Chapter 4: Dave

After we beat Potomac handily and had cleaned up and dressed, I was grumbling to Alex on the way out of the locker room about the fact that I hadn't brought anything decent to wear on this road trip, and the only sports coat I had with me, after our nine days busing around North Carolina, was almost too grungy to wear on the team bus -- much less in a Horse Country private club.

"You look fine," Alex said, with all the sincerity of Martha Stewart interviewing a crack addict. "Don't worry!"

Well, I did the best I could. I sprayed deodorant into the interior armpits of the sad-looking jacket, found and put on my wrinkled necktie, and skeptically surveyed the results.

Alex, I noticed, had on a fresh suit with pants that matched. His tie cost about the same as my whole outfit, and had been purchased more recently.

Well. Except for his being taller, darker, handsomer and richer than I was, we were a matched set.

We met the young ladies under the grandstand at Potomac's neat little cinder-block ballpark. Jessica Wainwright was bragging about how she'd already used her trusty laptop to wire in her story (and three digital photographs) to the Post for Monday morning's edition. Perhaps the world will little note nor long remember, but, thanks to Jessica, suburban Washington and the Nation's Capital would know, in a matter of hours, that the Frederick Keys had beaten the Potomac Nationals, 5-1 in a ho-hum Sunday afternoon ball game, in the deep depths of Prince William County, Virginia.

Maybe they'd even post the result on the Post's web site, that very afternoon. People were waiting. Two, three people, maybe.

"This is Emily Anne," Jessica told me. "Emily Anne Shreve."

Then she looked at Alex, and I looked at Jessica looking at Alex, her look reminding him that she didn't have any idea what my name was, or what my story was, and if Alex could remember, for just one minute, what she had just said her friend's name was, then perhaps he -- Alex -- could tell them both what my name was! (... And maybe where I'd gotten that sports coat, which was lightweight tweed and looked like something a man might wear in the South in -- say -- October, instead of June.)

Alex, the Smoothie, seamlessly took over the second half of the introductions. "This is Davey Hooks, our first-string catcher," he said. "Davey, meet Emily Anne Shreve. And of course, you know Jessica."

Well, of course, I didn't know Jessica, but I nodded familiarly to her, as if the two of us were forever linked by our mutual membership in the Alex Harrell Admiration Society. Mostly, though, I just looked at Emily Anne Shreve, and was amazed that Alex had, indeed, been telling the truth. She really did make Jessica Wainwright look like a boy.

Well. Maybe not like a boy. Jessica was not lacking in any of the attributes that come immediately to mind when one thinks about the concept of "Woman." Jessica was just fine.

But Emily Anne Shreve. Does "Holy Shit!" do anything for you, descriptively? She was almost as tall as my 5'11", she had unstylish long raven hair that reminded me of those television advertisements for God Knows Which women's hair product, and her angelic facial features were kept from being overwhelmingly perfect by a light sprinkling of freckles that added an endearing innocence to her expression.

She was, in a word, perfect. She wore a long skirt, no doubt in part to cover her lame leg, but her loveliness transcended lame legs.

My mouth was dry and I was having trouble with the amenities. I think I listened to Alex' intro and said something more or less appropriate, but I can't be certain. I remember being grateful that I'd heard about her leg and her reported limp, because if that had been perfect, too, I'd have been so completely intimidated that I'd have simply turned and run away, then and there.

But Emily Anne Shreve was cool with my lack of cool. She was probably somewhat accustomed to getting that kind of reaction.

Walking to Alex' car, Emily Anne's limp looked as if it made walking somewhat painful. At least, the break in her gait was quite noticeable. She said nothing about it and didn't seem surprised that I, quite obviously, had been forewarned about The Limp.

I was flooded with new concern about my barely acceptable outfit. I was worried that I might be giving off some sort of unintended body fragrance from my seedy tweed coat, and concerned that Jessica (if not Emily Anne herself) might suddenly turn to Alex, pronounce me unacceptable, and send us both on our way.

None of that happened, of course, and soon Emily Anne and I were seated together in the back seat of the Audi, letting Alex drive and Jessica carry the conversation.

I searched around for something intelligent to say. It wasn't my first date. Back at UAB, I had been a reasonably cool guy. I had dated girls who'd been in Medical School, f'Chrissakes! Future doctors! I even dated a girl who was the daughter of the Mayor of Mountain Brook, Alabama, one of Birmingham's hoity-toity over-the-mountain suburbs.

The Mayor of fucking Mountain Brook, I'm talking. His daughter. Is that impressive, or what? OK, so I didn't get to second base, with Mayor's Daughter -- whatever her name was. Not the point. She had accepted an actual date, with me, knowing it was me, the whole time. And she had been pretty fine, too. And there had been no police involvement, at any point.

This girl, though. Emily Anne Shreve.

Holy shit!

Well, Emily Anne was the sort of cultured person who would have been saying things to me like "Alex tells me you went to college in Alabama." You know -- trying to get the conversational ball rolling. Only Emily Anne didn't have much advance notice of who Jessica's boyfriend, Alex, was going to be bringing to meet her after the game. Maybe Jessica had pointed at my back, when I was hunched down behind the plate during the game, and said to Emily Anne, "... That one." But if she had, it was pretty much the extent of the information provided.

Like me, Emily Anne had probably been dragged into this, as some sort of condition attached to being caught away from home with Good Old Jessica.

Emily Anne probably at least knew I went to college somewhere, because from what Alex had told me, Jessica no doubt had made college graduation -- or at least, attendance -- a prerequisite to bringing around another Jock to meet her friend, Emily Anne.

It was up to me. We could only listen politely to Jessica's incessant patter for so long before saying something to each other. I realized that I knew more about Emily Anne than she did about me. I knew where she was a student! It was up to me to say something first.

"Alex mentioned that you were a senior at Georgetown," I said.

"Yes. I am."

"Great school." Thank you, U. S. News Magazine survey of America's Best Colleges and Universities.

"And where did you... go?" Emily asked.

"UAB," I said. "University of Alabama -- Birmingham."

"You don't have a southern accent," Emily Anne said. She did. It was faint. It was Northern Virginia-southern, not Louisiana cornpone, but it was there. Actually, her light accent was kind of endearing, but, then, I was rapidly finding everything about Emily Anne Shreve to be endearing.

"That's because I'm from Ohio," I said. "I went to UAB on a baseball scholarship."

"Oh. Did you like it there? The school? Birmingham?"

Well, Birmingham, Alabama is not exactly the San Francisco of the South, but, yes, I liked it there just fine. The Southside, where the University is located, is a kind of neat, Bohemian neighborhood with lots of picturesque old houses hanging off the side of Red Mountain, and with its share of really good restaurants and nightspots. Being a small-town boy from Ohio, I hadn't found anything in Birmingham at which to turn up my nose. (Note that I didn't end that sentence with a preposition.)

UAB was new, as colleges go, and pretty much an unknown place, among big Universities, but its medical school was top-drawer, and very often nationally recognized as such. UAB was not chopped liver. It wasn't Harvard, either. Or Georgetown, even.

Back to earth, there, Davey.

Davey. That's what Alex had called me. Nobody called me fucking "Davey." He was trying to make me sound as endearing as my blind date, Emily Anne there, was.

Davey.

Wait until I get that asshole alone. I'll show him Davey!

My mind was racing through all these thoughts, but they didn't keep me from mumbling more or less appropriate responses to Emily Anne's questions about Birmingham and UAB and Life in the South, and, pretty soon, we were having a more-or-less normal, adult conversation. I remembered, after a little while, to ask a few questions back.

I found out that she was, indeed, a senior at Georgetown, majoring in International Relations or some such. She was minoring in Romance Languages, and although Emily Anne made little of that fact, Jessica overheard our back-seat exchange and let me know that Emily Anne was "fluent in Spanish, French and Italian."

"I can barely get by in Italian," Emily Anne protested modestly.

"Same here," said I.

Witty. That's me.

"Emily Anne is from one of the First Families of Virginia," Jessica further volunteered. "Her grandfather was in President Nixon's Cabinet."

"I'm sure that, despite that, you've managed to lead a happy, normal life," said I.

My humor is from the Seinfeld School. And I studied at the feet of George Carlin.

Emily laughed politely at my minor-league bon mot.

But Jessica wasn't finished with the resume. "Emily's father is Undersecretary of State," she said.

That's nothing, thought I. Back in Coshocton, my father was manager of the electronics department at Sears. We had a new TV, practically every year. It was always -- always still under manufacturer's warranty.

I'd exhausted my initial supply of small talk, but it was OK, as we had arrived at the Club. As we were being led to our table for what would be a very early dinner, I kept trying. "Will you be following in your father's footsteps? Into Government? Maybe the Diplomatic Corps?"

"That would be his fondest wish," Emily said. "But, at this moment, at least, I don't think so."

"What, then?" said I. ("Whither?" I thought. But I didn't actually say, "Whither?" Don't worry! I was being careful.)

"Maybe journalism," Emily replied. "I've worked some for the school's radio station, and for a small local TV channel in Washington."

"She'd be great at it!" Jessica enthused. "She's a better writer than I am, and I'm no slouch, my own self!"

Jessica Wainwright couldn't be more than 24 years old, tops. If she had gotten on at the Washington Post on talent alone -- and if her Daddy (unlike Emily's) was not a Major-Influence-Peddling-Wheel -- then I had to agree that Jessica must, indeed, be no slouch as a writer.

"Television news?... Is that your area of interest?" I asked.

Somebody told me somewhere that the way to be a good conversationalist is to focus on the "other" person. The person to whom you are conversing. I was perfectly content to focus on Emily Anne Shreve.

I was in love.

So, OK, I wasn't in love, maybe. After all, I had met this girl -- let's see... ninety minutes ago, give or take. But she was falling-down fine, and she seemed to be a Decent Human Being (despite her grandfather's having worked for Nixon -- probably personally arranging the Watergate Burglary). She seemed charming and not the least bit condescending to little old David Hooks, Boy Catcher. Well, "Boy Catcher" doesn't sound right. "Boy Ballplayer." Hmmm. Still sounds a little... ambiguous, doesn't it? Little David Hooks, Boy Wonder. There. That's got it. Not original, maybe. Not even particularly accurate. But, hey, it's only a flag to fly under. Nothing serious.

I was nervous at dinner because there were white tablecloths on all the tables, and more forks than I had seen in one place-setting before, anywhere. We had a country club back in Coshocton, too, but, let me tell you: There are country clubs, and there are Country Clubs.

This one was a little fancier than I was accustomed to; not that we were members, back home, of that small-c club, either.

Anyway, I watched Emily, and whatever fork she used, I used that one, too. Well. Not literally, but you know what I'm saying, here. I got by OK. The place was cool and the air conditioning was working copasetic, and after awhile, my lightweight tweed jacket didn't feel so out-of-season anymore. So what if one day, last week, had been the first day of Summer?