Daniel Hecht - City of Masks

Blue scored twice in a row, red managed to pick up a basket, and then a foul stalled the inevitable. Janet had to attend to her record keeping. When the buzzer sounded, the careening players went slack suddenly like marionettes whose strings had been cut. The blues hugged each other in the middle of the court as the reds slumped toward their bench. The bleachers began to empty as people stood, stretched, massaged sore buttocks; mothers hustled younger sibs to the bathroom. Smokers hurried for the front steps.

Janet discussed something with one of the coaches, then fielded a question from a ref. When they left, several parents approached the table and needed to talk to Mom.

Cree leaned back and tried to let her shoulders down. The blue team went to the locker room. The reds had found the far corner, where they sat on the boards, consoling each other and drinking from plastic squeeze bottles as their coach gave them spiritual guidance — about coping in the face of great loss, presumably. Scattered around the edges of the gym, pairs and trios of high school kids flirted, girls flouncing their hair, boys posturing and punching each other in the arms. Toddlers ran aimlessly in the broad expanse of yellow floor, exhilarated by the space and noise. Slowly, the building began to empty.

Janet had done an exemplary job of "getting on with her life" after Pop died. She had mourned hard and then called an end to it. Now she carried her lingering grief gracefully, honoring his memory but never permitting her daughters to pity her. It was no accident that she had chosen to work in a rec center, where the river of life ran quick and bright every day, cleansing the psychic space of shadows. To Cree, the building felt full of sparks: the residual hot, clear feelings of kids at play and the tempestuous but transient emotions of competition — the reds'defeat made a dull ache in her chest, but already it was ebbing. Mom was queen here, managing the program calendar, score-keeping when she could afford the time, refereeing whenever she had a chance, at least before her arteries clogged enough to make the exertion dangerous. She liked the epicenter of activity, here under the bright lights.

At last the big room began to quiet down. The teams left, Janet's assistant rounded up balls.

"God, I am beat," Janet said. "The excitement is too much for me. Oh Lordy." She palmed her eyes for a moment, then turned to give Cree a kiss. "Hello, Cree."

"Can you leave soon?"

"Yeah. The cleaning crew will be in tomorrow morning. Let's give it another five minutes and I'll close up."

Cree dug in her bag and pulled out a wax-paper-wrapped parcel. "I brought you some salmon. From that fish guy you like."

"God, I'm hungry enough to eat it raw!" Janet hefted the package appreciatively before leaning to put it into her own bag. "I'm glad to see you. What prompts this unexpected visit?"

Nothing, she could say, just wanted to see you. Or I'm leaving town for a few days, just wanted to touch base. "Dee says you're going to have an angioplasty."

Mom's eyes changed just a little — guarded to hide concern over the procedure, Cree wondered, or the plot with the cardiologist? "Well. All my friends are having them. I figured I had to keep up appearances."

Cree smiled. "But how do you feel?"

"Me? I feel great." She paused and gave it a little disclaimer. "Just get out of breath, and these little pinches in my chest. Same old stuff."

"I'm flying out to New Orleans on Thursday. I'll be back before you have to go in."

"What's doing in New Orleans?"

"A job. I'm not sure of the details, but it looks promising." Janet nodded. "Well, I'm jealous. Your father went once and had a blast. He and I were always going to go back, but we never quite managed it."

"What was Pop doing in New Orleans?" Cree asked.

"Oh, his ship docked there when he was in the Navy. He never admitted it in so many words, but I believe he drank his way up one side of Bourbon Street and whored his way down the other. He was twenty. That was 1950, it's no doubt very different now." Janet shrugged."C'mon. Help me close this barn down."

They gathered their things. Cree tagged along as her mother returned the score sheets and clock controls to her office, then checked the bathrooms, the locker rooms, the basement. They turned off lights as they went.

"Oh, I meant to ask you. I was hoping you could come with me to the cardiologist. Talk through the procedure with my doctor and me, the recovery and so on. Help me get the medications straight — you know how I am, I — "

"I'll go with you if you want me to. But I can't make promises about the cardiologist. Even if he is good-looking."

Janet smiled as they came back into the gym, dazzlingly bright after the back hall. "Damn Dee anyway."

"You want to go out for something to eat? Or we could go to your house and I'll fix that salmon — "

"You know I just want you to…" Janet petered out. At a loss, she gestured at the big bright space, the purity and simplicity of it, all the good ghosts. Embrace life, she probably wanted to say. Find something like this. But she just came up with, "… be happy."

"I know."

They got to the front hall. Janet unlocked the switch cover and cut the gym lights and then the hall lights. The building was dark now and somehow much bigger. They went out onto the front steps, where Janet shoved the doors shut and checked them with a hard yank.

The sky was deep purple velvet, the street a harder dark pierced with blue streetlights and the metallic reflections of parked cars. Halfway down the block an SUV with a dead black windshield crouched, motor idling, just its parking lights on. The city made an encompassing whisper, a vast vacuum of white noise.

"Mom," Cree began.

"Mm-hm?"

"I love it in the gym. With all the people there. All the noise and distraction."

"It's not 'distraction,' Cree — "

"But let me ask you something. Can I?"

"Cree, it's not 'distraction.' It's called 'life'. If I push at you sometimes, it's because I want you to enjoy it. I'm sorry i f — "

"Mom, how do you feel right now? With the lights off, the gym all dark. If I wasn't here right now, and you were going to go out into the dark and go home alone as you usually do. As strong?"

"Well, this is not the safest neighborhood in Seattle… an older woman, alone, naturally I — "

"Not that part."

They were still standing in the pool of light at the top of the stairs. Janet looked up at Cree. "You mean, am I like the older waiter in that Hemingway story? 'Nada y nada y pues nadd? A little, probably. Sure. So what? 'It is only insomnia, many must have it.' Or however it goes." She snorted.

"I'mjust saying, see, this is what /need to look at, this side. This set of feelings, you know? That's what I need to figure out. I don't want to fear it. I don't want to ignore it, or pretend it's less important than… back in there. That's all." Hearing herself, Cree realized she was too serious, too urgent. She'd turned this visit into one of those cloaked good-byes.

Janet didn't answer for a moment, just stood looking up at her, concerned. After a while, she grinned a tight, small grin, to show she accepted the point, she got it. Mom always got it. She sighed. "What I don't understand is why you come to me as some kind of… oracle if you're not going to listen to what I tell you. And I'm no good at being a damned oracle anyway."

"I don't come to you as my oracle, Mom."

"What then?"

"Hmm. More of a good luck charm. My lucky talisman. Gotta rub up against you once in a while." Cree took her arm and hugged it against her side.

That seemed to please her. She shook her head, confounded. "What is it with mothers and daughters?"

Cree shrugged. "Beats me."