‘You handled the press-simulation session this afternoon like a pro,’ said Dryden.
‘I have to be tuned in first,’ she said. ‘Maybe Sammy will help me.’
‘Sammy?’
‘Doc Lee. My shrink. Listen, I like talking to you. I’m due for a massage now. Sit in and talk some more.’ She opened the door Ingrid had come through. ‘This doubles for massage and facials.’ She led him into a narrower room with the same pinewood finish. Ingrid was standing beside a massage table in the center, pouring Huile Clarins from a large bottle into her cupped hand. ‘Mr. Dryden is going to talk to me as you do the rubbing, Ingrid,’ Goldine told her firmly. To Dryden, she added, ‘She’s a fantastic masseuse. We have all kinds of tone-up gear in the cupboard, but Ingrid’s hands beat them all.’ She unwrapped the towel and lay face down on the table, which was spread with a yellow blanket.
Dryden propped himself against the wall — there was no chair — and for the first time learned the practical difficulties of conversation with a naked girl under massage. On Goldine’s side, everything was communicated in bursts of telegraphese between Ingrid’s kneadings. When he understood enough to respond, he usually found that Goldine’s head was turned the other way as he began to speak. Ingrid did it from malice, he was certain. The panties incident had done him no good at all.
But there was one moment to savor early on, when Ingrid was applying the oil. At Goldine’s right buttock she slowed, staring at a pinker area of pigmentation — the imprint Goldine had made when she slapped herself. The outline of a hand was clearly defined. Ingrid glared malevolently at Dryden, sniffed with indignation, and polished the flesh with the righteous vigor of a maid clearing up after a party.
Dryden tried a different tack. Up to now she had said nothing he could interpret as uncommitted. ‘You’ve got a strong backup — Lee, Klugman and your father.’
‘My father by adoption,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s Doc to me.’
‘You wouldn’t recollect much about your mother, being so young at the time of the accident.’
‘That’s personal,’ she warned. ‘Keep off.’ As Ingrid paused in the rubbing, she added. ‘Doc provided all this. The least I can do is measure up to it.’
‘He told me the least he can do is provide facilities worthy of your ability. Sounds to me like a good arrangement.’ He let that sink in, confirming his tolerance of the project. ‘I just have the feeling it’s a shade unnatural for a pretty girl like yourself up here in the mountains with a dozen men in attendance.’
She laughed. ‘Unnatural! I’d say it was unnatural if they were girls. I’m not complaining.’
She had used repartee like this to coast through the conference session. He didn’t want the discussion back in that groove.
‘You have Miss Fryer, of course. I saw the letter F on the schedule against Facial.’
‘Yeah. Estée Lauder wasn’t available.’
‘Melody seems to do okay,’ he persisted. ‘She does your hair as well, doesn’t she? It should be great for the newsmen to feature. I see it’s natural.’
‘You do? Oh, I follow you.’ She rested her hand between her legs like a Botticelli Venus. ‘You’re being personal again,’ she warned in a singsong tone that showed she hadn’t taken offense.
‘It was Melody who insisted I come,’ Dryden went on. ‘I was planning a quiet weekend on a tennis ranch. She’s too persuasive.’
‘Too small,’ said Goldine. ‘We don’t rate small broads, do we, Ingrid?’ She turned on her stomach with a force that set her flesh quivering. It was a rebuke for mentioning Melody. Between those two was a wall as high as the camp fence.
‘How do you rate Klugman?’ Dryden asked. ‘He looks to me like the masterful type.’
‘He has his job to do, same as the others,’ answered Goldine coolly. ‘He coached the Olympic squad a few years back.’
It was difficult to tell whether this was the first hint of disaffection with one of the team. She could still be sulking over the reference to Melody. ‘They’re in an odd situation, coaches,’ Dryden chanced. ‘Most of them seem to be former athletes who never quite made it. They transfer their ambitions to the next generation, as surrogates, you might say.’
‘And so?’
‘They drive them even harder than they drove themselves, because if they don’t succeed, it leaves the coach unfulfilled, impotent.’
‘You’d better try that theory on Sammy. You’re talking like a shrink.’
He was determined to milk this one dry. ‘On a quick impression, Klugman strikes me as too intense for his own good.’
‘We employ him for my good,’ Goldine retorted. ‘If he has hangups of his own, so what? Turn me over, Ingrid. It’s time you oiled my front.’
Ingrid reversed her like turning the page of a book and lifted her lightly back to the center of the table. She lay relaxed, her eyes closed. Where she had pressed on her breasts and thighs, the white areas became pinker as the circulation of blood was normalised. Dryden confined his attention to the so far unfruitful progress of the interview. ‘Can I ask you about tomorrow — your plans for the meet at San Diego — or is that confidential?’
‘No secret. I have to reach the Olympic qualifying standard in three events. There are five races in the afternoon — that’s heat and final in the two short sprints, and just one run in the four hundred. In club meets you don’t get many girls going for a full lap.’
‘The four hundred is the tough one. I recall you told us that in the press-conference session.’
He shouldn’t have mentioned it. He triggered another of her stock responses.
‘It’s a popular fallacy that most girls like to go the whole way.’
He pulled a face. ‘Okay, I bought that. So you’re not merely aiming to win tomorrow. You need good times.’
‘Uhuh. The plan is to make Olympic qualifying times and take off some of the pressure for the official trials next month in Eugene, Oregon. You’re from England, aren’t you? I don’t know how much you know about track, but we have a beautiful selection procedure here in the States. The first three girls in each event in Eugene get nominated automatically for the U.S. team, no matter what. If the world-record holder gets edged to fourth on electronic timing, she’s out, man, no argument. That suits me fine — I mean, where else could you make the Olympics after just two meets? But there’s one catch, and that’s to do with the Olympic rules. Each nation can send one competitor for each event, no matter how good she is, but if they want to send more, there’s this Olympic qualifying time they have to reach. It’s unlikely, but suppose there was a gale blowing in the trial at Eugene, and we all clocked slow times — or, if you like, windblown fast times, which don’t count. I’d look pretty damned silly if I came second in one of my events and didn’t qualify timewise.’ She put up her thumb to Ingrid, who planted a palmful of Huile Clarins between her breasts and spread it assiduously over her neck and shoulders.
‘So after tomorrow the secret’s out,’ said Dryden. ‘You’ll be tagged an Olympic hope. Will you know what to say to the press in San Diego?’
‘There won’t be many there,’ she commented. ‘Most of them will be in L.A. There’s a big invitational at the Coliseum — for men. The press will make for that. One fast girl in San Diego isn’t news.’
It was another of her payoffs. From the smile and small shudder of pleasure as she delivered it, Dr. Lee’s conditioning worked a treat.
‘But your times will go into the ranking lists. Three qualifying times in one afternoon by an unknown girclass="underline" there’ll be a stampede to get your story.’
‘I don’t mind speaking to any pressmen I meet in San Diego tomorrow, but after that I go on ice again till Eugene,’ she told him.