Native Affairs (55 page)

Jennifer got the message. Every once in a while Dolores surprised her. It was easy to forget that behind that airhead exterior was a keen observer of the human condition.

“Why aren’t you going after him?” Dolores persisted.

Jennifer sighed. “It’s...complicated, Dolores.”

Dolores looked skeptical. “It must be. But I’ll tell you one thing, if he were as interested in me as he seems to be in you, I wouldn’t be spending my days in a trance.”

That was undoubtedly true. Dolores was never one to let any grass grow under her feet where men were concerned.

“I believe you. Now can we get to these letters?”

Dolores whipped out her steno pad and waved it under Jennifer’s nose, muttering under her breath, and then sat with her pen poised above the paper, waiting.

Jennifer set to work.

* * * *

Jennifer persuaded Marilyn to go to a Freedom game with her the following weekend. At first Marilyn hesitated, thinking that it would be rubbing salt in Jennifer’s wounds to see Lee play. But Jennifer’s insistence became pathetic. It was obvious that Jennifer needed to see Lee, even if it was from a distance, and Marilyn eventually gave in to her.

Jennifer used her connections to get seats on the fifty yard line, reserved for a season ticket holder who would be out of town for the weekend. They were right behind the Freedom’s bench and had a clear view of the players.

Marilyn’s knowledge of football was even more limited than Jennifer’s, which meant that it was meager indeed. She spent the entire game jabbing Jennifer in the ribs, asking “What’s going on?” and “Why are they doing that?” Jennifer usually didn’t know the answer, and so a lot of what happened down below sailed right over their heads. But they made up in enthusiastic response what they lacked in understanding.

Lee was called out of the game for a rest during the second quarter. He took off his helmet and sat hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the game. Jennifer could see that his hair was plastered to his skull with perspiration. An assistant coach came by and handed him a towel, and Lee rubbed his head briskly with it, then left it draped around his neck. He went back to watching the action on the field, nodding as another player bent to say something to him in passing.

The Freedom was ahead 21-7 at the break. Jennifer and Marilyn went to get soft drinks during the half time show.

“Has it helped to see him?” Marilyn asked as they sipped soda and watched the crowd milling around them.

“I don’t know,” Jennifer answered. “I do know that I feel like a voyeur, watching him this way.”

Marilyn made a face. “If you’re a voyeur, so are the fifty thousand other people in the stands with us.”

Jennifer crumpled her waxy cup and tossed it in a receptacle. “You know what I mean.”

Marilyn acknowledged that she did.

The game had resumed by the time they got back to their seats. They arrived just in time to see Lee make a spectacular run as the crowd leaped, screaming, to its feet. Marilyn was riveted, motionless, as she watched Lee outwit and outmaneuver his way downfield.

“He’s poetry in motion, isn’t he?” she said to Jennifer, raising her voice to make herself heard over the surrounding noise.

“Yes, he is.”

She continued to watch as Lee was finally brought to the ground. It took three opposing players to do it.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Marilyn commented as the teams reassembled and the onlookers took their seats again, quieting down for the next play.

Jennifer had to laugh. “Of course, you haven’t. You’ve never seen a football game.”

But Marilyn wasn’t listening, as caught up as the rest of the fans in anticipation of another dazzling display.

Jennifer smiled to herself. Another convert.

The Freedom won, 28-14.

* * * *

The two women went to Bookbinder’s for dinner. They were lucky to get in without a reservation, but they ate early, right after the game, before the evening rush.

Marilyn had baked scrod and Jennifer had oyster stew. Marilyn watched Jennifer crumbing crackers into her untouched soup and said, “Why don’t you call him?”

Jennifer closed her eyes. That suggestion ranked right up there with the offer of a cruise on the Titanic.

“All right, all right, don’t call him. Let’s take a walk to the Newmarket instead, look around at the shops. That’ll take your mind off him.”

Jennifer doubted it, but as an idea it was an improvement over the first one. Marilyn ate as Jennifer toyed with her food awhile longer, and then they walked out into the early autumn dusk.

Society Hill was busy on this Saturday night, with couples strolling hand in hand, and families out for a little exercise. A brisk breeze blew in from the nearby Delaware, making it seem cooler than it actually was. Jennifer and Marilyn cruised the stores, and Jennifer charged a lace shawl she couldn’t afford in an effort to lift her spirits. They would plunge again when she got the bill.

They left the shopping area and walked through the restored section fronting the river, which was paved with brick and sported colonial streetlamps and reproduced period facades on the houses. One block from the water was a new condominium complex, a high-rise, where the apartments cost a fortune. Harold Salamone lived there, along with several of the city’s top businessmen.

“How about going to Scruples with me tonight?” Marilyn said brightly as they crossed the street to stand looking out across the bay. “Jeff is staying with my mother and I have the evening free.”

“Marilyn, it is not necessary to supervise me.”

“Who’s supervising?” Marilyn said innocently. “You know that guy I met, Jim, the Ph.D. student at Villanova?”

“Mmm-hmm. Clinical psychology, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. He works nights as a bartender at Scruples.”

Jennifer chuckled. “Ah-hah. And here I thought you were unselfishly devoting every thought to my welfare.”

“I am, I am. Trying to kill two birds with one stone, that’s all.”

“I see. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m bushed. I’m going to take a relaxing bath and go to bed early.”

Marilyn turned and faced her, outraged. “You mean you’d make me go alone? You won’t even come along to offer moral support? Some friend.”

“Marilyn, that’s emotional blackmail.”

Marilyn grinned triumphantly. “Let’s go home and change.”

* * * *

Jennifer’s enthusiasm for the project began to pick up while she was getting ready to go. She had a new dress she’d never worn, a soft silk sheath in a frosty ice blue. She put it on and donned her new shawl.

Marilyn came for Jennifer in her vintage Pinto, and they were on their way back to Philly. This is how I spend my life, Jennifer thought, shuttling back and forth to the City of Brotherly Love.

Scruples was in the middle of the block at Second and South. As they passed under the awning at the entrance, it began to rain. It had been raining on and off for days, stopping just long enough to allow the Freedom to play the game that afternoon, and it looked as though it would be a wet night.

Scruples was jammed. The music blared and the strobe lights flashed, assaulting Jennifer’s ears and eyes and almost prompting an about-face for the door. Marilyn seized her arm and propelled her along to the bar, where her friend was serving drinks. They waited in a crowd three deep to get to him.

Jennifer looked around, trying to spot an empty table. She brushed off several approaches, including one by a character who told her that he was a government agent involved in “very important work.” Jennifer sent him back to Washington.

Marilyn went off on her own, pushing through the mass of humanity. Jennifer craned her neck and saw that Marilyn had reached her quarry by wedging between two people who appeared to be having an argument. Jim looked up and greeted Marilyn with a welcoming smile. Jennifer silently wished them a wedding in June and shoved her way to a table just vacated by a couple who vanished into the crush.

She was no sooner seated than she was joined by a man so drunk she couldn’t believe he was standing on his feet He was tipping his drink, obviously the latest in a long line, to one side, and with every movement it sloshed onto his hand. He didn’t seem to notice.

Jennifer had difficulty understanding what he was saying, not that she wanted to in any case. The music and his intoxication combined to make him almost incomprehensible. She picked up that his name was George, and his intentions became clear when he got her arm in a viselike grip and wouldn’t let go.

Jennifer scanned the crowd desperately. If Marilyn didn’t return soon and rescue her from this creep she was going to scream.

As if in answer to her prayer, Marilyn emerged from the crowd, beaming. Her broad smile vanished when she saw Jennifer’s companion. She took in the situation at a glance, her face a mask of concern, and then froze, staring over Jennifer’s shoulder.

“Lee is here,” she said between her teeth, trying not to let George hear what she was saying.

Jennifer attempted, without success, to disentangle herself from her unwelcome admirer. “What do you mean?” she answered, preoccupied. “Lee can’t be here.”

“Well, if he isn’t, his clone just came through the door.”

Jennifer followed the direction of Marilyn’s gaze and her heart sank. Lee was making his way through the throng, accompanied by Joe Thornridge and Carl Danbury and two other players. The boys were in high good humor, out for a night on the town.

The two women stared at one another, mutually horrified.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jennifer hissed.

She got no argument from Marilyn, who added, “We’ll slip past him; with so many people here, he’ll never see you.”

This plan might have worked, except for the intervention of George, who divined their intentions and started creating a ruckus, still hanging onto Jennifer for dear life.

Jennifer mentally summoned a bouncer, who of course didn’t come. She concentrated on trying to shut George up and get away from him at the same time. He was amazingly strong for somebody who was almost unconscious.

“Whassa matter?” Romeo said querulously, breathing Scotch fumes in her face. “Whereya goin’?” He never relaxed his hold on her.

“Marilyn, get somebody,” Jennifer pleaded.

Marilyn, torn between leaving Jennifer with George and summoning help, stood uncertainly, unable to act George crashed into a chair and overturned it, dragging Jennifer in his wake. They were attracting attention, which was the last thing Jennifer wanted. Jennifer made a last superhuman effort to break free, and succeeded only in upsetting two glasses sitting on the table. They hit the floor with a splintering of glass. She closed her eyes, and opened them to see Lee.

He was wearing a fitted body shirt in very pale lavender, almost cream, and tight black jeans. He wore a glittering gold ornament which showed at his throat, at the opening of his shirt. He looked drawn, thinner, as if he hadn’t been eating or sleeping well, but it became him, as everything seemed to, making his strong cheekbones and the planes of his face more prominent.

Marilyn saw him at the same time and turned a stricken face to Jennifer.

“Hi, Jen,” Lee said in a dangerously calm voice. “This guy bothering you?”

“No, no,” Jennifer lied rapidly, as if George weren’t fixed to her arm at that very moment, like an appendage. “Actually, we were just leaving and…”

At this point, the drunk stuck his jaw out pugnaciously to interrupt. “Who’re you,” he asked blearily. “Her father?”

“I don’t think the lady wants your company, friend,” Lee said. “You’d better let go of her.”

Oh, God. Lee’s face was acquiring the same expression she’d seen at the Heart Fund picnic, and that was not good news.

“It really doesn’t matter,” Jennifer babbled, trying to get between the two men. Lee stretched out one long arm and detached her from amorous George, then swept her aside like a baccarat dealer clearing the table.

“Says who?” sneered Romeo, who had obviously seen too many John Wayne movies, and was also plastered enough to disregard Lee’s superior size and physical condition. He lunged wildly for Lee, who countered with a well-placed uppercut, and the fight began.

The rest of the patrons cleared a space for them, cheering them on. Several of the more enthusiastic onlookers jumped on chairs, chanting, “Fight, fight, fight” Jennifer fervently wished she could flip open a communicator and tell Spock to beam her up to the Enterprise. How wonderful to be able to vanish in a cloud of crystalline particles.

Marilyn’s friend Jim, who appeared to be a bit slow on the uptake, slipped away from the group, and she knew he was phoning the police.

Lee, meanwhile, was having a great time. He was too much of a sportsman to take advantage of his opponent’s debilitated condition, but his Marquees of Queensberry conscience did not prevent him from dancing around and jabbing at George, who swung erratically in all directions, never even coming close to his target Jennifer saw Joe and Carl at ringside, grinning hugely, enjoying the show. She wanted to box their ears.

It wasn’t long before two uniforms pushed their way through the crowd. Joe spotted them and darted forward, trying to pull Lee out of action before they reached the combatants, but to no avail. Lee shrugged his friend off like a pesky fly.