damp, shirt bibbed in sweat—might make you cringe with guilt. When the men catch sight of you, they shake hands and part ways. Johnny brushes past, acknowledging you only with a slight nod, but Sam springs into gentlemanly action, helping you into the passenger side before climbing behind the wheel. He rests his arm on the back of the bench seat and asks, “Do you feel better?”

  “About Mimi? No. Not really. But I’m not sure I want to.”

  “Sounds to me like she’s doing okay,” he says, cranking the engine. “Johnny says she’s already talking about touring together and buying a travel trailer so they can take Junior on the road. Speaking of which, I saw Joe walk in.”

  “Yeah, I spoke to him.”

  “Did he give you any grief?”

  “No.” You feel quite certain you have convinced him that Lacey should win the belt. You briefly consider sharing this news with Sam, but if you do, then you will have to tell him about seeing her in Vegas. You can only imagine what he might say if he discovers that you saw her and said nothing to him. This is hardly a conversation you want to have now.

  “See? What did I tell you?” Sam puts the car in reverse, looks over his shoulder, and eases off the brakes. “Just you wait, Leonie. This story is going to have a happy ending for everybody.”

  “Everybody but me,” you say.

  “You’re thinking about this all wrong. You’re not down. You’re just in between. That’s all.”

  Here it is again—Sam’s finger pointing toward the bright side. This is not what you need right now. In time, his optimism will seem like prophecy. Good news will trickle in from every corner, and, while you will never quite believe that this was all meant to be, you will settle into the idea that everyone got the life she needed, including you. But first, you have to grieve. For all her faults, The Sweetheart was one of the few things in this world that was yours, and now she is gone.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be in between. Maybe I want to be where I was.”

  Sam adjusts his grip on the steering wheel and stares ahead. When he’s gathered his thoughts, he turns and says, “Leonie, don’t you see? You were already in between.”

  It takes a moment for this to arrive to you as fact. At first, it seems like much of Sam’s version of events—intended to cheer rather than honestly evaluate. But you can hear first how this is different and then how it is right. Remember the debacle in DC, the soul-grinding performances in Vegas? Maybe you were already in between. Maybe you had already taken the first steps toward something else.


  “If I’m in between, then what’s next?” you ask.

  “You’re not supposed to know,” says Sam. “That’s the problem with in between. That’s why it feels bad. But in my happy ending, you and I go back to Cleveland and build a life together.”

  Maybe that is the answer. Now that everything else is in tatters, perhaps your best shot at happiness is to put aside your reservations and take a chance on Sam’s somewhat flawed but true-blue affections. Sure, he can be overprotective, but this is born out of a deep and abiding concern for you, isn’t it? Hasn’t he proven that he will be a loyal defender and protector? Besides, what else are you going to do now that the life you imagined for yourself has made like a banana and split? Going back to Philadelphia is not an option. And if you can’t go home, then really, what else is there? All signs point to Sam. You just have to take the first step.

  “Okay,” you say. “Let’s do it.”

  Sam brakes hard. The car jerks to a halt. “Say that again.”

  But you can’t bring yourself to say those words one more time. Instead, you take his hands off the wheel and into your own. This is it: you have made the choice. It is a good choice—the only choice, really. It gives you both a place to go and a person to go with. That is more than a girl in your circumstances should ask for. Someday, you are quite certain, you will thank your lucky stars.

  TWENTY-NINE

  It is late morning in Memphis when you head out for a run. In a few short hours, you and Sam will start out for Cleveland so that he can begin his transformation from wrestler to promoter and you can begin your new lives together. You suit up and slip out as quietly as possible, careful not to wake Sam as you leave. You don’t want to have to explain what you are doing.

  After a few stretches under the awning, you set out, headed north on Second Street, past the one-story brick buildings of Film Row toward the downtown high-rises. It is a bad time for a run. The heat is stifling; the occasional breeze provides minimal relief and brings with it the unfortunate smells of the Wolf River. Still, it feels good to be out here—on the concrete, under the neon. The wide sidewalks are dotted with newsstands stocked with comic books and vendors with baskets full of vegetables. Above you, the lines for the trolley cars form an electric web.

  It doesn’t take long for you to find a rhythm, feel your muscles awaken. In the last year, this body of yours has developed many abilities, but running may be the one you have most fully mastered. You can run until your legs turn to rubber, your lungs burn. Just a little longer, you will tell yourself, but once that’s done, you decide you can go a little longer still, and again and again.

  A few blocks into your run, a pair of trench coat–wearing, briefcase-swinging businessmen rubberneck as you cruise past. You continue onward. Your body no longer creates a debilitating self-consciousness. It has been your rocket ship. With it, you have enraptured strangers, inspired young women, paid for your father’s mortgage, bankrolled your own independent existence, and brought auditorium after auditorium to its knees. You have a new and wholly merited respect for its value. But Sam is right—you were already starting to see its limits. You have withheld too much of yourself, reduced yourself to too few colors: platinum blond and Fire and Ice red. It is high time you broadened your palate.

  What you are less sure about, now that you’ve had some time to think, is whether it is better this way—your persona quickly and unceremoniously put to rest. Sam certainly thinks so. In your conversation last night, he maintained that this clean break is better than what might have happened otherwise, you growing further enmeshed in something you clearly had ambivalence about. You’ll grant him this—it is certainly more efficient. But better? Had the story been allowed to unfold gradually rather than suffer this abrupt ending, you might have someday packed The Sweetheart away with other items you’d outgrown. Now, you wonder if you aren’t forever doomed to see her as something precious that was lost, a gem that slipped out of its setting.

  You turn left and pick up speed as you run past the loan offices and shoe stores on Beale Street, attempting to distance yourself from this idea. That is the last thing you need to take to Cleveland. Sam is not a consolation prize. The man deserves better. What a silly girl you’ve been, wasting so much time bemoaning his flaws when you should have been examining your own. Overly ambitious. Shallow. Self-centered. Hardly the kind of person to merit his loyalty. You should count yourself lucky. You are lucky. Because even if the two of you aren’t perfectly suited, what couple is? The ones you’ve examined most closely—your father and Patricia, Cynthia and Wally, Mimi and Johnny—all seem built on compromise. It is a happy ending you are after, not a perfect one.

  Another turn puts you onto Main Street, where scores of fashion-­forward ladies in heels and gloves stroll the sidewalks. You can’t help but notice the looks you get from them: the snickers, the raised eyebrows. Not that you blame them. A big, sweaty, red-faced woman in shorts and tennis shoes does tend to stick out in such a venue. On another day, you might take the hint and turn around, but you suddenly can’t breathe. You’re fine, you tell yourself. Just keep going. But you can’t move. You can’t go another step.

  The awnings over Goldsmith’s department store offer some respite, so you press your forehead against the cool display window and stare ahead while you wait for the spell to pass. From the other side of the glass, a group of mannequins stare back. One is clad in a floral-print, tea-length dress with an oversize bow. Another models a lemony-yellow suit with a long pencil skirt and cropped jacket, still another a red dress with bolero sleeves and a belted waist. One even sports a pair of lightweight slacks. And then there are the swimsuits. There is a jet-black suit made of waffle nylon, a second with gold embellishments and two small hip pockets, and a final one that gives you pause: a one-piece suit with a modest neckline and the new higher-cut legs in an uncanny shade of green.

  As you take in the picture, your attention shifts from the mannequins to your reflection in the glass. You are as shocked as ever by the dark-haired girl who stares back as you, but once this fades, you find it is not followed by the usual feeling of loss. For the first time, you see possibilities. You cannot imagine Gwen slipping into any of these frocks, preparing for a day at the office or a day at the beach or a first date or her debut as a heel, but this girl—well, why not her? So you can’t be The Sweetheart again. There are so many other women you could be, more even than what you see in front of you—ways of being you can’t imagine, that have yet to be invented. Just a year ago, you knew nothing about wrestling, and now look at you. You are young and in between.

  There is nothing wrong with what Sam wants. He wants what many people want. He wants to put on a suit and tie and go to the office. He wants to sit in the stands and watch his favorite teams. He wants to take his children to those games the way his father took him. At the end of the workday, he wants to sit around the dinner table and eat the beef brisket his lovely wife has prepared for him. He wants Leonie. He is a good man who wants reasonable things, and by all means, he should have them. The problem is that he thinks this will make you happy, too. This is not selfishness on his part, just a fundamental misunderstanding. The truth is he simply doesn’t know you well enough. And perhaps you’ve been too willing to adapt to suit his moods and needs. But now it is time for you to stop pretending.

  You will not go to Cleveland. In that life, you drown, and you take him with you.

  There is a tap on your shoulder—an older woman in white patent leather heels and a belted pink dress, two sullen adolescent girls by her side. “Are you all right, dear?” she asks.

  “Yes,” you say. “It’s just—I just realized that I have to break up with my boyfriend.”

  “Well, I feel sorry for that poor boy.” She offers you a monogrammed handkerchief from her matching white purse, and you run it over your eyes before mopping your forehead. “You know what you should do? Go in there and buy yourself so
mething pretty. That’s what I always do when I feel bad.”

  “I don’t think I’d know what to buy.”

  “Oh, I bet you could find something.” She gestures at the window display. “Go on in and take a look-see.” She gives you the once-over before adding, “On second thought, maybe you ought to go home and clean up first.”

  “Maybe I should,” you say, using the handkerchief one more time before offering your thanks and handing it back. The woman pats your arms and says, “That’s okay, honey. You keep it.”

  You close your hand around the handkerchief and let the city settle in around you. You will not go to Philadelphia or Otherside or Cleveland. That means this is not just another blue star on a map. Until a better option comes along, You Are Here. And who knows how long it will take you to figure out your next move? Maybe days, maybe weeks—maybe years. Thankfully, Memphis seems as good a place as any. An electric streetcar rolls past, sending off sparks. You can smell roasting peanuts. And there is this kind stranger, who has sent her girls in to start shopping without her until she is certain you can be left alone.

  “Go ahead,” you tell her. “I’ll be okay.”

  And you will be, but it will get worse before it gets better. Before you are ready, you will have to tuck that handkerchief into your waistband and head back to the hotel room to deliver the news. Sam will sit quietly on the bed while you talk, his face still damp from a recent shave, his keys in his pocket, his eyes shining. But when you are done, it will be clear that you cannot be swayed, so he will not waste his breath. He will merely nod, resigned to his fate: another round of forlorn bachelorhood. And when the last good-bye has been said, he will put his hand on the back of your neck in that familiar way of his that can feel simultaneously tender and burdensome. Any ambivalence you feel will be merited, but in this moment, you will put it aside. From now on, all of your decisions will be your own. For better or worse, they will not be complicated by his wishes and feelings, which will make you blessedly free to accept this gesture’s simplest meaning, to press your face against his shoulder as he says, for the last time, “Leonie, Leonie, Leonie.”