Chapter 11

Alissa and Arlie left the Hilton and drove northward toward the central business district. Neither knew Wooster anymore. It had been too long.

Finally Alissa saw an Applebee's ahead and suggested Arlie stop there. It was now almost 9 p.m. and a Sunday night. The place wasn't jumping.

"We're going to miss out on the whole deal at the reunion tonight," Alissa said as they were directed to a table in the far corner of the restaurant. "Does that bother you at all?"

"I came here to see you," he said. "I'm more than happy to see you, and only you. But if you feel that you're missing anything, we can go back right now or any time you say."

"Last night, I saw a few people I remembered a little," she said. "But for the most part, it was kind of flat. To tell you the truth, I almost didn't even show up tonight for the dinner."

"These places, Applebee's, aren't half bad. Let's just order dinner here. Would you like a drink?"

"I'd like a frozen margarita," she said. "What are you having?"

"If you promise we'll be here for more than an hour, I'll have a beer," he said. Otherwise, iced tea. I'm driving."

"You're destroying all my illusions about hard-drinking ballplayers," Alissa said.

"From what Susan has told me, I didn't think you knew from ballplayers, one way or the other. Certainly not well enough to have any illusions."

"I always wondered what happened to you," she said. "You were the local star athlete, especially in baseball. You used to talk about getting a scholarship for college, maybe someday turning professional."

"And you figured it was just something that every sixteen-year-old boy who ever played a little ball would talk about."

"No, not really," she said. "I knew you were really good at it. What should I call you? Arliss? Arlie? I can't keep calling you Swifty!"

"Arlie, please," he said. "Have you forgiven me yet? For my covert actions? For coming here? Jumping at you out of the bushes?"

"I haven't decided yet," she said. "Let's just ... talk. I was saying that I never thought, back when we were young, that your dreams of getting a scholarship or even of turning pro someday were childish or unrealistic. It's just that I never found out whether they came true. I think I heard about your scholarship. University of Wichita, right?"

"They're big on baseball there," Arlie said.

"But I never heard any more. Mostly, I guess, because your name was changed. What was that all about?"

He explained the old story about being required, upon entering college, to use his legal name.

"I never even knew that McDonald wasn't your official name," she said. "There we were, staring into each other's eyes all the time, and we didn't know beans about each other, even back then."

"I knew your mother didn't like me much because I wasn't Catholic," he said. "I knew you had a missing father, and that people said he was an alcoholic."

"But we didn't talk about any of that, you and I," Alissa said. "We just talked about ourselves and our immediate problems and goals. Anyway, it's not true my mother didn't like you. She just really wished that you were a Catholic boy."

"Was it true about your father?" Arlie asked. "I never asked, and you never volunteered anything."

"Oh, yes. It's true. He was a falling-down drunk. A complete, utterly embarrassing, failure of a man. But my mother didn't believe in divorce, and she was stuck with him. And then I ended up marrying someone almost as weak as my father was."

"Susan has been ... pretty forthcoming about your ex-husband. She doesn't hide her contempt for him and for the way he abandoned all of you."

"I won't defend him," Alissa said, "but you shouldn't think it was a case of total abandonment. He sent money to us for quite a while. Sure, he was always behind on his child support, but it wasn't like he just left the state or something and gave us nothing. After a long while, maybe five or six years, he stopped sending money at all. But by then, I at least was gainfully employed."

"I may be talking out of school here, but Susan thinks the reason you're so ... concerned about Dan Preston can be explained on the basis of your own experiences. And she also cited her own broken engagement last year. Susan says that —-"

"Yes, I know," Alissa interrupted, a little bit impatiently. "I think that Susan's taken too many undergraduate psychology courses. I'm not denying that my ex-husband made me gun shy about involvements. Hell, my own father made me distrustful of men. And Susan's right, that bastard she was hooked up with last fall was a true loser."

"But you're not ... totally soured on people of the male persuasion?" Arlie said.

"What choice do I have?" she said with a faint chuckle. "They're the only game in town. Oh, I suppose I could have found me a nice woman and gone that route. I'm told that girl-girl sex isn't half bad! But, unfortunately, I've always been straight."

"Eleven years, you said, since your husband skipped. Nobody else in your life, all that time?"

"I know my daughter," Alissa said. "I know you and she have become fast friends. My guess is she's already told you about my little fall from grace a few years back. And if she has, then you're just fishing for information now."

"You're talking about the guy at work?"

She smiled, satisfied at having accurately read her daughter's thought processes from one coast to the other without having so much as seen the young woman for almost a year. "Yeah," she said. "The guy at work. The one who cost me a good job, not to mention my self-respect."

"It happens in the best families," Arlie said. "No doubt he just caught you at a time when you were lonely and vulnerable."

"You even sound like Susan," she said, laughing out loud. "No wonder she likes you so much."

"Neither of you —- you or Susan -— seems to have been real lucky on male role models when you were growing up."

"You major in psychology there at Wichita State?"

He laughed. "Business administration," he said. "If I hadn't made it as a ballplayer, I was going to try to sell sporting goods."

"But you did. Make it. You know, I'm not much of a fan, but if I'd have known what happened to you -- about your name-change and all -- I'd have tried to at least follow your career. God! When my marriage flopped, I'd have probably looked you up, even!"

"I was married for over thirteen years before my wife died. That wasn't even two years ago. I guess our marriages must have overlapped for a bit, there."

"Imagine it!" Alissa said. "My husband leaves me with four kids, and I hear my old high school sweetheart is a major league baseball player! Hell, I might have shown up on your doorstep one morning with all four kids in tow!"

"I can't see it. Can't see you ever doing anything remotely like that. Maybe you'd have investigated a little, found out I was married and had a family of my own."

"Happily married," she said. It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

Arlie didn't respond right away. "Yes," he said, finally. "Sylvia and I were happy. It's not like I'd have ever left her, if you had come around to my doorstep. But I used to think about you, Liss ... I mean, Alissa. For years. But in my case I knew roughly where you were. I knew that you had gotten married. I figured you'd married some good Catholic boy your mother had wanted for you. I even heard about your having children. This was all in the early days, back when we were in our twenties. You married long before I did."

Arlie sighed. "After awhile, I didn't hear anymore from anybody who knew what was going on with you. I didn't know your new name or your town or how many children you might have. You were forever lost to me. That much I knew, or thought I did."

"And now, here we are at Applebee's."

"Yes."

"So, what's the verdict? I've put on a few years and a few pounds since last time we were looking at each other over a restaurant table in Wooster, Ohio!"

"I already told you. You're incredibly beautiful. Absolutely untouched by time."

"Business administration, you said? You sure you didn't major in Elizabethan poetry?"

"It's no joke, Alissa. Ever since I saw your picture, I've hardly been able to do my job for thinking about you."

"Speaking of your job, I thought you had more games before you got back to Baltimore on Thursday?"

"Interleague games in Philadelphia, Tuesday through Thursday, all at night."

"Nothing tomorrow?"

"I'm off tomorrow. I was planning to ask you to let me take you to the airport for your flight to Baltimore."

"It's not until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon," she said. "But the airport's in Akron."

"Akron's not far," Arlie said. "I've got a car. You'll probably have to take a limo all the way to the airport. You'd be much more comfortable if you'd let me take you. I could take you to lunch, too, on the way over there."

"You're staying here, at the Hilton?" she asked.

"Yeah. You, too?"

"Yes."

"Susan was afraid you'd be so put out by my showing up here and revealing myself to you that you'd just turn around and fly back to California."

"She has an exaggerated view of how fragile her mother is."

"Well, I think she was pretty sure you'd still come to Baltimore, but she told me that, if necessary, she'd put you up in a hotel close to Dan's house if you didn't want to face me again when we got back on Thursday."

"Really? I don't think I've ever fully comprehended how much Susan worries over me and my doings. It's because she was the eldest and the one it all fell in on, when I had to go to work after her father left us. She grew up too quickly, I think. That's a partial explanation, anyway."

"That's not going to be necessary, is it?" Arlie asked her. "For Susan to put you up in a hotel room somewhere?"

She smiled. "No, Arlie. I'm not as delicate as all that. I'm looking forward to meeting your children, and seeing that beautiful house Susan's told me about. I'm even looking forward to meeting Dan Preston, Susan's new big, hairy person."

"And you're ready now to forgive me for my deceptions?"

"All these years, Arlie, and nothing's changed. I find that I can forgive you just about anything."

Their dinner orders arrived at last. Only when the waiter brought the plates did Arlie realize that they'd been waiting an unusually long time to be served. "What time does this place close?" he asked the waiter.

"Not for more than an hour, sir. I'm sorry it took so long. We had a ... a little drama there, back in the kitchen."

"It's okay," Arlie said. "Please bring another margarita for the lady, and a coffee for me."

"Make it two coffees," Alissa amended. "Forget the drink."

"Tell me something about home," Arlie said. "We've been talking a lot about the past and about our rocky evening. Tell me about your life now -- back home. And Susan's brothers and sister."

She did. The opening Arlie gave her brightened her mood considerably, and she rattled on through the entire meal and another cup of coffee, talking about her home, her job, her children.

She described her feelings about finally seeing her fourth and final child off to college that coming September.

"He wants to be a marine biologist," she said, pride in her voice. And he's just been accepted at Stanford. They've given him quite a bit of scholarship aid, but it's still going to be a challenge. Susan's entire college career didn't cost me a dime, and Sarah and Will both went to state universities."

"You'll have three in college at the same time?" Arlie marveled.

"Only two," she said. "Just the boys. Sarah's finishing up right now, in the summer semester. Just in time!"

"Your ex-husband? He can't, or won't, help out with all this?"

"He's got a job and a new family," she said. "I suppose I could squeeze him for a few dollars, but I haven't had the heart for it."

"And four more years to go, helping your youngest one?"

"Jerry. Right. Four years at least. I wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming he'll want to go to grad school afterward."

"You'll have to encourage him to become a teaching assistant or something, work his way. At least after undergrad school."

"It's not so bad," she said. "It's been a pleasure, really. The challenges of herding them all up and out into the world. And I've been really lucky. All four of them are great people."

"That's what counts the most," he said.

"They're trying to close this place, Arlie," she observed.

"Yeah, let's pay up and go. We ought to be able to sneak back into the Hilton lobby by now without running into old classmates whose names we can't remember."

"Too bad I made you throw away your 'Swifty' badge. People never forget the class jock."

"Oh, they've probably forgotten me, because I never played football," Arlie said. "In Ohio, football was king. Our baseball coach's first order of business every April was to try to get the biggest, fastest members of the Generals' football squad to come out for his baseball team. Never mind that there were all kinds of skinny little guys who lived to play baseball. Coach was looking for raw talent, not just native enthusiasm."

"Darwinism in action already, and at that tender age," Alissa said. "But, as I recall, you were already a pretty big guy yourself, back then."

"Tall and skinny," Arlie said. "I'm still tall, you'll notice."

They paid the check, Arlie left the waiter a handsome tip, and soon they were on the isolated highway, headed back to the Hilton Inn.

"All is forgiven, Arlie. I admit it: I'm just really glad you came."

"And you're accepting my offer of a ride to the airport tomorrow?"

"I accept, with thanks."

"And lunch?"

"Lunch, too."

"And when I get back home Thursday, you'll be in the guest room, and not staying in some hotel across town?"

"I will be right there. I understand you'll be arriving too late to go out to dinner. Susan and I will have something in the fridge for you."

"Dan will probably come by before he goes home. Or would it be less awkward for you to wait to meet him at lunch on Friday?"

"I imagine Susan would like to see him when he gets in."

"Yes. They're like a couple of newlyweds, actually. Even my eleven-year-old daughter senses that something's burning!"

"Having Mama in the house will cramp Susan's style a little, I imagine," Alissa said.

"Maybe. Maybe not. She's pretty self-possessed, you know. Maybe she'll shock her Mama, right down to her toes."

"Even if she's feeling frisky, I imagine Dan will be on his best behavior. I know Susan's made me out to be the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Even if you were, Dan Preston's not the easiest person to intimidate. Anyway, I predict that inside of five minutes, you and he will be the best of friends."

"I hope you're right. God! This place, this hotel. It looks different after midnight! They really roll up the sidewalks, don't they?"