Chapter 13: Emily

I didn't tell my mother, on the phone, that I was staying over for another night in Frederick, Maryland with my new boyfriend. She hadn't even been told that I was going to Frederick in the first place.

Or that I might have a new boyfriend.

I mean, I guess I could have told her. Mom is pretty easy to talk to, and she'd known for a long time that I was sexually active. Maybe she didn't have chapter and verse of my erotic history, but she knew that I had willingly Lost It a long, long time ago, and that -- much like my own mother before me -- I enjoyed being a girl.

Mom also didn't know that it had been several months since the last man in my life had been to Disneyland, so to speak, and that, up until a week ago tomorrow, I hadn't even recently had a particular man in my life at all. Speaking generally, I usually didn't tell Mom much about the juicier parts of my life, and I didn't bore her with news about my romantic dry spells, either.

Most relevantly, my mother wasn't aware that I had taken up with a minor-league baseball player. Although (to me, at least) David Hooks was every bit as "interesting" as any of the many interesting men my father and mother had brought into my orbit, I was certain that Mom -- and, especially, Dad -- would take a dim view of him.

Dave was, after all, a small-town Midwestern boy with an undergrad degree in who-knows-what from a little-known public university in Alabama.

"Alabama." I already could hear my father's voice, pronouncing the word. It would be said in a sober, neutral, non-judgmental manner, but if you listened very carefully (and if you knew my father), you'd be able to hear the little snicker... No. No, you wouldn't actually hear it; it would be entirely inaudible.

But it would be there, all the same.

Oh, I knew that another, slightly improved version of David Hooks might -- just barely -- pass muster with Daddy, even with the UAB undergrad degree. Let's imagine that Dave were starting graduate work next September at -- say -- The Wharton School. Daddy wouldn't even mind if Dave was going to be on a needs-based fellowship there -- a cash stipend, intended to assist young men and women from the wrong side of the tracks to... well, to cross over to the right side of those tracks, someday.

So it wasn't just Dave's being from someplace called Coshocton, Ohio (strike one), or being a graduate of a ho-hum college (strike two), that was working against my new guy. It was the fact that, so far as anyone knew at least, Dave wasn't going to be enrolling at the Wharton School, or any other graduate school, any time soon -- if ever.

He was a baseball player, for God's sake! And it wasn't like he was Cal Ripken, or some comparably glamorous, well-loved, conspicuously successful current baseball player, even. He was some no-name guy, scraping along in the low minors, trying to catch a break. His immediate ambition was to scrape along until next season, when he might get assigned to another, slightly more highly regarded minor league team, someplace else. It wasn't glamorous, what Dave was doing.

Oh, a lot of girls' fathers might have thought so. I knew there were plenty of dads out there who'd be thrilled that their little girl had found herself a pro athlete... And not just because of the possible pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Sure, Dave might (or might not) ever amount to anything as a player, but even if he didn't make it all the way, a lot of fathers would regard a boy like Dave as a demigod! After all, Dave was fulfilling a dream that many older men had nursed, for as long as they possibly could, before they had to, at last, face the fact that it was just that: a dream.

So what, if Dave Hooks never got past Class A ball? He had succeeded already, in the eyes of many! He was playing baseball, and he was getting paid to do it! People were laying down their six bucks and trooping into ratty little ballparks to see him play! He was living it! Living the dream -- already!

But I knew my own father would never see it that way. Not even close. Maybe -- maybe I could bring home a ballplayer to meet Daddy, if the guy was the latest sensation to monopolize the sports page headlines, and his agent had just landed him a new four-year, $45 million contract.

And it would help, if the guy wasn't from the Dominican Republic, or some such place. Daddy was reasonably enlightened about such matters, but I knew there were limits.

Now, understand: It wouldn't be the money, per se, that would have made such a young man marginally acceptable to Daddy. It would be what the money represented: Competency. Conspicuous success. Power.

So this Cal Ripken Clone I was imagining might get in the door, but he'd still have to show my father that he was more than "just" a ballplayer -- however successful. He'd also have to be a lot of things that, alas, my Dave was not: Urbane. Cultured. Sophisticated.

Was my father a snob? I hadn't gone through life constantly regarding him as a snob. He wasn't the kind of snob that is depicted in the movies -- the slightly ridiculous pompous ass with his nose in the air, sniffing at some poor inferior being; showering supposedly lesser men with distain.

No, my father wasn't that kind of caricature of a snob. He would be far more subtle.

Didn't matter. I knew, already, that Dave Hooks wouldn't pass the invisible tests. I knew my father would think he was a nice young man. He'd probably remark favorably about Dave's demonstrated sense of responsibility, in caring for his orphaned younger brother. He'd probably observe that Dave had a nice, all-American-boy look about him, and was clearly in fine physical condition.

Daddy would find all sorts of positive things to say about Dave Hooks.

But it would be the faintest of faint praise, and when all was said and done: when Dave was ready to depart, and hands were shaken, and thanks given for the lovely evening we'd all had together, and the good-bye waves were concluded, and the front door closed... Then, my father would look at me in a way that I would recognize immediately. He wouldn't say a word. He wouldn't have to; his expression would say it all.

"No, dear," his silence would say. "... Unsuitable."

So Mom and Dad didn't know that I was spending an extra night -- Saturday night -- in Frederick, Maryland, of all places. So far as they were aware, I didn't know a soul who lived in Frederick, Maryland. Why would I?

But when I hung up that telephone, and Dave had heated three microwave dinners for us, and we'd had our dinner and had cleaned up the kitchen, and then had sat around in Dave's and Eddie's living room, nervously killing time until it was -- just barely -- late enough in the evening that we could, reasonably, suggest that it was bedtime, and could say goodnight to Eddie... When all that time, all that late-afternoon, after-the-game time, had been wasted, and Dave and I at long last went into his bedroom together and closed the door... Oh, God! I didn't care what my father would eventually say about David Hooks' suitability!

I didn't care, because, in my eyes, Dave wasn't just suitable: He was overqualified!

And we turned on the bedside lamp, this time. And David watched me undress, and when my little shorts outfit was gone and my panties were gone and my bra was gone and I was standing at the foot of his bed, naked, with nothing adorning my body -- no watch, no ring -- nothing... He looked at me with an amazing expression of love and lust and I didn't worry about my withered leg or my body's asymmetrical appearance as I stood there, waiting for him to reach out to me, and touch me -- really for the first time, face-to-face, with both of us knowing exactly what we wanted.

And knowing what both of us wanted was exactly the same thing.

And I knew I didn't give a damn what my father would think. I didn't give a damn what my mother, or my brother, or anybody else would think. Jessica Wainwright? She'd probably tell me I could do better.

Well. My roomy back in Arlington, Patsy Fischer, would approve. Approve? Ha! Patsy would jump Davey's bones her own self, if I gave her half a chance, which I didn't intend -- ever -- to do!

But who cared whether Mom, or Dad, or Jessica, or Patsy, or anybody else approved? I wanted to make crazy love with this man! I knew already that it was going to be superb. It had been incredible, the previous night, and I'd never even taken off my panties! I had been crazy to have him inside me, last night -- late last night, less than 20 hours ago, from right this minute!

And tonight, we weren't playing games anymore. Dave still didn't have any condoms. After I'd called Mother, he'd taken me aside and told me, again, that he didn't. I had told him, flatly, that he didn't need any condoms!

Oh, I had once gone through that now-commonplace ritual with a likely young man -- the old mutual-medical-exam routine. We had decided to start a physical relationship. He had been a very respectable young man, one I had been near-certain wasn't carrying any social diseases at the time.

And no doubt he was equally convinced that I was not sporting any STDs. But we had soberly waited out the results of our ceremonial tests, as if they'd been required by law or something, before we had, again somewhat soberly, done the deed together, after having, finally, gotten the all-clear from the Medical Profession.

Talk about your anti-climaxes! Well, to Hell with all that! Me and David Hooks were going to fuck -- bareback -- on this very night!