Late Stories Read online

  The other team got a run the first inning. Three straight singles. He played third base, and because of that fielding position and he always played close to the bag, he got a closer look at her. She was even prettier than he first thought. Beautiful, he’d say. And so mature looking and with a nice even tan on her arms and legs but not her face. Smart. For even her eyebrows were blond. If she wasn’t sitting in the shade—a couple of her friends were in the sun—he was sure she’d be wearing a hat. He fielded one grounder that inning and threw a perfect peg to first. Made the play look easy. After they got the third out, he trotted to his team’s bench on the third-base side and sat with his back to her. She didn’t look at him when he came off the field. None of the girls she was with did. They were too busy talking and barely looking at the game, even when their waiters were up. To him that was a good sign. That she didn’t have a boyfriend on the team. If she did, she’d be looking and smiling at him every now and then and maybe cheering their team on a little. So why were they there then? Maybe they were told to by their counselor or someone of authority, at least, to be there at the start of the game.

  He was first up the next inning. He wanted to impress her with a solid hit and his fast base running or if possible even a home run to tie the score. For sure, one of those his first time at the plate, before she and her friends got bored with the game, as girls will, and left, if they were allowed to, because if they were all C.I.T.’s, then they could be there to be near their campers. He knew you’re not supposed to swing at the first pitch, especially your first at-bat, but he was eager and the ball looked too good to pass up, coming in slow and fat, and he swung and hit it as far as he ever hit a softball, but it curved foul by about twenty feet.

  “Straighten it out next time,” a couple of his teammates yelled. “You can do it.”

  He swung at the next pitch, too—a bad one, way too low—and missed. Take it easy, he told himself. You’re much too eager. Last thing you want is to strike out in front of her. Even if she had seen him hit the first pitch that far, it went foul, so meant nothing.

  He stepped out of the batter’s box to calm himself. The pitcher was about to throw the ball and stopped. And it was a real batter’s box, chalked like the on-deck circle was and the baselines all the way to the ends of the outfield. He also wanted to give her time to look at him looking pensive and determined.

  “Come on, son,” the umpire said. “Get in position. You’re wasting time.”

  Now that could be embarrassing, he thought, but he won’t say anything. He saluted the umpire, then thought what a stupid move, saluting, and got back in the box. Definitely let the next pitch go past if it looks like a ball. Trust your eyes. Wait for another good one. He swung at the next pitch—it would have been a strike if the umpire called it right—and grounded to the pitcher and was thrown out.

  The girl stayed around. Cheered once when her side got another run. Or pretended to cheer, really. That’s what it looked like to him. Then she and the other girls cheered together “Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Na-ho-je, Na-ho-je,” which was the name of their camp, “yea-a-a.”

  The score was still two-zip in the fourth inning when two of the players on his team got on base with walks and he came to bat. “Knock it out of the park,” his teammates were shouting. “If anybody can do it, you can.”

  “Don’t be anxious,” the waiter counselor had told him. “Wait him out. Maybe we can walk around. Or just a simple hit. We need a run and that’ll keep it going.”

  “Got ya,” he said.

  He swung at the first pitch, a fast one straight across the plate, and hit it over the leftfielder’s head. He ran around the bases and ended up with a triple. He felt he could have stretched it into a homer, but the camp director, who was coaching at third, held him up.

  “Why’d you stop me?” he said. “I could’ve made it. Then we’d be ahead.”

  “Don’t be such a hero,” the camp director said. “Best to play it safe. I also didn’t want you sliding into home and hurting yourself and being sent to the infirmary. Who’d, then, wait your tables?”

  He looked at the girl. She was looking at him. She applauded twice in his direction. Little claps. Like a seal would make. No smile, though. He took off his baseball cap and waved it to her. Good move, he thought. Dignified. She had to like it. But she quickly looked away. Anyway, she’d noticed him. He had to meet her. What would he say if he did? First of all, how would he? Like he said, he’d just go over to her and he’d say “Hi, my name is Phil. Or Philip to my friends.” No. No stupid jokes. Don’t even try. “I saw you in the stands. You seemed interesting. You from Pennsylvania?” This would have to be after the game, and as he thought, quick. And hopefully they’d won. Or if they didn’t, then something like “Your team played a good game. I congratulate them. Are you a C.I.T. here?” And then? Well, it’d depend on what she answered. And that he didn’t have much time to talk. “Uncle Abe, one of our camp directors, will be in a rush to get us back. I’d like to write you, if you wouldn’t mind. Can I ask your name”—if she didn’t already give it when he gave his—“and what bunk number you’re in, or your address here, so I can write?” If she asked why he’d want to he’d say “Because I thought, just by looking at you, you were interesting.” That ought to do it. And if they do write each other maybe once or twice while they’re still at camp, what then after camp’s over for both of them at the end of August? Maybe one day take a train or bus to Philadelphia, if that is where she lives, and spend the day with her. Would her parents allow it? Why not? It’d be a weekend afternoon and they’re both sixteen, or she almost is, it seems. And there’d be no problem with his parents. They give him lots of freedom. And he’d have the money—he always has a job after school—to pay for the fare himself. And then go to see her a second time. Hold her hand. Visit a museum. Kiss her. Talk to her. What does she like to read? Or maybe they’d already spoken about this. So what does she like to do in the city? What is she studying at school? Her outside interests. What college does she want to go to? Lots of things. And if she lives outside Philadelphia, there must be a way of getting there, too.

  The next man filed out. The score was tied for a couple of innings and then the Na-ho-je team got four more runs, almost all on walks. Since it was softball, it was a seven-inning game. He came up a third time and looked over at her. She wasn’t looking at him; nor had she, when he was on the field or sitting on the bench—at least when he’d looked her—since that one time she clapped. With two strikes on him, he hit a pitch over the centerfielder’s head, even though the outfielders were all playing him deep this time. The centerfielder was fast and had a good arm and threw the ball to third in time to stop him from getting another triple. He was halfway to third and felt lucky to get back to second before he was run down and tagged out. It was by far his longest hit of the day and he looked at the stands to see if she was looking at him, but she wasn’t there. Where the hell she go? Standing on second base, he looked around for her. She and some of her friends were already a ways off, running—it looked like racing—to somewhere with a whole bunch of younger campers, probably the kids they were in charge of. Well, there goes that dream, he thought. Nothing he can do to meet her now, unless she comes back here before his team gets back on the truck and leaves.

  The batter behind him ground out to end the inning. They didn’t score another run, though he felt he did all he could to win. Two big hits, no errors or strikeouts, knocking in their only runs. Anyway, they were behind by so much with only one more turn at bat, another run or two wouldn’t have helped.

  After the game, they were told to shake the hands of the opposing team, take what refreshments were there—cupcakes and sugar cookies and lemonade—as they probably won’t be getting back in time to have supper before they set up and serve, so they’ll have it after, and then get back on the truck.

  When he shook the pitcher’s hand, he said “Good game. You guys played well. What can I say? The better
team won. But can I ask you something? There was a girl sitting in the stands. Tall, she seemed, and very pretty, and really blond hair. Over there,” and he pointed. “With some of her friends. You know which one I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah, I know her.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “She could. I don’t know. What a question to ask.”

  “No good? None of my business, right? She’s intelligent, though. I could tell by her face—sort of the expressions—and the way she smiled and also her laugh, not like a horse. Even the subtle way she applauded me when I got that triple to tie the score.”

  “She applauded you?”

  “Not ‘subtle.’ Reserved? Tempered? Is that a word? Little claps. Almost pretending. And ‘subdued’ is what I think I mean.”

  “She’s a very nice girl,” the pitcher said.

  “Hey, I didn’t say she wasn’t. I was complimenting her on the way she tried to show her congratulations or whatever you want to call it to someone on the other team. She from Philadelphia?”

  “She could be. I wouldn’t know.”

  “We were told that almost everyone from your camp is supposed to be from Philadelphia.”

  “That could be so. I am too. Where are you from?”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Sure. Are you asking for it? Because I don’t know if I should give it. It might be wrong to. She might not want it handed out. Ask Sid there—the assistant head counselor—the guy in the white tennis shirt. If he thinks it’s okay, he’ll give it.”

  “Nah, I should probably forget it. It might be a nuisance, my asking, and what would be the use?”

  “If you say so, pal. She’s a helluva looker, I’ll grant you that. And good game too. Your part, anyhow.”

  “Yeah, I had a good day. You, also. The score wasn’t even close, and you got a couple of singles.”

  Going back, the camp director sat in the bed of the truck, with a cushion under and behind him. It was windy back there and he said “I have something to say. Can everyone hear me?” They all indicated they could. “I want to be honest. This won’t be nice. It was an experiment, going to another camp to play, one I’m not going to repeat. You played lousy softball today. What’s all you’re practicing get you? You could have beat them. They didn’t have a long-ball hitter and the last three innings their pitcher was throwing twice as many balls as strikes. Except you were swinging at all the bad pitches as if they were strikes. Phil did okay. Three cheers for Phil. But the rest of you? I was expecting a victory. Now what am I going to tell the campers in the mess hall tonight? We lost? We screwed up? We got creamed?”

  “We did,” the team’s captain said, “So I guess you have to. We can take it.”

  “No, I want them to feel good and prideful about their camp and waiters and want to come back next summer. I’ll put it in words that won’t make it sound as bad as it was. That the opposing team—I won’t even give out its name—had the home-field advantage and a cheering squad of girls to pump it up. I know; I know. I shouldn’t be taking it so hard. Only a game, and so on, but I don’t like to lose. Okay, somebody’s got to. And even the great Babe himself struck out a thousand and one times in between belting Gargantuan home runs.”

  He thought of the girl a lot afterwards, at least the first few years. And then once every third month or so, maybe, or even less: twice a year, right up till the time he met his wife. She was the only person this happened to with him. It wasn’t that she was the only girl he ever had a crush on. But for some reason her face and expressions and blond hair and way she wore it and even what she had on that day—the khaki shorts and a maroon T-shirt with her camp’s name on it and leather sandals—stuck in his mind. Well, maybe the same images, once they got there, just repeated themselves over and over. He thinks that’s how it usually goes.

  His wife, who was eleven years younger than he, was several months pregnant with their first child when he told her about the girl. He’d kept it to himself that long—they’d been together for close to four years—because he thought she might find it a bit peculiar, his recalling for thirty years a girl he never met or talked or wrote to and who only gave him a couple of weak hand claps for having hit a triple and knocking in two runs and tying the score of an inter-camp softball game. And who didn’t smile at him once and never looked his way again in the less than two hours she sat in the stands, at least so far as he saw. What prompted him to finally mention her was a nine-by-twelve-inch framed photo of his wife in the living room of her parents’ apartment. The photo was taken the summer before she started college, which she did when she was sixteen and a few months. She looked in the photo so much like he remembered the girl looked at around the same age. Long blond hair, shape of her face, round cheeks, sort of almond-shaped eyes. The photo was always there, so lots of the times he saw it he thought of the girl. And one afternoon, as they were walking from her parents’ building to the bus stop on Broadway to get to their apartment uptown, he said “You feel okay?” and she said “Sure, why wouldn’t I?”

  “We could take a cab if this is too much of a trudge for you,” and she said “It’s good exercise. And I don’t walk enough, which I should.”

  “You know the photograph of you with your first cat that’s always on the side table to the right of your parents’ couch?”

  “I look a little dumpy in it, don’t I. At least my skin’s clear, which it wasn’t always then, and Matilda looks so pretty and slim. I’d just brushed her.”

  “You look beautiful in it. According to the photographs your folks have around the place, you were a beautiful baby and a beautiful toddler and a beautiful adolescent and teenager and now you’re an exceptionally beautiful woman in every way.”

  “What are you getting at?” she said.

  “I have to be getting at something? All right; I am. I never told you something. And what I’m about to say is going to be okay. Sometimes when I look at that photo I’m reminded of a very pretty girl I once saw at her summer camp when I was sixteen and she was around the same age. She was very mature looking. Didn’t act like the other girls she was with. Nothing loud or exaggerated about her. Quiet; self-contained, or so it seemed. Maybe she was even older than I. Maybe by a year. I never thought of that before. That sure would have stopped anything from happening, if it had ever come to that. Because I never met her—never even approached her, though I wanted to—but I also never forgot her. She looked like you in that photo. The blond hair. Long and light and combed back. The face; shape of it. Even the eyes.”

  “So she also had my color eyes? They’re fairly unusual, though maybe not for a Jewish blond.”

  “That’s true. Her camp was Jewish, like mine. But I never got close enough to her to see what color they were. I was talking about their shape. Even her long graceful neck—you know, swan-like, was like yours, and her cheeks. What I’m saying is I have no idea why I never forgot that face and what I described about it and the one glance and little smile she gave me—no, she didn’t smile. Not to me, anyway. She did clap at me—a little clap, twice, very fast, from the bleachers she was sitting in with these other girls while she was watching a softball game between the camper waiters of my camp in New Jersey and hers in Pennsylvania. I’d just hit a triple—a three-base hit—that I could have stretched into a home run if the camp director of my camp, who was coaching at third base, hadn’t stopped me. I guess, being fair-minded, she was saying ‘good show’ or something. But you’re not really interested. And I’m getting the details of that day all mixed up. And why am I telling you it? Maybe telling you is wrong.”

  “Why? It’s all right. I like hearing about you when you were young. And telling me this could be you saying she set the standard for the type of woman you were physically attracted to later on.”

  “It wasn’t just physical,” he said. “It was her expressions too. She seemed smart and sweet and poised and serene. Like you are today and probably were at her age. Sixteen; sevent
een. And I’d think the standard must already have been set if I was that immediately attracted to her, which never happened like that with a girl before. Though you could be right. I’m not saying you’re not. Maybe it did all start with her.”

  “Then let’s say it’s possible she confirmed, or reinforced, the type of woman you were attracted to from when you were even younger than sixteen, but in a big way. You liked blondes. From what you’ve previously told me of your love life, you always have, though that didn’t keep you from also liking brunettes. Would I be wrong in saying that most of the women you’ve fallen for in your adult life have been blondes?”

  “About half; yes.”

  “Was she built like me too? You know, from what you can make out from that photograph and the one in my high school twentieth-year reunion book I’ve shown you, where I’m on the field hockey team.”

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “The body of a young woman wasn’t as important to me then as the body of an older woman became to me later on. If she had been a lot overweight, that would have been different. But she was lithe; trim. I remember her legs. She was wearing shorts. And a T-shirt, but I remember nothing about her breasts. I wanted to meet her. I thought of ways I could, but never got the chance. She left before the game was over. We lost, by the way. I even fantasized about going over to her during the game when my team was up. Or after the game, in the short time I’d have before the whole team had to get back on this old army truck to return to our camp. And introducing myself and somehow saying, without turning her off, that I had been looking at her and don’t have much time to talk and could I write her at her camp and possibly continue the correspondence after the camp season was over? We’d been told that most of the campers and staff in her camp—she was a C.I.T.—”