top rope and his face pressed into the turnbuckle. When heâd finally collected himself, just a glint of tears in his eyes, he limped out and shook Pepperâs hand. She had to give him credit for that much.
Even now, she couldnât make sense of the giddiness she felt seeing Pepper win the championship. Perhaps the biggest surprise to her had been the sudden realization that he might actually be as great as he said he was. Before winning the title, heâd been a darling of the press for his quick wit and sharp tongue, but sheâd always assumed it was mostly puffery. Sure, he was tough and clever, but the best in the world? It seemed too much to hope for by half.
After he became champion, they moved out of their cramped rear-facing room on Chicagoâs South Side to a sprawling two-story house outside the city. The backyard, with its stone patio and enough grass for a ball field, was perfect for entertaining. Nearly every weekend they hosted the wrestlers of Blomfeldâs troupe, along with any other sporting types who happened to be passing through town.
The wrestlers were odd men, as different from each other as they were the same. A surprising number of them had done at least some college and could talk about art, books and food in ways sheâd never heard before. Others were nothing more than street toughs, with scars like fat earthworms burrowed in their eyebrows and undertheir chins. Some were gifted scientific wrestlers, with encyclopedic knowledge of holds and escapes and a hard-won understanding of angles and leverage. Others were just mean. Some, like her new husband, were both.
Moira suspected they imagined themselves to be immortal. None of them spared a thought for tomorrow, spending money without counting it, unable to conceive of a day when they might wish theyâd stashed it away. The longer they all wrestled, the more they looked alike as their faces grew shiny with scar tissue, their ears calcified hard, and the corners of their eyes drooped from nerve damage.
One of their backyard parties was where she first encountered Fritz Mundt, a rookie wrestler who seemed to have a new girlfriend every week and was always talking about how life would be after he became heavyweight champion. In those early days Fritz was one of her favorites, a fact that now burned especially badly. He had a funny way of pretending to be dumber than he really was, when in truth he was always playing some angle.
It took her a little while to get used to being rich and having friends. As soon as they moved out of their apartment, Pepper insisted she stop working, and even though it gave her an uneasy feeling, she agreed. She was not a person who dealt well with spare time, and after a month of sitting around the house, trying to plan dinners and hovering over the cleaning lady, she asked him what he would have her do. He just handed her a wad of bills and told her to go find out what she loved.
First she tried shopping, following the women who were now her peers around the streets, watching them get gooey at the sight of sale signs in shop windows. The new house had closets bigger than the riverboat stateroom sheâd grown up in, and she did her best to fill them with hats and shoes and dresses. When she discovered thatbuying wasnât her talent, she tried joining. She went to meetings of the Womenâs Peace Party, the Womenâs League for Peace and Freedom, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Womenâs Auxiliary to the Republican Party. She met suffragists, patriots, pacifists, Bolsheviks and anarchists. She had tea with women who were outraged at the expansion of what they called the â
American Empire
,â women who seemed to care more about the Philippines and Latin America than their own children. She met women who decried alcohol as a tool of Satan, the ruination of the modern family; rich women who buried themselves in orphans, and wet-eyed, earnest women who
Even now, she couldnât make sense of the giddiness she felt seeing Pepper win the championship. Perhaps the biggest surprise to her had been the sudden realization that he might actually be as great as he said he was. Before winning the title, heâd been a darling of the press for his quick wit and sharp tongue, but sheâd always assumed it was mostly puffery. Sure, he was tough and clever, but the best in the world? It seemed too much to hope for by half.
After he became champion, they moved out of their cramped rear-facing room on Chicagoâs South Side to a sprawling two-story house outside the city. The backyard, with its stone patio and enough grass for a ball field, was perfect for entertaining. Nearly every weekend they hosted the wrestlers of Blomfeldâs troupe, along with any other sporting types who happened to be passing through town.
The wrestlers were odd men, as different from each other as they were the same. A surprising number of them had done at least some college and could talk about art, books and food in ways sheâd never heard before. Others were nothing more than street toughs, with scars like fat earthworms burrowed in their eyebrows and undertheir chins. Some were gifted scientific wrestlers, with encyclopedic knowledge of holds and escapes and a hard-won understanding of angles and leverage. Others were just mean. Some, like her new husband, were both.
Moira suspected they imagined themselves to be immortal. None of them spared a thought for tomorrow, spending money without counting it, unable to conceive of a day when they might wish theyâd stashed it away. The longer they all wrestled, the more they looked alike as their faces grew shiny with scar tissue, their ears calcified hard, and the corners of their eyes drooped from nerve damage.
One of their backyard parties was where she first encountered Fritz Mundt, a rookie wrestler who seemed to have a new girlfriend every week and was always talking about how life would be after he became heavyweight champion. In those early days Fritz was one of her favorites, a fact that now burned especially badly. He had a funny way of pretending to be dumber than he really was, when in truth he was always playing some angle.
It took her a little while to get used to being rich and having friends. As soon as they moved out of their apartment, Pepper insisted she stop working, and even though it gave her an uneasy feeling, she agreed. She was not a person who dealt well with spare time, and after a month of sitting around the house, trying to plan dinners and hovering over the cleaning lady, she asked him what he would have her do. He just handed her a wad of bills and told her to go find out what she loved.
First she tried shopping, following the women who were now her peers around the streets, watching them get gooey at the sight of sale signs in shop windows. The new house had closets bigger than the riverboat stateroom sheâd grown up in, and she did her best to fill them with hats and shoes and dresses. When she discovered thatbuying wasnât her talent, she tried joining. She went to meetings of the Womenâs Peace Party, the Womenâs League for Peace and Freedom, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Womenâs Auxiliary to the Republican Party. She met suffragists, patriots, pacifists, Bolsheviks and anarchists. She had tea with women who were outraged at the expansion of what they called the â
American Empire
,â women who seemed to care more about the Philippines and Latin America than their own children. She met women who decried alcohol as a tool of Satan, the ruination of the modern family; rich women who buried themselves in orphans, and wet-eyed, earnest women who
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