Comforted by that thought, she switched on the television and lost herself in the Saturday night movie.
* * * *
On Sunday afternoon, Jennifer drove to her friend Marilyn’s apartment for dinner. Marilyn lived in a garden apartment complex in Ewing, N.J., which was a suburb of Trenton and just across the Delaware river from Jennifer’s home in Yardley, Pa.
Jennifer and Marilyn had been friends for years, since meeting in college when they were paired off as lab partners in a chemistry course. The relationship got off to a volatile start when Jennifer had ignited the fumes from Marilyn’s beaker of ether. Marilyn had been the maid of honor at Jennifer’s wedding, and Jennifer was the godmother of Marilyn’s son, Jeff.
Marilyn had gone back to teaching when her husband, an insurance agent, had been killed in an automobile accident two years before. He had fallen asleep at the wheel on the way home from a convention and crashed into a utility pole. Jeff was three at the time.
Jennifer and Marilyn had helped each other a great deal during their respective crises, and Jennifer trusted Marilyn’s judgment and opinion more than anyone else’s. So she was glad that she would see her that day—she could use a heavy dose of Marilyn’s common sense and natural optimism.
Jeff hurled himself at her when she came through the door, and she spent the first few minutes of her visit listening with rapt attention to the kindergarten news. When they had exhausted the topics of show and tell and acrobatic arithmetic (which was apparently some game his teacher had invented), he took himself off to watch television and Marilyn called Jennifer into the kitchen.
Jennifer followed the aroma of fresh coffee and paused at the table, where Marilyn was basting the hem of a skirt, her mouth full of pins.
“Help yourself,” Marilyn muttered, and Jennifer poured out two cups, getting the cream from the refrigerator and the sugar from the cupboard shelf. She sat across from her friend, and Marilyn studied her absorbed expression for a while in silence.
“All right, out with it,” Marilyn finally said, after removing the pins from her mouth and sticking them in a cushion. “What trouble is furrowing that noble brow?”
“No trouble.”
“Hmmph. That was said with all the sincerity of Eddie Haskell complimenting Mrs. Cleaver on her wardrobe.”
Jennifer laughed. She and Marilyn shared a passion for old TV shows and identified more with Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz than any of the characters currently populating the tube. While everybody else in the college dorm had slept in on Saturday morning, she and Marilyn had been up to catch the reruns of “I Love Lucy.”
“That’s not an answer,” Marilyn said.
Jennifer stirred her coffee with more vigor than was necessary. “I had lunch with Lee Youngson yesterday,” she said casually.
Marilyn was instantly alert. “That ballplayer? The Indian who just came to the Freedom this year?”
“That’s the one.”
Marilyn nodded slowly. “I saw him on the news when he signed his contract. He looked like Atahualpa come to life, all gleaming teeth and magnificent bone structure. Is he that picturesque in person, too?”
“More so.”
Marilyn’s hand froze in the act of reaching for the sugar bowl. “Oh-oh. I don’t like this. You’ve got that Bob Delaney look on your face again, Jen, and you know what that means.”
“I know what that means,” Jennifer repeated miserably.
“Did anything happen?” Marilyn asked, worried.
“Oh, no, of course not, I just met the man. But he’s going to be around all year, and I have a feeling I’m in for a long siege.”
Marilyn filled a teaspoon with sugar and then sifted some of it back into the bowl before adding the rest to her cup. “Has he asked you out yet?”
“No. I thought that he was on the verge of doing so yesterday, but he seemed to decide against it.”
“Uh-huh. You’re sure you weren’t giving off negative vibrations at the time?”
Jennifer thought back to the scene when Lee had left her, the two of them unable to say anything intelligent, unable to part, either. “No, I would say that the vibes were very positive.”
“Then,” Marilyn supplied. “But what about the rest of the day?”
“Well, I did give him a bit of a hard time at lunch,” Jennifer admitted.
“I’ll bet you did,” Marilyn said. “Can you wonder that the poor guy is confused?”
“The poor guy,’ as you put it, is probably working on the third edition of his little black book right now, and is hardly lamenting his lack of success with me. Judging by the reaction of Dolores and the other women I’ve seen in his presence, they drop like flies at an encouraging word.”
Marilyn nodded sagely. “It seems to me I’ve heard this song before,” she said. “As I recall, you said the same thing about Bob Delaney.”
Jennifer drained the last of her coffee. “You’re right. I can’t fall into that trap again.”
“Take it one step at a time,” Marilyn advised, standing and turning on the oven to preheat it for the roast. “If he’s interested, he’ll let you know.”
“If he’s interested! I don’t know if I’m interested.”
Marilyn favored her with a knowing look. “Ask me. I’ll tell you. It’s written all over your face.”
Jennifer said nothing.
“Be careful, Jen,” Marilyn said seriously. “Don’t set yourself up for another fall.”
“Don’t worry,” Jennifer said. “I won’t.”
She meant it.
* * * *
Jennifer buried herself in her work for the next two weeks, and successfully kept Lee Youngson out of her mind. She was flicking through the channels once on television, stopped short when she saw him being interviewed by a local sportscaster, and then forced herself to switch to another show.
The Friday afternoon before the benefit game, Jennifer drove out to Westminster State College, where the Freedom had its summer camp, with a stack of papers for some of the players to sign. They had to be in the house mail on Monday morning, and the athletes were notoriously unreliable about getting things in on time, so Jennifer decided not to take any chances. She set out for the school right after lunch.
It was a beautiful drive along the Philadelphia main line, and Jennifer enjoyed the scenery and the colonial landmarks along the way. It wasn’t long before she was pulling into one of the parking lots, scanning the practice field unconsciously for a glimpse of Lee. Her car made a curious whining sound as the motor died, and she frowned in momentary concern, but was too preoccupied with the business at hand to give it much thought.
Jennifer walked out to the bleachers and asked one of the assistant coaches how long it would be before the team took a break. He looked at his watch and guessed about ten minutes. She sat on the bottom step and prepared to wait. They were currently on the system of “two a day,” which meant a practice from nine to eleven, a break until one, and then another practice in the afternoon. She would have to stick around until they paused in the middle of the second session. Nothing, short of a bomb falling, was permitted to interrupt the work at hand.
She was the only woman in sight. Usually her appearance occasioned a few wolf whistles and catcalls, but the players were too absorbed in their practice to notice her arrival. She sat quietly and watched the various drills going on, which included her favorite, the “stomp” drill. During this exercise the team members ran in place as fast as possible, drumming their feet on the ground, and never failed to remind her of a crowd of oversized babies having a simultaneous tantrum.
After a few minutes they split up, and Jennifer spotted Lee sprinting to the backfield with the quarterback, Joe Thornridge, a lanky kid two years out of Auburn. Joe was known as “Thunderbolt Thornridge” for the speed and accuracy of his passes. Lee was his favorite target, and as Jennifer watched the two men working out together, it was easy to see why. They moved with the intricate, perfectly timed synchronization of a Swiss watch. Again and again Lee took off down the field, and Joe rolled back, arm cocked behind his head, and fired off a pass that dropped into Lee’s waiting hands as if it were an apple falling off a tree. They made it look so easy, but Jennifer knew it wasn’t. These two would not be collecting the paychecks they were if everybody could do it.