She propped her elbows on the checked tablecloth, cupped her chin in her hand... and listened, serious, bothered about something.
“But that fiesta stuff is just to whoop up roadside sales. The other side of cherry ranching is getting up at three o’clock in the morning to spray the trees before the sun warms the leaves too much.
“Pruning branches in the fall until your arms are ready to drop off... picking in the spring until you wish they had dropped off. Digging irrigating ditches.
“Fighting beetles and bugs. Culling and packing until cherry juice gets sticky in your hair and runs out of your ears and your blind tired... and then seeing your crop go to the association for just enough to cover your loan at the bank.”
“You’ve done all that, Bill.” She didn’t make it a question.
“Damn right. I’ve done it. And my father did it until it finished him. And I’ve seen my mother do it until it wore her out... and I’m damned if I ever want to do it again. It’s all right for the boys with the big orchards and the mechanized equipment and lots of reserve to meet a bad dry spell or whatever. But me... I’m sick of being poor folks. Sick of big, beautiful, luscious Bing cherries. I aim to get my hands on a chunk of important money somehow... in a hurry.”
“But still,” she persisted, “you don’t know what you want to do?”
He reached across the table, took her hand. “Yeah, boy. I sure do. I know what I want to do right now. But I can’t kiss you in here. Let’s go for a buzz in your buggy, huh?”
She smiled and nodded and the shining radiance was there in the lustrous eyes again.
But the little worried pucker remained on her forehead... and it took him a while, after the convertible had been parked on Malibu Drive, to erase it.
V
Bill slouched on the back of his spine, arm over the back of the folding chair. He was bored stiff. This was the third of these Monday afternoon skull sessions in the gym; he was fed up to here with Snub Garret’s weekly de-pep talks.
The head coach was going into his act now, standing between the portable picture-screen and the blackboard with the orange chalk lettering: You Can’t Beat Washington With Press Clippings!
“So now you’ve all spent the weekend reading how good you are, we can come down to earth and face it. We won a game last Saturday that we might have lost a dozen times if the Trojans had taken advantage of our weaknesses. Next Saturday it’ll be different.” Snub got a hand signal from ‘Jersey’ Joslin, his keg-chested, bull-necked line coach, standing at the table behind the rows of chairs; the first reel was ready on the projector.
“Those Huskies are going to be hep to our weaknesses. Get that right. They’ve been scouting us. They’ll have studied the prints of this same film we’re going to look at now. They’ll be tougher to whip than a pan of skim milk.
“Now, we’ve an attack to polish up; defense formations to patch up. We can’t afford time to fidoodle around with men who muff fundamentals. So we’re going to freeze the film here when we spot something that has to be corrected. After that, it’ll be up to each man to drill himself on sloppy blocking or lousy timing or whatever it is he’s been doing wrong. Spin her, Jersey.”
Joslin switched off the overheads, cut in the projector.
A figure raced across the screen, the lens following its swift movement with a sweeping pan shot.
Bill recognized O’Doul, streaking down-field with that opening kickoff.
The camera picked up a Stallion tackle making a half-hearted block.
“Hardin,” the head coach commented acidly, “blocks as if he’s shoving a baby buggy. If you want to practice that, Sam, do it on your own time.”
The squad sniggered.
Bill pulled up one corner of his mouth, scornfully. These caustic comments were a lot of mahaha, anyhow, a chance for the coach to demonstrate his superior football savvy, prove he was worth the big salary voted him by the Athletic Council.
But there wouldn’t be much opportunity for Snub to exercise his talent for sarcasm at Bill’s expense on the basis of what he’d done in those last two periods, that was a cinch!
And it was just as well, considering the black mood Bill was in. He was in no frame of mind to take any verbal dressing-down, not after those aggravating phone calls yesterday and today.
Not that Lou Ann had told him off, exactly. She just hadn’t told him anything, when he’d asked her for the usual Sunday date. But for the first time since he’d met her, she hadn’t agreed to spend the afternoon with him.
She hadn’t explained why she wouldn’t; hadn’t in point of fact, explained anything.
He’d tried again today, calling her at the store right after she’d come back from lunch. No, she couldn’t see him tonight. She was terribly sorry... and quite uncommunicative about what she did intend to do, tonight.
Would she see him later in the week? Oh, she supposed maybe. She hoped so. But it was difficult to make plans ahead...
He’d kept his temper, at any rate. All he’d said was that it was okay with him, if that was the way she wanted it... but he did tell her it seemed like sort of a crummy trick to put the chill on him that way without giving some reason.
Lou Ann had answered there wasn’t any reason, because there wasn’t any chill. She just had something else to do. After all, she was a working gal, with her own career to think about, he’d have to realize that.
The film whirred on. The head coach’s rapier thrusts pierced at Bill’s consciousness hardly at all until he heard Snub saying:
“Any pass attack depends on deception. If you tip your opponents off to the eventual receiver, it cuts your chances of completion down by about seventy-five percent.
“Now Cady must be rehearsing to be an emcee on one of these giveaway programs, because he gives himself away three times on this next play.”
Ah! cut that bull! Bill retorted silently. You don’t have to work on me, to keep me from getting the fat head. I’m not getting overconfident just because we shot the moon and got away with it!
“First tipoff,” Snub touched his pointer to the screen where Bill was crouching at right flank, “he cleans his cleats off, to make sure they aren’t clogged with grass, every time his signal’s been called.”
All right, a-l-l- right! Bill glowered in the semi-darkness. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t slip. If that told the Trojans anything, still they didn’t stop me, did they?
“Second,” Snub went on, “he rubs his right hand on the leg of his pants, to wipe off the sweat. But Cady doesn’t do it on every play, only when he knows the ball’s going to come downfield to him.
“Third, he looks around to spot blockers coming through to clean up the secondary. If Washington gets wise to that habit of yours, Cady, we’re liable to have a flock of interceptions Saturday.”
“What you want me to do?” Bill blurted, “go down with my eyes shut?!” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, — it came without any premeditation whatever, and in the ten seconds of stony silence which followed, he swore savagely at himself for popping off like that.
“No,” came Snub’s frosty answer, “all we want you to do is get rid of those reflex habits that label you as the receiver, that notify the defense to forget about the decoys and concentrate on you.”
The film flickered on. But the satisfaction Bill anticipated out of watching himself in action, had vanished.
He’d boobed it up, no doubt about it. Probably Snub would retaliate by sticking him back in the second squad, — running Loftis in the A team.