For Love of the Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

rarely talked seriously about herself. He knew she was trying to break ground into something funny, but it wasn’t going to work. She put up the Kleenex, covered her eyes. She said slowly: “Didn’t want you to see me … 
too
drunk. Really. It’s unbecoming. There are things I say … Billy.…” Long pause. “We’ve had a good time, Billy.”
    Billy said: “Yep.”
    A couple came jogging by, round the fountain. On the sweatshirts: Harvard. Carol had settled a bit, composed, something firmer now in her voice,no longer that waver, but … there was something else. Billy watched.
    Carol said: “Four years.” Summing it up. As if: done. Truly done, over, finished. It hit him; he blinked. He said: “What’s the matter?”
    “I’m going home.”
    “Home?”
    “I’ve quit the job.”
    “Oh.”
    “I did that this morning. I was going to tell you, but … ah. Well. You don’t need me, Billy.”
    “I don’t need you?” Amazed.
    “Billy.” She turned to look at his face, put out a hand, touched his shoulder. Her face had that deep, sweet softness. He realized she was saying good-bye.
    “Billy Boy. I’m … back at my birthday. Do you remember? Thirty-four. I don’t know what happened, what it was, that number doesn’t mean anything, but suddenly, no, not even suddenly, it’s been coming up out of the dark all this year, coming out of the old back of the aging head: time to move on, move on. Take … the new path. Into old age. I was married all that time and it was bad and I wanted something else and got out, thank God, with you, sweet Billy, and the last four years have been.…” Her voice began to fail; she squeezed his shoulder. “It’s been the best time, Billy. I’ll always … but now … things have changed. Oh, God, how do I say this? Last spring Ibegan to look in the mirror. But it wasn’t that. I began to look out the window at the city, and then on the job at all those faces … and finally, Billy,” the tears were swelling, “one day I just wanted to go
home
. Rest. Start over. Somewhere else. I went back to see Mom. You knew about that. You’ve never met Mom. She said … come home for a while and just putter in the garden. Just get away from that place for a while. So I quit the job, but they’ll let me come back if ever I … but I won’t. I’m going … I won’t be back. I won’t be in this town anymore. And you … Billy … you don’t need me.”
    “Don’t say that again,” Chapel said. Then he said: “There’s also a man involved in this. Fella who needs you. Are you thinkin’ of … getting married?”
    Carol looked into his eyes. Voice very quiet. She said: “I haven’t decided yet. Not yet.”
    “But there
is
a guy.”
    “Yes.”
    Chapel said nothing. No promises broken, no word ever given. Free. Carol said: “I didn’t hide anything, Billy. I didn’t do anything with … him. But he’s a good, quiet man. Gentle. I don’t love him. Understand that. Please, Billy? He’s a good, quiet man who seems to love me. Has from the beginning. Wants to take care of me … ‘forever.’ He has a fine home … we’d go overseas a lot. He’smuch older than you, Billy. He first asked me early in the summer.”
    “You going to marry him.”
    “I don’t know.”
    Chapel put his hand to his face, rubbed his nose.
    “Handsome fella?”
    “No.”
    “That’s good.” Chapel shrugged, blinked. “Christ,” he said. “This is my day.”
    “Billy?”
    He looked up. She moved her hand down to his. “There was nothing wrong you ever did. But, Billy … time goes by. I saw this title of a book:
Childhood’s End
. I’m getting old all of a sudden, Billy. I don’t know why. I won’t be fun anymore. When you go away now.…”
    “I’ll be far away,” Chapel said.
    Another couple came jogging by. Coincidence. This time: Yale.
    Chapel said: “They never can trade you there. Never. Never from Harvard to Yale. Ah. But that’s