Blind Your Ponies (20 page)

“Ran into your dad Saturday…. Seemed pretty steamed about your playing basketball.”

“He’s usually steamed about something. He’d have booted me long ago if he didn’t need me to get the crop in this spring.”

“Does he make it hard for you at home?”

“Sometimes. You can never tell what mood he’ll be in. I avoid him most of the time. If I see his truck, I don’t go home. He’s out drinkin’ a lot. Don’t
worry about him. I’m really on my own and there’s no way he can stop me from playin’.”

Sam’s imagination ran wild when he thought about what George Stone-breaker might be capable of doing. In some measure Tom was playing in defiance of his volatile father, and it had little to do with Sam’s attempts to motivate him with lofty visions of what the team might accomplish.

The other four boys arrived together, extremely cheerful and boisterous, causing Sam to wonder if they didn’t care that they had lost their first three games—not to mention all realistic expectations of winning any others—and had succumbed to the infection of failure. He served up pizza and Pepsi, and pick-and-rolls on the television screen, sensing a preoccupation with the boys, a lack of concentration, as though they watched halfheartedly when he pointed out individual moves for each of them.

“Rob and Tom, see this: they isolate on the side. Tom, you come up and put a body on Rob’s man. Now, see that, see that.”

Sam rewound the tape and showed it again, Magic Johnson and James Worthy running the pick-and-roll.

“You play it by ear. If they switch, Tom, you back off straight for the hoop and Rob fires you the ball for a layup you’ve got them no matter what they do. Watch it again.”

Sam reversed the tape and ran it again, becoming irritated with their lack of focus. Damn it, didn’t they have any heart for it left? He noticed the boys exchanging glances as though they knew the house was on fire and he didn’t.

Heavy knocking sounded at the door, and Sam stopped the tape and flipped his clipboard onto the floor. He regarded the boys, who were smiling slyly and ducking their faces. He pushed himself out of the chair, upset that someone had disturbed their concentration and interrupted their practice session, especially when the boys were already unfocused.

On his way to the door an alarm went off in his stomach. George Stone-breaker! Could it be that brute standing at the door looking for Tom? When he inched the door open, Sam was startled. It looked like Olaf standing on the darkened porch, and Sam blinked at this Norwegian apparition, thinking at first it was a figment of his imagination.

“Olaf!” Sam said, unaware that the team had moved to the door behind him.

“Ya, hello.”

“What are you doing here?” Sam said.

“Dunking the basketball I am coming for. That is allowed.”

“Yeah!” the team shouted.

“You’re going to
play
?” Sam said.

“Ya, yamming I am thinking to do.”

“
J
amming!
J
amming!” Tom shouted, “you seven-foot cob.”

Sam stood with astonishment catching in his throat, stunned into a momentary immobility. Then he gathered his senses and capitulated to a giddy lightness of spirit.

“Come in, come in, we have a lot to do before Tuesday.”

Sam shut the door and followed the six boys into the front room. “Gee, if I knew you were coming, Olaf, I’d have bought five more pizzas.”

They huddled around the TV in earnest, a joyful glow in their young unshaven faces reflecting a common warmth in their hearts. They were back together and they had dreams to chase.

Diana was surprised by Andrew Wainwright as she poked around in the grocery store in Three Forks. She had been trying to decide between a frozen TV dinner or throwing together some stir-fry, but realized her heart wasn’t in either.

“I saw you through the window,” he said, looking elegantly out of place in his gray three-piece worsted suit and tasteful soft orchid tie. “What are you up to?”

“Oh … just trying to decide on something to fix for dinner. I’m like a kid in a candy store. Some day I’ll starve to death in a supermarket making up my mind.”

“I was on my way to Bozeman for a steak. Why don’t you join me?” He smiled warmly, and his invitation caught her completely off guard.

“Oh, no. I … maybe some other time.”

“I’m going to eat alone and you’re going to starve, so it’s fate.” He held his hands out in a supplicating gesture. “Come on, a steak and some good conversation.”

She glanced down at her embroidered muslin skirt and bulky white Angora sweater under her open gray quilted down coat as if to recall what she was wearing. “I’m not dressed …”

“From where I’m standing you look good enough to go anywhere and stand them on their heads.”

“Well …”

“Good, now all you have to decide is rare, medium, or well done.”

He opened the passenger door of his white Lincoln for her and she slipped into the leather interior. As he drove out of town, she felt like Dorothy, suddenly no longer in Kansas, in a whirlwind swooped from the D & D grocery store, flying down the freeway in a luxurious Town Car with one of the most gorgeous eligible men in five states, and she hadn’t a clue as to what was expected of her.

When he told her to buckle up, she pulled the seat belt across her lap and slipped the metal tongue into her purse. She didn’t notice what she’d done until halfway to Bozeman and was too embarrassed to correct it, hoping he’d never notice. She managed a calm front while her stomach was doing a song and dance.

He was as calm and at ease as she’d always found him in their brief social exchanges, and she realized she’d never been alone with him, not even for a minute. A mixed aroma of leather and something she couldn’t name embraced her, a sensuous, male scent. Whatever it was, she decided someone ought to market it.

“I insist on going Dutch,” she said, checking him out as he drove, his graying temples, strong, square jaw, and obvious self-confidence.

“If that’s what you want. But I’m on the school board and I know what you’re making and I see nothing wrong with taking our underpaid assistant basketball coach to dinner for a little encouragement and good cheer.” He laughed lustily with a deep resonance from the center of his chest.

“Well, we could all use some of that. Losing last night at Harrison was so disappointing, so exasperating.”

“We came close,” he said.

“Coming close is even more maddening. I don’t know what got into Pete.”

“He had a lot of turnovers,” he said, glancing over at her in the dark interior of the Lincoln.

“Turnovers, forced shots, unfocused … not the kid I’ve seen in practice for a month.”

“When Olaf fouled out I figured we were out of it, but the other boys really put up a scrap.”

Traffic on the freeway was sparse and the lights of Bozeman grew brighter at the east end of the valley.

“That’s our real problem: getting Olaf out of the paint in three seconds and teaching him not to shuffle his feet. If we could do that we’d be winning games.”

“And keep him in the game,” Andrew added. “He’s too gung ho on defense, tries to block every shot. I imagine it’s really frustrating for you when you see the potential in that kid.”

“Yes … I think it gives Sam nightmares.”

She winced when she thought of Sam and felt a twinge of guilt. What would he make of this? Better still, what did
she
make of this? Just a friendly dinner between two adults or something with deeper overtones? She was flattered that this attractive, mature man wanted her company. Did he want more?

They were seated at a cozy table at the Black Angus Restaurant and she felt an immediate intimacy with him, separated from other guests by smoked glass partitions and classical music softly blending with the candlelight.

Andrew helped her decide on the type of steak, rib eye rare, and the waitress regarded them as though they were lovers when she poured the red wine. Diana handled the small talk well enough and couldn’t help but notice Andrew’s hands, appearing strong yet gentle, hands that told her they had worked hard and experienced much of life, hands that had learned to touch lovingly. She sensed he was a warm, kind, caring man, and though he was a generation beyond her, she was taken by his understanding. She felt he would have been able to handle her terrible failure, that he was the kind of man who would have been there for her no matter what she had done.

Halfway through the meal she tiptoed out on fragile ground.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re a real surprise in Willow Creek.” She quickly laughed. “What on earth are you doing there?”

He looked at her calmly. “ I found the kind of a job I wanted with the talc company, and I looked around for something within driving distance: Bozeman, Manhattan, Butte. Then one day by accident I followed the little blacktop that meandered by the plant. I found Willow Creek and I immediately felt at home. Strange, huh?”

“No, not so strange, it’s just that there’s nothing there.”

“There’s more than you think.”

“Maybe, but you don’t fit the mold.”

“Do you?”

“Touché. But don’t you want more of a social life than following the Willow Creek Broncs around?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “Have you ever been married?”

He finished the last of his wine and set the glass down carefully, staring into the glass as though it contained old memories.

“I lost someone … a long time ago. Before the war.”

“Vietnam?”

“Ha!” He broke the trance with a booming laugh. “What war do you think, World War II? Don’t be making me any older than I am, girl.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Pry away, my closets are empty,” he said, embracing her with forgiving eyes. “I was married, long time ago, and I wanted it to work, gave it my best shot, but I wasn’t any good at it, my fault … my fault, God knows.”

“That’s refreshing,” she said.

“What?”

“Someone taking the blame for a failed marriage. I don’t hear that very often, usually just the opposite.”

“It’s true. I couldn’t give her what she needed. We had two great kids, a boy and girl, who’re off in the world finding their own lives.”

“Well, do you ever want to have someone, to be married again?”

“I’ve tried with other women from time to time, but it was never any good.”

“Given up?” she said softly.

“I guess you’d have to say I still cling to a very battered and trampled hope, but—”

The young waitress interrupted him, asking if they wanted anything more. He waved her away.

Diana recognized a hunger in his eyes she’d seen in other men, and she also knew her body had a power to draw men, caught them drinking her in, and she dressed to counter that to some degree. Did he want to be her lover or was this nothing more than he’d claimed, a little cheer for the assistant basketball coach? She tried to pay for her meal, as if that would neutralize their time together, but he convinced her it was not important and she relented.

She was thankful they could jabber about the team on the way home and that he hadn’t asked her why she was in Willow Creek.

“Thanks for being a good sport,” he said as he turned off the freeway at Three Forks. “I’m glad we got better acquainted.”

“Yes, thanks for the lovely dinner and for saving me from my indecision.” She spoke more rapidly than usual and hoped he didn’t pick up on it.

“Well,” he said, “if you ever need someone to spend time with … or help with your indecision …”

She didn’t know how to respond and tried to sort out the ambiguity in his words. She considered asking him if he’d like to stop at her place on the way home, for coffee or something, but then asked herself what she was doing. Had he touched a longing in her she didn’t want to admit? She thought of Sam.

Andrew pulled in beside her car in front of the deserted grocery store. Out of the Lincoln quickly, he came around to open her door. She stood beside him and unlocked her car. Her hand trembled. Her throat went dry. She turned toward him and he stepped closer.

“Thanks, Andrew. I’m ready to take on Olaf and the boys again.” She tried to laugh. “Thanks for the encouragement and cheer.”

She felt an excited warmth rush to her face and hoped in the dimly lit street he wouldn’t notice. In that moment she felt this solitary man’s loneliness and was on the verge of offering to comfort him.

“Maybe we’ll do it again some time,” he said lightly and he held her door.

She slid into the car, catching her breath. He leaned toward her. “Good night, Diana.”

He shut the door and stepped back. She started her car and drove away, watching him in the rearview mirror as he stood in the street. An avalanche of feelings overwhelmed her, frightening her. Driving the narrow blacktop toward Willow Creek, she watched for his headlights behind her, but they didn’t appear. She felt like a grade school girl on the playground with a high school boy showing interest, but she had the strange intuition that he wasn’t available, except maybe for a brief affair, and that his heart was irrevocably taken.

When she turned in her gravel road, she was confused to find tears in her eyes. She thought of Jessica and began to cry. She sat in the Volvo in front of the dark, lonely house and sobbed loudly until she could sob no more.

Drained physically, as though he himself were out on the basketball floor, Sam agonized through another game Thursday night.

In addition to their eleven-man team, a few carloads of parents and students had traveled the hundred-and-forty-some miles from Lima, a small town that hung its hat in a high, expansive valley in the southwestern tip of Montana. But being a weeknight, the gate on both sides of the court was thinner than usual.

Kneeling in front of the bench, he caught himself vacillating between a cool detachment from probable loss to supplicating the gods for victory. And then quickly, Willow Creek climbed back to within three points with just over a minute to go. The scant weeknight crowd held its collective breath. Sam fought back hope that kept rearing its head, unwilling to set himself up for the disappointment he was used to.