Beloved Stranger

by Joan Wolf

  “You can come in tomorrow if you like.”

  “Where exactly is the hospital, doctor?” she asked, and wrote down the directions he gave her. It was two when she finally got into bed and nearly five when she finally fell asleep. She was up at seven-thirty and put in a phone call to her mother. Mrs. Morgan was shocked when she heard Ricardo had been hurt and promised to drive down immediately to take care of Ricky so Susan could go to the hospital.

  Ricardo looked very white under his tan, and his cheekbones seemed to stand out under his skin. “Oh darling,” she said as she went to stand next to the bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Lousy,” he said frankly, “My head hurts like hell.” He moved his head restlessly on the pillow. “Who’s staying with Ricky?”

  “Mother. She came right down after I called. Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  She poured a glass of water for him. His hand was unsteady and she said softly, “Let me hold it.” He relinquished the glass to her and sipped it slowly. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. “The ball got away from Richards, Susan,” he said. “He wasn’t throwing it at me deliberately.”

  “Tell that to your aching head,” she said a little acidly, and pulled a chair up next to the bed. He smiled faintly. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured. In a few moments he was asleep.

  The hospital released him after two more days and he went home for a week. Susan was so glad he was better that she waited on him hand and foot. At the end of the week he went back to the hospital for a checkup and was pronounced fit to play. He immediately made plans to fly up to Boston where the Yankees were starting a four-game series with the Red Sox.

  “Can’t you at least wait until the team comes home?” Susan protested.

  “This is an important series, Susan,” he answered. “We were six games up on the Sox when this road trip started and now we’re down to three. We can’t lose this series.”

  Susan had not protested any further. What Ricardo had said was true—the Yankees were missing his presence badly. The pennant race had heated up and Ricardo had to play if he was fit. So she packed his suitcase, drove him over to get the limousine to the airport and kissed him good-bye with a smile. She even managed to refrain from telling him to be careful.

  The Yankees and the Red Sox split the series in Boston, leaving New York with its three-game advantage, though Ricardo got only one hit in the entire series, a little pop fly that fell just out of the right fielder’s reach. He performed brilliantly in the field, however, and the announcers spoke excusingly about his injury so Susan didn’t think too much of his unusual lapse.

  The slump continued throughout the entire two-week homestand, however, and by then it seemed the whole world had become aware of Ricardo’s failure to perform at bat. Newspaper articles were written on the subject. The announcers talked of it constantly. Ricardo’s batting average plummeted and the Yankees dropped to two games behind Boston. And always, rarely said outright but constantly implied, was the innuendo that since being hit on the head, Ricardo was afraid of further injury. It was the only reason it seemed anyone could find to account for this most consistent of all players falling into such a catastrophic slump.

  It was anguishing for Susan to watch him and yet she had never admired him more than now, when under the most intense pressure from fans, newsmen, coaches, players and most of all himself, he continued to maintain a composure and a courtesy that was nothing short of heroic. He never lost his temper, never allowed an expression or a gesture of anger or despair to escape as he repeatedly struck out or popped out or grounded out and returned quietly to the dugout. To all the myriad questioners he replied simply, “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  Susan didn’t know either, but she was utterly certain that fear of injury was not the cause of Ricardo’s problem. He received advice from everyone on the team and he tried it all: he changed his stance, he shortened his grip, he moved closer to the plate, he moved further from the plate, but nothing seemed to help. He did not speak of his slump to Susan as, apart from listening to their suggestions, he did not speak of it to his teammates. Joe Hutchinson called her one day to see if Ricardo was being more open at home than he was in the clubhouse. “Ricardo is a very private man, Joe,” Susan said slowly. “He has never been one to talk about his problems or his feelings.”

  “I know. But, Susan, I really think that’s a big part of his present problem. He can’t, or he won’t get what’s bothering him off his chest. I know when I was in a slump last year the only thing that snapped me out of it was talking to people—to my wife, to the other guys—and especially to Rick.” He paused. “Can’t you try to get him to open up a little?”

  “I’ll do what I can, Joe,” Susan responded quietly. But when she hung up the phone she knew that she was not the one who could open this subject with Ricardo. She trembled to think what must lie behind his apparently unruffled self-command, how the proud and passionate inner man must be feeling in the face of such continual and public failure. She could never be the one to try and breach that self-command. It had to be Ricardo who spoke first. All she could do was be as sensitive as she possibly could to his moods, and to all his other needs.

  He never spoke to her of the slump but she sensed in him a need for her company. It was a small consolation, a hidden flower in the wasteland, the fact that in this, the most profoundly distressing time of his career, he did not turn away from her. He didn’t want to go out, refused even the simple distraction of a movie that she thought might be good for him. He seemed happiest just sitting quietly with her—around the pool in the afternoon, listening to music at night. Susan thought that he felt comfortable with her because she was a woman and so not one of his peers, his equals.

  The team left for another road trip and Ricardo’s slump persisted. Susan got to the point of feeling ill every time he came to the plate. How could he stand it, she wondered despairingly. How could he go up there, time and time again, endure the taunts of the fans, the implications of the sports reporters, the doubts he must see in the eyes of his teammates? Where did he find the courage? Where did he find the strength of will?

  The team got into New York in the early afternoon and Ricardo was home in time for a swim before dinner. Susan had heard from her agent the day before that he had found a publisher for her book but she had hesitated to tell Ricardo last night on the phone. It did not seem the time to remind him that he had a successful wife. She did tell him over dinner and he seemed to be genuinely pleased, asking her for the details of the contract with a thoroughness she could not begin to answer. “I think you’d better read it when I get it,” she said. “I haven’t the foggiest idea of who has what rights. I expect it will all be in the contract. Mr. Wright seemed to think it was a good deal.”

  “He’s supposed to be a good agent,” Ricardo admitted. “I checked on him. Still, it’s always wise to look things over personally.”

  After dinner they watched an old movie on TV. Ricardo was very quiet and seemed to be paying attention to the screen, but Susan could sense the tension in him. They went upstairs after the news and Ricardo was in the shower when Ricky woke up and began to cry. He was cutting a tooth and having a very difficult time of it. So was Susan. She gave him some Tylenol and walked him and then rocked him, and finally he fell back to sleep. When she went back into her own bedroom, Ricardo was asleep as well. Susan undressed without putting on the light and slipped quietly into bed so as not to disturb him. She had thought he looked strained and tired and was sure he wasn’t sleeping well.

  She awoke at three in the morning to find him gone. She got out of bed, and clad only in her thin cotton nightgown, she went downstairs to look for him.

  He was sitting in the dark on the patio. He turned his head when he heard the door open and said, “What are you doing out of bed in the middle of the night?”

  “Looking for you,” she replied, and went to lay her hand lightly on his bare brown shoulde
r. The muscles under her fingers were rocklike with tension. Susan felt like throwing herself into his arms and weeping, but that was not what he needed. He needed to release some of that terrible tension. She thought she knew what part of the problem was, at any rate. He had been gone for two weeks. Drat Ricky and his tooth, she thought. She put both hands on his shoulders and began to massage them gently. He closed his eyes. “Mmm. That feels good.”

  She continued with the massage until she felt him relax a little. Then she bent forward so her cheek was against his and her hair swung across his face. “Why don’t we go back upstairs?” she murmured. “Ricky is finally asleep.”

  “Are you trying to seduce me, Susan?” he asked. He sounded grave.

  “Yes.” She kissed his cheekbone. “I am. If you reject me, I’ll be very insulted.”

  “I would never want to insult you,” he said, and stood up. He was wearing only his pajama bottoms as usual and he towered over her in the darkness. She moved closer and put her arms around his waist. He held her very tightly. “I missed you, querida,” he breathed.

  She kissed his chest and then, lightly, delicately, she licked his bare smooth skin. She could feel the shudder that ran all through him and without another word he picked her up and carried her into the house and up the stairs to their bedroom.

  She closed her eyes as his weight crushed her into the mattress. His mouth on hers was hard and hungry and his kiss drove her back hard into the pillow. She felt his terrible urgency, his barely controlled desperation. His hands hurt when they gripped her delicate flesh. He groaned and she could sense him making a terrific effort to get himself under control. She opened her eyes. She wasn’t ready but it was not her needs that concerned her at the moment. She loved him very very much. “It’s all right, darling,” she whispered. “You don’t have to wait.”

  His dark eyes looked into hers for a very brief second and then he buried his face between her neck and shoulder. He held her close but his hands now felt more gentle. After a minute one of them slid down her shoulder to her breast and began, very lightly to caress it. Then he turned his head and began to kiss her throat. Her own hands moved slowly over his back. “Ricardo,” she murmured.

  His hand moved down to her stomach and then moved again. She gasped, pressing up against him. He locked his mouth on hers and continued to caress her until she whimpered. His mouth softened and he said her name, cupping her breasts in both his hands. She opened her eyes and they stared at each other for a minute out of passion-narrowed eyes. Then she put her hands on his hips, pulling him toward her, over her. She arched up toward him, her breasts filling his hands as she urged him to fill her body, to complete her, to finish what he had started.

  He drove into her and something in her answered to the hungriness in him, blazing up for him in a bonfire of wild sweetness and ecstasy.

  “Do you know you always make love in Spanish?” she asked a long time later. Her head was pillowed on his shoulder and his hand was sifting gently through her hair.

  “Well, it’s my first language, after all,” he replied. “It’s the language we almost always spoke at home— even when we lived in New York.”

  She sighed with contentment and after a minute his hand left her hair and moved to her back. Susan’s eyes half closed and she rubbed against him a little, like a cat being stroked. His hand moved from her back down to her hip and delicious quivers of anticipation began to run through her again. “That was like manna in the desert,” he murmured into her ear.

  “Shall we do it again?” Very gently his fingers caressed the delicate flesh on the inside of her thigh. “Mmm,” said Susan, moving slightly. “Let’s.” Ricardo did not get much sleep on his first night home, but he looked a great deal better as he left for the ball park the following day. Some of the strain at least was gone from his face.

  Susan felt better too. It was ineffably sweet to her to know that Ricardo had refused to use her simply to slake his own need. Even though she had given him permission, he had held back and waited for her. He was such a wonderful man, she thought. If only he could break out of this ghastly slump!

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was Friday night and the Yankees were opening a four-game series with the Red Sox. Boston was four games ahead of them in the pennant race and this series could be crucial. If the Yankees lost, it would be very difficult psychologically as well as statistically for them to ever regain the lead.

  Susan’s heart was heavy as she turned on the set at eight o’clock to watch. At this point she thought she knew what Ricardo’s problem was, but she didn’t know how to help him overcome it.

  He had lost his confidence. It was as simple as that. He had had a few bad days, which everyone—even Ricardo—had to have once in a while, but because they came right after the accident, people had begun to doubt him. And so instead of simply shrugging and riding out the slump, as she was certain he would have done in any other circumstances, he had tried to prove that he was okay and he had tried too hard. The more he tried, the more tense he became. And the more tense he became, the more impossible it was for him to hit. It was a vicious cycle. The answer was to restore his confidence, but Susan didn’t know how to do that. She was the last person he would listen to on the subject of baseball. She had never even watched a game until she had married him.

  There was quiet in the stadium as Ricardo came to the plate for the first time. The usual wild cheering his presence had always provoked was replaced this time by a distinctly uneasy silence. There were no boos, no catcalls as there had been on the road. Nor were there any cries of encouragement; just silence. The Yankee fans all seemed to sense the magnitude of what was happening. Ricardo took two strikes and then swung at a bad pitch and grounded it to the first baseman. There was still that eerie silence in the ball park as he returned to the dugout.

  He struck out the second time he was up and popped out the third. When the Yankees came to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning, the score was tied at two-two. Joe Hutchinson was the first batter and he singled to center. Rex Hensel, the shortstop, sacrificed him to second. The third batter, Buddy Moran, hit a towering fly to left that was caught at the fence by Boston’s Hank Moore. It was two out, the winning run was on second and Ricardo was up. Susan watched him swing his bat and start to move from the on-deck circle toward the plate. Then he paused and looked back at the dugout toward the manager. Frank Henry was coming off the bench and picking a bat out of the rack. Astonishingly, the announcer’s voice came over the P. A. “Batting for Montoya, Frank Henry, number nineteen.”

  A roar went up from the stadium and Susan could hardly see the set through the tears in her eyes and the ache in her throat. This was the final humiliation, being pulled for a pinch hitter in the kind of crisis situation Ricardo had always excelled in. She scarcely heard what the announcers were saying, but the TV camera picked up Ricardo as he sat on the dugout bench. Bert Diaz was beside him, looking upset. Ricardo’s face was unreadable.

  “That’s gone!” the announcer cried loudly, and the camera followed the flight of the ball as it dropped about ten rows back in the right-field stands. The camera then swung to a grinning Frank Henry as he jogged around the bases. His teammates were waiting for him at home plate and the first man to shake his hand was Ricardo.

  “Now, there is class,” the TV announcer said quietly. “Any other athlete I know would have gone down to the locker room. But not Montoya. I hope to God he can lick this slump. The game can’t afford to lose a man of that caliber.”

  * * * *

  It was after one o’clock when Susan heard Ricardo’s car come into the driveway. Ricky had woken up again with his tooth and she was upstairs, rocking his crib, trying to get him back to sleep. Ricardo didn’t come upstairs, and when Ricky finally went off some fifteen minutes later, Susan went quietly downstairs. She was wearing a thin summer nightgown and matching peignoir and her bare feet made scarcely any sound on the carpeting.

  She found Ricardo in the
family room. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his knuckles were pressed hard against his forehead. He was rigid with tension, Susan thought her heart would break. “Ricardo,” she said out of an aching throat. “Darling, I’m so sorry.” She crossed the room to him and he turned in his seat and blindly reached for her. His arms were clamped about her waist, his face pressed against her breasts. “Susan,” he groaned. “Dios, Susan. I am so scared.”

  She held him tightly, her lips buried in his hair. “I know, darling, I know,” she whispered.

  With his face still pressed against her, he began to talk. She had never seen him vulnerable before. She held him close and listened as he poured out his fears, his uncertainties, letting her inside his defenses where no one had ever been before. He held nothing back and in her heart was a strange mixture of pain and aching joy. “Maybe I am afraid of getting hurt,” he groaned at last in anguish. “I don’t know. Dios, Susan, I don’t know anything anymore!”

  She rested her cheek against his smooth dark hair and closed her eyes. She had been right all along, she thought. He was suffering from a catastrophic loss of confidence. Somehow, she had to help him restore it. For the first time he had turned to her and she mustn’t fail him now. She took a deep, steadying breath and said calmly, “I know what the problem is, Ricardo.”

  After a minute his arms loosened and he looked up at her. “You do?” he asked blankly.

  “Yes. I haven’t said anything because—oh because I was afraid you’d think I was silly.”

  “Dios,” he said. “But what is it?”

  She looked him directly in the eyes, her own clear and steady and utterly truthful. “You’re taking your eye off the ball,” she said.

  He sat up straight. “What!”

  “It’s so elementary that I think it needed an amateur like me to pick it up, Ricardo. I thought a while ago that that might be the problem—simply because I know that was always my problem in tennis when I began to go off my game. And I’ve watched you for several weeks now. You’re so hung up with your stance and your feet and your swing that you simply aren’t watching the ball.”