A Hundred Summers (2 page)

Inside, the stands are packed, pouring over with people, like a concrete bowl with too much punch. I pause at the burst of noise and color as we emerge into the open, into the sudden deluge of humanity, but there’s no hesitation in Budgie. She slings her arm around mine and drags me down the steps, across several rows, stepping over outstretched legs and leather shoes and peanut shells, excusing herself merrily. She knows exactly where she’s going, as always. She grips my arm with a confident hand, tugging me in her wake, until a shouted
Budgie! Budgie Byrne!
wafts over the infinite mass of checked caps and cloche hats. Budgie stops, angles her body just so, and raises her other arm in a dainty wave.

I don’t know these friends of hers. Dartmouth boys, I suppose, familiar to Budgie through some social channel or another. They aren’t paying much attention to the game. They are festive, laughing, rowdy, throwing nuts at one another and climbing over the rows. In 1931, two years after the stock crash, we are still merry. Panics happen, companies fail, but it’s only a bump in the road, a temporary thing. The great engine coughs, it sputters, but it doesn’t die. It will start roaring again soon.

In 1931, we have no idea at all what lies ahead.

They are boys, mostly. Budgie knows a lot of boys. A few of them have their girls nestled next to them, local girls and visiting girls, and these girls all cast looks of instinctive suspicion at Budgie. They take in her snug dark green sweater, with its conspicuous letter
D
on the left breast, and her shining dark hair, and her Betty Boop face. They don’t pay my pretty pink cheeks much attention at all.

“What’d I miss? How’s he doing?” she demands, settling herself on the bench. Her eyes scan the field for her current boyfriend—the reason for our breakneck morning drive from Massachusetts—who plays back for Dartmouth. She met him over the summer, when he was staying with friends of ours at Seaview, as if Hollywood central casting had ordered her up the perfect costar, his eyes a complementary shade of summertime blue to her winter ice. Graham Pendleton is tall, athletic, charming, glamorously handsome. He excels at all sports, even the ones he hasn’t tried. I like him; you can’t help but like Graham. He reminds me of a golden retriever, and who doesn’t love a golden retriever?

“He’s all right, I guess,” says one of the boys. He seats himself on the bench next to Budgie, so close his leg touches hers, and offers her a square of Hershey. “Decent run in the last series. Eleven yards.”

Budgie sucks the chocolate into her mouth and pats the narrow space on her other side. “Sit next to me, Lily. I want you to see this. Look down at the field.” She points. “There he is. Number twenty-two. Do you see him? On the sidelines, near the bench. He’s standing, talking to Nick Greenwald.”

I look down at the near sideline. We’re closer to the field than I thought, perhaps ten rows up, and my vision swarms with Dartmouth jerseys. I find the number 22 painted in stark white on a broad forest-green back. Strange, to see Graham in a sober football uniform instead of a bathing costume or tennis whites or a neat flannel suit and straw boater. He’s deep in conversation with number 9, who stands at his right, half a head taller. Their battered leather helmets are tucked under their arms, and their hair is the same shade of indeterminate brown, damp and sticky with sweat: one curly, one straight.

“Isn’t he handsome?” Budgie’s shoulders sink under a dreamy sigh.

Number 9, the taller one, the curly-haired one, looks up at that exact instant, as if he’s heard her words. The two of them are perhaps fifty yards away, and the bright autumn sun strikes their heads in a wash of clear gold.

Nick Greenwald,
I repeat in my head.
Where have I heard that name before?

His face is hard, etched from the same brickwork as the stadium itself, and his eyes are narrowed and sharp, overhung by a pair of fiercely gathered eyebrows. There is something so intense, so fulminant, about his expression, like a man from another age.

A vibration crackles up my spine, a charge of electricity.

“Yes,” I say. “Very handsome.”

“His eyes are so blue, almost like mine. He’s such a darling. Remember how he chased my hat into the water last summer, Lily?”

“Who’s that one? The one he’s talking to?”

“Oh, Nick? Just the quarterback.”

“What’s a quarterback?”

“Nothing, really. Stands there and hands the ball to Graham. Graham’s the star. He’s scored eight touchdowns this year. He can run through anybody.” Graham looks up, following Nick’s gaze, and Budgie stands up and waves her arm.

Neither responds. Graham turns to Nick and says something. Nick is carrying a football, tossing it absently from one enormous hand to the other.

“I guess they’re looking somewhere else,” says Budgie, and she sits down, frowning. She taps her fingers against her knee and leans close to the boy next to her. “You couldn’t be a darling and spare a girl another nibble, could you?”

“Have as much as you like,” he says, and holds out the Hershey bar to her. She breaks off a square with her long fingers.

“Are they friends?” I ask.

“Who? Nick and Graham? I guess. Good friends. They room together, I think.” She stops and turns to me. Her breath is sweet from the chocolate, almost syrupy. “Why, Lily! What are you thinking, you sly thing?”

“Nothing. Just curious.”

Her hand covers her mouth. “Nick? Nick
Greenwald?
Really?”

“I just . . . he looks interesting, that’s all. It’s nothing.” My skin heats, all over.

“
Nothing
’s nothing with you, honey. I know that look in your eye, and you can stop right now.”

“
What
look?” I fiddle with the belt of my cardigan. “And what do you mean,
stop right now
?”

“Oh, Lily, honey. Do I have to spell it out?”

“Spell what out?”

“I know he’s handsome, but . . .” She trails off, in an embarrassed way, but her eyes glitter in her magnolia face.

“But
what
?”

“You’re putting me on, right?”

I peer into her face for some clue to her meaning. Budgie has a knack for that, for savoring nuances that whoosh straight over my unruly head. Perhaps Nick Greenwald has some unspeakable chronic disease. Perhaps he has a girl already, not that Budgie would see any previous engagement as an obstacle.

Not that I care, of course. Not that my mind has jumped ahead that far. I like his face, that’s all.

“Putting you on?” I say, hedging.

“Lily,
honey
.” Budgie shakes her head, places her hand atop my knee, and drops her voice to a delighted whisper in my ear: “Honey, he’s a J-E-W.” She says the last syllable with exaggerated precision, like
ewe.

A cheer passes through the crowd, gaining strength. In front of us, people are beginning to stand up and holler. The bench feels hard as stone beneath my legs.

I look back down at the two men on the sideline, at Nick Greenwald. He’s turned his eagle eyes to the action on the field, watching intently, and his profile cuts a clean gold line against a background of closely shaved grass.

Budgie’s tone, delivering this piece of information, was that of a parent speaking to a particularly obtuse child. Budgie, hearing the name
Greenwald,
knows without thinking that it’s a Jewish name, that some invisible line separates her future from his. Budgie regards my ignorance of these important matters with incredulity.

Not that I’m entirely ignorant. I know some Jewish girls at college. They’re like everyone else, nice and friendly and clever to varying degrees. They tend to keep to themselves, except for one or two who strain with painful effort to ingratiate themselves with girls like Budgie. I used to wonder what they did on Christmas Day, when everything was closed. Did they mark the occasion at all, or was it just another day to them? What did they think of all the trees for sale, all the presents, all the Nativity scenes filling the nooks and crannies? Did they regard our quaint customs with amusement?

Of course, I never dared to ask.

Budgie, on the other hand, is attuned to every minute vibration in the universe around her, every wobble of an alien planet. She continues, confidently: “Not that you’d see it at first glance. His mother was one of the Nicholson girls, such a lovely family, very fair, but her father lost everything in the panic, not the last one, obviously, the one before the war, and she ended up marrying Nick’s father. You look mystified, honey. What, didn’t you know all this? You must get out more.”

I remain silent, watching the field, watching the two men on the sidelines. Some frenzy of activity is taking place, green shirts running off the field and green shirts running on. Graham and Nick Greenwald strap on their helmets and dash into the lines of uniforms assembling on the grass. Nick runs with elastic grace, keeps his long legs under perfect control.

Budgie removes her hand from my knee. “You think I’m horrible, don’t you?”

“I think you sound like my mother.”

“I don’t mean it like that. You know I don’t. I’m not a
bigot
, Lily. I have
several
Jewish friends.” She sounds a little petulant. I’ve never seen Budgie petulant.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’re thinking it.” She tosses her head. “Fine. I’m sure he’ll come along to dinner tonight. You can meet him for yourself. He’s nice enough. Have some fun, have a few kicks.”

“What makes you think I’m interested?”

“Well, why not? You’re in desperate need of a few kicks, honey. I’ll bet he could show you a good time.” She leans in to my ear. “Just don’t bring him home to your mother, if you know what I mean.”

“What are you girls whispering about?” It’s the boy on Budgie’s right, the Hershey boy, giving her arm a shove.

“We’ll never tell,” says Budgie. She stands up and pulls me with her. “Now, watch this, Lily. It’s our turn. When the play starts, Nick’s going to give the ball to Graham. Watch Graham. Number twenty-two. He’ll blast right through them, you’ll see. He’s like a
locomotive
, that’s what the papers say.”

Budgie begins to clap her hands, and so do I, sharp slaps like a metronome. I’m watching the field, all right, but not Graham. My eyes are trained on the white number 9 in the middle of the line of green jerseys. He stands right behind the fellow in the center, with his head raised. He’s shouting something, and I can hear his sharp bark all the way up here, ten rows deep in cheering spectators.

Just like that, the men burst free. Nick Greenwald pedals backward from the line, with the ball in his hands, and I wait for Graham to run up, wait for Nick to hand the ball to Graham, the way Budgie said he would.

But Graham doesn’t run up.

Nick hovers there for an instant, examining the territory ahead, his feet performing a graceful dance on the ragged turf, and then his arm draws back, snaps forward, and the ball shoots from his fingertips to soar in a true and beautiful arc above the heads of the other players and down the length of the field.

I strain on my toes, lifted by the roar of the crowd around me as I follow the path of the ball. On and on it goes, a small brown missile, while the field runs green and white in a river of men, flowing down to meet it.

Somewhere at the far end of that river, a pair of hands reaches up and snatches the ball from the sky.

The crash of noise is instantaneous.

“He’s got it! He’s got it!” yells the boy on Budgie’s other side, flinging the rest of his Hershey bar into the air.

“Did you see that!” shouts someone behind me.

The Dartmouth man flies forward with the ball tucked under his arm, into the white-striped rectangle at the end of the field, and we are hugging one another, screaming, hats coming loose, roasted nuts spilling from their paper bags. A cannon fires, and the band kicks off with brassy enthusiasm.

“Wasn’t that terrific!” I yell, into Budgie’s ear. The noise around us rings so intensely, I can hardly hear myself.

“Terrific!”

My heart smacks against my ribs in rhythm with the band. Every vessel of my body sings with joy. I turn back to the stadium floor, holding the brim of my hat against the bright sun, and look for Nick Greenwald and his astonishing arm.

At first, I can’t find him. The urgent flow and eddy of men on the field has died into stagnation. A group of green jerseys gathers together, one by one, near the original line of play, as if drawn by a magnet. I search for the white number 9, but in the jumble of digits it’s nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps he’s already gone back to the benches. That hard profile does not suggest a celebratory nature.

Someone, there in that crowd of Dartmouth jerseys, lifts his arm and waves to the sideline.

Two men dash out, dressed in white. One is carrying a black leather bag.

“Oh, no,” says the boy on Budgie’s right. “Someone’s hurt.”

Budgie wrings her hands together. “Oh, I hope it’s not Graham. Someone find Graham. Oh, I can’t look.” She turns her face into the shoulder of my cardigan.

I put my arm around her and stare at the throng of football players. Every head is down, shaking, sorrowful. The huddle parts to accept the white-clothed men, and I catch a glimpse of the fellow lying on the field.

“There he is! I see his number!” shouts the Hershey boy. “Twenty-two, right there next to the man down. He’s all right, Budgie.”

“Oh, thank God,” says Budgie.

I stand on my toes, but I can’t see well enough over the heads before me. I push away Budgie’s head, climb on the bench, and rise back onto the balls of my feet.

The stadium is absolutely silent. The band has stopped playing, the public address has gone quiet.

“Well, who’s hurt, then?” demands Budgie.

The boy climbs on the seat next to me and jumps up once, twice. “I can just see . . . no, wait . . . oh,
Jesus
.”

“What? What?” I demand. I can’t see anything behind those two men in white, kneeling over the body on the field, leather bag gaping open.

“It’s Greenwald,” says the boy, climbing down. He swears under his breath. “There goes the game.”