Native Affairs

by Doreen Owens Malek

  Jennifer listened, amazed at his tone. He spoke cheerfully, in a matter-of-fact manner that surprised her. He wasn’t complaining, merely describing an occupational hazard, like a fireman discussing smoke inhalation.

  Sal arrived to check on their progress. After clucking over the amount left on Jennifer’s plate, he cleared the dishes away, promising to return shortly with “a surprise.”

  Jennifer groaned. “What does that mean? An entire sheet cake?”

  “Probably. But whatever it is, please eat some of it, or I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

  Sal returned with a pot of espresso, a set of tiny cups and saucers, and something under a flowered napkin which he described as a “brown bonnet” He set it down and went back for dessert plates.

  “Dare I take a look?” Lee said.

  “Why not? Live dangerously.”

  Inspection revealed a round cake, iced with chocolate, with a topping of cherries in a thick glaze. When Sal came back, he sliced into it to reveal a whipped cream center.

  “Here you go,” he said, cutting a huge piece for Jennifer and an even huger one for Lee. “I wrap up the rest of it for you to take home.”

  “Thanks, Sal,” Lee said, winking at Jennifer. “It looks fantastic.”

  “Baked this morning,” Sal said proudly.

  “Have some with us,” Lee offered.

  “Oh, no, got to get back,” Sal said. “Another time, you come in, we have a good dinner, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Sal vanished again. They could hear him at the back of the kitchen scolding one of the waiters in staccato Italian.

  Lee laughed, lifting a forkful to his mouth. “If Roy could see me with this, he’d put me on suspension for a week.”

  “Roy?”

  “The team trainer.”

  “Oh, you mean Roy O’Grady.”

  “Yup. If I gain a pound he screams at me like an enraged leprechaun. ‘You got to be thin to be fast,’ he says. I often point out to him that he himself is thirty pounds overweight, but it doesn’t seem to make much of an impression.”

  But Jennifer noticed that he only took two bites and left the rest. Self-denial had become a way of life.

  They drank the coffee, and Jennifer realized that the clock on the wall behind Lee read almost four. Lee saw her glance at it and pushed his chair back. “I’ll just go talk to Sal a minute. He won’t let me pay for this, and he’ll also want to saddle me with three salamis and a prosciutto ham before I go. I want to give him some tickets. I’ll be right back.”

  Jennifer waited, taking out her compact and examining herself in its mirror. She looked glowing...happy. And she knew the reason why.

  Lee returned, with a package wrapped in butcher paper under his arm. “I begged off the cake and wound up with a baked chicken instead,” he said, grinning. “I also called a cab. Let’s make our getaway now, before Sal sees the taxi. He’ll want me to take his car.”

  They tiptoed out like kids playing hide and seek and met the cab at the door. They tumbled into the back, breathless, laughing, pleased with their escape.

  Jennifer gave the cabbie her address, and a silence fell as they realized their time together was coming to an end. When they pulled up to Jennifer’s house, Lee told the cabbie to wait and walked her to the door.

  There didn’t seem to be anything to say. Their shared afternoon had changed things between them, and they both knew it.

  Lee ran a strand of her hair through his fingers. “I enjoyed myself today, Jenny with the light brown hair.”

  “So did I.”

  He glanced up at the two-story frame house. “Do you live here alone?”

  “I rent the second floor from the widow of a doctor. She owns the house and lives downstairs. The upper story used to be his office, and she had it converted for a rental when he died.” She couldn’t imagine a topic of less interest at the moment, but she was stalling and had the feeling he was, too.

  “Are you going to be in that game for the Heart Fund in a couple of weeks?” he asked.

  He was referring to a charity benefit that the Freedom sponsored each year as a preseason event Some of the players participated in a touch football game with a group of employees, and tickets were sold to spectators, with the proceeds going to the Heart Fund.

  “I think so,” Jennifer said. “I usually go and make a fool of myself.”

  “I guess I’ll see you then,” he said.

  “I guess you will.”

  They stared at each other. He was so close Jennifer could see the dense frame of thick dark lashes shading his eyes, a tiny mole at the edge of his upper lip, the soft, heavy sweep of the glossy black hair as it lay across his forehead. He studied her with the same intensity.

  He started to speak, and for just a second Jennifer was sure he was going to ask her out socially. But he seemed to think better of it and said instead, “Goodbye, then, Jenny.”

  She loved the way he said her name. “goodbye, Lee.”

  He trotted down the flagstone walk and paused to turn at the door of the cab. He lifted his hand in a final salute and got in.

  Jennifer watched the cab until it was out of sight; then slowly, as if in a dream, she climbed the steps to the second floor and let herself into her empty apartment.

  Chapter 3

  Jennifer had a date with John Ashford that night, but she knew that she was very inattentive company. John was an attorney with Chaus and Reynolds, and he’d remained there after she left. He had been trying to escalate their relationship into something more serious for some time now, but Jennifer was satisfied with an occasional dinner or movie. She just didn’t feel the requisite degree of enthusiasm about him, and had told him so, gently, several times. As a result, he gave up in frustration about twice a year, and then wound up calling her again a few weeks later. They were currently in the middle of an “on” period, and Jennifer gave it about a month before he would pressure her and she would balk. Then he would retire in silence to pout, and the ritual would begin again. It was such a familiar scenario that by now she could almost predict when John’s patience would wear thin. Jennifer felt sorry for him, but sorrier for herself. Why couldn’t she fall for somebody safe, steady, and reliable like John? It would be the answer to a prayer, but she knew it would never happen. The men who attracted her were of a different strain altogether.

  Jennifer looked across the restaurant table at John and compared him with the man who had shared her previous meal that day. Why didn’t John’s eyes sparkle with incipient mischief and hidden fires? Why weren’t they deep and dark and full of feeling, instead of china blue and ordinary? Why wasn’t his hair a rich, shiny blue-black, begging to be touched, instead of mouse brown and about as inspiring as a piece of toast? Jennifer sighed and took another bite of her steak. It wasn’t John’s fault. She occupied herself for the rest of the evening by reviewing the afternoon with Lee in her mind and made inane replies to John’s comments to indicate that she was listening. This wasn’t as successful as she’d hoped, however; she must have shown her distraction because she caught John looking at her oddly several times, and when he took her home, he didn’t try to worm his way inside as he usually did. He gave up without a struggle and left her to her thoughts.

  Jennifer changed to a robe and made a cup of tea, taking it into the living room and curling up on the couch. The steam from the cup drifted past her eyes as she sat motionless, seeing again Lee’s smiling face. The reason for her wariness of him was no mystery. He reminded her too much of Bob.

  Jennifer had met Bob Delaney when he was a rookie shortstop for the Phillies and she was a freshman in law school. She had attended a workshop on the legal representation of professional athletes, and Bob had been one of the speakers. Immediately taken by his good looks and easy charm, Jennifer found herself married to him three months later.

  It wasn’t long before the bloom was off the rose. Stories of Bob’s infidelities on road trips and tours drifted back to her
when they had been together less than a year. And that wasn’t all. He had a drinking problem; often he was too hung over to play and began accumulating fines and suspensions like parking tickets. Jennifer blamed herself as well as Bob for the failure of their marriage. If she had taken the time to see what he was really like before rushing headlong into a commitment, she would have realized that they could never make a go of it Well, she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

  The similarities between Lee and her ex-husband were too numerous to list That same dazzling sex appeal, which in Bob’s case concealed a character as shallow as a tide pool, the same slender, graceful athlete’s body, the personal magnetism, and the effortless, winning way. The flaws didn’t show for a while in the wash of the sun, but sooner or later, the clouds gathered, and then the cracks in the facade began to appear. Jennifer knew it all too well.

  She sipped her tea and stared morosely at the pattern in the rug. So I’m a sucker for charismatic jocks, she thought. And I’m in the wrong business, because sooner or later I was bound to run across another one.

  And sooner or later, she had.

  I mustn’t panic, she mused. Lee doesn’t know how I feel. He’s got a lot going for him, but as far as I know he can’t read minds. If I just watch myself, take extra care when I’m around him, he’ll never guess and I’ll be safe.

  Comforted by that thought, she switched on the television and lost herself in the Saturday night movie.

  * * * *

  On Sunday afternoon, Jennifer drove to her friend Marilyn’s apartment for dinner. Marilyn lived in a garden apartment complex in Ewing, N.J., which was a suburb of Trenton and just across the Delaware river from Jennifer’s home in Yardley, Pa.

  Jennifer and Marilyn had been friends for years, since meeting in college when they were paired off as lab partners in a chemistry course. The relationship got off to a volatile start when Jennifer had ignited the fumes from Marilyn’s beaker of ether. Marilyn had been the maid of honor at Jennifer’s wedding, and Jennifer was the godmother of Marilyn’s son, Jeff.

  Marilyn had gone back to teaching when her husband, an insurance agent, had been killed in an automobile accident two years before. He had fallen asleep at the wheel on the way home from a convention and crashed into a utility pole. Jeff was three at the time.

  Jennifer and Marilyn had helped each other a great deal during their respective crises, and Jennifer trusted Marilyn’s judgment and opinion more than anyone else’s. So she was glad that she would see her that day—she could use a heavy dose of Marilyn’s common sense and natural optimism.

  Jeff hurled himself at her when she came through the door, and she spent the first few minutes of her visit listening with rapt attention to the kindergarten news. When they had exhausted the topics of show and tell and acrobatic arithmetic (which was apparently some game his teacher had invented), he took himself off to watch television and Marilyn called Jennifer into the kitchen.

  Jennifer followed the aroma of fresh coffee and paused at the table, where Marilyn was basting the hem of a skirt, her mouth full of pins.

  “Help yourself,” Marilyn muttered, and Jennifer poured out two cups, getting the cream from the refrigerator and the sugar from the cupboard shelf. She sat across from her friend, and Marilyn studied her absorbed expression for a while in silence.

  “All right, out with it,” Marilyn finally said, after removing the pins from her mouth and sticking them in a cushion. “What trouble is furrowing that noble brow?”

  “No trouble.”

  “Hmmph. That was said with all the sincerity of Eddie Haskell complimenting Mrs. Cleaver on her wardrobe.”

  Jennifer laughed. She and Marilyn shared a passion for old TV shows and identified more with Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz than any of the characters currently populating the tube. While everybody else in the college dorm had slept in on Saturday morning, she and Marilyn had been up to catch the reruns of “I Love Lucy.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Marilyn said.

  Jennifer stirred her coffee with more vigor than was necessary. “I had lunch with Lee Youngson yesterday,” she said casually.

  Marilyn was instantly alert. “That ballplayer? The Indian who just came to the Freedom this year?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Marilyn nodded slowly. “I saw him on the news when he signed his contract. He looked like Atahualpa come to life, all gleaming teeth and magnificent bone structure. Is he that picturesque in person, too?”

  “More so.”

  Marilyn’s hand froze in the act of reaching for the sugar bowl. “Oh-oh. I don’t like this. You’ve got that Bob Delaney look on your face again, Jen, and you know what that means.”

  “I know what that means,” Jennifer repeated miserably.

  “Did anything happen?” Marilyn asked, worried.

  “Oh, no, of course not, I just met the man. But he’s going to be around all year, and I have a feeling I’m in for a long siege.”

  Marilyn filled a teaspoon with sugar and then sifted some of it back into the bowl before adding the rest to her cup. “Has he asked you out yet?”

  “No. I thought that he was on the verge of doing so yesterday, but he seemed to decide against it.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re sure you weren’t giving off negative vibrations at the time?”

  Jennifer thought back to the scene when Lee had left her, the two of them unable to say anything intelligent, unable to part, either. “No, I would say that the vibes were very positive.”

  “Then,” Marilyn supplied. “But what about the rest of the day?”

  “Well, I did give him a bit of a hard time at lunch,” Jennifer admitted.

  “I’ll bet you did,” Marilyn said. “Can you wonder that the poor guy is confused?”

  “The poor guy,’ as you put it, is probably working on the third edition of his little black book right now, and is hardly lamenting his lack of success with me. Judging by the reaction of Dolores and the other women I’ve seen in his presence, they drop like flies at an encouraging word.”

  Marilyn nodded sagely. “It seems to me I’ve heard this song before,” she said. “As I recall, you said the same thing about Bob Delaney.”

  Jennifer drained the last of her coffee. “You’re right. I can’t fall into that trap again.”

  “Take it one step at a time,” Marilyn advised, standing and turning on the oven to preheat it for the roast. “If he’s interested, he’ll let you know.”

  “If he’s interested! I don’t know if I’m interested.”

  Marilyn favored her with a knowing look. “Ask me. I’ll tell you. It’s written all over your face.”

  Jennifer said nothing.

  “Be careful, Jen,” Marilyn said seriously. “Don’t set yourself up for another fall.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jennifer said. “I won’t.”

  She meant it.

  * * * *

  Jennifer buried herself in her work for the next two weeks, and successfully kept Lee Youngson out of her mind. She was flicking through the channels once on television, stopped short when she saw him being interviewed by a local sportscaster, and then forced herself to switch to another show.

  The Friday afternoon before the benefit game, Jennifer drove out to Westminster State College, where the Freedom had its summer camp, with a stack of papers for some of the players to sign. They had to be in the house mail on Monday morning, and the athletes were notoriously unreliable about getting things in on time, so Jennifer decided not to take any chances. She set out for the school right after lunch.

  It was a beautiful drive along the Philadelphia main line, and Jennifer enjoyed the scenery and the colonial landmarks along the way. It wasn’t long before she was pulling into one of the parking lots, scanning the practice field unconsciously for a glimpse of Lee. Her car made a curious whining sound as the motor died, and she frowned in momentary concern, but was too preoccupied with the business at hand to give it much thought.

>   Jennifer walked out to the bleachers and asked one of the assistant coaches how long it would be before the team took a break. He looked at his watch and guessed about ten minutes. She sat on the bottom step and prepared to wait. They were currently on the system of “two a day,” which meant a practice from nine to eleven, a break until one, and then another practice in the afternoon. She would have to stick around until they paused in the middle of the second session. Nothing, short of a bomb falling, was permitted to interrupt the work at hand.

  She was the only woman in sight. Usually her appearance occasioned a few wolf whistles and catcalls, but the players were too absorbed in their practice to notice her arrival. She sat quietly and watched the various drills going on, which included her favorite, the “stomp” drill. During this exercise the team members ran in place as fast as possible, drumming their feet on the ground, and never failed to remind her of a crowd of oversized babies having a simultaneous tantrum.

  After a few minutes they split up, and Jennifer spotted Lee sprinting to the backfield with the quarterback, Joe Thornridge, a lanky kid two years out of Auburn. Joe was known as “Thunderbolt Thornridge” for the speed and accuracy of his passes. Lee was his favorite target, and as Jennifer watched the two men working out together, it was easy to see why. They moved with the intricate, perfectly timed synchronization of a Swiss watch. Again and again Lee took off down the field, and Joe rolled back, arm cocked behind his head, and fired off a pass that dropped into Lee’s waiting hands as if it were an apple falling off a tree. They made it look so easy, but Jennifer knew it wasn’t. These two would not be collecting the paychecks they were if everybody could do it.

  Lee was wearing the bottom part of an old uniform, complete with pads, and an ancient, ragged T-shirt, dampened now under the arms and in the hollow of his back from his exertions. Jennifer found herself wishing that he would take it off, and then shook her head, angry with herself. That sort of thinking was guaranteed to get her nowhere, fast.

  When the head coach blew his whistle and the team members filed slowly off the field, Jennifer opened her briefcase and took out the documents that needed signatures. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lee take a dipper of water from the container on the bench, swish it around in his mouth, and then spit it out. He stretched his arms over his head, the muscles flexing across his back under the clinging shirt. Deliberately, she turned her head.