LITMIR.BIZ

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admiration for new hairstyles and new dresses, of lamenting the loss of elderly members during the past year, of celebrating the arrival of new grandchildren: the same conversation, the same pattern, evening after evening and summer after summer. I knew my lines by heart. A minute, perhaps two, and we’d be gone.

      Kiki skipped up the steps ahead of me, and I leaned down to pick up my empty glass. My hair spilled away from Aunt Julie’s pristine chignon, loosened by the sea air and its own waywardness. I pushed it back over my ear. My cheeks tingled from the spraying surf and the brisk walk. Should I visit the powder room, return myself to orderliness, or was it too great a risk?

      “Why, hello,” said Kiki, from the top of the stairs. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

      I froze, bent over, my hand clutched around the smooth, round highball glass as if it were a life buoy.

      An appalling silence stretched the seconds apart.

      “Well, hello, yourself,” said a man’s voice, gently.

       3.

       HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE October 1931

      Everyone at the Hanover Inn recognizes the man adorning our table. We perch on our oval-backed chairs, the three of us, eating steak and scalloped potatoes, and there isn’t a diner nearby who doesn’t crane his neck, elbow his neighbor, whisper, nod in our direction.

      Budgie sits up straight as a stick, glowing with pleasure, and consumes her steak in minutely carved pieces. “I wish they would stop staring,” she says. “Do you ever get used to it?”

      Graham Pendleton pauses with his knife and fork suspended in the air. He fills his chair, fills the entire room: all square shoulders and slick brown hair catching gold from the lights above us. Up close like this, he is absurdly handsome, every angle in perfect symmetry. “What, this?” he asks, tipping his knife at the table next to us. On cue, the awestruck occupants return to their conversation.

      “Everyone.” She smiles. “Everyone.”

      He shrugs and sets back to slicing his steak. “Aw, I don’t notice, really. Anyway, it’s only on Saturdays. Once the old boys leave town, I’m just another student. Could you pass the pepper, please, Miss …?” The word drags out. He’s forgotten my name already.

      I hand him the dainty cut-glass shaker of pepper. “Dane.”

      “Miss Dane.” He smiles. The pepper shaker looks ridiculous in his thick hand. “Thank you.”

      “Darling, you remember Lily,” says Budgie. “We spent the summer together, didn’t we? At Seaview.”

      “Oh, right. I thought you looked familiar. You’ve changed your hair or something, haven’t you?” He puts down the pepper shaker and makes a motion near the side of his head.

      “Not really.”

      But Graham has already turned back to Budgie. “Anyway, Greenwald’s the real talent. These old-timers are just too stupid to realize it.” He fills his mouth with steak.

      Budgie’s face assembles into a smiling mask. “What, Nick? But he’s the quarterback. He just stands there.”

      Graham’s throat works, disposing of the meat. He reaches for his drink, a tall glass of milk, creaming at the top. “Didn’t you see his throw, in the second quarter? When he got hurt?”

      “Of course it was exciting. But you’re the one running all day. Scoring touchdowns. You do all the real work.”

      He shakes his head. “I just get all the attention, because I’m the fullback, and because Greenwald’s … well, you know.” He drinks his milk, flushing Nick Greenwald’s Jewishness from his mouth. “You’re going to see it more and more, the forward pass. Plays like that, they fill the stadium. You saw how excited everyone was. He’s all skill, Greenwald. He’s got a terrific arm, you saw that, and an ice-cold brain. He just looks down the field and takes it all in, knows where everyone is, like a chess player. Never seen him call a play wrong.”

      “How is he?” I ask. The question nearly bursts from my lips. “His leg, I mean.”

      “Oh, he’s all right. He telephoned from the hospital. Wasn’t as bad as they thought. Single fracture, hairline or something. I guess those solid old bones of his are hard to crack. They’re setting it now.” Graham flicks his watch free from his cuff and glances at it. “He said he’d meet us here when they’re done.”

      “What, here?” I ask.

      “He’ll be hungry.”

      “He doesn’t want to go home and rest?”

      A laugh. “No, not Nick. He won’t even go to bed when he’s got the flu. He’ll make a point of coming tonight, just to show what a big boy he is.”

      “That’s ridiculous,” says Budgie. “And stupid. He’ll turn himself into a cripple.”

      “He wanted to hop off the field by himself, the fool. I had to hold him down myself when they put him on the stretcher.”

      “Stupid,” Budgie says again.

      Her voice is distant, behind the persistent thud of my heartbeat in my ears. My hand is cold on my fork. I go through the pantomime of eating a piece of steak, drinking water, eating a piece of melting scalloped potato. “He’ll be all right, though, won’t he?” I ask, when I’m absolutely sure I’ve composed my voice.

      Graham shrugs. “He’ll be fine. Well, he won’t play again, he’ll graduate in June, but it was a clean break, at least. Won’t give him any trouble. Lucky fellow. Now, last year, Gardiner broke his neck tackling someone at the Yale game. Went in headfirst, the idiot. Nearly died. He’ll be in a wheelchair all his life. Oh, look! Nick’s here.” He throws down his napkin and waves.

      I turn my head, and there stands Nick Greenwald at the entrance to the dining room, his left leg wrapped almost to the knee in a thick white plaster cast and his arms slung over a pair of crutches. I want to see his face, to see if it matches the impossible image in my head, but he’s standing in a gap between the lights overhead, and he’s looking to the side, inspecting the room. The angled light carves a deep shadow beneath his cheekbone.

      His face turns. He spots Graham and hops forward on his crutches into the glow of a chandelier. I have only an instant to take him in. He’s smiling now, and the smile transforms him, softens all the edges, making him less formidable than I thought he would be.

      Budgie leans in to my ear. “Now’s your chance, Lily. Remember to ask him about himself. They love that. And for God’s sake don’t talk about books.”

      “Nick! It’s about time. What did you do, hobble all the way here from the hospital? Or did you meet a pretty nurse there?” Graham yanks out a chair for him. “You remember Budgie, don’t you, Nick? Budgie Byrne.”

      “Hello, Nick. I’m sorry about your leg.” Budgie holds out her hand.

      Nick props his crutch under his arm and grasps her fingers. “Budgie. How are you?”

      “And this is her friend Miss Dane. Lily Dane. Drove up with Budgie all the way from Smith this morning, just to meet you.”

      Graham’s voice is jovial, joking, making it plain he’s just filling the introduction with nonsense to lighten the mood, with Nick’s cast and crutches weighing everything down. The trouble is, he’s too close to the truth.

      Nick turns to me and takes in my burning cheeks. He smiles politely. Under the electric lights, his skin is smooth and even, suggesting olive, and his eyes are a kind of hazel, hovering somewhere between brown and green. Washed and dried, his hair shows itself a few shades darker than Graham’s,

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