Henry was tired and upset. He sat back against a chair and crossed his arms. He looked up into her face. She didn’t look so lovely then. She had her hair up and it pulled back some of the mystique she used to hold. He could see her eyebrows. He’d never seen them before, for as long as he could remember, he had never seen them. It didn’t bother him until he realized they existed, that they had always existed. They weren’t special, no crazy colors, just the hazelnut of her hair above her eyes, but it was new.
“Sure. You told me last night that you’ve been having sex with some other guy for a couple months. Now I’m sitting here in my locker room wishing you’d tell me this was all a joke, that I was dreaming.” He didn’t look her in the eyes after the last thing he said. He was embarrassed; he usually never talked with clichƒ©s. “I can’t stand you, not anymore.” He didn’t expect what he said to come out so bitterly but it did and he couldn’t take it back. He reminded himself of what she’d done.
Melanie’s posture slumped and she let out a sigh. She had loved Henry, he used to think, but their definitions of love varied. Melanie believed love to be something that was kept strong as long as there was a little mystery. She liked sex, probably liked it too much, but it made her feel alive. Before she met Henry she’d been working as a bartender in a shady dive bar just south of St. Louis. She’d learned a lot about people, characters, and what they could and could not do for her, but when she first saw Henry out one night he was the perfect ticket. She told Henry once, after puffing a cigarette in bed, that sex was the ultimate representation of life. That the mind and the body were working together to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure; she was drunk then.
Henry had only dated a couple women before Melanie. It’s not that he wasn’t attractive or charming or funny, it’s not that he wasn’t interested in poetry or movies or politics; he was interested in all of those things. It had more to do with his timing. He had interesting things to say but he rarely spoke at the right moment. When he first met Melanie he was at a bar. She approached him, it was a sports bar like Hooter’s, and he was to play a tournament the next day, and asked him for an autograph. “Sure,” he said, showing teeth ten years after braces. After he signed his name on a napkin she hugged and thanked him. Henry had seen in movies and television that when a woman hugs a man she’s on her way in or out of a conversation, or she’s happy, or she’s sad. He thought at the time how a hug usually meant something. In this case however, she stood there and kept talking to him whenever she could think of something to say. Henry didn’t know what to say. She did most of the talking until Henry was drunk enough. Then, through the dizzy tongue of alcohol he found the right words. He fell in love with her after they had sex. Henry didn’t think she ever did.
“Okay Henry. I think we should be able to handle this like-”
“Like what? Like adults? Don’t talk to me about being mature,” he said. He took pride in his honesty and sat up straight. “I don’t know what you thought it would be like when you told me you had been cheating on me, but I hope it’s going as planned.”
“Don’t act this way Henry. I didn’t have to tell you now, I could have waited. I didn’t want this to be any harder than it already is. I mean, you asked me about who called. You asked me who Steven was. I didn’t want to tell you so close to your next match.” Henry believed her. “Hell, I thought you might even be able to save this marriage.”
- “Great. You told me you were cheating on me.”
“Whatever. Talk to me when you grow up.” Melanie said and walked quickly to the door. Henry watched her from behind and thought about how often he had had sex with her. He thought about the heart he put into things, thought about how wonderful it was sometimes, and then thought about someone else doing what he’d done. He stood up. He put a new shirt on and he too didn’t want to be in that room anymore.
Outside Melanie was talking to the camera man from earlier. His press pass read New York Times. The man resembled the late Heath Ledger with his triangular jaw. Melanie looked entertained; her hair danced as she reacted to his story. Henry didn’t like that. He never really liked when anyone, especially a man, talked to his wife. He knew people too well and knew they all had motives. The guy didn’t stand a chance, Henry would never like him.
“. . . so a couple seconds later, a friend of mine comes out of nowhere and hits the guy right in the jaw! I was about to get my ass handed to me and my buddy from high school jumps the guy! I hadn’t seen him-”
“Melanie.” Henry composed himself, feigning Mr. Ledger.
“What is it Henry?” She looked at him with humorous green eyes. Henry pulled her a couple steps to the left, to separate them.
“Don’t dump guilt on me, I didn’t do anything.” Henry said. He looked a little pale when he said this, like his brain wanted to talk but his body wanted to hold his mouth shut and slap it. There was an awkward silence after Henry spoke. A couple of men walked by them both and it distracted Henry.
“Whatever helps you sleep.”
“This sure doesn’t.”
“I think you just need some time to think about us. I did what you should have done, I ended it. We were pretty pathetic Henry. At least now things change.”
“I wish it was that easy for me to forget.” Henry lost some of his motivation. He felt like she was going to walk away forever and what better a setting than down the long cave of a gym hallway.
“I told some friends I’d meet them for dinner, so I’m going to go. I’ll get a hold of you in a couple days.” She turned towards Vanessa and waved goodbye to the two men she’d just talked to.
This kind of shit bothered Henry the most. Melanie surprised him. He liked that about her, that no matter the moment she could present something new and unexpected to the scene. At their two year anniversary she told him she wanted to go to school and study History. He paid her way through a couple years of school; he doesn’t regret that.
Meeting Melanie and their cold five year marriage, their families and all the money and the drinks never made him feel like she was his or that they were married. It was never a soul-mate attraction, “love at first sight,” all that bullshit. It was a marriage of convenience, Henry told himself. Melanie met rich and interesting people by latching onto him, Henry thought of leeches. She was simple but Henry tried to make her complex. He knew a lot about her and when it came down to her or him, her or her money, her or her image, she always chose herself. She never sacrificed much more than affection for Henry. She’d probably been cheating on him for years now; he hadn’t known and would never know. Henry even thought that their marriage lasted so long because of other men as he watched her walk away. Mr. Ledger shrugged at Henry and turned down another hallway.
Melanie and Vanessa walked down the corridor together before disappearing into the sun-stained parking lot.
#
In the sports bar at the Clubhouse, Henry sat comfortably in a booth. He ordered a mix of kahlua and vodka, with some milk thrown in there. The room was dimly lit with sports memorabilia “randomly,” placed on the walls and there were just two people sitting at the bar. A bartender was there too. One of the men at the bar, a reporter, was smoking a cigarette and telling another man about his deadlines and anything else he thought interesting. Henry distracted himself by drinking and watching these two men talk. The reporter had a goatee and thick, black rimmed glasses and a grey sport coat. He sat with his back to the door and his press pass hung over his right shoulder.
“You ever meet Rafael Nadal? I did. Two days ago,” the reporter paused, put his cigarette into his right hand and gulped up the last of his drink with his left. “He was leaving one of the practice courts the other night and I tried to ask him a question about how he felt about his upcoming matches. He looked at me with that deadpan stare. So, I did what any good reporter would have done and kept asking questions. He turned around after not answering for the third time and grabbed my tape recorder and threw it down. Then he stepped on it.” He watched the guy listening to him drop his jaw. “So I yelled, ‘that cost a lot of money you know!’ but the son of a bitch didn’t turn around.” His delivery was well rehearsed.