Beloved Stranger

by Joan Wolf

  He stared at her, a look of dawning wonder on his face. “Can it be?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll bet you a million dollars that if you go up to the plate tomorrow, stand any way you like and simply watch that ball, you’ll hit it.”

  “I’m not watching the ball,” he repeated slowly. “You know, you may be right.”

  “I know I’m right. It’s what’s thrown your timing off. You had a little slump in Boston, which was perfectly natural since you hadn’t played for a while, but then you started fiddling around with your natural stance. And you got so hung up on fiddling that you began to take your eye off the ball. So of course the slump went from bad to worse.”

  He sat back in the chair and stared over her head, obviously thinking hard, “I think you’re right,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “I think that’s exactly what happened.”

  “It is,” she said positively.

  His large brown eyes focused once again on her face. “You should have told me sooner,” he said.

  “I would have, but I didn’t think you’d listen,” she said hesitantly. “After all, what do I know about baseball?”

  “You know something more important in this case,” he said. “You know me.” He shook his head and laughed. “Taking my eye off the ball. I can’t believe it.”

  Susan hadn’t seen that smile in weeks and her stomach clenched now at the sight of it. Dear God, she thought, he had actually believed her. She was still standing in front of him and now he reached up and pulled her down onto his lap. She put her arms around his neck and nestled to him. His body felt warm and relaxed against hers. “I’m a genius,” she murmured. “It’s time you appreciated that.”

  “I have appreciated you for quite some time now, querida,” he said softly into her hair.

  Susan closed her eyes. Please God, she prayed, let this work. She had no idea if Ricardo were watching the ball or not. She simply thought he needed to feel he would get a hit and then whatever it was that was wrong would correct itself. If this didn’t work, he’d never listen to her again. She couldn’t bear that, not now when for the first time she was beginning to think that perhaps he did love her after all. He had trusted her tonight. He had let her in. It simply had to work.

  They stayed like that, peacefully, for a very long time. There was no need to talk, no need to make love even; it was enough that they were quiet and together. Later, upstairs in their bedroom, Ricardo did make love to her with a heartstopping tenderness and passion that drew from her a seemingly bottomless generosity of surrender and of love. She could give to him forever, she felt. There was no one else like him in the world. He fell asleep peacefully in her arms and it was Susan who spent a sleepless night, praying as she had never prayed before, for Ricardo and for their marriage. So much depended upon what happened that afternoon.

  * * * *

  Ricardo left for the stadium early to take batting practice. It was Saturday and the Yankees were playing an afternoon game. Susan put Ricky in for his afternoon nap and switched the TV on at two o’clock to watch. She felt sick with apprehension.

  Ricardo was the first man to come to bat in the bottom of the second inning. The Red Sox had Paul Beaulieu, their premier pitcher, on the mound and he had retired the first three Yankees on strikes.

  The announcer spoke as Ricardo came up to the plate. “I understand Murphy wasn’t going to play Montoya today—he thought perhaps what Rick needed was a break from the pressure. But Rick asked him for one last game.” Susan dug her fingernails into her palms. They had been going to bench Ricardo.

  The first pitch was a strike. “That was a fastball on the outside corner,” the announcer said. “Beaulieu has very good stuff today,”

  There was silence in the ball park as Beaulieu went into his windup. He delivered the pitch and Ricardo swung.

  Crack!

  Susan knew the sound and watched almost in disbelief as the ball arched into the upper stands. The stadium rose to its feet, screaming hysterically. The Yankee dugout emptied and the whole team was lined up at home plate waiting for Ricardo. “You’d think Montoya’d just won the World Series!” shouted the announcer over the din.

  Ricardo’s face was serious as he shook the hands of his teammates. It wasn’t until Joe Hutchinson slapped him on the back and said something that a smile dawned. At the sight of that familiar grin the noise, impossibly, became even greater. “I think we’ve got the old Rick back,” one announcer said.

  “I hope to God you’re right,” the other responded fervently.

  By the time the game was over it appeared the first announcer had been right. Ricardo went three for four and doubled in the winning run in the bottom of the eighth. The slump was over.

  Marv Patterson, one of the Yankee announcers, always had an after-game show when the Yankees played at home and he announced excitedly in the ninth inning that Ricardo was to be his guest. Ricky was crying for his dinner by now and Susan ran out into the kitchen for his high chair, plunked it down in front of the TV and fed him as she watched.

  Patterson’s introduction was so laudatory it was almost embarrassing and Ricardo’s face, as he listened, held the look of faint amusement that was so familiar to Susan that it made her heart turn over. He hadn’t looked like that in months. Finally Patterson wound up his panegyric and turned to his guest. “What happened today, Rick?” he asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone break out of a slump more dramatically.”

  Ricardo grinned. “You’ve probably never seen a more dramatic slump, either.”

  The announcer laughed. “You’re right. It was— awesome.”

  “It was catastrophic,” Ricardo replied cheerfully.

  “But what happened to cause you to break out of it?”

  “My wife solved the problem,” Ricardo said. “Last night she told me I wasn’t watching the ball.”

  Marv Patterson stared. “Not watching the ball?” he repeated.

  “Yes. It was as simple as that.”

  “And your wife picked it up?”

  “That’s right.” Ricardo looked very serious now. “She’s an amazingly observant person, my wife. It comes from being a writer, I guess.”

  “Is she a writer?” Marv Patterson asked interestedly.

  “Yes. Her first novel will be published this spring. It’s called The Flight and her editor said it was one of the finest first novels he’s ever read.” Susan stared at her husband in utter astonishment. He was actually bragging about her book!

  Marv Patterson was talking to Ricardo now about the pennant race and Susan spooned fruit and vegetables into her son’s eager mouth and continued to stare at Ricardo’s face on the screen. Never, as long as she lived, would she be able to figure him out.

  * * * *

  She was in the kitchen when he came home, and when she heard the door slam she ran out into the hall and flung herself into his arms. “You did it!” she cried joyfully. “I knew you could!”

  He swung her off her feet and held her tight. “It was that, more than anything else, that saw me through.” He kissed her quick and hard. “The luckiest day of my life was the day a snowstorm blew you to my door,” he said, and set her back on her feet.

  She laughed unsteadily. “Mine too.” She looked up into his face and intoned portentously: “I got the ‘man who, more than anyone in our time, has assumed the stature of a hero, an athlete of almost mythic proportions.’ ”

  “Cut it out,” he said good-naturedly. “So you watched the postgame show?”

  “Of course I did.” A terrible din came from the kitchen and Ricardo looked around in alarm. “Ricky’s playing in the pot closet,” Susan explained, and led the way into the kitchen. Their son was sitting amid a collection of pots and pans and he was banging blissfully. “He’s just discovered it,” Susan said with a laugh. “It beats all his other toys by a mile in his book.”

  They didn’t get a chance to talk quietly until after dinner and after Ricky’s bedtime. Then they went together
into the family room and sat on the sofa, Susan in the corner and Ricardo stretched out with his head on her lap. He dosed his eyes. “Hmm,” he said. “This is nice.”

  Susan’s fingers gently touched his hair. “Mother called today,” she murmured after a while. “She invited us to a benefit dance for the hospital. I said I didn’t think so but that I’d get back to her. She was annoyed. She said we’re worse than hermits, that we never go anywhere.”

  His eyes stayed closed. He was clearly enjoying the touch of her hand. “We can go if you want to,” he said.

  Susan sighed. “I suppose we should. It isn’t just the slump that’s kept us home. We didn’t go anywhere before it happened—as Mother pointed out to me.”

  He opened his eyes. “Querida, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that I was turning you into a hermit. Your mother’s right. I should take you out more.”

  Susan smoothed his thick straight hair back from his forehead. “I’ve never been a social butterfly,” she said. “I think it’s you Mother is concerned for. You used to go to a lot of parties, or so she informed me.”

  “I went to parties—and not a lot of them—because I had no one I wanted to stay at home with,” he said softly. He reached up for her hand and drew it down to his mouth. “I don’t like to go out now because I have to be away so much that when I’m home I don’t want to have to share you.”

  “Oh darling,” she whispered. “That’s lovely. I’m glad you feel like that.” He held her hand against his cheek and she said, cautiously, “Do you know, you sounded almost proud of my book today? You pushed it shamelessly.”

  He grinned. “I thought I did a very good sales pitch. I got in the title, and when it’s coming out.” He arched his head back a little so he could see her. “And I am proud of it. I’m proud of you.”

  She looked into his face out of wide, wondering gray eyes. “I always had the impression you didn’t like me to write,” she said simply.

  He relaxed his head once more into her lap. “Yes, well, it had nothing to do with your writing, really,” he said a little gruffly.

  “But what was it, Ricardo?” she asked curiously.

  “It was when you wrote you always seemed so far away from me,” he explained awkwardly. “I don’t mean physically, but . . .”

  His voice trailed off and Susan said, very gently, “Yes, I see.”

  He laughed a little self-consciously. “I used to think of a poem I studied once in a Lit course in college. It was about a knight who falls in love with an elfin queen and awakens to find himself alone in a cold, empty world.”

  It took Susan a minute but then she said, “Keats. ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci.’ “ She quoted softly:

  And I awoke, and found me here

  On the cold hill side

  And this is why I sojourn here

  Alone and palely loitering,

  Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

  And no birds sing.

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s the one.” He held her hand tighter. “I know I’m not the kind of man you admire, the kind of man you thought you would marry. I’m not literary or intellectual. But I love you. I can’t imagine what life would be without you.” He added, a little shakily, “I’d be ‘poor Ricardo,’ I’m afraid.”

  “Not the sort of man I admire,” she repeated incredulously. “Ricardo, I’ve never admired anyone more in my life than I’ve admired you these last months. Can you possibly understand how proud I’ve been to be your wife, to know that you are the father of my son? But I had no idea how you felt about me. I thought you were just making the best of a difficult situation.”

  He sat up and swung his legs to the floor. “Are you serious?” he asked in amazement.

  “Well. . .” She bit her lip. “Yes.” As he continued to stare at her she added defensively, “After all, we hardly knew each other when we married.”

  “That’s true, I suppose.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s hard to remember the time I didn’t know you. For so long now I’ve felt closer to you than to anyone in the world. I never thought I could feel like this about anyone. I never used to feel lonely, but now, if I ever lost you. . . .”

  His voice stopped and he looked at her. “Oh darling,” Susan whispered, and reached up with gentle fingers to smooth the lines from his forehead. “You won’t ever lose me. I plan to stick like glue. And even if sometimes my mind is a million miles away, my heart is always, always yours.”

  “Do you mean that?” he asked gravely.

  She reached up and laid her lips gently on his. “I admire you, I love you, I worship you, I adore you,” she murmured against his mouth. “What else can I say to convince you?”

  “Well.” His arms came up to hold her. “You could try showing me.”

  “I’d love to,” she whispered back.

  “How about right here?” His eyes sparkled at her with laughter.

  She knew he expected her to protest, to insist they go upstairs to the bedroom. “Why not?” she said sweetly, and, sliding her arms around his neck, she pressed the whole length of her body against his.

  His reaction was instantaneous and she found herself lying back on the sofa with Ricardo above her. “Kiss me,” she whispered. He did and it was long and slow and quite astonishingly erotic. “Do you remember that first time?” she murmured when he moved his mouth down the slender, delicate lines of her throat.

  “Mmm,” he said huskily. “I’ll never forget it.”

  “I think I knew then what could be between us,” she went softly on. “I can remember thinking, I must be crazy, I don’t even know this man. But you bewitched me. You always will.”

  There came the cry of a baby from upstairs and Susan stiffened to listen. “Let him cry for a little,” Ricardo said. “At this particular moment, I need you more.”

  “Ricardo,” she said, and let him press her back into the sofa cushions. Her hands went up to hold him close. She had never been happier in her entire life. Ricardo was right; Ricky would simply have to wait.

  Copyright © 1984 by Joan Wolf

  Originally published by New American Library/Rapture Romance (ISBN 0451128109)

  Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.