Chapter 13

Saturday night ballgames followed by late dinners and goodnight kisses in the wee hours of Sunday morning were sweet and pleasant, but we both needed more. It didn't help that for half the Saturday nights, the Orioles and I were off somewhere, playing baseball in cities all over America, not to mention Ontario.

Alice's increased self-confidence was evident when she told me, on the telephone one afternoon, that we'd be much better off if I would just come over to her house most evenings after home games. She could make me a late supper, and we could keep company with each other in the comfort of the evening. "You could stay over," she said. "I have a guest room, if you insist on continuing this insane campaign of yours, this historical reenactment of my teen-aged years."

"It's not really a reenactment, in your case," I pointed out. "Since you have never experienced any of these things, it's not possible for you to 'reenact' them."

"Oh, Mr. Baseball Player, you are such a wizard with words! I seem to recall that the word 'reenactment' was first uttered in this context by one Zeke-the-Streak Taylor! Am I wrong in that recollection?"

"OK. You got me. Maybe I did call it that. I had to call it something. Let's call it -- I don't know -- 'compensatory adolescence.' How's that?"

"'Compensatory adolescence?' Oh, yeah. I never experienced a conventional all-American teen-time, so now you're giving me one; better late than never."

"Exactly. But don't worry. Your teen-years actually ran about -- what? Eight, ten years? We're not going to do this in real time. We're just going to hit the high spots."

"Well, that's a relief!" she said. "Otherwise, by the time I'm twenty, I'd be forty!"

"But your invitation -- for me to come over after night games? That's a goodie. We can fit that right into The Program."

"Oh, really? And how is that?"

"We'll play 'Dad's Upstairs, '" I told her.

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. But I'll explain it to you, tonight. Take a nap, if you can, so you can stay up a little later than usual and still get up for work in the morning. Me, I can sleep until noon, if I need to."

Alice prepared a lovely late dinner for me that night, served in her dining room at 11:15 p.m. The game had run long, and I'd only been at Alice's house for the past half-hour. Thanks to her George Foreman Grill, our dinner -- salmon steaks and scrumptious salad -- was ready to enjoy quite soon after my arrival.

We worked together on a quick after-dinner kitchen cleanup, following which Alice poured wine in the living room. Joining me on the couch, she kissed me on the nose and said, "Tell me now about this 'Dad's upstairs' business!"

"It's simple," I said. "Here we are, on the couch in your parents' living room. It's late, and we're all alone, and we're both aching to do some heavy necking -- if not actual petting. But even though your folks have said goodnight and gone upstairs, there's no guarantee they won't come back down. See, your Dad trusts you -- up to a point -- but he doesn't trust me as far as he can throw me, and I outweigh him by close to sixty pounds!"

"But. We could hear him, if he came back down, right?"

"Maybe. But your stairway is -- right there behind us. All he'd have to do is come down five or six steps, and we'd be in plain view, right here on the couch. So we don't dare do anything too -- well, too daring."

"But there's a squeaky step, just one down from the top of the landing," Alice said, "we'd be able to hear him, if he tried to sneak down."

"Hey, your Dad lives here, too! You think he doesn't know there's a squeaky step? He'll step 'way over on the edge, near the banister, to avoid the noise. Two, three more steps after that, and we're toast!"

"Well, all he could see would be the back of our heads, and maybe our shoulders. The couch will block his view of the rest of us."

"My God, girl!" I said, in mock horror. "What is it that you're suggesting?"

"Well, I'm suggesting that you could, y'know, put your arm around my -- ahh -- my waist, and Daddy couldn't see it."

"The body language would give us away, though."

"You mean -- because you'd have to turn to me, and reach across me with your arm?"

"Exactly. The shoulders, alone -- entirely visible to Dad -- would be a dead giveaway."

"Oh, wait. I know!" Alice said. "We'll just sit side-by-side, facing the television. Our shoulders don't even have to touch, or anything."

"Yeah. That would work... But it doesn't sound like too much fun."

"But you could, y'know, put your hand on my knee."

"Like this, you mean?"

"Yes! Just like that! And look -- you're still facing the television, and so am I. If my Dad sneaks down the stairs and looks at us, he won't see a thing!"

"You are a very clever girl! Sneaky and untrustworthy -- but clever!"

"And look! I can put my hand on your knee, too!"

"I don't know," I told her skeptically. "My knee is a long way out there. Look how you're having to extend your arm, to reach all the way to my knee! I'll bet if your father were there, behind us, he could tell that you had your hand extended. Heck, he might even be able to see my knee, from way up there -- and your hand, on it!"

Alice withdrew her hand from my knee and rested it, instead, on my upper thigh. "Now my shoulders are still square against the back of this couch," she said triumphantly, "and I can touch you here just fine!"

"That's not my knee," I said, unnecessarily.

"Knees are overrated," Alice said, giggling as if she really were a sixteen-year-old.

"I guess it's true we're reasonably safe, in this posture," I said. "Dad could come all the way down the stairs, and he still couldn't see a thing that was out-of-line."

"Tell me something," Alice said, her hand still on my upper thigh, squeezing it provocatively. "You said something a little while ago about 'necking and petting.' I've always wondered what the difference was. Which is the necking and which is the petting?"

"Hamm. I don't know if I'm really certain, myself, but I'm pretty sure that necking refers to just the basic stuff -- y'know, kissing, and maybe a little touching, like you're doing right now."

"Yes, but 'petting' sounds like it means touching, too," Alice said. "Does it mean like petting a dog? Or a cat?" She stroked my thigh with a doggy-petting motion. "Like that?" she asked.

Her hand wasn't really that close to my groin, but I had a rock-hard erection anyway. This reenactment stuff could get to seeming pretty realistic, sometimes.

"No," I told her, "I think petting refers to the kind of stroking that happens under the clothing."