ArtScan, 9/02

Dad’s new girlfriend takes tiny steps down a dim hallway. The click-click of her high heels is like Coach Ryan’s stop watch, something to beat, the enemy. Dad stands at my shoulder, spiced up with cologne as usual, but too still, and I can’t see his face. Why do I have to meet her? And in her house? Is this serious? I wish he’d look at me, tell me it’s all right. But he doesn’t. 

Finally, the girlfriend surfaces — very thin, dressed in all white, feathery bleach-blonde hair. My mother’s hair, swept with gray, waves out from her round face. She has strong hands that knead dough, prune roses, always touch me hello and goodbye. Mom doesn’t wear mascara, or lipstick, or fuzzy face powder like this woman. I think my mother’s beautiful. I thought Dad thought so too.

He’s just dating her, I think. They’re not married. Nothing’s legal —

“Rick,” Dad says, “this is Sally.” He gazes at her as if she were a goddess, and now I know, for sure, he’s not going to change his mind, he’s not going to come back home. 

“Hello, Rick,” she peeps. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Hi,” I say too loudly, suddenly aware of what I’m wearing: football jersey, jeans, dirt-crusted boots, and that Dad — for some reason — is wearing khakis, penny loafers, and an unwrinkled white shirt. Before, we’d always dressed alike, and now he looks like he’s going to church.

Besides his not living at home for the past six months, nothing had changed. We’d gone to our usual 49er games, Dad explaining every play – sometimes bits of hot dog popping from his mouth. Football was his language. When my buddies came over, Dad practically knocked them over with excitement: “Charlie! See the 49er game?” Short and square, lunging forward, Dad looked like a bull, and some of the guys — inches taller — shuffled backward in alarm. But Dad, with his big grin, those dimples, and that space between his front teeth, looked absolutely harmless, and my friends sighed and smiled. “Boyish charm,” my mother had called it.

Now, staring at this strange woman, so unlike my mother, I can’t place him. Who was he really? What was happening to him? The day he left our house, he squeezed my hand so hard I thought the bones would break. “In time, you and your mother will see this is for the best, Ricky,” he said. “You’ll have to trust me on this.” 

How couldn’t I trust him? Dad gave me football: how to play, how to train, how to think about the game. “Your only opponent is you,” he’d told me, over and over. “If you do the work, you’ll be a hell of a player, Ricky. I know it. You’ve got to know it too.” Six inches taller, I’d done all Dad couldn’t do on the field. I did it for him. And he was right: I’d become a hell of a player.

“Why don’t we go sit down?” Sally stretches her arm toward a blinding white living room — the walls, couches, carpet, fireplace — all white. The only color’s the blood-red cocktail sauce in her neat arrangement of appetizers. Then I see the ballerinas. Set on random coffee tables, they’re the size of small children, skin glossy, grayish-pink. They strike poses: arms and legs stretching into the air, eyes resting on fluttering hands or bound, pointed feet. It’s like they’re floating, but frozen in that shiny skin, they’ll never move. Never. The room jiggles suddenly, and hot liquid swishes into my mouth. 

“Listen, Dad, I’ve got to go — I don’t feel good.” I glance at Sally, and start to run, afraid I’ll throw up all over her white carpet. Dad’s in front of me, clenching my arm — he says something, but I don’t hear it. I dodge him as if I’m on the field, and a voice inside my head says calmly, Your only opponent is you.

Outside, I suck in the cool air, heart pounding. It’s twilight. Driving home, I hardly see the road. All I see is Dad, floating amidst those ballerinas, just floating.