The Olympian You Are

By the time I noticed the missing lamp, half the contents of the house were gone. If she hated her life so much, why did she want reminders? But DeAnna was frugal and in the end, it’s the little things that give you away; the habits.

The blue blanket was one of the early things to go. She claimed the dog got sick on it. You don’t want to know, she said, so I assumed she trashed it. Then the down pillows were replaced by foam. I made a fuss about it and she actually brought one back after I went on a hunt for it, looking under the bed, in the laundry room. Next day she said, here they are. I put them in a drawer by mistake. Saddens me to think I couldn’t drum up more kindness even when I wondered if she was getting Alzheimer’s like her mother had. I never suspected she was slowly gutting the house of treasure, plotting a midnight move. With him, no less.

Until the day I had a terrible premonition, the way something twigs at you before revelation descends like a ton of bricks and I thought….the gold Chinese horoscope coins, worth at least $500 each and we had the full set. The Roseville pottery, another small fortune. We had been planning to sell, but she claimed she couldn’t bear to part with any of it. I thought of all the treasures the house contained and wondered why I hadn’t cashed them in long ago. My grandmother’s dreamy Austrian tea set had taken a hike; drawer after drawer after cupboard, all empty. When the shock subsided, I was surprised at the relief I felt when everything was gone. Even her. Especially her.

“Adults have a right to leave,” was what I was told when they found her car on the turnpike, driver’s side door opened to the traffic. It was obvious they weren’t going to look into it.

The boyfriend came around a couple times and I particularly enjoyed staring into his hollowed out eyes. She left you too, asshole, is what I wanted to say, but didn’t. Turns out he had enough history to keep the cops busy, but nothing came of it in the end.

***

The first trip we took to Atlantic City was fun, a cheap short excursion. A return to an innocent time, boy was I fooled. Off season on the boardwalk, hotels offered free rooms to sucker us in. First trip’s free, is what the billboards should say….

After that came weekend “girls only” trips, excuses to travel “close to home,” and I never believed it would happen to me, to us. Even though I thought it was a phase, I suggested Gambler’s Anonymous and her violent reaction should’ve given me a clue. She was a winner, she had beaten the odds once and maybe she wanted revenge on the casinos that had gutted the suburbs of Atlantic City. 

DeAnna and I had grown up together and singlehandedly she had given the town so much hope. It was like the entire Calhoun family brought back a sense of cause and effect. She was all the proof we needed that if you wanted something bad enough, if you worked hard, you would win in the end. I remember seeing her at the pool, back and forth back and forth. That pool wasn’t even at proper swimming temperature in those days. But it didn’t matter. In the cold winter months sometimes DeAnna would be the sole swimmer, doing laps hours on end. Turns out that life could be fair. She made it to the very top of the game, the Olympics and took third. An entire district was named after her. Welcome to DeAnna Village. Home of the great Olympian swimmer, DeAnna Calhoun. The town hired me as an accountant even though I never got certified. It was all her and almost makes me smile to remember it.

           As quickly as the warm memories come, they fade. Everyone assumed it was my fault that she left and my job dried up with her departure, then the house sold from under me. We were renters, never able to buy after spending every nickel on her habit.

When she first left I imagined her everywhere, the Borgata, Trump Taj Mahal, Caesars, until I realized there’s no point driving myself crazy. Best antidote for a bad habit is a worse one and that’s where the poker machines came in. In my long slide down, I’ve grown to hate this town. I especially loathe the tire kickers, come for shows and food, looking down their noses at us gamblers who pay the freight with our dedication to the dream. In the beginning, it was enough to blot her out, but soon nothing eased memories of DeAnna.

Monday I hit a series of straights, and felt nothing at all. Back when, I would’ve killed for this kind of luck and this was another clue; I was certain of it. But the real sign was Tuesday, at Petey’s Pawn, when DeAnna’s emerald spoke to me, glinting under glass surrounded by lesser companions, even some silver. DeAnna’s ring, I would know it anywhere. I squeezed my hands into fists. “Where did you get that?”

           “Used to belong to Danny Kaye’s ex-wife.” Petey winked at Tony the clerk.

“What? Who the hell is Danny Kaye?” I have a bad habit of tuning out when someone answers so I don’t remember much of what he said– some entertainer from the dark ages, when Miss America was a big deal and escargot the most exotic item at the buffet. But they were wrong, I recognized it immediately.

Right then and there I understood that my luck had changed. I would get the ring and polish the scratches out of it and get it steamed so hard it would flash neon on a moonless night. And then I’m going to bring it to her. All I have to do is score the ring, stay out of the casinos and find DeAnna.

Next day I show up at the pawn shop ask how much for the ring bundling my request with a few other things from the shop. He won’t know what I’m really after and give me a group price which I’ll break down.

She’s here. I can smell her. We were under each other’s noses the entire decade we’ve been apart. But maybe the emerald is a bad sign. There’s never a good reason for your stuff being in a pawn shop. Reasons, yes, plenty of them. All bad.

The thing is I only chased her after she was gone. That was my mistake – well one of them. She deserved so much more. Things like warmth and love and a man who paid more attention to her than his collections. She didn’t understand what it was like to grow up with nothing. In the end she wanted out and who could blame her. Maybe this time she’ll let me be the one to bring her luck when I place the emerald where it belongs; when I return it to her.

I was impatient to get my plan moving and annoyed when they sent me Tony to deal with. Tony is the boss’s son and doesn’t have the pull to negotiate best deals.

“Where’s Petey.” I asked

From the back room I hear an argument, low and it stops me cold. I walk toward the back, showcases barring my way and Tony moves with me, eyes primed. They know me, but they also know what happens to men when the town turns on them. I spot a box of unsorted treasure an Olympic medal glowing dully.

“What year is that from. Let me see it.”

“2003, I think” he said, all fake smile with worry behind the eyes. He tucked the box away before I could handle it, like he didn’t trust me.

I make out the grey silhouette of a man skulk out of the place and Petey joins me before I can get a grip.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” I say, eyeing the door. “What do you want for the emerald.”

“Go home, Walter,” Petey says.

“I said how much.”

The kindness in his smile throws me, “Four even and she’s all yours,” he says. ”Same as last time and the time before that. you know the drill,” he shakes his head when I pull out my winnings and toss the wad at him. This time it’s different. 

“And don’t bring it back. We don’t want it,” Petey yells from the back.

I left the extra bills on the counter and head out thinking I might have a good chance of finding the boyfriend on the deserted winter boardwalk. I was certain it was the guy she left me for. He certainly looked the type, all heft and holler. I ignored the nagging voice that told me he wouldn’t look the same after ten years; that if he did, I would regret finding him. But if I were the type of guy who listens to his own common sense I wouldn’t have been in Petey’s Pawn buying an emerald for a wife who traded me in for a slot machine a decade earlier.

The boardwalk is empty except for shadows in the doorways of the few stores that aren’t fronted with iron cages. I walk fast, almost slipping on a patch of ice. I could always change my mind, I figured. Truth was, my luck died long before I chased her to Atlantic City and ended up with a worse habit than hers.

I wanted to call out her name but felt foolish. But then I just did it “DeAnna,” I said. That’ll throw the fear into him. But he was gone, swept up past a gang of teenagers and a homeless dog, limping along the storefronts.

The long pier that led to the Atlantic ocean was every bit as beautiful as I remember. I crossed over the barrier and walked to the end, enjoying the moonless night and made out a tear in the cloak of the sky.

“I wish they had found you,” I said, remembering the struggle at the end of the pier and the terrible sound your body made as your head hit the rail before sliding underwater. Most of all I remember leaving, fast. Sometimes I still believe you emerged from the water and swam away like the Olympian you are.

This time, I won’t bring the emerald back to Petey’s. “This time’s for real,” I said, tossing the ring into the dark water and jumping in after it.

This time is different. This time we’ll win.