Hoops (14 page)

* * * *

The reporter from the
Milwaukee
Tribune
called on Tuesday, more than three weeks after her confrontation with C.J. in Ripon Hall. She agreed to an interview, not out of spite, although C.J.’s high-handedness had rankled a little. The point she really wanted to make was that the basketball coach didn’t rule the academic adviser. She gave the reporter an appointment the same afternoon. She had the time.

The campus was nearly empty, although a weekend tournament would delay the players’ Christmas break for seven more days. With the semester winding down toward the holidays, and the players’ exams finished, she’d suspended daily study halls.

Overall their grades pleased her. Frank still lagged in English, but Brad Spencer had his C in French.

As Scott Gary introduced himself and described the story he planned for the
Tribune
, Carolyn studied him. The reporter didn’t impress her. For one thing, he wore entirely too much polyester, except over a black-haired chest where his shirt seemed to lack buttons. For another, his smile was insincere and much too self-satisfied. But neither did he seem the type of ogre C.J. had drawn.

“I’m looking for background for a projected story after the first of the year about academic adviser programs,” he said. “You’re of special interest because the program’s just getting started. And, of course, because of Ashton’s strong academic background. Some of the programs seem to mostly just keep the players in the easiest classes so they’ll stay eligible. I mean, lots of basket-weaving, plus a string pulled here and there to get players in—and keep them in.”

“That doesn’t happen at Ashton,” she said coldly.

“Oh, no—I mean, I wasn’t saying that about Ashton. Hell, no. With Ashton’s rep you’re more likely to have nuclear scientists than pro basketball prospects, right? I mean, I just said that to show what a contrast Ashton was to some other schools. That’s why you, I mean, your program and all, are so interesting.”

He was backpedaling so fast that Carolyn thought he’d be out the door in another minute if she didn’t step in. She told him how the program operated: the study halls, the liaison with professors, the individual sessions.

“So all the players are about the same level?” he asked.

“No, of course not. First, they range from freshmen to seniors. Plus, in any group of students some have backgrounds that just aren’t as strong as the others.”

“Some of Ashton’s players have weak backgrounds,” he paraphrased.

“That’s not what I said, as I’m sure you’ll discover when you replay that tape recorder you have under your notebook. I said that some have backgrounds not as strong as the others. Some need extra help, as is the case in any cross-section of students. But all of Ashton’s players are progressing well. No one is in jeopardy of academic ineligibility and no one is enrolled in basket weaving.”

He pressed for names, and she firmly refused.

When Scott Gary left her office twenty minutes later, Carolyn fought down the urge to call C.J. Draper and ignobly flaunt an “I told you so.” He was so sure she couldn’t handle the media.

The interview had even ended cordially enough that Gary had promised to call before the article appeared and had wished her happy holidays.

* * * *

To Carolyn, the holidays really started the night of the faculty Christmas party held at the festively decorated Ashton Club. Around the huge ornamented tree and in front of a roaring fire in the big flagstone fireplace, everyone warmly exchanged season’s greetings. These were the people she worked with; these were her friends; these were the people who had watched her grow up.

But her pleasure sustained a jolt when she turned around from receiving a cup of eggnog and saw C.J. across the room. Tall and elegant in a tweed suit, he was talking to the voluptuous new associate professor of economics. Although Dolph Reems always came, it hadn’t occurred to her that C.J. would.

As always, attention centered on him. She tried to ignore him. But how could she miss knowing where he was and whom he talked to when such a large group surrounded him?

She wished happy holidays to Edgar and Dolph, Marsha Hortler and Mary Rollins from the registrar’s office, and her other favorites. But the effort it took to ensure that her path and C.J.’s barely crossed drained some of her holiday spirit. She even imagined that he seemed always to be standing just a few feet away.

When Stewart caught her at the door just before her early departure and invited her for an informal dinner with the basketball team the next night at the president’s house, she said no.

“They’re the only students left on campus. I feel sorry for them,” Stewart said. “They’re going to come and help Helene and me trim the tree. I’m sure they’d like to see you. You’re a great favorite with them.”

“Right now they’d probably like to lynch me after all the studying I made them do for exams,” she countered with a small laugh. “Besides, I’m going shopping tomorrow. I’ll probably stay there till the stores lock their doors.”

But by 4:30 the next afternoon she’d had enough of shopping. She’d brought presents back from Europe, and she didn’t have a very long list.

She would spend Christmas on the farm with her grandparents, along with two aunts and an uncle and a few cousins she hardly knew. She’d return the day after to work on her essay for the seminar collection, spend New Year’s with Stewart and Helene and relish the campus’s quiet.

Driving the main campus road was a pleasure reserved for days like this. Usually packed with pedestrians and bicycles, it was something avoided when classes were in session. Now it formed a broad open boulevard through a winter world given a fresh coat of white by last night’s snow.

She stopped the car to watch the last, thin lavender and rose rays of December’s sunset on a tree-dappled hill. To her right the classroom buildings allowed glimpses of the Meadow and Lake Ashton. To her left the ground rose to the ridge that overlooked the lake and the lower campus.

The corner of her eye caught a movement that pulled her head around. A solitary figure, tall and lean, walked through the dusk, heading along the ridge path a hundred yards from the road it paralleled. It took Carolyn a moment to realize it was C.J.

Characteristically, he walked with his hands dug into his jeans pockets and the open flaps of his jacket puffed out in the wind. He limped.

Not heavily, but with a definite favoring of his left leg. He’d never limped before. Had he just hurt his leg? Her hand reached toward the ignition. She could drive up there in two minutes and give him a ride.

Could the limp indicate an older weakness he allowed to show only when he thought he was alone? Somehow she knew that was the right question.

Her hand dropped back to her lap. He wouldn’t appreciate knowing that anyone had seen him limping. She watched his slow progress along the ridge, mildly surprised that the surge of concern she’d felt when she thought he’d just hurt himself grew stronger as he moved out of sight.

Ringing the doorbell of Stewart’s house two hours later, she asked herself why she’d changed her mind. Then wished she hadn’t asked the question. But before any troublemaking part of her could offer an answer she didn’t want to hear, the door opened.

“Carolyn! I’m so glad you decided to come. Come in and let me take your coat.”

Even before Stewart, smiling and repeating how glad they were she’d come, slid her coat off, her gaze collided with C.J.’s. She didn’t even try to decide whose expression softened first, but silently they forged a tacit agreement to let the spirit of the holidays rule.

That one look at C.J. ruled out her first thought about his leg. He climbed up and down a footstool to hang ornaments on the tree with no sign at all of weakness or discomfort.

* * * *

The sight of her in the doorway filled him with weakness and discomfort. Her eyes warmed and gentled as she smiled at the greetings of the players. Snowflakes glinted a final moment of miraculous existence in her hair. Her cheeks were chilled a perfect pink. Desire for her was instantaneous.

Later, escaping to the kitchen with the excuse of a second cup of post-dinner coffee, he acknowledged that it was also enduring. Lord, he wanted her. The sight of her, the smell of her, the thought of her constantly reminded him of just how much he wanted her. He tried everything he knew to escape it. Long, exhausting workouts, cold showers, hot showers, elaborate game situations to mentally coach around. He’d even contacted a long-standing friend in Milwaukee who always welcomed him and never asked when he’d come back. In the end he’d spent the evening talking of basketball and academic advisers. He didn’t think he’d be going back.

Carolyn’s laugh filtered through to the kitchen. Even the sound of her.

A scrap of poetry taunted him:

There be none of Beauty’s daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me . . . .

He closed his eyes and swore. Then a soft sound snapped his eyes open and spun him around to face Helene’s speculative look.

“Everything okay, C.J.?”

“Sure, sure, everything’s fine. Just got some hot coffee on me, that’s all.”

Helene looked at the empty mug sitting on the clean counter, then glanced back at the door she’d left open to the sound of Carolyn and Stewart singing their rendition of the Twelve Ashton Days of Christmas.

“That can hurt all right,” she said, pouring coffee into his mug. She looked directly into his eyes as she handed him the mug. “Sometimes you just have to give it more time, to see if it’s going to heal or if it needs more attention.”

C.J. muttered something, but Helene waved it away.

He followed her back to the living room. She didn’t miss much. He resolved not to give her anything else to wonder about.

When one of the upperclassmen suggested Carolyn come to Chicago for their three-day holiday tournament, C.J. congratulated himself that he responded with just the right lukewarm endorsement.

She would turn them down. Carolyn at a basketball tournament? There was no way she’d say yes.

Then Ellis suggested she take them to a museum and make it an educational trip. Brad objected, but the rest of the team backed Ellis. And it was settled.

Conscious of Helene’s watchful eyes, C.J. fought down the impulse to imitate Brad and groan aloud.

* * * *

Carolyn recognized Rake Johnson immediately. He seemed to fill the hotel lobby. Everything about the man was big. His smile, his voice, his body, his following, his appeal. And his hug was huge; it had to be, because when he wrapped his arms around C.J. in greeting Friday morning, all six foot six seemed to disappear.

When C.J. introduced her, she discovered a gentle handshake and an intelligent, understanding manner.

“And this is Professor Trent,” C.J. said, drawing her forward with a hand at her back that he quickly removed. “I hate to tell you, Rake, but this is one lady your fame and fortune will leave cold. You can trot out all your fancy stats, but they won’t make a dent. The professor doesn’t speak ‘basketball.’ Just English, as in literature.”

“Please call me Carolyn,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. She felt dwarfed between the two towering men. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

Rake looked down at her, then with raised eyebrows back to C.J., who grinned wickedly.

“Don’t mind C.J.’s teasing, Professor,” he instructed her kindly. He strung the letters of his friend’s name together to sound like “Ceege.” “He’s just casting about, hoping to get a rise or two out of us. But we both know this good-for-nothing better than that, don’t we?”

She intended to deny any particular knowledge of him at all, but could think of no tactful way to phrase it before C.J. responded.

“Hey, don’t go talking me down in front of my players.” He gestured to the ten young men hovering nearby, who looked torn between awe for the man they’d just met and fear at showing it.

“I’ll make you a deal. I won’t tell these fine young men the truth about their coach if you and the professor come eat with me before the game. You know it can be hard to find a good place to eat dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon, and I live a twenty-minute cab ride from the arena.”

Carolyn tried to decline the invitation, but Rake wouldn’t hear of it. C.J., she noted, said nothing one way or the other, but Rake insisted she come—and to “wear a striped shirt if you have one because we always end up needing a referee.”

She didn’t see C.J. again until she arrived at Rake’s. He’d left with Rake while she and Dolph and the team spent the afternoon at the Museum of Science and Industry. The players had picked this destination. She preferred Sunday’s planned visit to the Art Institute.

They whispered messages down the length of the acoustic hall, cheered chicks pecking their way out of shells in an incubator and stared in fascination at the working coal mine.

Frank and Ellis carefully read the label on each display and frequently consulted a guidebook. Thomas Abbott and some of the upperclassmen found an exhibit on electronics. Brad, she noted, wasn’t with any of the others. She suspected he’d found either the cafeteria or a susceptible girl.

But she was proven wrong. With memories of a field trip from her junior high years, she found her way to the submarine display—and recognized Brad doubled over to enter the submarine’s low opening. Quietly she backed away.

At the appointed meeting time, he sauntered up with a yawn. With a private smile, Carolyn noticed a book on submarines in his back pocket. While Dolph and the players returned to the hotel for a rest and their pregame meal, she headed for Rake’s penthouse apartment.

Nerves stung as she stepped into the elevator. What was she doing here? An outsider at a reunion between two old friends. On top of that she didn’t know Rake Johnson at all, and she’d resolved to stay away from C.J.

But she’d agreed to come. She pressed the button for the twenty-second floor. As the numbers of the floors flicked past—two, five, seven, eight, eleven—she reached out toward the Stop button. She could go back down. Turn around, leave. She wanted to. She shouldn’t. Not when she said she’d come.