A Hundred Summers (23 page)

Then a grinning Graham stepped forward, without warning, and threw the football toward Nick’s chest. Nick lifted his arm and caught it one-handed, folding it into his elbow, without letting go of Kiki’s hand.

“He caught it!” said Kiki triumphantly.

A smile shadowed Nick’s lips. He gave the ball a spin, so it landed back in his broad palm, cradled by his long fingers, and with an almost casual flick of his arm he sent it spinning like a rifle bullet, thumping straight into the center of Graham Pendleton’s perfect sternum.

Kiki screamed with joy. “Oh, do it again, Nick! Do it again!”

“All right.” Nick dropped her hand and took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his sleeves and the cuffs of his long flannel trousers. Each movement, neat and deliberate, thrummed with latent energy. He jogged into the swarm of half-naked bodies, into the middle of the bare chests and daring swimsuits, half a head taller than anyone else, including Graham. A warm feeling settled into the pit of my stomach, a sense of rightness.

Kiki pulled my hand. “I want to play, too, Lily. Let me play.”

Nick was pointing his arm, sending people into place. With delight I watched his face, watched his brow narrow and settle, his eyes harden and gleam, the familiar long-hidden lines of his pirate face take shape.

“Honey,” I said, “I think you’d better sit out for a while.”

I led her to the blanket, where Aunt Julie had sat up and begun to watch the game unfolding around Nick’s broad and lanky frame. “I didn’t realize he was so tall,” she said.

“We haven’t seen him much this summer, have we?” I ruffled Kiki’s hair.

I didn’t know many of the people grouped on the beach. Nearly all of them were Budgie’s houseguests. I knew Graham and Budgie, of course, who were playing together opposite Nick. I saw Norm Palmer on Nick’s team, looking disconcerted. The Palmers had been caught awkwardly in the center of the Greenwald divide, as I had: Graham had refused to take sides against Budgie, so Emily and Norm were brought into her circle on occasion.

Nick himself was another matter. He had held himself conveniently apart until now, sparing us all any overt awkwardness, and now poor Norm had no idea what to do. He sent a helpless glance at his wife on her blanket. Emily shrugged her bony tennis shoulders and lay back on her elbows.

It soon became obvious that Graham and Nick were the only men who knew anything about playing football. Nick’s team had the ball first, and he threw to Norm Palmer, a perfect arc of a throw, gently delivered into the juncture of Norm’s ribs. Norm bobbled the ball back and forth between his hands for a few breathless seconds, higher and wilder at each bobble, until Graham swooped in like an attacking eagle and snatched it away, running fifteen yards down the beach before Nick tackled him in an explosion of flying sand.

Graham leaped back up and brandished the ball. “Interception!” he yelled. “An interception of a Greenwald pass! Never been done before!” He kissed the ball and pointed it at me.

I lit a cigarette. “I wonder what Joe McCarthy would think of that tackle.”

“Who’s Joe McCarthy?” asked Aunt Julie.

“The manager for the Yankees, of course. Everybody knows that.” I blew out an insouciant stream of smoke.

But Graham’s jubilation shriveled early.

First he handed the ball to Budgie, who took two springing steps before a host of willing stockbroker arms—some of which belonged to her own team—dragged her into the sand.

Next, Graham tried passing to one of the stockbrokers. The fellow caught the ball, but before he could turn and run, Nick flew into him with such force that the ball catapulted from his hands and into the astonished palms of Norm Palmer, who happened to be standing nearby. “Run!” Nick shouted, and Norm ran a few steps in the wrong direction before Nick turned him around and performed a simultaneous sidearm block of Graham Pendleton, who had rushed up in defense. Norm ran up the beach unchecked to score the game’s first touchdown.

Kiki jumped up and screamed. “Hooray, NICK! Did you see that, Lily?”

A ripple of tension ran across the field of play.

There was no possibility of kicking, because of tender bare feet. Graham’s team had the ball again, and this time Graham delegated quarterback duties to one of the stockbrokers. “Just hand the damned ball to me,” he said. His face was dripping with sweat in the scorching sun. He wiped it away from his brow and settled down for the next play with the tip of his finger pressed into the sand to brace himself.

“Dear me,” said Aunt Julie. “Things are getting serious.”

I stretched out my legs and lit another cigarette. Nick was sweating, too, beneath his white shirt and trousers, now stuck with sand. He waited for the play with his legs apart, his eyes narrowed fiercely, his hands flexing, just like the first moment I’d seen him. The muscles of my body clenched in response. I felt as if I were suffocating, unable to breathe under the weight of the emotion pressing my heart as I watched Nick Greenwald stand poised for battle in the sand.

Kiki cheered and yelled by my side. The ball snapped up and was flung to Graham, and he plunged forward like a locomotive, legs churning, just as Budgie had described him on a long-ago autumn afternoon, in another life.

But Nick Greenwald was not afraid of locomotives. He lunged directly at Graham and wrapped him with his long arms and stopped him dead at the third step.

Aunt Julie reached for the picnic basket. “Well, well. Who wants a little gin and tonic?”

ONE BY ONE,
the stockbrokers and mistresses dropped out, done in by the heat, splashing into the ocean to cool off and watch the duel between Graham and Nick, supplemented by Norm and Budgie and two tenacious others. The tide was rising, compressing the field of play. We moved our blanket back, to give them a little more room.

“They really should stop,” I said, stubbing out my fourth cigarette with trembling fingers. “It’s far too hot. Someone’s going to collapse.”

Aunt Julie said: “I doubt they’ll stop until someone
does
collapse.”

At that instant, one of the remaining stockbrokers let out a yell. One of the women ran to him, screaming, and bent over his foot. “He’s stepped on a shell,” she announced. “He can’t play.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” said Nick. The stockbroker played on his side.

“No, it’s not,” said Graham, whose team was losing by six points.

Budgie put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be silly. We’ve played long enough. We’re out of people.”

Graham looked at me. “Lily can play.”

Everyone turned to me. I was in the act of lighting another cigarette. I looked back and forth between Nick and Graham, put down cigarette and lighter, and shook my head. “Oh, no. I’ve never played football.”

“It’s easy. Nick will do all the work. Won’t you, Nick?” Graham raised his eyebrows at Nick.

“Let’s just call if off, all right? I’ll forfeit. You win.”

“Oh, no, you don’t, you damned . . .” Graham stopped himself.

Nick said coldly: “For God’s sake, Pendleton. It’s scorching out. She doesn’t want to play.”

I jumped up. “You know what? I’ll play.”

A halfhearted cheer rose up around me. I dusted the sand off my legs and walked over to where Nick stood, frowning, bouncing the ball back and forth between his hands. “Are you sure, Lily?” he asked, in a low voice.

“Absolutely. Just show me what to do.”

“You don’t need to do anything. Just stay out of trouble.”

“Don’t be condescending. I came to play. I’ve been watching, I know what’s going on. Pass me the ball and I’ll catch it.”

“Do you know how to catch a football?”

“It can’t be that hard.”

Nick sighed.

“Look,” I said, “I’ve been catching practice balls for Graham all summer.”

“That’s baseball. You get to wear a glove in baseball.”

Graham cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: “Should I send over some lemonade, ladies?”

“Pass me the ball, Nick. I’ll catch it.”

Nick met my gaze.

Norm Palmer hit his shoulder. “Come on, Greenwald. Let’s get started.”

“All right,” said Nick. “Palmer, you run across, like I’m throwing to you. Lily, just run straight down the side, the right side. Ten yards and turn around. Hold your hands like this, Lily.” He showed me, making a triangle with his forefingers and thumbs. “Keep your palms soft, your fingers soft. Let the ball do the work. Got it? On three.”

I had no idea what
On three
meant. We lined up in the hot sand, Norm and Nick and me on Nick’s right side. Budgie winked one round eye at me. She was sweating, but with a kind of delicate female dewiness, a sheen over her glowing skin. I dug my toes into the sand and waited.

Nick said something rhythmic and incomprehensible, and all at once we were in motion, Nick stepping back, Norm Palmer shooting forward. I began to run, counting off steps until I reached ten, and I turned around.

The ball sailed from Nick’s fingers toward me.

Palms soft,
I thought.
Fingers soft.

The ball landed gently in my hands. Without thinking, I turned and darted forward, and there was Budgie, dancing at me, smiling widely, going for the tackle. I started one way, then another.

“Lily! Over here!”

Nick was running up on my left side, holding out his hands. I didn’t stop to wonder. I tossed the ball toward him.

My aim was off, far too high in my exuberance. Nick leaped up into the air, stretching his long body to its limit, exposing the lean muscles of his abdomen beneath the ends of his white shirt. His fingertips grazed the ball. He almost had it.

But then my vision was obscured by the barreling form of Graham Pendleton, by Graham’s legs driving into the sand and his broad shoulders bent for attack. He caught Nick in midair, right in the ribs, and Nick crashed to the ground.

The ball made a drunken roll and settled into the sand next to his head.

FOR A MOMENT,
we stood frozen, like actors in a play who have suddenly forgotten the script. We stared together at Nick’s prone body in the sand, at the back of his hair ruffling in the breeze, at his white shirtsleeves and rolled-up trousers and his heels sticking up toward the sun.

Then Kiki gave a little scream and ran to his side, and everyone jumped into motion. Budgie dropped to her knees and began to wail; Graham swore and put his hands to his head and called for a doctor and swore again. I forced my limbs to action, forced myself toward Nick’s body, to kneel next to him, to grasp his shoulders and turn him over and slap his pale cheeks.

“He’s breathing,” I heard myself say, quite calm. I looked at Graham. “Go into the clubhouse. Charlie Crofter is playing bridge with my mother. He’s a doctor.”

Graham took off at a run. I laid out Nick’s limbs with care, put my hand on his chest. His breathing seemed shallow but regular. His eyelids were as still as death over his hazel eyes. “What’s the matter?” whimpered Kiki. “Is he dead?”

“No, he’s not dead. He’s been knocked unconscious. He’ll be all right,” I said. “He’ll be all right. Won’t you, Nick? Talk to him, Kiki. I’m sure he can hear you.”

Lord, let him be all right. I’ll do anything. Let him be all right.

“Nick, wake up,” said Kiki, in a tearful voice, not her own. “Please wake up. It’s Kiki. Please wake up.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t a nurse. My heart was crashing in my ears, but I felt unnaturally calm, almost serene, as if I were in a dream and not myself. I unbuttoned Nick’s shirt and spread it carefully apart. His ribs were already purpling from the force of Graham’s hit. Broken, possibly. I would have to tell Charlie about that.

“You’re all right, Nick,” I said firmly, quietly, because Kiki was now babbling. “It’s Lily, Nick. It’s your Lilybird, remember? The doctor’s coming. You’ll be all right. You
must
be all right, do you hear me?” I heard Budgie behind me, still wailing. “Your wife needs you, Nick. Wake up for her.”

Anything, Lord. Even that.

I looked over my shoulder. Budgie was crawling in the sand toward us, her mascara running in gritty black streaks from her eyes. I had never seen her cry before, really cry. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I told him to play. It’s my fault. He’s dead, isn’t he? I can’t look.”