Summer in the City

  “Thanks.”

  I left him standing at the edge of the field, still staring at the goal. I had one more task, which could best be done while he wasn’t around. I headed for the PE offices.

  When I arrived, Ms. Mahler had just dropped off her equipment from the JV session and was leaving for lunch.

  “Can I talk to you?” I asked.

  “One fifteen,” she told me.

  “No, please, I need to now. Before I lose my nerve.”

  We went into her office and I told her the whole ridiculous story, every detail I could think of, determined to make sure that Josh was in the clear. She listened without interruption, without asking a single question or voicing an opinion. When I was finished and had lapsed into silence, she said, “Sometimes I think I’ve been doing this job too long.” That was it, nothing else.

  I left, and if I’d had a tail, it would have been between my legs.

  “So did you get the job?” Ted asked as we sat on the sidewalk in front of our houses Thursday evening, listening to the game.

  “After what I’ve done, it’ll take a miracle.”

  “What did you do?” Ted asked.

  I told him about the miserable mess. He listened and thought about it, while the Orioles loaded the bases then struck out.

  “You were trapped, Jamie,” he said, as a car commercial came on. “I don’t think what you did was so awful, and you did try to fix it. Once Josh thinks through the situation, he won’t hold it against you. He’s too nice a guy, and too level-headed.”

  “Mona said the same thing today at lunch. But I think I bring out some other side of him. I think that the Josh who most people know and the Josh I know are different.”

  “Which Josh was the one you played yesterday?” Ted asked.

  I glanced over at him. We sat like guys do, side by side gazing straight ahead while we talked, but I looked at him now, wondering whether he had noticed that strange magic spell I had felt. “What do you mean?”

  He smile and shrugged. “Just wondering.”

  I shifted in my plastic chair. “I think the Orioles need a better setup man for their closer.”

  Because Ted was a guy, he let me get away with changing the subject. Eventually, I was able to push aside all thoughts about Josh and relax enough to enjoy the sultry evening. There were no bright stars, like at my home in Michigan, but the streetlamps winked on and I could see the storefronts glowing at the corners of Chestnut and The Avenue. Summer in the city had its own beauty and romance—if you were with the right person.

  The Orioles loaded the bases again. Just as they scored the first run, Andrew drove up in his Jeep. He climbed out looking tired and scruffy, his jeans and shirt covered with dirt. I thought he looked cuter than ever—maybe he was the kind of guy who cleaned up too well; maybe he should let himself go a little more.

  Ted greeted him. “Looks like a long day in the land of lawn-and-gardens.”

  “I did some private contracting after hours,” Andrew replied. “They pay well in Roland Park, but they know how to work you. Hi, Jamie.”

  “Hi, Andrew. Have a seat.” I offered him mine, moving from my chair to the front steps.

  “Thanks, no, I need a shower. I think I need a blast with a fire hose. But I’m glad I ran into you. Are you free tomorrow night?”

  Would saying yes on such short notice make me seem too eager? Maybe, but I wasn’t good at playing hard to get. “Yes.”

  “Have you been to the harbor?”

  “No. I’d love to see it.”

  He smiled. “Then you shall. We’ll take a water taxi tour. Dinner at eight?”

  It sounded like a movie—I think it was a movie.

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll leave here seven fifteen-ish,” he said. “See you then.”

  I moved back into my chair, and Ted and I went on with baseball talk. For the first time that week, I wished that Ted was Mona, and we could discuss clothes for tomorrow night. She’d given me her phone number, but it seemed rude to get up and call her. There will be time to talk before camp, I thought. I appreciated the second chance Josh was giving me, and I planned to be there, ready to play, long before nine o’clock…sharp.

  Chapter 13

  Maybe it was out of respect for Josh, or maybe it was a kind of sentimental thing about the last day of camp, but all of us arrived early on Friday. Josh was clearly the coach again, not anything like the guy I had left staring at the goal, much less the one I had played basketball with. The others would never have guessed I had told him about the bet. Everything was cool.

  Of course, Melanie came in her best tank top, one with stripes that accented contours that needed no accents. We had another audience of maintenance workers, and this time a crew from the phone company joined them. Josh gave us girls plenty of encouragement. I knew this strategy, too: hard on the team at the beginning of the “season,” and positive toward the end.

  At one point, when Ms. Mahler’s players were on break, she came to our field to watch. I was in the scrimmage then and played the best I had all week.

  “You’ve outdone yourself, girlfriend,” Mona said, giving me a high five.

  I had to—I had to prove to the big M that I was capable of learning, and I had to make Josh proud.

  At fifteen minutes to twelve, he called us together, sat us on the bench, and gave us an evaluation, telling each of us what our strength was and what we needed to work on next. Then we stood up, raised our sticks, and gave a shout. It was over—that fast.

  As people gathered their things and exchanged e-mail addresses, Josh turned to me. “Jamie, Ms. Mahler would like to see you in her office.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. She hadn’t said anything yesterday, and now I was going to hear it. “Okay,” I replied aloud, then glanced at Mona.

  “I’ll wait for you at the dining hall,” she said quietly.

  “Thanks. Order me a grilled chicken, and don’t wait for me to eat. Does she give long lectures?”

  “They’re usually to the point,” Mona replied.

  I headed toward the PE offices, then spent ten minutes in the area outside Ms. Mahler’s den, playing with the straw of my water bottle, waiting to be called in.

  “Miss Carvelli.”

  “Here,” I replied and entered.

  “All right,” she said, sitting down at her desk, shuffling papers. “We would like you to coach the middle school basketball clinic next week, as well as the afternoon camp I told you about. Here is the contract.”

  I looked at her with surprise. “You’re offering me the job?”

  “That’s right,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Hannah is getting tested for mono. We have someone else signed up for the afternoon camp the following week, but if Hannah is still ill, we may need you for sessions after that. I’ll keep you posted if you’re interested.” She studied my face, a small frown forming on hers. “Have you changed your mind?”

  “No. No! I’d love to do it. I just didn’t think you’d let me after I…I guess no one else wanted the basketball job,” I said, figuring that was the explanation.

  “Actually, two other people did.” She handed me a pen across her desk. “If you are referring to the incident,” she said, “I have consulted with Josh. At the end of camp yesterday, he said he had a problem with his group and needed to talk to me about it. He didn’t use names, he simply told me of the situation. I told him I already knew who was involved—that you had come to see me—and I asked his opinion of hiring you. I usually do not ask my young employees that kind of thing, but in this case, I thought he deserved the right to veto your hiring. He didn’t. He said you were very qualified. If you want the job, it’s yours.”

  “I want it. Thank you.”

  The contract was a list of rules, mostly to do with ensuring the safety of the players and children assigned to me. I agreed to do the afternoon camp as well, signed the papers, and left.

  I found Mona in the dining hall with two full trays in front
of her.

  “I was too nervous to eat,” she said.

  I sat down.

  “Well?”

  “She didn’t chew me out. That wasn’t why she called me in. I got the job,” I said. “I got the job, Mona!”

  She raised a fist in the air. “Y-yyess!”

  “Morning and afternoons.”

  “Perfect!” She took a huge bite out of her sandwich.

  “Mahler gave Josh the chance to veto it, but he didn’t.”

  “I told you,” she said, through a mouthful of roast beef, then she chewed and swallowed. “I told you he’d get over it. Josh has always played fair.” She took a gulp of soda. “Tell your mother you’ll be late getting home next week. Employees are allowed to use the pool after both sessions are over. It’s a great cool-down time.”

  “Do you think I should thank Josh, or keep my distance?”

  “I think, whenever you feel like you want to thank someone, you should.”

  I surveyed the dining hall.

  “Except perhaps not at this exact moment,” she said, as my eyes locked onto his table.

  He was sitting in the corner with three other guys, two of them in Stonegate T-shirts. Melanie was sitting with them, eating an ice-cream cone, taking extra long, luxurious licks.

  “Unbelievable,” said Mona.

  “Yeah, I’m going to change seats, if you don’t mind.”

  “Good idea. Let’s look out the window.”

  We turned our backs to what had to be the hottest table in the room.

  “Do you have plans for this weekend?” Mona asked.

  I told her about that night’s date, and we talked about what I should wear. “You know, one of the really good things about sports,” I said, “is that you’ve got to wear a uniform.”

  She nodded. “If we didn’t, the girls’ teams would never make it to the games. We’d keep trying on things, changing our minds. Imagine what the locker room would look like.”

  I laughed.

  “Do you want to get together Sunday and plan what we’re going to do with our basketball campers?” Mona proposed.

  “Yeah, that would be fun. Do you have a date this weekend?”

  “Me? No.”

  I felt stupid. “Sorry. I’ve always hated it when people ask me that, because my answer is almost always no.”

  “No problem,” Mona said with a flick of her hand. “I’ve gotten to the point that I’d rather stay home than go out on another bad date. It seems like all the guys that are cute have nothing between the ears. Or they do, but they’re babies. Or they’re completely stuck on themselves—that’s the worst. It always happens the same way for me. I think I’m dying to get to know a particular guy, then he opens his mouth and ruins it.”

  “I think that high school guys are probably too young for you,” I replied.

  “That’s what my grandmother says. And then she adds, ‘Praise God.’ If I can just survive one more year of Stonegate….”

  I was about to tell her she could come to my dorm on weekends, when I felt someone standing behind us.

  Without a word, a ten-dollar bill was dropped over my shoulder and landed on my half-eaten sandwich.

  I plucked it from the roll and spun around, but Melanie kept walking.

  “Let it go,” Mona advised. “She’s an idiot. It’s not worth arguing with her.” Then she smiled. “Way to go, Josh!”

  Ten minutes later, after tossing our trash, I headed over to Josh’s table. This time, Mona said she would go with me. The four guys stopped talking as we approached the table, which made me feel as if I was in a spotlight.

  “Hey, Josh.”

  “Hey,” he acknowledged me, sort of, then turned to his friends. “I guess you all know Monalisa.”

  They nodded.

  “This is Jamie Carvelli.” He pointed to the guys, introducing me. “Todd Griffin, Jake Abenoza, Sam Kowalski.”

  They looked at me with interest, especially the friendly-faced blond guy named Sam.

  “I’ll just be a second,” I said self-consciously.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes,” Sam replied, with an easy kind of smile.

  Josh flicked a look at him, and I saw a small shake of the head, as if Josh were discouraging him from asking us to join them.

  “I wanted to thank you,” I said to Josh. “I know you could have nixed the job.”

  I paused, because he didn’t react, and for a moment I wasn’t sure he had heard me.

  “I’d have understood if you had vetoed it. But I was really glad to get the job. Thanks.”

  “Sure.” No smile. No warmth in his voice.

  “Thanks,” I repeated more loudly and earnestly, feeling as if my gratitude was not being accepted.

  “Congratulations,” he replied, his tone careful and emotionless.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mona studying Josh’s face, apparently surprised by his response. But I knew what he was saying: His action had been professional, not friendly. He wasn’t happy about the fact that I was coming back, but he was—always—a guy who “played fair.”

  “Well, that’s all,” I said. “Let’s go, Mona.”

  We left, me walking quickly, Mona looking back over her shoulder.

  “It’ll be breezy by the waterfront,” Mona had said to me later, when we were discussing clothes for the date. “Do you have a skirt that moves? Something short and flirty or long and romantic—a skirt that will do great things in the wind?”

  I liked the idea of long and romantic, but all I had was something short and flirty. As it turned out, it won Andrew’s approval and seemed like a good choice, even if the skirt was a little difficult to control while walking the promenade of Harborplace and boarding the Seaport Taxi.

  The flat-bottomed pontoon boat nosed its way from point to point around the big harbor, to Little Italy, Fells Point, and Canton. City lights reflected in the water. As the boat moved, the tall, glittering buildings of downtown spun slowly around us. There was music drifting out from dockside restaurants and laughter from small boats bobbing around the harbor. After a hot day, the night breeze felt wonderful playing in my hair. Sitting next to Andrew on the boat’s wooden bench, I dropped my head back, closed my eyes, and sighed.

  I felt his body shift next to me, heard a quiet laugh, then felt him kiss me on my exposed neck. I opened my eyes.

  “You like it.”

  “It’s gorgeous. I could ride this boat all night.”

  He laughed. “You are so—so real, Jamie.”

  I looked into his blue eyes. I thought it would be nice to be something more romantic sounding than “real,” but then he lowered his face and kissed me full on the lips.

  I heard a murmur from an older couple sitting across the hull from us, and a titter from some kids toward the back of the boat. I didn’t care. I kissed him back.

  We got off at Fells Point and walked the narrow, cobblestone streets of the old waterfront. We entered a small shop that sold handcrafted jewelry. I was leaning over a glass case, looking at earrings, when Andrew opened his hand in front of me to show me a delicate necklace. Its string of green stones with small golden beads between them sparkled under the shop’s lights. “Try it on,” he said, his voice seductive.

  He turned me toward an oval mirror on the counter next to us. Standing behind me, he put the necklace around my neck, fastening the clasp, his fingers resting lightly on my shoulders.

  The color of the stones was perfect for my eyes. I gazed with some amazement at the oval portrait of us reflected in the mirror.

  He leaned closer. “Would you let me buy it for you?”

  “No.”

  He laughed softly in my ear, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “I wouldn’t have asked, but somehow I knew I should with you.”

  “You’ve already bought me dinner and a water taxi pass.”

  His hands cupped my shoulders.

  “Maybe I’ll buy it myself,” I said.

  He moved his mouth closer to my ear
. “Let me give it to you,” he urged, his voice deep and persuasive. “After all,” he whispered, “I’m the one who gets to look at it. I’m the one who gets to see how the beads glisten against your perfect skin.”

  With one finger, he touched the necklace, sliding the beads lightly against my neck.

  “For God’s sake, let him buy it!” exclaimed a punky-looking girl, maybe twelve years old, who was watching us.

  Andrew laughed, kissed my cheek, then went over to the cashier.

  Leaving the shop, we continued down Thames Street, window-shopping and peering in bars, then turned and walked a block away from the water, strolling past tiny eighteenth-and nineteenth-century houses. From time to time, Andrew would stop and gaze down at me, touching the necklace. “You look beautiful in lamplight,” he said.

  This time, I thought, I’ve found someone who is interested in me. He didn’t want a spot on Dad’s team. And he certainly didn’t want to impress my mother.

  We boarded the water taxi again, this time going nowhere in particular, just enjoying the summer breeze and city lights. “Your pass is good for all night,” Andrew said, smiling, catching a piece of my blowing hair with his fingers.

  “Tell me about your summer job,” I said, as the boat puttered on. We had already discussed novels, poetry, and films. If I had taken notes, I could have gotten Advanced Placement in English.

  He put his arm around me and we settled back against the railing of the boat.

  “I’m a landscaper,” he said, “which is not my parents’ idea of a smashing summer job.”

  “What is their idea?” I asked.

  “An apprenticeship at an investment firm. A position at a bank. Something one wears a tie to and which doesn’t put dirt under one’s fingernails.”

  “But you prefer to be outdoors.”

  “I prefer honest work. And I enjoy working with my hands,” he said.

  I looked at the hand cupping my shoulder and noticed that there was no dirt under his fingernails.

  “Fluorescent lights and file cabinets don’t nurture the soul,” he went on. “The earth and sky do. Nature—that’s what poets need.”