Page 103 of Playworld

“No, silly, you’re supposed to smell it on me.”

The white-frocked cosmeticians, the businessmen and -women, the tourists speaking Japanese, Spanish, and French—all disappeared as Amanda cleared her curls from her neck, exposing it, so that as I leaned in, I passed through the fragrance’s zone into a nearness ever so slightly darkened by our proximity, to spy her ear that, if I were bold enough, I might take in my teeth.

“Do you like it?” she asked, watching me, sidelong, a bit caught off guard, as I slowly withdrew.

“Very much,” I said.

“It’s…” But she had to look at the bottle. “L’Air du Temps,” she said.

“Bonjour,” came a deep voice behind us.

It was Rob. In a suit and tie. With a smile that was wolfish.

“Griffin,” he said, “you keeping my girl company?” Then to Amanda: “Can you still get away for lunch?”

When she nodded enthusiastically, he said, “La Goulue or Café Sabarsky?”

“You pick.” Red Riding Hood disappeared under his arm. “Thanks for stopping by,” Amanda said to me before Rob led her away.

The Saturday morning before theSam and Saracast departed for Delaware, Dad took me to exercise with him at the West Side YMCA. It was the last time we’d spend significant time together until the show swung back to Broadway that fall. The Businessman’s Club had its own steam room and sauna; it was carpeted and had personalized lockers with nameplates. The place smelled like Clubman cologne and chlorine. All the men walked around with open robes, towels wrapped everywhere but their waists. The sight made me never want to grow old.

Dad changed his clothes, said, “See you in an hour,” and made his way to the indoor track, which was adjacent to the weight room, above the basketball court, and through the two pairs of double doors I’d spot Dad come rounding into view, his eyes to his sneakers, his jog more of a mincing shuffle, closer in pace to speed-walking but without the hipswivel. I went and did some lackadaisical sit-ups. I approached the Universal machine, considered my options, and then I did a sudsy set on the bench press. I took a drink at the water fountain. I wiped my lips with the hem of my shirt. After Dad passed by again, I returned to the bench for another set. Then I stood before the wall mirror and, when no one was looking, did a Hulk flex. That was when I spotted Vince Voelker.

I did not recognize his reflection at first. He was on the chin-up bar, faced away from me, wearing athletic shorts, wrestling shoes, and a tank top. He was doing an exercise I had never seen, one that began as a pull-up and then transitioned, unimaginably, into a push-up when his head was above the bar. I counted eight repetitions. He had bulked up since wrestling season, if that were even possible, and his body seemed entirely devoid of fat. But what was mesmerizing was the effortlessness of the performance, this slide-rule action, so smooth as to be antigravitational. His shoulders and back were livid with anatomical action, the tendons and muscles rippling into a topographical map, with one particular grouping, dead center above his scapulae, distending in the shape of a bull’s head, horn tips to snout.

He released the bar and turned to face me. He dusted off his hands, which I now saw were coated in chalk, and the morning light blasting through the high windows illuminated the tiny cloud. He identified himself, as if it were somehow possible I’d forgotten who he was, a courtesy I considered almost comical. He asked how my season had gone, and I told him. He said, “Well, that means you won one more match than me as a freshman.” I congratulated him for winning state. I asked him where he was going to college. He said, “Syracuse. But I’m guessing it’ll be two years before I start.” I asked him what he was doing this summer. “You’re looking at it,” he said. Then: “Do me a favor?” When I nodded, he asked, “Give me a spot?”

He led me to the incline bench; he had a forty-five-pound plate on each side of the bar, to which he added a twenty-five-pound plate on his side, an act I copied. Across from us, on the flat bench, a man was bent over the face of his supine partner. He placed his outstretched index fingers below the bar and exerted only the slightest pressure upward as his friend raised the weight. “Allyou,” he brayed. I took my place onthe platform behind Voelker. “Give me a lift off,” he said, adjusting his grip, “on three.” He counted down and then we raised the bar. The plates gonged as Voelker lowered the bar and bounced it off his chest. He made a sound like a piston at the top of each rep. He did nine reps without my help, nearly failing on the tenth, and then hopped off and turned to me and said, “You’re up.”

“I can’t lift that much,” I said.

Voelker was already removing the plates. “Not yet,” he said. Then: “Let’s start with twenty-five on each side. The bar weighs forty-five.”

He took me through his circuit. From his shorts pocket he produced a tiny spiral notepad and, from behind his ear, a golf pencil—which I didn’t notice because of his bushy hair—to record his weights and repetitions. He flipped to a blank page and started recording mine. “Want to know when you’ve had a good workout?” he said. He held up the implement. “When you can’t lift this.” At our final set of dumbbell rows, my father appeared. He was pouring with sweat. He’d hung a towel around his neck and dabbed his beaded upper lip with the tail. When he introduced himself to Vince, he said, “Sheldon Hurt,” in a voice so gravelly and out of the side of his mouth I thought the next thing he might do was spit tobacco.

From his notepad, Vince tore out my page and handed it to me. “Tomorrow’s leg day,” he said, “if you’re up to it.” When I pointed at myself, he added, “Six sharp.”

Later, in the steam room, Dad said, “He seems like a nice young man.”

I recalled our match and shivered. “Not if you’re wrestling him.”

The air in the room was on the verge of scalding. I walked under the ceiling’s showerhead and reached for the pull chain. My arms felt like pipe cleaners. I let the freezing water hit me for as long as I could take it. After I returned to the bench, Dad rose for his downpour. I couldn’t help it: I’d been thinking about what Miss West had said about Rob’s dick for weeks and took a good look at Dad’s dong. It was as fat as a Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler and as long as a Ball Park frank. I considered my own. Was it like a skeleton key? I remained baffled as to how it might unlock the chambers of Amanda’s heart, and once again my near total lack of guidance in such matters was revealed: I knew sex’s endpoint but had no idea how to get there.

Dad took his seat next to me and, as if he’d read my mind, asked, “How’s that girl of yours? Aria?”

“Amanda.”

“You ask her out yet?”

“She still has a boyfriend,” I said.

“That never stopped anybody,” Dad said. “Does she know how you feel?”

I shrugged.

“Have you ever told her that you like her?”

I shook my head.