Liza was as blue as
the Midwest sky, and her loneliness as expansive. She wandered the brittle
night streets, drawn to bars whose neon blinks called to her: In here!, with their wild promises of
winning a Las Vegas kind of love. She knew there were others like her out
searching, like pilgrims of the heart. It was a crap shoot, for sure, but the
promise of it—that one-in-a-million shot, the jackpot prize of true love,
compelled her to search again and again.
Some nights brought
small winnings—conversation, dancing, maybe, where their bodies tried to find
each other’s rhythm on the dance floor, moving to the insistent beat of the
music, as if their hips were magnetized. A few times, Liza would gamble enough
to go home with one, if he looked promising, if his promises went cha-ching! in her heart. Her standards
weren’t unrealistic, she thought she had a better chance of finding love with a
more reachable man, a man whose love wouldn’t be like trying for mega-millions.
She was desperate for someone to keep, who’d look at her with his sincere eyes,
his arms wide open to her whenever she needed comfort.
When one night a
man dressed like royalty trying to pass for a commoner flashed his ultrawhite
smile at her, she smiled back, but looked the other way. When he introduced
himself as William, she knew her chances had dwindled to one in one trillion—no
one with a name as formal, as uppercrust as William (such a prince!) would be
within her grasp, she thought. Besides, even his haircut was better than hers,
his dark hair in impossibly even layers, chunks of it falling just so—it was a
coiffure engineering marvel. His eyes were sincere-looking, all right, long
black lashes lending him an almost-feminine appearance, saved only by his
slightly longish nose. His looks were polished like a glossy magazine photo, he
always posed just right. It made Liza ache to look at him at such a close view,
she knew he could never be hers. But when he pulled her to the dance floor,
William moved toward her with a focus, circling Liza, sliding his jeans across
hers as if wanting a taste of what was underneath. She was aware of his every
body part as he stepped, jutted, reached, touched. His hands were electrically
charged, sending ripples of current across her back, her waist, her hips. At
the end of the night, when he whispered just the right words to her— please come home with me—she put up
everything she had on this gamble. You
can’t win if you don’t play! she told the nagging negative voices in her
head, then hit the mute button. She was listening to William tell her how he
loved the way her body moved under him, the way it fit to his. He’d been so
lonely, he said, searching. But now I’ve
found you. His puppy eyes adoring her from his deep doldrums. She felt
propelled to the upper atmosphere, where the air was so thin she was giddy,
could barely breathe. She wanted to lift him up, cradle him. How could she not
take a chance?
And so began their
love dance. Fingertips touching, their lives gently entwined like fingers at
first, then like hands clasping together. They spun each other around in their
love dance until they were dizzy, the world a blur beyond their circle. The
winner’s circle, she convinced herself.
It was
imperceptible at first, but after a time Liza noticed that William’s darkness
had more to do with just his hair, his eyes, his long lashes. He retreated
within himself, so deep sometimes he seemed more like a shadow. She held
tighter to his hands, made him come awake, told him he couldn’t see the world
with his eyes closed like that. He opened them slowly, his sad eyes embraced
her, so she let her arms encircle him. She was elated, she’d rescued him, he’d
risen above his heavy sorrow to come back to her.
But it felt like
their love dance had become permanently uneven, the circle had become an
ellipsis as they danced far away from each other, then spun back toward the
other. When the ellipsis began to dip and rise like a carnival ride, it was
hard for Liza to hang on. She felt nauseous instead of giddy, she didn’t like
the uncertainty of the swirls. When she was flying high, William was cycling
far below her. It was their love on balance, she supposed—the phrase opposites attract applied to her love
life, but though it was supposed to be a complementary relationship—one’s up
cycle working to balance the other’s down cycle—she became unsettled. The
extremes gave her vertigo.
She started letting
go when she was way up high, so that her fingertips barely touched his; the
connection would be so easy to sever. Then she could float up here, happy to be
alone again, happy not to worry about William, so mired in himself, his
depression working his body into a rut in the earth. She liked being up high
with the sunshine, the birds soared past singing, floating on the warm air
currents.
I love you! he called to her from far below, and her
elliptical orbit dragged her back down to him, sent him high up to float above
her like a black heart-shaped balloon, her holding the tenuous string. She
could let it go, she considered, could let the wind just whoosh him to another
hemisphere, where there were the same kind of bars, but she’d never have to
worry about seeing him in one here again.
The jackpot, Liza
now knew, was wrapped in heavy baggage. The love dance in the winner’s circle
was tiring. It required so much upkeep! The limelight was bright, Liza had to
keep her hair styled, always wear the right clothes. Her feet were sore, the
dance steps demanded constant attention so her heel didn’t crush his toes.
Being with William made her insides run together like jelly, her stomach ache,
forming the shape of a nameless fetus crying for life, but William never stopped
crying for attention, either. Liza pined for the sidelines as their dance spun
out of control, William’s neediness deflating her, sucking the energy from her.
She began to feel like a shadow, too, giving him all of herself, receiving so
little in return.
On his next
descent, she rose with a purpose, as if through deep sea instead of sky; her
lungs needed lots of wide open space. She felt like a bubble burped from the
recesses of William’s rut that he’d worked deep, deep into the ground. The
bubble gained momentum; she burst into the sky like fireworks, like a shooting
star.
Far below, she
could hear William whine: Don’t leave me!
I need you! but she loosened her fingers’ grip on his. He tried snatching
her hands back but she raised them above her head, like Superman flying into
the clouds. She looked back once. William’s tears were flooding his rut, he was
floating downstream. Already along the shores, girls and women called out, take my hand! I’ll save you! He took the
red-nailed hand of a tall blonde supermodel type, smiled at her, and somewhere
behind them, lights flashed, bells dinged. Another jackpot love prize won.
Liza’s heart
fluttered, wanting to feel that thrill again of winning someone’s love—the
glittering newness of it, the sparkling joy. She knew she’d flutter downward to
begin her gamble for love all over again. Sometime.
For now, she was
content to sit out the dance, not stake her heart on jackpot promises. For now,
she was content to bathe in sunshine, wrap herself in clouds and skim across
the sky light as a kite, letting her heartstring dangle loose.
(2005)