“Sure, I remember it Grace Kelly won an Oscar.”
“Well, the husband knows his wife and the director are in love, but they’re trying to hide it. And at one point he says to them, The only thing more obvious than two people looking longingly at one another is two people trying not to.’” Dolores looked meaningfully at Jennifer. “I was watching the two of you at the Stratford, and for some reason, that line just came to mind.”
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.