A Man of His Own

by Susan Wilson

  Sid sided with me even when I refused perfectly nice Buster Novack. Buster’s family were good people, good farmers, but sown into the earth like the corn they raised. Life with Buster would mean respectability and church suppers, raising a nice family to farm the same acres as his grandfather farmed. The biggest excitement the daily corn futures. One day the same as the next. The truth was, I burned for something else. Something beyond watching a slender and good-looking Buster Novak take on a farmer’s bulk. Maybe someday I’d regret a missed chance at an ordinary life, but right then it seemed more like a death sentence. So I told Buster no, thank you, and mystified my parents.

  But Sid sided with me, and then told me I needed to get the heck out of Mount Joy, that the pickins were too poor for a girl of my standards. “You won’t find a prince in this pack of paupers, Francesca. You’ve got to go farther afield.” Sid, having reversed our pioneer heritage, was living in what we simply called the East, Boston to be exact, a graduate of Bryant College, in Rhode Island, and making a good living as an accountant for a shipping firm. He had become exotic. And when he invited me to visit him there—the East—I did. I packed enough so that, unbeknownst to my parents, should an opportunity arise, I could stay. I don’t know exactly what I thought might comprise an opportunity, but I knew that should one arise, I’d recognize it. And I did.

  So there it is, a friendly cousin, a girl on her first big trip, and a mutual love of baseball. Sid took me to Nickerson Field, traveling the whole way from his digs in Dorchester by subway, which for this country girl was almost as exciting as the train ride east had been, the shopgirls and the businessmen straphanging, looking bored, not the least bit uncomfortable as bodies bumped up against those of perfect strangers, as if this was all so ordinary.

  Sid bought me a hot dog and a Coca-Cola, even though I’d asked for a beer. The Braves were playing the Cardinals and Sid and I were in hog heaven. Our seats were perfect, just a few rows back from the bull pen, where the relief pitchers played catch with catchers, legs extended in a balletic arc, the hardballs whizzing into the mitts with satisfying smacks. It would be so romantic to say that our eyes met, or that one look and I knew he was the one, but the truth is, I didn’t notice Rick Stanton in the bull pen because he wasn’t one of the pitchers warming up. He was acting as one of the catchers. So it wasn’t until the game began and the relief pitchers all settled down to watch the action, rumps in white trousers lined up side by side on the wooden bench like pigeons on a wire, that this catcher unfolded himself into a tall, thin man, unburdened himself of the chest protector and mask, and, for reasons neither he nor I ever understood, looked up at me. And I waved.

  It still goes back to Sid. Consulting his program, he identified this dark blond, tousle-haired ballplayer with the strong jaw and Roman nose as Rick Stanton, recently brought up from the Eastern League’s Hartford Bees. A curveball pitcher with a decent win-loss history in the minors. He wasn’t scheduled to play today, unless the game went south and the three other pitchers on staff that day were tossed out. I was rooting for the Cardinals, so I hoped that maybe I’d get to see Stanton play for that reason alone.

  He didn’t and the Braves won, but I admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to the game itself. Every few minutes, I glanced back down to where Rick was fence hanging, a study of concentration on the game. Every now and then, he’d lift his cap, run a hand through his hair, and glance back at me. I couldn’t tell then, from that distance, that his eyes were the richest hue of blue I’d ever seen. The kind of blue that seems to have a light behind it, like an Iowa sky on certain fall days. By the ninth inning, we were smiling at each other, and when the game was over, he jumped the fence and made his way up the steps to where I was trapped beside Sid in our row. Rick stood in the emptied-out seats just below me, which put us almost eye-to-eye.

  “My name is Rick Stanton and thank you for coming to the ball game.” Wisely, he put his hand out to Sid first. Later on, I asked him how he knew that Sid wasn’t my beau; after all, he might have looked like a piker horning in on someone’s girl like that, maybe even gotten himself decked. It was simple, he said; Sid was a good-looking guy, but you were smiling at me, not him.

  Sid stepped aside and let me out of the row. “Sid Crawford, and this is my cousin, Francesca Bell. Good game, but I have to tell you she’s a Cardinals fan.” With that, my cousin excused himself to go to the men’s room and left me with the man who would become my husband.

  The moment is crystallized in my mind, but I remember it as if I’m looking down on these two young people. I see the girl, dressed in a summer skirt that lifts slightly in the breeze. I see this ballplayer, all long legs and arms outfitted in his baggy white uniform, the number 65 on his back. He has his hat in his left hand, gripping the curved bill. He reaches out with his right and takes the girl’s hand in his. There is a frisson, a jolt, as if they are both charged with positive and negative ions, two forces meant to join up. It was the first time in my life I’d felt physical attraction, and the longer he kept my hand in his, the stronger the sensation. I leaned forward slightly, breathing in the scent of his skin, my eyes closed. I don’t know what possessed me. Or, maybe it’s more reasonable to say, I didn’t know then. I just knew that Rick Stanton was what I’d been waiting for.

  * * *

  Our courtship seemed so fraught with complication: I lived in Iowa; he traveled all summer. The only thing to do seemed to be to get married right away, set up a home in the Boston area, based on his optimistic hope that he wouldn’t be traded for a few years. But the thing I had the most trepidation about wasn’t Rick, or leaving home, or setting up what might prove to be temporary housekeeping in a strange city. It was Pax.

  “I want you to meet someone.” What girl ever hears those words with enthusiasm? Usually, it’s a doting mother who will assume you’re not good enough for her boy, or a bad-boy pal who will resent you taking his drinking buddy away. In this case, it was Rick’s eighty-five-pound spoiled-rotten German shepherd cross. And I knew right away that although I could certainly work my way into a mother’s good graces, or charm a drinking buddy into brotherly devotion, with Pax, I had to earn his permission to be important to his man. We were rivals for Rick’s heart.

  Chapter Three

  Pax didn’t like to share Rick with anyone, but he especially disliked it when Rick would bring home females. On the one hand, as a male, he certainly understood Rick doing so, but women made Pax nervous. Mostly because he made them nervous. However, usually this was only a very short interruption in the life that they enjoyed. Being a lucky dog, Pax went everywhere with Rick, and he especially loved going to the ballpark, where the other men would slip him treats and act as if he were one of the team. Recently, Rick had started leaving Pax home alone for days at a time, a teenage boy coming to walk and feed him. “Got to hit the road, pal. This organization won’t let you come.” Pax liked the boy well enough, but he sulked and refused to engage with the kid. No amount of stick throwing or walks around the block would soften the dog’s attitude. Rick was his person, and only for Rick was he going to act the puppy.

  When the suitcase came out of the closet, it meant that Rick was going to disappear for a while, and then return happy or grouchy. Pax would greet him like a long-lost hero no matter what mood Rick came home in, and he had the knack of moving Rick out of the doldrums by simply reminding his man that he was there and ready for some playtime. For Rick, he’d flop onto his back, four legs waving in the air, all dignity abandoned.

  In the winter, it was much better; then he and Rick spent most of the day together, working out at the gym and doing roadwork. They ran; they visited Shanahan’s Bar and Grill, where the proprietor, a guy Pax thought of as Meatman but Rick called Dickie, would dole out chunks of raw beef as if he thought Rick didn’t see him do it. Pax liked their first-floor apartment, where he had taught himself to open the back door; he loved that, especially when the neighbor’s cat got cocky and walked along the perimeter. Ric
k liked it because then Pax could let himself out into the fenced-in yard. As Rick liked to say, win-win.

  In the year that Pax had lived with Rick, Pax had only ever shared Rick with the stray teammates he’d invite back after games for a sandwich and beer, or the pals that would crash here at odd times when passing through town. That was fine; no one expected anything more of him than a polite deference. Once in a while, Rick would bring a female around, but they never stayed long.

  Everything changed when Rick brought Francesca home. “I want you to meet someone.” The dog didn’t understand the words, but he understood the vocabulary of love. This woman wasn’t going to disappear like all the rest. The pheromones spurted off them like fireworks, filling the dog’s highly analytical nose with the truth long before the people themselves got it. These two were destined to be mates.

  The woman reached to pat him on the head, as if he was some ordinary affection-starved cur. The indignity of her invading his space made him duck away, as if her touch would hurt. But he didn’t growl. The tension in Rick was enough to put Pax in a state of readiness, but Pax didn’t stiffen into his guard posture. Slowly, he sniffed the woman’s still-outstretched hand and then took an olfactory tour of her whole person, ending with her knees. She let him sniff the most interesting part of her without shrieking as many females did when he arrived at that oh-so-revealing human spot, usually with a quick defensive shove against his skull. This one remained as aloof as he was, and that was fine. This one didn’t try to force friendship on Pax, and that was one thing in her favor. So many of the females made that simpering cooing sound when introduced to him; this one spoke to him in a friendly, meeting-of-equals tone. Instead of keeping his wolf eyes on her as she and Rick sat side by side on the couch, Pax lay down on the rug at their feet and heaved a sigh. Instinct suggested that this new woman was about to be made a part of their pack.

  Chapter Four

  Besotted wasn’t the right word. Or bedazzled or smitten or bewitched. Well, maybe smitten came close. Struck as if by lightning. Rick put his hand in Francesca’s and knew that if she ever let go, he’d die. She was so young, almost ten years his junior, but they were equals in all else. Her sense of humor, her way of charming even the great Mr. Stengel. The smile that meant she was purely happy. The way she brushed back her blond curls just before she kissed him. She barely came up to his shoulder, but he felt as if she lifted him.

  It was like being in a play or a movie; everything felt accelerated by the fact of her impending departure back to Mount Joy. They skipped the testing ground of going to the picture show, followed by a late-night snack at a diner, where they could talk about the movie if other conversation failed them. Instead, Rick moved ahead in the usual dating schedule. He didn’t have the luxury of time to wait for what was typically his third or fourth date treat, so he took Francesca to dinner at the Ritz for their first outing. They held hands, fingers entwined. They had everything to say and nothing. The harpist lent an ethereal air to the moment, her gentle music speaking out loud what was going on in his heart. How could this be? Rick had certainly dated, even loved once—his impatient fiancée Mary Ann—but this was different. For so long his plans had been formulated around his career, every decision weighed against its effect on that single-minded goal. Sitting across from this girl with her midwestern, matter-of-fact, down-to-earth, speak-her-mind confidence, Rick found himself fitting Francesca neatly into his life. He saw his future so clearly: Francesca, the house, the dog, the blond curly-haired kids.

  “She’s swell, isn’t she, Paxy?” Rick and Pax have just put Francesca on the train back to Sid’s place so that she can get ready for their date tonight. She’s been to the ballpark every day, meeting him at the players’ entrance after he’s showered following a game or practice. He counts his lucky stars that this is a home week, no travel. He won’t let himself imagine if he’d had to climb on the team bus and maybe never seen her again. Or lost the momentum that they have been building to all week. They’ve jumped the T and gone all over the city, to the Museum of Fine Arts and to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, shopping at Downtown Crossing, but mostly strolling through the Public Garden and the Common, Pax between them and happy to be included in their adventures. After dinner, they go to clubs and dance until Rick knows his manager is going to be mightily distressed with him, out so late on a game night, but it hasn’t affected his game. If anything, this new-love euphoria has made him indomitable. Called in for the last inning this afternoon, Rick struck out all three batters facing him in thirteen pitches.

  They have accelerated from hand holding to kissing. He made himself go slow, not meaning to test her willingness, nor frighten her away, but she nearly frightened him with her response. It was as if she’d been waiting for him all her life. He won’t let himself take advantage of that enthusiasm; he’s a gentleman and he respects the proprieties. He forces himself to remember that she’s a small-town girl, and a young one at that, and he won’t send her home in any way less perfect than she arrived in Boston.

  Rick can’t let himself think about what the end of the week will mean. Francesca will go back to Iowa. His travel schedule doesn’t include Mount Joy. He’s not a free man until after the season ends, and that seems like an eternity. For the first time in his life, baseball seems secondary.

  “How long does it take, do you think, for a man to be certain about what he should do about a woman?”

  Pax cocks his head, opens his mouth slightly, and makes that little humpf humpf noise that Rick interprets as conversation.

  “What’s that you say? Marry her, right?”

  Woof.

  “I think you’re onto something.” Rick thumps Pax’s ribs, ruffles his fur, and kisses him on the nose. “Sounds crazy, but that’s the answer.”

  Pax leans against the leash, his nose plowing the way to a new scent laid in against a telephone pole. He lifts his leg. Obviously, there’s nothing more to say.

  Rick has never felt so sure about anything—except baseball—in his life. Francesca isn’t the first girl he’s met at the ballpark, but he is certain that she will be the last.

  Chapter Five

  My last night in Boston, our last night together, Rick took me to Norumbega Park on the Charles River in Aburndale to dance at the Totem Pole Ballroom. One of the area’s premier night spots, “the most beautiful ballroom in America,” the Totem Pole featured the best big bands and popular singers in the world. That night, we danced to the music of Benny Goodman. For a small-town Iowa girl, this was a magical evening. Made more magical by the feel of Rick’s arms around me, the grace with which this long, tall ballplayer danced. Even in Mount Joy, we knew the new dances, and before long Rick and I were the center of attention as he flung me up into the air, my full skirt belling around my legs. We laughed and gasped for breath, and when the photographer came to us to take our picture, I was certain that he wasn’t going to need a flashbulb, we were so lit from within. He captured us so perfectly, that anonymous on-staff photog. A lovely couple, starry-eyed with fresh love. Our future written in our smiles.

  Exhausted, we finally flopped down on one of the settees arranged around the dance floor. When I rested my cheek against him, I came up against something hard in his jacket pocket. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, this?” Rick reached in, and I expected him to pull out a pack of cigarettes, because that’s what it felt like. “A little something I’m hoping that you’ll like.” Then he dropped the kidding tone and slipped his arm out from under my head. Rick got down on one knee, and I thought that my heart would explode. “I know this is really rushing things, but I have never been so certain of anything—or anyone—in my life. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  One week to the day since we had met. And I had no reservations about saying yes.

  * * *

  And then I was on the train, heading home to Iowa. Sid, God bless him, hadn’t said a word as I slipped into his second-floor flat at five in the morn
ing, only yawned and started the coffee.

  “Is he downstairs?”

  “Yes. Asleep in the car.”

  “Go get him.”

  I ran downstairs as quietly as I could, so as to not disturb the neighbors, but Rick was gone. Of course, he had to get home to Pax. He’d be back in a couple of hours to take me to South Station, when we would have what we hoped was the only separation we would endure in our lives together. A few days on the road for the team wasn’t going to have the same weight.

  Pax and Rick picked me up, the dog relegated to the backseat but leaning his big head over the front seat, so that I could feel his whiskers against my cheek. Impulsively, I kissed that muzzle. Pax sniffed my cheek in return. “I’ll miss Pax, too, you know. It isn’t just you.” I think saying that made Rick almost as happy as my wearing his ring.

  I was such a baby, quietly weeping most of the way to New York, where I changed trains for the Chicago leg of my journey, dabbing my eyes with a sodden handkerchief, as if I had the least concept of what true absence was. I wallowed in the sweet agony of separation from my beloved. As I wearily climbed aboard the final connection home, I tortured myself with wondering if absence would make his heart fonder, or would he wake up in a week and wonder what the heck he’d gotten himself into? Rick promised a letter a day, a telegram a week, a phone call every other. Would his letters begin to thin out; would the telegrams seem more ominous than loving? Would he forget to call?

  A telegram was waiting for me when I finally arrived back in Mount Joy. “MISS YOU MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY STOP CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR YOUR VOICE STOP WILL CALL THIS EVENING AT 8 STOP ALL MY LOVE RS”