Chapter 5: Emily Anne

I was impressed that Davey asked me to go for a walk. Most guys -- most people, really -- who relate to me usually try to avoid the subject of walking. They're afraid it'll remind me that I'm a gimp. Well, I may be a gimp, and I may walk a little funny, but I can walk. It doesn't hurt me, walking. I guess it sort of looks as if it's hurting me, to other people, but I can walk fine -- at least for a reasonable distance, at a reasonable pace.

There are limits. I don't play golf, for example. But, hey -- I could. With a golf cart, I could handle it, I'm pretty sure.

Anyway, walking around the Country Club grounds with this Davey guy; that was no big challenge. It was becoming clear that he wasn't going to treat me like I was made of glass, or something. Davey was kind of a cool guy. Well. That jacket he was wearing. That could use some work! And he seemed a little oversensitive. I could tell that he wasn't accustomed to being in a setting like this one -- where everyone -- at least everyone who wasn't a waiter -- was obviously pretty flush. Davey wasn't entirely comfortable with it, and it showed.

Davey Hooks didn't appear to be exactly rolling in dough. Baseball players get paid awfully well -- or so I had heard -- but I guess that maybe beginners, like Davey, don't make so much money. Alex Harrell, though, Jessica's date, certainly seemed to be pretty prosperous.

But, really, about all I know about baseball, I had learned from watching that movie, "Bull Durham," on television. That was about the Carolina League, too, as I recall. Kevin Costner was in it. And that guy -- Whatshisname -- who's hooked up with Susan Sarandon now. I think working on that movie was where those two got together!... Funny, Costner looked like an awful lot better match for her than Whatshisname did. In the movie, Costner even got the girl, at the end!

But not really. Whatshisname got the girl, in real life!

And the Carolina League -- that's the same league as the Potomac Nationals play in. And of course Frederick -- Davey's team, too. In the movie, there were a lot of girls gunning for the ballplayers. I wonder if it's really like that? I guess I could ask ol' Davey, here. Of course, he might not tell me what it's really like, being a ballplayer.

Being chased by young girls.

He seems kind of shy. Well, no. Not shy, exactly. Kind of... what? Reserved. On his guard, a little bit. I think it's because he smells all the money around here. All this -- the Club, here -- is just everyday stuff, to me. And to Jessica, too. Even Alex looks as if he's been in a few private clubs in his time. But Davey's like a fish out of water, here.

Well, it's not like I don't know my way around the block, with the non-rich. I've done work with children in the public schools. And down in Belize, last summer, with that group from the Pan American Students' organization. And I've got some friends at school who don't have money. My roommate -- Patsy -- is a scholarship student. I'm not just some over-privileged little rich girl.

OK. Maybe I am. But I don't think of myself that way. I mean, we're not rich, exactly... Well, I guess we are, really. But I don't think of my family as being "rich people." I guess it's true, though, that Daddy's a little bit on the fat-cat side. I mean, he certainly doesn't put on airs, or anything, but you can kind of tell, the way he acts, he's used to a life of comfort. You can see it, pretty much in everything he says or does... In a restaurant, for example. Oh, he's always courteous and considerate of the hired help. But it's there: the Attitude. It's a little bit... imperious? Superior?

But, hey, I'm not like that! And Mom isn't, either. Well, Mom's not spending all her time at Foggy Bottom with the diplomats. Life at her law firm is a little more of a rock 'em and sock 'em proposition. That place is chock full of high-powered lawyers! There are more of them who are glorified lobbyists than there are litigators. Shoot -- I bet that I've been inside a courtroom as often as some of those law partners! Still, they do wheel and deal in a much more varied environment than the people that Dad knows, and works with.

Let's face it, if you're not at least a little bit stuffy, the State Department isn't going to be a comfortable place for you to work. Some of Mom's law partners, relatively speaking, are somewhat on the rough-and-ready side.

Dad wants me to go into International Diplomacy. I don't know. It doesn't seem quite -- right for me. I almost think I'd rather go to law school -- like Mom.

But I don't want to be a lobbyist. Yuchhht! God, no! Maybe I could go to law school, and become a public defender. I could protect the downtrodden from getting run over by The System.

Or maybe I've just seen too many lawyer shows on TV.

This boy -- Davey. He's kind of a hunk! Not a classic handsome stud, like Alex. No. More a country boy. Huck Finn, all grown up. He's only an inch or two taller than I am, but those shoulders! Wow! He looks... strong! A catcher. Looks like he could block the plate, all right! I got to watch him, today, all through the game. We hadn't met, so he couldn't have picked me out of the crowd, even if he'd tried. But I knew he was going to be my date, and that he was the catcher.

So I watched him, the whole game. He was very self-assured, out there. Kind of ran the game, when his team was on the field. He seemed almost like a coach, talking to the pitchers, calming them down when they got wild and walked somebody, or gave up an extra-base hit. Both of the Frederick guys who pitched in the game looked like they were about 14 years old. They weren't, of course, but they looked it! Those men -- those boys, out there. They were awfully young! I guess Davey is about my own age -- 22. But some of them seemed even younger. Maybe some of them didn't go to college, like Davey, before they started to play ball.

If they were just out of high school, and this was the beginner's level. Why, some of them might be just 18 or 19! Well, they looked it!

My date, Davey Hooks, was oh-for-four at the plate. Too bad. I wanted to see him hit one out. Would have given us something extra to talk about, on our after-game date.

He looked like, with those shoulders, he could hit one out.

But Davey, it turned out, wasn't hard to talk to. The longer we were together, the more relaxed he became.

And the more I started to like him. He was my first jock. I'd been dating for a long time, but it had mostly been boys from the schools I had gone to, growing up. Or, more recently, young men from the University, or business associates of my father's, or my mother's. Oh, some of them played golf or tennis, probably. But certainly none of them had been a professional athlete.

A professional athlete! Low-grade professional, I guess, in Davey's case. Jessica said the Carolina League was the lowest-level of baseball there was, except for the rookie leagues. It was Ground Zero for ballplayers.

But still. These men, these boys, were professional athletes.

I wondered what my parents would think of that? Not much! I'm sure Dad would think there was something vaguely disreputable about making one's living playing a kid's game. Mom might be more tolerant -- Mom was always more tolerant. But she would want to know what his prospects were. She probably knew a little something about the kind of money major athletes could make.

But not catchers in the Carolina League. She wouldn't know that. Well, I didn't know either, but I gathered it wasn't very much.

My parents were trying, as subtly as they knew how, to get me matched up with somebody. I was, after all, about to graduate from college! Sure, they knew I might go to grad school, but it was Time (in their view, if not in mine) for me to hook up with a man. Time for Something Serious. Something with A Future.

They saw me going to a lot of my friends' weddings. I'd been a bridesmaid my share of times, God knows. Grad school or no grad school, my parents thought it was Time.

And so, a parade of men had been -- well -- paraded before me. Dates were arranged. Dinners. Events to attend. Concerts and plays. Seminars, even! There was always... oh, all right, not always -- but very often -- there was very often some guy there that Dad (or, sometimes, Mom) wanted me to meet.