from the journal
It’s been quite a while since you’ve seen anything I’m working on, and most of you have asked how the writing’s going. So, here are about a thousand recent words. Enjoy.
Watching Miguel fight for his life interests Eleanor. She is not, thank God, one of those weakish things who can’t bear to see his lousy face and she isn’t about to skulk nervously around the room. We are adults, she thinks, perfectly capable of comporting ourselves with dignity and respect. That Miguel and Eleanor Lee are in the process of divorcing is a closely-held secret in a part of the Bridge World where secrets are kept until they’re more profitably disclosed. When the news gets out, it will crash hard and fast upon the shores of the community, a furious wave of shock crossing the faces of disbelieving players, like individual grains of slack-jawed sand. News doesn’t get much bigger than Miguel Lee, nine-time world champion and the only man ever to sweep all four major events at the Fall championships divorcing his wife for cheating him at bridge.
That was four months ago, at the Spring North American Bridge Championships. Going into the first day of competition for the Vanderbilt Cup, Miguel was the game’s hottest player. In some quarters he was considered the game’s best player. As far as Eleanor was concerned that was ridiculous; the luckiest guy ever to play bridge, she might be willing to go that far. But the best player ever? Not by a long shot. The cheating accusation was just like him, Eleanor thought, typical. Manhood suffer a blow? Strike back: lower. The Miguel Lee she knows is little more than a crafty alley cat; a conniving scavenger happiest when he’s getting something for nothing, on the sly.
In general, it’s Eleanor’s policy to disregard ridiculous accusations. As long as there is money at stake in a bridge game, there will always be losers claiming varying degrees of nefariousness; she’s been accused of cheating before. But this is different: for Miguel to accuse her of cheating him at bridge is to declare open season on the truth. If anyone has the balls to ask me, she thinks, I’ll turn it around: show me the hands. The records are easy enough to come by — diagrams of every hand, every bid, every card. Best just lay it on the line: you think I cheated? Show me the hands. That he never stood the first chance in the Vanderbilt was something she’d keep to herself for now; might be a valuable ace down the road. He’d entered that one the same as every other National event — complete in his belief that he could and would emerge victorious; but when they sat down to play the Round of Sixteen, Eleanor had known one thing for certain: Miguel Lee in his impotence would not, could not win the coveted Vanderbilt Cup.
They’d been having problems in bed for the better part of a year, she told Buttons. “Better’s an overbid,†she’d laughed. She’d had a few more drinks than was probably best last night. Said some things I shouldn’t have, she realized, thank God it’s just Buttons — not a bridge player, doesn’t live in Florida, isn’t in Miguel’s pocket. Nice to have somebody all my own, she thinks. Uncorrupted. Eleanor’d felt free with her oldest friend, rambled on about the divorce long enough to put together the right range of sound-bites she could use in the coming weeks as the story got out. “It’s not that I’m a bitch,†she’d said, “I’m just not going to bother with pleasantries. Niceties. The interminable social dance. Small talk, bleck. You can have it. Say what you mean, mean what you say, that’s my philosophy.†So when Miguel asked the marriage-killing question a few nights before the Spring tournament, that’s exactly what she did.
“Ask a hundred experts,†she’d challenged Buttons, “and they’ll all tell you the same thing: it’s better to know where you stand with a person. What am I supposed to do? We finish this excruciating half-hour of the most mundane rutting you can imagine and the poor bastard actually asks me how I liked it! Endplayed at trick one. What could I say? Yeah, baby, I’ve never had it so good? What good does it do to lie to him, Buttons? Pump him up, get him strutting around like an absurd peacock? Or how about I tell him the truth — I’d rather do it myself. That’s not better. I can make some polite noises, I can fake it, I can tell him what he wants to hear, but it’s all going to lead to the same place — one of us unhappy. If somebody’s got to be unhappy, might as well tell the truth, I always say.â€
Unlike that smarmy Latin bastard, Eleanor thinks, returning her attention to the action at table RR7. It’s a tense match, the kibitzers sit stock-still; hands crossed, eyes wide. These are the vagaries of chance: a world champion fights for his life in a match so far beneath him that even he is forced to root for his opponent. Almost. “It’s good for bridge,†they’ll say if he fails. The winner of this match will have the night off and play again tomorrow; the loser will be out.
Eleanor isn’t the sort of woman to pull up a chair and kibitz at any table, much less her soon-to-be ex-husband’s. There’s a protocol for this: a wife has almost unlimited rights at the table, an ex-wife has none. The occasional in-limbo kibitzer keeps a healthy distance; the failure to do so is a sign of outright aggression. Standing several yards away from his table, Eleanor watches Miguel play because even now she can’t bear not to; that the match is close and he may well lose — that’s something worth sticking around to see.
August 17th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
yes, yes, yes. thank you.
August 18th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
thanks for sharing:)
I love it, but ……
I always want more.
I can’t wait until it’s finished and I can read the whole story. I’m so anxious to see what happens.
I’m trying to be patient but I’m just not good at it:)
more please, more:) xoxo
August 19th, 2007 at 6:45 am
You guys are great, thanks. Working with a terrific technical person to get things moved around here for reading group access. With any luck, all kinds of things will be different before we head to Shanghai.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Thank you for that taste. I am hungry for a meal now.