Native Affairs (59 page)

Jennifer put her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.

When Dawn came out again after a short interval she said, “Would you let this young lady see him, please?” She indicated Jennifer. “Miss Gardiner is a close friend of Lee’s, and I would appreciate it.”

The doctor hesitated, and then agreed, reluctantly. “All right. But be quick about it.”

Jennifer pressed Dawn’s hand for a moment in gratitude and walked past the doctor into the antiseptic cubicle.

She paused at the foot of the bed, as the doctor gently pulled the door closed. At first glance Lee looked asleep, but closer examination revealed an unhealthy pallor beneath his coppery skin. His black hair was like an ink stain against the stark whiteness of the pillow. Traces of the blackout he had worn during the game remained under his eyes, making the sockets appear hollowed and sunken. His big hands, which could play Chopin, catch a football from any angle, and make love to Jennifer so expertly, lay curled on the sheet, relaxed and lifeless.

Jennifer stood looking for a few moments, and then went to the side of the bed, pushing back the lock of hair that always fell across his forehead.

“I love you,” she said, because she knew he couldn’t hear it. “Please wake up, and get well.”

Then she marched out of the room and down the hall to the lounge, pushing through the swinging door and walking straight to the window overlooking the parking lot. She cried silently, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

She turned at a slight sound behind her. Joe was standing against the wall, his hands in his pockets, watching her. He held out his arms, and she ran into them.

“Oh, Joe,” Jennifer sobbed, “he isn’t going to die, is he?”

“No, no,” Joe murmured soothingly, rubbing her back as if he were burping a baby. “Course not, course not Need more’n a li’l ol’ bump on the head to take that Injun out.” Joe’s drawl was becoming more pronounced as the evening wore on. But it came and went, like the tide.

“But he looks so...still,” Jennifer said.

“Why, sure he does. That’s just because you’re not used to seein’ him stayin’ in one position that long. He’s always runnin’ aroun’ like his tail was on fire, and so now the comparison is scary, that’s all.” He pushed her hair out of her face and said, “C’mon back, now, with the others. You shouldn’t be alone in here.”

Jennifer followed him slowly back to the group.

* * * *

They kept vigil all night long. Rita Danbury went out for coffee at about 3 AM., and Joe called his wife twice, for moral support, since there was nothing to report. Jennifer fell asleep for an hour huddled under Carl’s coat and had just awakened when a nurse came out of Lee’s room, grinning from ear to ear. All eyes turned to her, and she pointed to the intern behind her, who announced smilingly, “He just regained consciousness for a few seconds.”

Carl punched Joe on the shoulder. Rita gestured to the rising sun through the window, and said, “Amen. Joy cometh in the morning.”

“What did he say?” Jennifer asked.

The intern rolled his eyes. “He said, ‘Am I in a hospital?’ I told him that he was, and he said, ‘Get me out of here.’”

Carl burst out laughing. “Sounds like our boy is on the road to recovery,” he said.

The doctor held up a hand. “Well, he’s not out of the woods yet by a long shot, but it’s a very good sign. My guess is that he’ll be with us for a while; we’ll have to run quite a few tests to make sure there was no damage before we can let him play again.” He surveyed the bedraggled company. “I suggest all you good people go home. I have your number, Miss Blacktree, and I’ll call you if there’s any change. You can visit him during the regularly scheduled hours.”

Buoyed by relief, the group began to assemble personal belongings in preparation for departure. Joe put his arm around Jennifer.

“Why don’t you come home with me?” he said. “My wife will make breakfast for us; you’ll feel better.”

Jennifer shook her head. “I’m fine, Joe. I just want to go home and get some sleep.”

Joe nodded. “All right.” He hesitated. “Jen, I...” He stopped and sighed. “He’s the stubbornest cuss I ever met. Why is it that he can’t see ...”

Jennifer interrupted him. “We’re both dead tired, Joe. I don’t think we should talk about this now.”

He looked mulish. “Not now. But sometime. I mean it, this is not my last word on the subject.”

Yes, it is, Joe, Jennifer thought. I won’t be around to hear any more.

Jennifer stopped on her way out to thank Dawn. “It was kind of you to think of me, to let me see him,” she said to the Indian girl. “Isn’t it wonderful that he came out of it?”

“Just as the sun rose,” Dawn said. “It was the power of his totem.”

“Take care of him,” Jennifer said.

Dawn did not miss the finality of Jennifer’s words. “You will not be back to visit him?”

“No.”

“Shall I tell him anything for you?”

“No.”

Dawn inclined her head, accepting Jennifer’s decision.

Jennifer walked out to her car, buttoning her jacket against the chill of the crisp November morning.

* * * *

Jennifer spent Thanksgiving with her father and his wife, breaking the news of her move to Florida. She said nothing of the coming baby, considering it best to let him absorb the shocks in small doses. He seemed concerned, but apparently regarded the relocation as a career choice, and Jennifer let him think that. He was too busy riding herd on his three teen-age stepchildren to worry about it much anyway.

She had previously contacted a real estate agency that handled rentals in the Tampa area, and the day after Thanksgiving she flew to Florida to look for an apartment. A very patient agent spent a long time with her, and she finally found something close to the Bengals’ office that was in good repair and that she could afford. It was still occupied, but Jennifer was promised it would be vacant by the time she needed it. She flew back to Philadelphia tired but satisfied with her efficiency. She was handling everything very well.

Her last few days with the Freedom were occupied with putting things in order for her departure, and saying goodbye to everyone, especially Dolores, who was proving to be very emotional. After promising hourly that she would write and telephone whenever she could, she heard herself inviting Dolores down over the Christmas holidays. This finally placated her, and she concentrated on helping Jennifer get ready to go.

Lee was still in the hospital. Joe kept her posted on his condition, which was steadily improving, but he wasn’t ready for discharge yet. They were keeping him there for “observation,” whatever that meant, but he was ambulatory and demanding to be released. Jennifer said nothing to Joe of her impending move; she would be gone before he realized it, as he was still playing and busy with the team.

Jennifer decided to take her car with her and drive down, rather than sell it and buy another when she got there. Marilyn helped her load it with a few final things after the movers had left, and she and Mrs. Mason took turns crying and warning her about the hazards of a woman traveling such a distance alone.

Jennifer was worn out by the time she finally got on the road. She had planned what stops she would make and telephoned ahead for reservations, but Marilyn and Mrs. Mason had convinced her that disaster awaited at every turn. Twin Cassandras, prophesying doom, they had set the tone for the trip, and Jennifer couldn’t shake off the feeling that they knew something she didn’t. She pulled onto the interstate with a heavy heart.

* * * *

The move to Florida was a nightmare from start to finish. Jennifer promised herself that when, or if, she recovered from it she was going to set her two friends up in the fortune-telling business. They would all make a mint.

Her car broke down in Georgia in some tiny hamlet with one service station, and it took her two days to get it fixed. She spent her time reading magazines purchased at the general store. They were several months out of date and on subjects that did not fascinate. When she started on
Popular Mechanics
for the second time, she knew she was in trouble. To make matters worse, she hadn’t been able to reach the Holiday Inn where she had reserved a room and so she had to stay at a dilapidated “rooming house” inhabited by a bunch of escapees from the Li’l Abner comic strip. They overcharged her shamelessly at the service station, but she paid the price gladly in order to get going once more.

She thought she had it made when she hit Florida, but discovered that she was wrong again. She got lost. She hadn’t realized before that everything in central Florida looks like everything else in central Florida. Nothing but citrus groves and trailer parks for endless miles on either side of a straight ribbon of sandy, dusty road. When she at last got directions she could understand from a state trooper, she had wasted almost a day wandering aimlessly among the orange trees.

She drove into Tampa at night, and its lights and beautiful bay looked like the Promised Land to her. But not for long. When she called the real estate agency in the morning, she was told that her apartment was not empty yet—there had been a slight delay. And as there was no place for the movers to put her furniture, it went into storage in the company’s warehouse in Spring Hill, an hour’s drive away. And, oh yes, there would be a slight storage charge.

A few days before she was to start her new job, Jennifer found herself at a coffee shop making a mental list of everybody she was going to sue and abusing Lee Youngson and his descendants for three generations, one of whom she was carrying in her belly. The restaurant was filled with itinerant truck drivers and farm workers who called to each other in indecipherable Southern accents and wiped faces perspiring from the seventy-five-degree weather and eighty percent humidity. Jennifer felt that she had been transported to another country, so foreign did the environment seem. And when the waitress yodeled after her, “Y’all come back now, heah?” her throat tightened with unshed tears. My God, she even missed Joe Thornridge.

She took possession of her apartment that afternoon and got the moving company to deliver her things. She collapsed that night and slept on the floor, using a tablecloth for a blanket.

* * * *

The next morning, she read in the Tampa newspaper that Lee had been discharged from the hospital.

Chapter 10

Jennifer was in the middle of stacking books on the bottom shelf of a wicker étagère when the doorbell rang. Sighing, she dusted her palms on her jeans and got off her knees, swiping ineffectually at the wisps of hair that fell around her face. After a full day of unpacking, she was really in no condition to greet anyone. But it was probably just another of her new neighbors stopping by with a cake. Two were already sitting on the kitchen table. Marveling at the miracle of Southern hospitality, she pulled open the door of the apartment with a manufactured smile.

It vanished very quickly. Bradley Youngson stood in the hall.

Jennifer’s heart began to pound. She tugged at her shirttails to make sure they covered her burgeoning midsection and whispered, “How did you find me?”

His dark eyes never left her face. “Simple,” he said. “I went to your old office and threatened Dolores with every form of mayhem known to man, and a few I invented, if she didn’t tell me where you were.”

Jennifer closed her eyes. Damn Dolores and her big mouth. If she had told Lee that Jennifer was pregnant, Jennifer was going to take the first plane back to Philly and tie her to the Penn Central tracks.

They surveyed each other in silence. Lee looked wonderful, as usual, immaculate in designer jeans and a white turtleneck sweater that flattered his dusky skin. By contrast, Jennifer, exhausted and filthy, felt like the television illustration for a person with an Excedrin headache.

“May I come in?” he asked pointedly.

Her mind whirling with a dozen questions, Jennifer stepped aside just as her newly installed telephone began to ring. “Excuse me,” she said.

What now? Jennifer thought as she moved to answer it Lee stood in the middle of the room, looking around. There wasn’t much to see except piles of cardboard boxes and general confusion.

It was Dolores. “Oh, Jenny, I’m so glad I finally got you. I’ve been trying for two days, but you didn’t have a number. Lee Youngson was here, he made me tell him where you were, and I’m afraid he’ll—”

“You’re a little late, Dolores,” Jennifer interrupted her. “He’s standing in my living room.”

Jennifer eyed Lee who was staring, mystified, at the poster Jennifer had tacked to the wall. It was the Middle English version of the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a departing gift from Mrs. Mason.

Dolores groaned. “Oh, God, I was afraid of that. Jennifer, please forgive me, but he was so upset, I thought he was going to kill me.”

“It’s all right, Dolores,” Jennifer said wearily. “It doesn’t matter.”

Strangely enough, it didn’t. Everything else had gone wrong; having Lee show up to find her looking like an underage bag lady was just another calamity to add to a long list.

“I didn’t tell him you were pregnant,” Dolores said piously. There was a pause. “Though if I were you, I—”

“Thank you, Dolores,” Jennifer said in a strong voice. “It was thoughtful of you to call. I’ll be in touch. goodbye.” She dropped the receiver back into its cradle.