A Shot at Happiness

And now, let’s give it up for your three-time NBA champions --- and trying for a fourth today --, your very own Dallas Riggers!

The crowd of 21,000 hooting mouths rise to their feet, thumping their chests like a legion of Roman gladiators ready to fight to the death. Their hollers as the jersey-clad boys come out of the dressing rooms pierce my eardrums like the leaden bullets of a sport rifle. Keenan Murphy, the Riggers’ star player, extends his large, solid hand to the screaming spectators, who gamely give him a high five. As he and his boomerang-shaped smile make their way towards me, I feel my heart drop, as if it were a skier crashing rapidly down a slope for an entire sporting world to see.

“Hi, Mrs. Clayton.”

“No, please, you needn’t…”

“Come on now, Helen,” my husband Ross prods too loudly, his brown eyes balls tethered onto my hand. “Do it for the TV cameras.”

Just like that, all control of my body disappears and an invisible pair of powerful hands grips my arms, swinging them out to the waiting palms of the point guard as if they were mere baseball bats.

Twenty-three years --- or as Ross once mentioned and then, gave me the backhanded compliment of being “So book smart, I strike out to talking to normal people” when I didn’t get the reference -- a Jordan of years. It's been twenty-three years we’ve been married. It’s also the exact number of years I’ve been dragged to one of these basketball games, the hottest event in town whenever there’s a match in the Pioneer Center, as the wife of the National Basketball Association’s Number 2 seeded team’s owner.

I know. I’ve had women in Riggers memorabilia dash their way through crowds, their labored breaths laced with adrenaline and envy, just to tell me that it must be as if I’ve won a conference championship being able to have the front row seat to every playoff and an automatic pass to the team’s locker room. If only they knew that the entire time that they’re shrieking for the local squad, I’m imagining my eyes dribbling in excitement as I take in paintings in the museum on the other side of town. If only they knew that at the center…

“Hey, Honey, look up.”

My sapphire eyes volley up to my shocked face projected onto the giant Jumbotron screen as arms that look like deflated footballs wrap around me. In my periphery, I notice Ross’ beady orbs sparkle with yet another set of clunky, awkward words mulling in his brain, as if they were the legs stumbling over repeatedly over hurdles. Before he could open his mouth, I let my thoughts sprint out of me.

“Ross, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve told you this. It’s starting to seem like a blind spot. But yes, I don’t like it when you…”

“I’m sorry, Helen. I know you’d rather keep a low profile, okay.”

“Okay, good,” I reply, a semblance of hope sending me vaulting upwards. “I’m glad you under…”

“But you have to admit. You must have secretly enjoyed it.”

“What, no” I exclaim, the exchange between us going on instant replay in my brain. “I really didn’t…”

“I know you did,” he replies chuckling, his head turning towards the shots and passes of the basketball club he purchased way before he met me. In the more than two decades I’ve been married to Ross, I’ve grown to know that this particular tag team of cantankerous laughter and cranial swivel is the final bell in the boxing ring of our wits…and as always, it’s his hands that are raised by the adjudicator.

“Just one. Just one conversation that isn’t verbal sparring,” I can only mutter to the sweaty air as the squeaks of sneakers and my husband’s cheers ring in my ear like a buzzer.

That’s that. There’s nothing else to do but to slump in my plastic bucket seat and picture myself in an art gallery yet again, picture the colors on canvas summersault their way into my vision. Of course, my mind couldn’t help picturing….

“Hey, Helen Honey…”

“Wait, what,” I sputter out, Ross’ intrusion snapping me back to reality like the string on a bow. I attempt to once again simulate the Zen expression of a karate master. “What is it, Ross?”

Without a word, he takes out a large Manila folder and hands it to me, his gaze ping-ponging between my face and the binder in my hands.

“Open it.”

I gasp. My stare is glued on “Paris” in big, bold letters on a sheet of paper with the words “Boarding Pass” on top. Just thinking about the gilded châteaux and the bustling cafés of Montmartre has my brain cartwheeling.

“France for our anniversary! I don’t know what to say,” I exclaim, beaming as if I were on a podium. “This is so…out-of-bounds from…”

“Well, you keep nagging me and nagging me about it,” Ross responds, his eyes rolling around like a bowling ball.

“I…”

“Seriously now, Helen, how many times must you…”

“Are you really going to…oops!”

A set of laminated on lanyards bellyflop on to the ground with a quiet thud. I pick them up and feel the air knocked out of my lungs, almost like I ran a marathon. As I see the five interlocking multicolored rings printed on, a fresh stream of tears bobsleds its way across the once-icy wall of my face.

“You…promised…that…,” I blubber, the sight of the backstage passes karate chopping my insides.

“What do you expect, Helen,” Ross spits back, gritting his teeth like a weightlifter about to perform a clean-and-jerk movement.

If only you were…. ah, stop, Helen.

“What do I expect? I expect that for once, you’re not going to hijack…”

“Helen, you know well that the reason we have our sports cars…”

“But I never wanted that.”

“Then, what do you want?”

“Twenty-three years, Ross,” I reply firmly, bile cycling around my system. “All I ask is just one trip where I get to do something I want. Just one visit to a museum. One lunch in a bistro. Just one time where it’s not about win… again?”

My regard ricochets to my husband who, for yet another instance, zoomed past me in the middle of a request for my turn in the game of desires. As I watch his smirk in front of the television cameras, I sense my heart buried in a rugby scrum, resignation flipping me over and tackling me to the grass. Yet again, the final score is as follows: Ross – countless and me – zero.

Of course, I wouldn’t feel like I was gamed if only…

“Oh wait, what’s this” I whisper to myself as a ping targets itself onto my ears. As soon as I swipe to the notification, my thoughts whizz around in me.

“Patrick Burton would like to add you as a friend,” I mutter to myself, quiet as a grandmaster reflecting on his next move, reading the message.

Instantly, memories from seven Olympiads ago flood my brain: sliding into the Dallas Museum of Art and letting the colors of his works gallop in my mind, smoothly gliding like a puck on ice across the city to meet up with Patrick at our favorite café, the laughter between us whilst discussing impressionism sounding like music in a choreographed gymnastics floor routine, the engagement ring he slipped onto my finger feeling like a medal around my neck, hugging him at the airport before his flight to New York for a residency upper cutting me in the soul, the letters that never came extinguishing the torch inside me little by little.

Patrick, the only man I ever loved.

Of course, three years after my wedding, I was to find the missives from Patrick stuffed in a drawer full of basketball cards in Ross' office, to discover that my parents practically traded me to Ross so his coffers could help with our family’s sporting goods empire, to know I was a pawn in a twisted game that made me lose my joy. I've tried many times to get out, but it seems like Ross knew every play in my arsenal. If only I knew. If only I didn’t lose my shot at not scoring love...

“Well, I couldn’t be more over the moon with the results right now at half time,” Ross bellows to the TV camera. “I’m happy. Dallas is happy. I think the only one who isn’t is my wife. Hahahaha!”

That chuckle. That infuriating chuckle buzzes in my head again, signaling the end of yet another one of my husband’s games.

However, this time, I resolve to win. I rummage through my purse to fish for my phone. Tomorrow, I will ask my assistant to go pick up particular documents, ones that will flash "Game Over" in giant letters in the boob tube of Ross' consciousness, for me to sign. Right now, though, I let my fingers be agile on the screen of my phone, let myself be the champion of my life.

Hi, Patrick! It’s me, Helen. How are you?