We gonna be together Saturday night?" Carmelina asked. "After I'm done with work?"
Bobby switched the telephone receiver from one ear to the other and propped another pillow under his head. It was dark outside, yet a tepid breeze blew through his bedroom window. Winter had given way to spring, if only for the day. Before practice, Bobby sat in the sun on the school patio, listening to the trickle of melting icicles. He was restless. Unsettled. All around him, it seemed, change was imminent.
"How 'bout we drive into the Village," he heard Carmelina say. "Ya know, walk around a bit, shop the stores, eat dinner. Well, I'll eat and you can watch, okay? Please, it's real important we talk ... Bobby, are ya listening?"
"I'm tired, Carmelina," he said. "I gotta get to sleep."
"You'll come over, then?"
"What's 'maybe'?"
"We got a match Saturday. It's the last match of the season. I'm sure Kenny and the guys'll wanna do something after."
"Maybe I wanna do something with you," Carmelina said. "Ever think about that? We should be together, Bobby; that's what boyfriends and girlfriends do."
He drew in a breath, loud enough for her to hear. "Look, Carmelina, the districts are in two weeks. I gotta focus. That guy I wrestled on Wednesday was a region champ last year, and I beat him badly. It would've been nice if you'd been there."
"Bobby, ya know—"
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted, "you have to work."
"Ya know I do."
"Yeah, well, who knows how far I can go if I keep Wrestling like this? Know how important that is to me?"
"Sure, I understand," Carmelina said, but it didn't sound like she did.
"Things'll change," Bobby said.
There was a hesitation. "When?"
"After the season."
There was a pause. "You're done with me," Carmelina said. "I can tell."
"That's not it."
"You're such a liar."
"I'm not lying," Bobby said. "I just feel like ... like something really important is gonna happen soon. It's hard to explain. Carmelina, I don't know, maybe we should—" Something had caught his attention. Bobby covered the receiver.
He heard music. Bobby sat up and looked out the window at the back walkway. He could tell a light was on in the family room. He looked at the clock. It was quarter to eleven, yet his father wasn't home. He listened more closely. It was that same music.
"We'll talk tomorrow night," Bobby said into the receiver. "I gotta go."
"Why?"
"I just gotta," Bobby said.
"Now?"
"It's late and I'm thirsty and hungry and tired."
"You wanna break up," Carmelina said. "I can hear it in your voice."
"Carmelina—"
"Don't be an asshole, Bobby. Don't do this over the phone. Promise we'll talk in person. Saturday night. It's important. We'll figure everything out."
"Yeah, sure," Bobby said, before hanging up.
He walked down the stairs to the living room, where a bay window overlooked the front lawn. In the dark, he moved quietly along the silk sofa, then past two glass tables upon which sat some of his mother's treasured crystal figurines. The music started again.
Bobby crouched down, recognizing the voice of Dionne Warwick on the stereo. He had heard the music before but had never paid any attention, never listened to the words, never wondered why his mother played the same songs over and over, late at night, when his father wasn't home.
A car turned down Joanna Way, its headlights shining through the bay window. The crystal pieces sparkled and the light brushed his body, then disappeared. Bobby watched the car as it drove past their driveway, feeling relieved—and disappointed, too—that it wasn't his father. He crawled to the archway between the living room and the dining room. It felt wrong to spy on his mother. In her own house. Still, he sat back against the wall. The next song began.
"You see this girl" his mother sang. "This girl's in love with you ..." Her voice was star ding. Elegant. As elegant as she might look in her most beautiful evening dress. Bold. As bold as she had been some time ago, before this mess had started. "Yes, I'm in love ... Who looks at you the way I do..."
Bobby peeked around the wall, through the dining room, into the family room. His mother, as if onstage, swayed to the music, eyes closed, smiling softly, the music climbing to a crescendo, piano keys pounding, Dionne Warwick's voice and his mother's overlapping into one, stretching the final note into one long wail.
The song ended, and another began....
And then another...
Bobby's eyes welled up. Why was this the first time he had heard his mother sing? he wondered. Why had he never seen her dance before?
He thought for a while. Eventually, slowly, it was apparent that something about this made him feel older. He always wanted to act like a man, to be treated like a man, to live in a man's world. But this time, it was too much.
He wasn't ready to see his parents as people. They were his parents. But it was now so clear that he didn't know anything about his mother. What she thought about, or wanted, or dreamed of. And as he watched his mother in a way he had never done before, he wondered where she really wanted to be at that moment. It certainly wasn't in this house. On Joanna Way. In Short Hills, New Jersey.
Bobby's eyes clouded. Not much longer after that, he cried. He was confused and scared about his family. And especially his mother. And if it was true about his mother, he realized, it could be true about his father. It was obvious Bobby could only trust what he could control. And he could only control who and what he could trust. The who was himself. The what was Wrestling.
Bobby stiffened. The music was still playing, his mother still singing. He wiped away the tears, stood up, and walked out of the living room—different from earlier. For the better? He wasn't sure. Did it matter? He was too tired for deeper consideration. His legs plodded up the stairs, heavy. The music faded when he turned the corner at the top of the stairs. He closed his bedroom door.
His world had changed.