Danny Ray (Ray Trilogy) (20 page)

Soon Lisa returned to their table and asked, “Why did you quit dancing?”

“My leg started hurting and once I over did it dancing and didn’t like the results, so now I dance in moderation,” he explained hoping she wouldn’t take offence.

“Danny, I’m sorry, I didn’t think. You seem so well that I forgot about your leg,” she apologized.

“No, you don’t have to apologize. I do go dancing at home some, I just do it in moderation as I said,” he smiled. “I do best with slow dances.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she reached over and touched
the back of his neck. “How about we go home and make some of our own music?”

“Anytime,” he replied.

After breakfast the next morning she took him to the family’s country club which turned out to look like a sprawling mansion. The golf course spread out covering almost three hundred acres of New York prime property. The person at the front desk greeted Lisa as an elite established member.

“This is my friend, Danny. Would you bring him some gym clothes, please?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the attendant replied.

Within minutes both of them were in the exercise room working out together.
After thirty minutes of exercising they went to the tennis courts where Lisa easily beat Danny.

“Danny, I like to finish my exercise with a few laps in the pool, would you like to do that?” she asked
putting up the tennis rackets.

“Sure, I haven’t swum laps since I left the hospital back in the spring.”

Lisa glanced at him trying to gauge his expression. She hoped she hadn’t brought bad memories to his mind. He seemed okay with swimming so she requested some swim shorts for him.

He hadn’t let Lisa know but playing tennis was taking a toll on his leg, but he
felt right at home in the water. After his dismissal from Ochsner Hospital, he had stayed at the YMCA while he finished his physical therapy. Often he had nothing to do so he spent quite a bit of his idle time in the pool doing laps.

He jumped into the pool and systematically swam from one end of the pool to the other over and over. It was easy to pick up the rhythm one hand over the other, back and forth. After a while he noticed his arms tiring so he pulled up to
the edge of the pool. Lisa sat on the edge of the pool with her feet dangling into the water in the next lane. He slung the water from his eyes to get a better look.

She was watching him with a smile on her face.
“I’m impressed, you swim like an Olympian.”

“I hardly think so,” he returned, proud that she thought so.

“Let’s go sit in the sauna for a while. That’s my favorite way to finish a good swim in the pool.”

She led him into a small enclosure about ten feet by ten feet covered in cedar including the floor and the ceiling. After being in the cool water it only took a few short minutes until he felt sweat pouring from every exposed cell of his body.

When he felt that he couldn’t breathe anymore and the floor was burning the bottom of his feet, she said, “I think we should go shower now. We have some shopping to do.”

She directed him in the way he should go to reach
the men’s shower room. He found it then looked for locker #110 where he had been told his clothes would be. If his clothes were mysteriously stashed in a different locker by mistake, he could visualize himself leaving the country club wearing a pair of swim trunks with a towel wrapped over his shoulders walking to their car in the two feet of New York snow. From what he had seen so far, Lisa could snap her fingers and automatically an attendant would step in front of her with the perfect size of clothing for him to wear with a matching coat to keep him from freezing.

He still stood in front of locker #110 amusing himself with his fantasy of Lisa snapping her fingers in the air
. He had just held up his hand to snap his fingers in front of his face to imitate Lisa when out of the corner of his eye he saw a man enter the locker room at his far right.

Instead of following his fantasy of snapping his fingers, he brought his hand to the handle of #110
locker and gave it a turn. Amazingly his clothes were where he was told they would be.

The man approached him and offered to shake Danny’s hand and said, “Hi. I’m Bill. You’re new around here aren’t you?”

Danny shook his hand and said, “I’m just visiting with a friend. My name is Danny Ray.”

He held back a grin when Bill snapped his finger
s over his head. “Oh, I remember you. Didn’t you play for the Dallas Cowboys for a while? Wait it’s coming back to me now. Yeah, you were injured and carried off the field.”

Danny started to agree when Bill remarked, “You hurt your knee or broke your leg or something. He looked down at Danny’s legs and saw the scar where his leg had been badly injured.”

Danny glanced down where Bill had squatted to study in his leg and noticed that Bill’s toenails were painted a pale pink color of nail polish. He felt a surge of panic when he realized he was exposing his body to this man squatting down in front of him when he was dressed in nothing but a pair of swimming trunks.

He quickly grabbed his clothes out of the locker and went into the
next room for his shower. Thankful that the shower room had individual shower stalls, he slipped in the first one and wondered how he would be able to keep his clothes dry while he showered. Thankful that he was taller than most men he peeked over into the next stall. Nobody was there so he hung his clothes in there until he managed his shower. The legs of his trousers got a bit wet but he felt that it was a small price to pay in order to get dressed in privacy.

It took him ten minutes and several wrong turns to find his way back out into the lobby where he knew that Lisa would be waiting for him. He told her his locker room story when they turned onto the main road leading them back the way they came. She got quite a laugh at his expense, and said, “Danny, you are so adorable.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY TWO

At five in the afternoon they left Lisa’s house headed to one of her favorite restaurants in Manhattan on 10
th
street. The place looked very unpretentious on the outside but had plenty of glitz and glamour on the inside with twenty feet high ceilings. Danny felt like a stuffed penguin in the tuxedo that she rented for him to wear tonight. In fact she rented two of them so he knew he was in for similar treatment tomorrow night.

They followed their host to a very nice table well in view of the DJ on the rotating stage centered in the room. The tables were covered with fine white linen clothes, matching blue napkins and the reserved table had so many forks and spoons, Danny wondered how many courses of food was required to use that many utensils. Of course, he would never ask such a question.

Lisa sat across from him in her dainty feminine way and smiled her beatific smile and it made him happy to be there. She dressed very elegantly in a soft green floor length evening gown. She wore strands of pearls around her arms and neck with dangling pearl earrings. He wondered if her pearls and dress for this occasion cost as much as his dad used to make in a year, but he quickly swept the thought away. Tonight he intended to enjoy being with her.

Later Christopher, their
chauffeur took them to Carnegie Hall to watch the New York Philharmonic orchestra perform. Danny saw on the wall outside that the Carnegie Hall opened May 5, 1891. As he was ushered inside he admired the Italian Renaissance architectural style.

“Absolutely amazing,” he kept uttering as he walked through the lobby. After they had been seated on the first tier balcony, Danny noticed that there were four balconies along with the immense space on the ground floor.
Handsome rich red upholstery covered all the seats. The lighting patterns on the ceiling and balconies fascinated him. He was still absorbed in the carvings on the balustrades when the lights dimmed for the performance to begin.

There were lots of times when Danny had heard the New York Phi
lharmonic orchestra perform on television but never had he heard the pureness of the notes and harmonies that he heard that night. He sat back and relaxed and let the music sweep him away. The acoustics of the Hall did something for the music he had never appreciated before. Had he heard this music when he was a child maybe he would have set his heart on being a musician rather than a football player.

Lisa and Danny held hands during the concert. Lisa watched him pleased that he was enjoying himself so much, happy that she had picked a venue that he appreciated.

When Christopher had delivered them home, Lisa took Danny’s hand again and led him to her room. They slowly undressed each other gazing into each other’s eyes. Their lovemaking turned out to be just as romantic and intense as the music at Carnegie Hall.

They
awoke the morning of New Year’s Eve and had a leisurely breakfast.  Lisa had set aside the day for sightseeing. Again Christopher, the chauffeur was called upon to take them around the city. The first thing on the list was the Statue of Liberty which they rode the ferry over to the island to look out the top of the Statue.

They drove by Times Square and Madison Square Garden, and the Empire State Building. Next Lisa instructed Christopher to take them to Marvel Enterprises.
They stopped at a large stately building of gray stone right on 6
th
Avenue. On the front of the building, large black letters formed the words
‘
MARVEL ENTERPRISES.
’
“Several other businesses and professional offices occupy the first three floors, but Marvel Enterprises uses the other floors,” Lisa explained matter-of-factly.

Before she took him on the tour of her father’s
building, they entered Valipelli’s, the classy Italian restaurant on the ground floor for lunch. Danny noticed again that Lisa received VIP treatment. She immediately was taken to a special secluded table by the maitre’d. Danny looked around at the restaurant which obviously catered mostly to the breakfast and lunch crowd after giving their orders. Each table had a tiffany light dangling over it displaying various colors as the light glowed through the shades.

“This is a neat diner for personnel to come for lunch,” Danny commented more for something to say than anything else.

“Yes, it has been very beneficial for our people to have a convenient location to grab a bite of lunch and return to work.” Lisa agreed. “Also they will deliver if they are asked.”

“Nice,” Danny replied.

All through the meal, Lisa gave a glowing report of the building, the people who worked there, and how well the employees are treated. Finally, they left the restaurant and started on the fourth floor, walking through the hallways and looking through the glass windows of the offices on which the curtains hadn’t been drawn.

Soon they reached her father’s office on the top floor of which she owned a key. She explained so many things to Danny that his head felt like it was spinning with information. He just hoped he made the appropriate comments in return.

Lisa’s face glowed with pride as they left, and she asked, “Well, what do you think of Dad’s business?”

Danny knew she wanted him to be impressed, and he was, so he said noncommittally, “That’s impressive. He must be very successful.”

“That he is,” Lisa smiled, “I hope someday to be just as successful.”

Danny put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, “I don’t doubt for a moment that you will be just as successful as you set your goals to be.”

“Thanks, Danny,” she pulled him down to kiss his cheek. “I believe you have as much potential as any of us. You have always made me proud.”

“Thanks, that is very kind of you to say,” he said reticently. “I have always done my best at obtaining any goal set before me.”

Christopher returned them to the Marvel mansion as Danny had begun calling the three story Tudor home to himself. They sat out in the atrium just off the dining room on white wicker furniture which Danny sat hesitantly hoping it didn’t crumble under his weight. The soft cushions were covered in a yellow and orange floral pattern complimenting the simulated tropical scene. Lush greenery accented the atmosphere as they looked out upon the two feet of snow which had fallen again upon the patio during the night. The cedar trees in the distance were very pretty piled high with the accumulated show with their still green branches peeking out through the glistening white fluff.

Sally, the maid brought them hot tea and snacks to sustain them until the New Year’s Eve party began in a few hours
. Lisa explained that many tables piled bountifully with food awaited them.

At seven,
Mr. Marvel and Danny dressed to the Tee in their tuxedos waited in the living room just off the foyer for Lisa to come down the stairs.

“I heard that you and Lisa went to Marvel Enterprises and toured the building today.” Mr. Marvel commented.

“Yes,” Danny agreed, “we did. You have a very impressive business there, Sir.”

“What did you think of it? Did you like what you saw?” he asked.

Danny laughed, “We certainly have nothing like that in Pryor, that’s for sure.”