Chapter 13

My Thursday night date for dinner and dancing with Sandy was encouraging. We had a great dinner and some real conversation. I realized, in the middle of it, that we'd never much talked about anything before except my hitting and my therapeutic needs. Most of what I'd said to Sandy had been a part of my effort to persuade her not to abandon me while the team was on the road.

Now that she'd taken a definite stand against accompanying me on the next road trip, we could at least drop that sore topic and focus on something else. I found out a little more about Sandy's work as a columnist and free-lance journalist, and she couldn't disguise her pride when she told me that she was also a creative writer.

"It isn't anything much," she said. "I mean, if I had to live on what I make on short stories, I'd starve in a month. But -- it's really wonderful when I sell a story, even if the money is ridiculous and nobody's ever heard of the magazine I sell it to!"

"I can imagine," I said. "I hope you're keeping copies of everything you get published."

"Yeah. I'll have to leave my library to the University of Wisconsin when I die."

"Is that where you went to school?"

"Yep."

"I used to write a little, in college," I told her.

"No kidding? What did you write?"

"Essays, mostly. I had a column in the school paper. It was political commentary, mostly. I was the school's bleeding-heart liberal."

"Amazing! A jock writer! I'da never thunk it."

"Well, it wasn't exactly Harvard. I went to the University of Miami on a baseball scholarship."

"Must have been tough duty, struggling through four years of books and baseball in sunny Coral Gables, Florida."

"I guess it could have been worse."

"Miami's always one of the strong teams in the NCAA, isn't it? --We didn't have that great a baseball team, at Wisconsin."

"Not too many good college baseball teams, up north," I said. "Season's too short. The warm-weather schools recruit most of the best players."

"You have any of your old college paper columns? I'd like to see what a University of Miami Liberal's columns look like."

"Oh, no you don't! You're a professional writer. I'm not showing you my amateur scribblings."

"You're the first person who's ever called me a professional writer," she said.

"Isn't that what you are?"

"I guess. In the broadest, most charitable sense of the term."

"You working on anything large-scale? Like a novel, maybe?"

"Well -- yes. You're the first person who ever asked me about that, too."

"How's it going?"

"I've been working on it for three years, off and on, and I'm not even close."

"You want to tell me what it's about?"

"It's about a third done," she said.

"I meant --"

"I know what you meant. But I don't know how to answer your question. I don't really know myself, yet, what it's -- about."

"But you're still trying?"

"Yes. I'm still trying because I still think it's good -- or that it's going to be good."

"You want more wine?"

"No."

"Coffee, maybe?"

"Let's go back to my place, and I'll make some."

"What about the dancing?"

"You don't want to go dancing -- I knew that, going in," Sandy said.

"Yeah, maybe not. But I agreed to go dancing, and I'm still game."

"Maybe another time. Let's go back to my house."

Sandy's house was cozy and comfortable after dark. It was my first time there as a regular guest, and not as a "client." The coffin-like box was still in the exercise room, but it was pushed off in a corner. Evidently the box wasn't a prominent part of Sandy's therapeutic treatments.

"Living room or kitchen?" Sandy asked.

"Kitchen."

She put on the coffee and set us up with mugs, napkins, spoons and cream and sugar.

"Got any blue stuff?"

"Sure." Sandy added several envelopes of aspartame to the collection of trimmings.

The coffee smelled wonderful, and when she poured it, I saw, once again, that Sandy was a serious coffee hound, like me. It was Italian Roast: dark and very strong.