“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes?”
The ophthalmologist pursed his lips. “Quite the opposite. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He swung the lens machine out of the way, pointed at the wall. “Read that bottom line, if you please.”
“D, Y, X, C, N, R.”
“You see? You’re the first patient I’ve had in here since January who could do that, and he was a child, not ten years old. You’ve been blessed, Mr.-” Another glance at the chart. “-Rayburn.”
“Then how come I’m not seeing as well as I used to?”
“What makes you think you’re not seeing as well as you used to?”
Bobby didn’t want to go into it. The guy didn’t know who he was or what he did, probably was one of those people who knew nothing about baseball, not even the basics, like balls and strikes. Bobby liked that in a way but it made going into it too difficult. “I don’t know,” he said.
The ophthalmologist smiled a little smile. Bobby didn’t like that smile; he had seen similar ones on the faces of sportswriters. “It’s almost impossible from an optical point of view that you ever saw measurably better than you’re seeing now,” said the ophthalmologist. “Do you follow me?”
“Yes,” Bobby said, although he wasn’t sure he did.
“You’re so close to the theoretical upper limit, the polar opposite of blindness, if you will,” the ophthalmologist continued. “How you interpret visual data, on the other hand, is a different question.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The ophthalmologist’s smile faded. “It means that your physical equipment is fine. Other factors may be influencing the way you see the physical world, or think you are seeing it.”
“What other factors?”
“Lack of sleep. Alcohol abuse. Drug abuse.”
Bobby shook his head to each of those. “What else?”
“Stress.”
“Like?”
“What causes stress?”
Bobby nodded.
“All the usual problems. Money worries, love worries, job worries, sickness in the family, death of someone close. And sometimes good things are stressful too.” The bright blue eyes looked deep into Bobby’s again, probing this time beyond the retinas. “Have you had a period of stress lately?” The long nostril hair quivered like a tendril.
“What do you mean good things? ”
“A promotion. Birth of a child. Winning a lottery. Any big change is stressful.”
“I did sign a new contract,” Bobby said.
“When was that?”
“Last month.”
“Well, then.”
“So when will I start seeing better?”
The ophthalmologist laughed, although Bobby didn’t see what was funny. He looked again at the letters on the bottom line, read them easily. But they were just sitting there on the wall, motionless. What if they were suddenly spinning, and coming toward him fast? Could he identify them then? And how soon?
“It’s easy to read them when they’re not moving,” Bobby said.
“Not moving?” The ophthalmologist fingered his little pi pendant.
Bobby thought of his four-leaf clover, lost in center field. “Never mind.”
The ophthalmologist laid his hand, light and bony, on Bobby’s knee. “Try perhaps to relax,” he said.
“Relax?”
“You might consider taking some time off from work, for example.”
“I had the whole winter off,” Bobby said.
The ophthalmologist removed his hand. A Jewish guy, but not like Wald with his $100 haircuts and his mouth; more like one of those scholars in the movies, with a skull cap and gloves that kept your fingers free for writing in unheated studies.
“Have you ever seen a therapist, Mr. Rayburn?”
“Every day.”
“Every day?”
“Sure,” said Bobby; because of the rib thing. “Physio.”
The old man blinked his blue eyes. “I meant the psychological kind.”
“You’re talking about a shrink?”
“Not necessarily.”
But something like a shrink. Out of the question.
And then he remembered the radio reporter’s question: Do you feel any special pressure because of the big contract?
“I take it security’s one of your prime considerations,” the real-estate agent was saying as Bobby walked into the skylit entrance hall, his footsteps clicking on the terra-cotta, echoing through the empty house.
They turned to him, Val with a look on her face that said, You’re late, the real-estate agent hurrying forward with his hand out: “Mr. Rayburn?” That meant that like the ophthalmologist he wasn’t a fan either: fans called him Bobby. “Delighted to meet you.”
They shook hands. The real-estate agent was as tall as Bobby but much thinner; he wore the kind of flowing double-breasted suit that Wald always wore, only looked good in it. He gave his name, which Bobby didn’t catch, and said: “Just delighted.”
Delighted. Oh, Christ, Bobby thought.
Val read his reaction, he could tell from her tone when she said, “Roger was just describing the security system here.”
“State of the art, naturally,” the real-estate agent said. “The vendor had an important collection of Latin American art. A lovely Rivera used to hang right here.” He indicated the blank wall opposite the door, blank except for a small video screen beside the light switch. A message was flashing on it. Roger, following Bobby’s gaze, said, “That’s just the internal part of the system. The whole network’s plugged into the police station, the fire station, and the security company’s master control.” Roger moved toward the screen. Bobby, with his eyes, could read it from where he was: “Motion in foyer. Motion in foyer.”
They toured the house. Saw the kitchen, with its terra-cotta floor, granite countertops, stained-glass windows in the breakfast bay. “From an old church near Sienna,” Roger said. Then the living room with its enormous fieldstone hearth and windows two stories tall. And the indoor pool with the chandelier hanging over it. The master suite with another huge fireplace, a walk-in closet as big as their bedroom in California, a balcony overlooking the terrace, the outdoor pool, and the broad lawn, sloping down to the sea, two hundred feet away.
“I almost forgot,” said Roger, turning a knob on the wall. The house filled with music, deep, rich, full-classical shit, but as though the orchestra were all around them. “Wonderful, no?” Roger said.
“Yes,” said Val.
Bobby opened a door.
“Half lav,” said Roger. “Seven others, not counting the maid’s quarters.”
Bobby went in, closed the door. The music followed him: strings, woodwinds, brass, swelling all around him. He took his stance in the mirror, swung an invisible bat. Opening Day: one for four. Popped out in foul ground, K’d twice; and the grand slam in the second. Boom. Total luck-he hadn’t seen the pitch at all, just flicked the bat through the waist-high plane. The ball hit it on the screws. Total luck, but only Bobby knew. He turned on a gold tap, watched water swirl around a blue-marble sink. He saw everything clearly: the silver-and-black flecks in the marble, the changing colors pulsing through the running water. But was he seeing it with that coffee-table book clarity? He didn’t know. Relax, that was the key. He concentrated on various parts of his body: shoulders, upper back, neck, hips. He thought he felt relaxed, even in his chest, over the rib cage. The only thing he wasn’t relaxed about was not seeing the ball.
Bobby splashed water on his face, went out. The real-estate guy was talking on a cellular phone; Val was fixing her lipstick, making those funny lip shapes women do.
“I’ll show you something,” she said.
He followed her down a hall, into another room, empty except for a space station in one corner, big enough for a kid to play in. “They had grandchildren,” Val said.
“Who?”
“The owners.”
“How come they’re selling?”
“Died in a plane crash,” Val said.