“Liar.”
“All right, I’m scared out of my mind. Happy?”
“Ecstatic,” he replied. “But remember one thing.”
“What?”
“You’re always scared before you go on the air. The more scared you are, the more you kick ass.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” he said. “This poor guy will never know what hit him.”
“Really?” she asked, her face beginning to beam.
“Yeah, really,” he said. “Now let me ask you a quick question: do we have to go to your father’s gala tonight?”
“Let me give you a quick answer: yes.”
“Black tie?” Michael asked.
“Another yes.”
“These big stuffy affairs can be so boring.”
“Tell me about it.”
He paused. “Can I at least have my way with you during the party?”
“Who knows?” Sara answered. “You may get lucky.” She cradled the phone between her neck and shoulder for a moment. “Is Harvey coming to the party tonight?”
“I’m going to pick him up on my way.”
“Good. I know he doesn’t get along with my father—”
“You mean your father doesn’t get along with him,” Michael corrected.
“Whatever. Will you talk to him tonight?”
“About what?”
“Don’t play games with me, Michael,” she said. “I’m worried about your health.”
“Listen, with Bruce’s death and all the problems at the clinic, Harv has enough on his mind right now. I don’t want to bother him.”
“Has he spoken to you yet about Bruce’s suicide?” Sara asked.
“Not a word,” Michael said. “To be honest, I’m kind of worried about him. He never leaves the lab anymore. He works all day and night.”
“Harvey has always been that way.”
“I know, but it’s different this time.”
“Give him a little more time, Michael. Bruce has been dead only two weeks.”
“It’s more than just Bruce.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Something to do with the clinic, I guess.”
“Michael, please talk to him about your stomach.”
“Sara . . .”
“Talk to him tonight . . . for me.”
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly.
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise. And, Sara?”
“What is it?”
“Kick some Southern-fried reverend ass.”
“I love you, Michael.”
“I love you too.”
Sara felt a tap on her shoulder. “Ten minutes.”
“I have to go,” she said.
“Until tonight, then,” he said. “When I have my way with a famous TV star in her childhood bedroom.”
“Dream on.”
A sharp pain ripped across Michael Silverman’s abdomen again as he replaced the receiver. He bent over, his hand clutched under his rib cage, his face scrunched into a grimace. His stomach had been bothering him on and off for weeks now. At first he had thought it was just a flu, but now he was not so sure. The ache was becoming unbearable. Even the thought of food now made his stomach perform backflips.
Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony drifted across the room like a welcome breeze. Michael closed his eyes, allowing the melody to work like a gentle masseur against his aching muscles. His teammates gave him unlimited shit about his musical taste. Reece Porter, the black power forward who cocaptained the New York Knicks with Michael, was always goofing on him.
“How can you listen to this shit, Mikey?” he would ask. “There’s no beat, no rhythm.”
“I realize that the musical ear of a Chopin does not compare with that of MC Hammer,” Michael would reply, “but try to be open-minded. Just listen, Reece. Let the notes flow over you.”
Reece paused and listened for a moment. “I feel like I’m trapped in a dentist’s office. How does this shit get you psyched for a big game? You can’t dance to it or anything.”
“Ah, but just listen.”
“It doesn’t have lyrics,” Reece said.
“And your noise pollution does? You can understand the words over all that racket?”
Reece laughed. “Mikey, you’re a typical whitey snob,” he said.
“I prefer the term pompous honky ass, thank you.”
Good ol’ Reece. Michael held a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, but the thought of even a sip nauseated him. Last year the knee, and now the stomach. It didn’t make sense. Michael had always been the healthiest guy in the league. He had gone through his first ten NBA seasons without a scratch before tearing apart his knee a little more than a year ago. It was tough enough trying to bounce back from reconstructive knee surgery at his age . . . The last thing he needed was this mystery stomach ailment.
Putting down his glass, Michael moved across the room and made sure the VCR was set. Then he turned off the stereo and turned on the television. Sara would be making her NewsFlash debut in a matter of minutes. Michael fidgeted in his seat. He twisted his wedding band around and around and then rubbed his face. He tried to relax, but, like Sara, he couldn’t. There was no reason to be nervous, he reminded himself. Everything he had said to Sara on the phone was true. She was an amazing reporter, the best. Very sharp and quick. Well prepared and yet spontaneous. A bit of a wise-ass sometimes. A sense of humor when it was called for. A bulldog almost always.
Michael had learned firsthand how tough an interviewer Sara could be. They had met six years ago when she was assigned to interview him for the New York Herald two days before the start of the NBA finals. She was supposed to do a personal, non-sports-related piece on his life off the court. Michael did not like that. He did not want his personal life, especially his past, splashed across the headlines. It was none of anybody’s business, Michael told Sara, resorting to more colorful terms to get his point across and then slamming down the phone for emphasis. But Sara Lowell was not so easily thwarted. To be more precise, Sara Lowell did not know how to give up. She wanted the interview. She went after it.
A jolt of pain knocked aside the memory. Michael clenched his lower abdomen and doubled over on the couch. He held on and waited. The pain subsided slowly.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He leaned back, glancing at the photograph of Sara and himself on the shelf behind the TV. He stared at the picture now, watching himself hunched over Sara with his arms locked around her small waist. She looked so tiny, so achingly beautiful, so goddamn fragile. He often wondered what it was that made Sara appear so innocent, so delicate. Certainly not her figure. Despite the limp, Sara worked out three times a week. Her body was small, taut, athletic—dynamite might be a better way to describe it. Sexy as hell. Michael examined the photograph again, trying to look at his wife objectively. Some would say it was her pale porcelain complexion that accounted for her unaffected appearance, but that wasn’t what it was. Her eyes, Michael thought now, those large green eyes that reflected frailty and gentleness while maintaining the ability to be cunning and probing. They were trusting eyes and eyes you could trust. A man could bathe in those eyes, disappear forever, lose his soul for all eternity.