“That makes sense, up to a point,” said Dryden.
“I know what you’re going to say. I’ve thought about that, too. I can’t really draw that line, can I?” She turned. “Look, it’s disappeared already. After Moscow, I shall really be Goldengirl. It’s too late then to search for an identity.”
“Do you want to be Goldengirl?”
She walked on in silence, looking at the waves.
“It’s important,” he gently insisted.
She stopped and looked earnestly at him, pulling a strand of gold hair between her teeth. “Jack, I have to admit that I do.”
“You don’t need to be ashamed. Almost any girl would answer yes to that.”
“But almost any girl starts from a consciousness of her own identity. It’s a reference point. I don’t feel that I have that.”
“Have you discussed this with Dr. Lee?”
“Sammy? His answer is that Goldengirl is me. When I accept it, all my anxieties will go. He’s helping me to realize this through the simulation sessions. And it’s true. When I attend stadium simulations and I see the crowd around me in their thousands, and hear the cheering and the announcements in Russian with my own name, I’m happy, Jack. In the press-conference sessions I come alive. It makes up for all the pain.”
“Physical pain, you mean?”
“Sure. Pete Klugman is a great coach, and he’s improved my track technique beyond belief. He doesn’t do it with sugar cubes. I was raised to work hard at my sport, but nothing resembling the sessions with him. I don’t like to talk too much about it. He can be very sweet at times, and he’s doing all this for my benefit. For instance, my starting is immeasurably better with the practice I’ve had on the shock-start mechanism. It speeds your gun reaction. If you don’t move your hands within fifteen hundredths of a second, you get volts up your arm. It hurts, but I go faster. You saw me today?”
“You went off so fast in the hundred that they called you back.”
“That’s the problem with quick starting. Starters will assume that if you leave the blocks before the others, you must have jumped. It isn’t so. In Moscow, they plan to have automatic fault lights that can’t operate after the gun has fired, so I should be safe from human error there.” She dangled a piece of seaweed in the water like a child. “I can take the electric shocks. They’re sharp, but they don’t damage me. What I can’t stand is being humiliated.”
“How does that happen?”
“It seems to have crept into the training sessions lately. Pete used to be patient with me if I fell down on something. Say I run an interval in twenty-six instead of twenty-five. Not so long ago he would say something to encourage me, tell me where I could pick up a little more speed. These last few weeks if something goes wrong, he just lays into me, calls me a lazy cow and worse things, real ugly things, all in front of his assistants. Some days he gets them to bawl at me as I run by. “Get your ass moving!” they shout. “That was only twenty-six.” It’s supposed to get my spirit up — I’ve discussed it with Sammy — provoke some anger that raises the adrenalin. Sometimes it does, that’s true. Other times it’s plain dispiriting. He sets me goals we both know I can’t reach, and then gives me a verbal larruping while the others look on.”
“Have you complained to Dr. Serafin?”
“I’ve tried. He’s sympathetic, but he won’t alter anything. It’s necessary to my preparation, he says. Light and shade. If I have it rough from Pete, that makes the sessions with Sammy nicer.”
“And are they?”
The answer was in her eyes. “You bet. I’m Goldengirl already to him. He gives me stimulating things to do, like listening to tapes and watching films. Jack, I’ve seen so many films of Moscow, I know it like you must know L.A. And I’ve seen all the great sprinters in action from Jesse Owens on. Shall we sit down now? You’ve carried my bag a long way.”
They had reached a wooden breakwater. They sat in the sand, protected from the slight breeze that had driven other people from the beach. From below the horizon, the sun colored the underside of a solitary cloud, but it would not be long before darkness set in.
“You say you enjoy the sessions with Dr. Lee,” said Dryden, “but it isn’t all films and conversations. You must have got through some hard work on the question sessions from the way you handled the press conference yesterday.”
“Practice,” said Goldine, smiling.
“But just as hard as running intervals, I should think,” said Dryden.
She shook her head emphatically. “Sammy’s methods are different. He never humiliates me. He’s taught me how to treat the questions as a pleasurable experience.”
“Most people regard that kind of experience as an ordeal,” said Dryden. “What’s your secret?”
She gave him a piercing look, and said, “Something anyone can buy for a few dollars. It wouldn’t be much help to you, though.” She turned away and shied a stone at the water. “You know about vibrators? Lonely women sometimes have a use for them. Sammy started me off with one. I wasn’t embarrassed; I was raised to have no inhibitions about my body and its needs. We used it in the stimulus-response sessions — privately, not with all that jazz we had in the press-conference simulation yesterday. It was wired up so that each time I gave a good response I got good vibes — literally. I made a lot of progress that way. Now I don’t need the vibrator. I get the same turn-on just from hearing the question and knowing I have the answer ready.”
“We’ve come a long way since Pavlov.”
“What do you mean?” asked Goldine.
“I was recollecting something your Sammy said about learning theory. He’s no fool. He knows about people, how to win their confidence, make them more efficient.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I’m impressed by him,” said Dryden. “I don’t know whether it matters if I like him.”
She turned to face him, her hair flame-colored in the freakish light. “How about me? Are you impressed by me?”
He wasn’t used to such directness. “By your running — dazzled.”
“And do you like me?”
“Too much,” said Dryden.
She fingered her neck. “What does that mean, Jack?”
“I find it difficult to be objective about you, as a businessman should.”
“You don’t have to be objective.”
“Sorry, but I do. If I’m to reach a decision about acting as your agent, I must make an informed estimate of your potential, both athletically and commercially. I’d be crazy to allow likes or dislikes to blur my judgment. I didn’t build my agency by signing up all the nice people I know.”
“Do you have any girls among your clients?”
“A few.”
“And if one of them got to like you, I figure you’d just tell her to knock off the romance and sign the contracts.”
“That’s speculation,” said Dryden. “It hasn’t happened, I’m glad to report. Can you imagine telling a two-hundred-pound soprano from the Metropolitan Opera to knock off the romance?”
Goldine laughed, and flopped back on the sand. “We’d better not lose any time, then.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Tomorrow you make your decision, right? You sign me up, or walk right out of my life. From what you say, the upshot is the same so far as romance is concerned. If I want you, I must make it now. You said you like me.”
This wasn’t scheduled. Till now, everything had gone as per plan, with the characteristic smoothness of any Dryden operation. He had explanations to cover everything: his “accident,” the dope test, the change of route, the delay at the Salk Institute. He was ready to admit to the consortium that he’d used the time to have a conversation with Goldengirl. Laying her on La Jolla Beach was another matter.
“When I said I like you, I meant it, but —”
“Kiss me, then.” She parted her lips and confidently waited.
He leaned over her, keeping one hand on the breakwat
er, the other in the sand. “You must understand that this doesn’t mean …”
She snatched at the kiss in a way that betrayed inexperience.
“Take it easy,” he told her. “More like this.” He showed her how to touch with the lips and gently increase pressure.
“I’m not much good,” she said.
“That was better. Like everything else, it’s practice. I’m useless at crouch starts.”
She pressed her hip against his leg. “Hold me.”
He shook his head. “Better not. I’m liable to take advantage.”
With wide eyes she said, “But I want you to.”
Time for the only ploy he could think of. “I’m — er — not equipped. Too risky for you.”
“That’s okay,” she said with a sweet smile. “I’m on the pill.”
“Not a chance,” said Dryden. She had told him some weird things, but that beat everything. “In that case, what’s Ingrid doing on the payroll?”
“Silly,” she said, running the tip of her finger down the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you know girl athletes have to regulate their periods? The pill is obligatory for Goldengirl. Hell, I’m not in high school, you know. Because Doc and the others treat me like a kid, it doesn’t mean I’m untouchable.”
“It’s getting late.” He was beginning to talk like a school kid. “Your father must be going crazy.”
“We’ll think of something to tell him,” she said. “Jack, I want you. Christ, you’re not refusing me, are you? Am I so grotesque?”
She was fumbling with the front of his trousers. This was becoming ridiculous: rape in reverse. He unlocked the arm that was around his neck and drew away from her, kneeling in the sand. “Goldine, this isn’t the way.”
She had pulled open the zip of her jeans. White cotton showed in the cleft. Practical and unalluring, it epitomized her situation in a way that touched his sympathy. Kept by the consortium, shaped to their specifications, trained to the breaking point, physically and psychologically abused, deprived of any feminine indulgence unless it suited their plans, here she lay on the sand in her plain cotton underwear, appealing for confirmation that she existed as a woman. He couldn’t deny her that.
He moved close and whispered a lie. “Goldine, you’re too persuasive.”
As he expected, it wasn’t ecstatic lovemaking. Melody Fryer’s soft carnality was imprinted too clearly on his memory as he coaxed Goldine to relax her iron grip and let him perform the essential movements.
It was presently obvious that this was a pioneering effort so far as she was concerned, but she urged him on and accepted the discomfort like lifting weights. He closed his eyes and remembered her in the flashlights, parading the sexuality Dr. Lee had harnessed for her appearances before the press. At a cost now becoming apparent. He caressed her breasts and murmured endearments, but it was obvious he was not going to bring her to orgasm. After he had reached his climax he remained holding her and said, “Nice. You okay?”
She gave him a light kiss. “Thanks. I’m a beginner, as you must have noticed.”
“After the first time, it gets better,” he promised her.
“I hope it did something for you.”
More than she knew. It had brought him to a decision. He would agree to Serafin’s terms and go in with the consortium.
Chapter 10
BLONDE DASHER: METRO CLUB MYSTERY
By Grantland Davis
SAN DIEGO, June 15 — Officials of the Metro Track Club were last night at a loss to account for the sensational running of a mystery blonde who mopped up three titles with Olympic qualifying performances in their San Diego meet yesterday. The tall, attractive girl, who gave her name as Goldine Serafin, is unknown to track specialists. Yet she posted times of 11.08 (100 meters), 22.85 (200 meters) and 50.52 (400 meters) to rank her among the world’s top dashers in this Olympic season. Track nuts in Los Angeles on hearing of these clockings were inclined to put them down to faulty equipment, but Meet Director Vince Sapperstein stated, “We had the electronic timing mechanism checked by the Longines people Wednesday, and it’s accurate to within a hundredth of a second. Besides, several observers clocked her independently. Believe me, those times were right.”
Dope Test
The mystery of blond Goldine was complicated after her last event, the 400 meters, when an official escorted her from the arena, refusing press interviews. Later it was learned that Meet Physician Julius Fishback had called for a dope test. Said Dr. Fishback last night: “When I heard about those timings, I thought it proper to authorize a routine test on Miss Serafin. It was carried out at the Salk Institute and the result was negative. Her performances were definitely not assisted by drugs.”
Burned Off
The girls who suffered crushing defeats in the wake of galloping Goldine included San Jose Cindergal Debbie Jackson, 21, who earlier this season ran 11 flat for 100 meters. “She took two meters off me in the first 30,” said Debbie. “And that was into a wind. She’d have burned anyone off today. No, I didn’t recognize her, but then I saw more of her back than her face. If this chick goes, the Olympic Tryouts next month should be a gas, a real gas.”
No Trace
Late last night reporters were unable to trace Goldine Serafin. Her entry form listed her address as a Bakersfield P.O. Box number. A Dr. William Serafin and his wife Jean are known to have resided in Bakersfield until two years ago, but neighbors remember their only daughter as dark-haired and quite unlike the pictures taken yesterday of blond Goldine (above). The Serafins are believed to have separated in 1978. Their present addresses are not known. Goldine was listed in the meet program as “unattached,” meaning she has no track club affiliation.
Wild Theory
The possibility that the blond runner was a top-rank athlete from Europe over here to soak up some California sunshine, and using another name to disguise her from rivals in the forthcoming Olympic Games, was dismissed by an AAU official as “wild.” But the mystery of blond Goldine remains, and may not be cleared up before next month, when the Olympic Trials take place in Eugene, Oregon. Stated the AAU official, “If the clockings in San Diego are authenticated, Miss Serafin should get an invite to the Trials. I mean no discredit to San Diego officials, but I’ll be interested to see if this girl can repeat her performances under championship conditions.”
Dryden tossed aside the Sunday edition of the Union he had picked up in the hotel lounge. It was a relief that nothing in it conflicted with the story he had told the night before. To give credit to Serafin, he hadn’t gone berserk when Dryden and Goldine had finally appeared in the lobby of the Westgate Plaza Hotel at ten-fifteen. He had listened to the story, and it was watertight.
As Dryden had told it, Dr. Fishback of his own volition had ruled that Goldine must take a dope test. By good fortune, Dryden was in the medical room to have his twisted ankle examined, and overheard Fishback on the phone ordering the marshal to pick up Goldine after the 400 meters. Learning that the test would mean a car ride to the hospital, he had waited to see whether Klugman or anyone else was going along in support, learned that they weren’t, and insisted that he be allowed to accompany her. Fishback had given his assent, provided Goldine was agreeable.
On the way to the hospital, Fishback had changed his mind and driven instead to the Salk Institute. They had arrived there at five-forty, the test had been administered at six-ten, but the physician in charge, who had to sign the medical certificate, was off duty till six forty-five. Satisfied by the analyst that the test was negative, Fishback had not waited any longer, but Dryden had thought it wise to collect the written evidence of Goldengirl’s test. During the interval before the physician arrived, he had twice tried ringing the stadium, but nobody picked up the phone. Soon after seven o’clock, when he had collected the certificate, he got the idea of phoning the heliport. He had asked for a message to be delivered to the pilot of the Jet Ranger: that, as it was already too late to fly to Cambria Pines before sundown, he was taki
ng Goldine, by then exhausted, for a meal in La Jolla. They had run into a little trouble afterward getting a cab, but finally stopped one at nine-ten. By nine-fifty they had found Brannon, deputed to meet them at the heliport, and got into another cab, which had delivered them to the hotel. Time: ten-fifteen. Supporting evidence: one certificate signed by Dr. Lyle-Gordon of the Salk Institute, one check from the Plaza Inn and — a nice touch — one crepe bandage around Dryden’s right ankle. As he had mentioned to Goldine in the cab, it scored tactically to check in at ten, rather than seven. By then, the consortium was more anxious than angry.
How they felt after a night’s reflection it was difficult to judge. When Dryden appeared in the hotel restaurant at nine-forty, he learned that several of the party had already breakfasted and checked out. A curt note left by Serafin informed him that a cab was ordered for ten-thirty. The second party would take off from the San Diego heliport at ten forty-five, destination Cambria Pines.
“You’ve read the report, then. She seems to have created the right amount of interest at this stage, wouldn’t you say?”
It was Lee. He must have arrived in the lounge when Dryden was deep in the newspaper.
“Looks like it,” Dryden said tersely. The polite smile and couch-side voice were a little difficult to stomach this morning.
“‘The mystery blonde,’” Lee went on. “Isn’t that a helpful start toward the image? I thought mysteries made good copy in the advertising business.”
“It’s a theory,” said Dryden without enthusiasm.
“Perhaps I should stick to things I understand. The psychology of mass communications always overawed me. I am quite baffled by demographics and computer readouts. Did you sleep well?”
“You want me to tell you about my dreams?” said Dryden in a growl. “Yes, I passed a comfortable night. I believe some of the party made an early start this morning.”
Lee’s smile widened slightly. “As I understand it, yes. Dr. Serafin ordered seven-thirty calls for each of the consortium so that they should be in Cambria for a meeting at eleven. I can imagine certain of them were not too enthusiastic about that, but they have all checked out. Dr. Serafin usually gets his way.”
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