by David Xavier
“You smell wonderful,” she said.
“It’s the barbershop.” The rose magically appeared.
“Oh, Sam. It’s beautiful.”
Emery had already revealed his rose to Claire and he looked at me with his eyebrows dancing up and down.
“Where on earth did you get this?” Liv asked. “There’s not a rose garden in bloom.”
“Trade secrets,” I said. “I can’t tell you.”
“Impressive.”
“You haven’t seen me glide across the ice yet.”
She looked at my feet. “You haven’t any skates.”
“That’s why it’ll be so inspiring.”
Emery and I followed the girls around the lake. They slid effortlessly over the ice on blades while we flailed off balance in our shoes. After I found the groove in a low center of gravity, I put my hands behind my back and pressed forward on rubber soles like a speed skater. Emery spent most of his time bear-walking on all fours or twirling on an upended turtleback. Eventually, he took to running up to the lake at full speed and sliding across on his knees.
Liv took my hands in hers and skated backward in front of me.
“You are an athlete.”
“Just enough to make you think so,” I said. “You’ve done this before.”
“Since I was a little girl. My father bought me a pair of skates and we had a pond in our backyard. We used to spend hours skating around until dark, and then dad would build a big fire and read aloud to me from storybooks.”
“As far as I’m concerned you’re an expert.”
“I tried volleyball in high school. I was devastated when I learned skating wasn’t a school sport. What did you play?”
“Football and wrestling.”
“I could have guessed. Were you any good?”
“I was okay.”
She pried at me with a smirk. “It’s hard to believe you weren’t an all-state player. Did you letter in football?”
“Letter? That’s hardly a gauge for skill. They hand out letters to anyone who plays.”
“And what did your brother play?”
“Football and baseball.”
“Not wrestling?”
“He was too tall for it. So was I, but I wanted to try it anyway. Disastrous results. I was the worst on the team. I couldn’t get under the squat of the other wrestlers.”
“But you’re so strong.”
“Wrestling is all about leverage. If you can get leverage, you can beat anybody.”
“Why didn’t you try baseball like your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t interest you?”
“Baseball is a great game. I love it. I was good at it growing up, but I wanted to try something else. My brother was always better than me at everything.”
“You’re living in his shadow.”
“Still,” I said.
“When will I meet him?”
“Maybe sometime later.”
I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. My nearest guess was because I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me. I was afraid that type of sympathy might change the way she approached me. I heard Myles’s words about small lies ringing in my ear, but I packed them away in a small box and shoved them into the corner of my head. I might deal with that when the time came.
“You’re a mystery to me,” she said. “I always follow my instinct about people. I have a way of understanding them completely by first impressions.”
“That’s quite a claim.”
“Well, it’s true, and I always go with my gut. It never fails me.”
“And what was mine?”
“I’m still trying to figure you out. But you had a good first impression. You were sweet.”
“Not always. Not with everybody.”
“You try to cover yourself up by playing jokes. Some people may not understand that. But I do.”
She sashayed naturally in front of me, not even looking over her shoulder to find the way. The white background of winter scrolled behind her like a motion picture reel, her cheeks flushed with health and vibrancy and she looked warmer than anything I’ve ever encountered. I felt then an odd jealousy of anyone who had loved her before.
“Hey, Sam,” Emery said. He came shuffling over and Claire came up behind him. “Do you know anything about ‘The Great Irish Caper’?”
“The what?”
“That’s what they’re calling it around campus.”
“The flags over the dorm,” Claire said. “You boys are campus celebrities with your stunt.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, scratching my head in innocence.
“Oh, give me a break,” Claire said, smiling. “Your acting skills need some work. The girls have been laughing about it all day. It took all my willpower to keep my mouth shut.”
“You boys,” Liv said. “If you put half your energy into studies you might graduate cum laude.”
“Was it a success?” I asked.
“Definitely,” Emery said. He stiffened in a proud pose fit for a portrait painter by straightening his back and puffing out his chest, holding an arm around Claire. I shoved his chest and he flailed for a moment before gathering his balance.
“It caught my attention,” Claire said. She held Emery’s arm and put her smiling face to his. “I was only joking with you.”
“Of course. But it sounded like a challenge to me.”
“Lesson learned. I will think twice about what I say in the future.” She kissed his cheek.
I looked at Emery. “Mission accomplished.”
Chapter Thirteen
On the dry blustery cold Saturday before Thanksgiving, the stadium shook the earth on that side of campus. If the ground had not been frozen it might have broken apart under the roar. The Fighting Irish put thirty-four points on the scoreboard to the ranked University of Iowa, and the Hawkeyes left the stadium with heads held low, scoring only eighteen points of their own.
The students were in a dizzy state to begin with, the excitement of a holiday break around the corner stirring just under the surface of smiling faces, and the win served to ignite the excitement to eruption.
High spirits were determined to stay well beyond the football game’s final gun, springing the student crowd out the stadium doors with light feet. The winter sun gave the short hope of tolerable warmth outdoors, gathering competitions of horseshoe and Frisbee on the lawns, and later setting the light just right for a planned holiday dance inside the student commons.
“I have to get ready,” Liv said. “I have a nice dress I want to wear.”
“You’ll upstage me.”
“You don’t have a tie to wear?”
“No.”
“You look just fine. Give me an hour and I’ll be right down.”
I left her at the doors of the Le Mans dormitory and wandered back to the stadium in the remaining light, crossing through a pickup game of touch football between two Notre Dame student dorms. When I heard the quarterback, a short kid with a rocket arm, give the signal I ran along the edge of the grass with my arm raised, a sudden addition to the game, and caught a touchdown pass on my way to the stadium.
Elle was outside the locker rooms gathering interview answers from the real players, her feet together the way girls stand in the cold, and a white knit hat on her head.
“Did they walk straight over to you?” I asked.
She twisted around with the notebook in her hand, adding a final word to her paper.
“Sam. So good to see you. No, they’re all tired. I was hardly able to get a good word to quote.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“C’mon. Let’s get a sandwich.”
“I have to get this typed up and sent in to the paper tonight.”
“Just a quick bite. I have nothing to do. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”
She hesitated for only a moment. “Okay.”
She took
my arm and we walked in the direction of Blarney’s.
“They’re setting up a dance in the commons tonight,” I said. “Are you going?”
“I couldn’t. I have to get this article sent in.”
“Ah, the working strains of professional life.”
“I wouldn’t go to a dance anyway. I haven’t been to one in ages.”
“In ages?” I looked at her. “This is what college is all about. You’ll regret missing it.”
She spoke quietly. “No I won’t.”
I held out my hand to stop traffic and we crossed the street in a rush, hopping onto the curb on the other side as the cars filled in behind us, their headlights still dim in the fading light.
The moment might have passed already, but I couldn’t let it go without an apology, so with the slim moment of her bowed head and quiet words still within short-term memory, I spoke.
“Sorry. I miss Peter too. That’s all right. You don’t have to go to a silly dance to experience college.”
“Oh, it’s not right of me to think about him still. I know it just makes me appear sullen.”
“Not at all. It’s a lot to ask. You look as fresh and happy as a daisy.”
“I still think about him watching over me and I’m afraid to move on without him. We were going to get married.”
“You were?”
“Well, I think so. He talked about the future in his letters. I would have said yes right away if he asked. Oh, listen to me, Sam. I don’t want to bore you with it.”
“You’re not boring anyone. I could have guessed he was going to ask you. I could hear it in his voice when he spoke of you.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes.” I remembered that Peter had only spoken to me about Elle once, but I could still hear the happiness in his voice that day. “Girls think about proposals a lot don’t they?”
“Only from the right person. It’s romantic.”
“You should never talk about a proposal to a girl. You should just do it without all the buildup. Catch them off guard, that’s what I say.”
“You might catch them too off guard and spoil your chances. Peter wasn’t afraid of that. We can talk about something else if you like. I do want to be happy.”
“You look happy. It’s okay to think about him.” I put my arm around her shoulder and squeezed her close to me. Her hair smelled fresh and good, even through the knit hat, and I resisted kissing the top of her head. “At some point you have to get back out there, though. Have you been on any dates?”
“No, of course not.”
“You can’t tell me nobody has asked you.”
She looked at me and gave a shy smile. “Just because they ask, doesn’t mean I have to go.”
“Ah, you’re fighting them off with a stick, I bet. They’re lining up outside your door. I’ve seen the line curl around the dorm. I asked what the line for and someone told me. I was about to get in line myself.” I hugged her again with one arm. “Not a single date?”
“You wouldn’t be mad if I told you?”
“Don’t be absurd. I would be proud of you.”
“There was one. It wasn’t so much a date as it was just a lunch.”
“He was probably thinking it was a date. That’s what we do.”
We walked through the pale light and dry concrete of the neighborhood lanes. The flags were up at full mast and beer drinkers hoorayed from their porches. A group of young boys was tossing a football in the park. We heard their shouts first, and then we saw the gray movement of them. The largest of the boys threw a long pass just over the outstretched arms of another and the ball went bouncing toward the street. I ran and picked it up before the boy could get to it. He stood there looking at me and the rest of the boys came charging down the field toward us, the largest of them leading the way.
“Go long,” I said.
“How long?” the boy asked.
“As long as you can go.”
He was dressed in a pair of handed down jeans and a coat that was too small. He looked over and watched Elle walk up next to me. He studied her with boyish, star struck eyes. The other boys came up in a stampede behind him, the large one coming close to me.
“Give it here, mister.” He was a cocky boy without fear, and he wore white long sleeves in the cold.
“Go long,” I said. “I’ll throw it to you.”
He looked back to the frozen field, then back to me. “How far?”
“As far as you can go.”
“How far can you throw?”
“Farther than you can run,” I said.
“Look who it is,” the boy in the small coat said. He had not removed his eyes from Elle, and he was now pointing at her.
Elle had her arms crossed in her coat, her hair showing under her white hat. The other boys all studied her with the same big eyes.
“You write for the sports page,” the boy said. “Has your picture in it and everything. You’re Elle Quinn.”
“Yeah, sure is her,” the boy in the white sleeves said. “We read your articles. Never miss one.”
“Why, thank you,” Elle said. “You boys must be football fans.”
“Sure am. Gonna play for Notre Dame when I’m older.”
“And then the professionals,” she said.
“Maybe.” He gave an uninterested shrug. “I don’t care about the professionals. Just Notre Dame.”
A skeptical voice came from the group. “You won’t make the professionals.”
“What if I do?” He was quick to reply with sincere belief.
“You won’t.”
“Well…” the boy said, only slightly broken, “…what if I do?”
“Well,” Elle said. “You’ll make a good, strong quarterback.”
“Nah, I’m a running back.”
“Oh sure,” Elle gestured at the boy’s shoulders. “You have the build that all the greats have. I can see it.”
“Better than Lattner even?”
“Much better.” She was leaning in at their height with her hands on her knees. The boys stood without words for a moment, just staring with red faces.
“Dave is sweet on you.” The large boy put a thumb over his shoulder and a sharp voice came back.
“I’m not either.”
“You are too. He keeps your picture in the paper every time.”
“I don’t.”
They went into a small scuffle of embarrassment and they all joined in. Only the boy in the small coat stood unmoved.
“You’re sure pretty in person, ma’am,” he said. “You think I’ll play, ma’am?”
Elle leaned in and whispered. “I know you will. I’ll be here to report on all your games.”
He turned to me with a huge smile on his face, the blush coming out.
“Go long,” I told him, and he went running down the field with the speed of a future great in his legs, the belief in his heart.
The other boys saw him take off and joined in the footrace. I waved my hand for him to keep going, the other boys frantically trying to catch him, and when he was on the other side of the park I threw the ball to where only he could get it. It bounced off his chest with a cold thump and there was a big scramble for the loose ball.
“You have quite the fan club here,” I told Elle.
“Who would have thought it?”
We sat at the first table at Blarney’s and debated about the easiest topic on hand. I tried my hardest to find a hole in her knowledge.
“…and Coach Brennan inherited a great team,” I said. “I could have coached them this far. Nobody could mess up what Leahy had going.”
“That’s not true,” Elle was expert in her statement. “Guglielmi and Lattner are gone. He’s working with a new quarterback and backfield. And his secondary had to be handpicked.”
“Wins start with the linemen. One of those boys from your fan club could carry the ball a thousand yards behind that offensive line.” I laughed at myself. “There you go. A line for your
article.”
She sipped her Coke the same way as when I first saw her. “There’s a new running back coming up. He’ll run for twenty touchdowns next year.”
“Who?”
“You should know him. You did what the first defense has been trying to do in practice all year.”
“What’s that?”
“Tackle Pat Carragher. Coach Brennan is excited about him. He’s been carrying around linebackers all year on the practice field. And you took him down.”
I leaned back and waved a hand. “Ah, he slipped. Everyone saw it.”
“You should play next year.”
“Not a chance. I’m not trying to tackle him again. I nearly broke my back. Besides, I should be a senior this year.”
“You still have eligibility. They’ll let you play for another year.”
“I’ll never be as good as Peter was.”
“You don’t have to be. Just have fun.”
“Anybody without talent can just have fun. It takes talent to be serious about it.”
She jabbed her straw into the Coke bottle. “I just saw you throw the ball across the entire park. Must have been sixty yards in the air without a warmup.”
“Not a lot of women sportswriters,” I said, changing the subject.
“Not at all, in fact. Most of the women in journalism write stylish domestic pieces of home life.”
“How did you get in the door?”
“The school paper is excellent for creating a portfolio. I started with sports articles because it was the only spot left in the paper. Then I fell in love with it. Notre Dame football is the easiest piece to connect to an audience. The audience is already there, even if you’re a woman sportswriter.”
“And the South Bend Tribune fell in love with your work and hired you.”
She gave me a daring look and leaned forward with her answer. “They thought I was a man.”
“They thought what? How on earth…”
“I submitted my portfolio as ‘E. Quinn’, and signed it in rough handwriting.”
“You didn’t.” I felt my jaw hanging. “What a gutsy move. You should be carrying the football for Notre Dame.”
“You do what needs to be done.” She waved a hand.
She surprised me with that. She hid her boldness under such fair skin.
I leaned forward. “Peter knew how to have fun too, you know?”
