“What do you do on your Friday nights when you’re not indulging me?” Mary asked as she chewed on a crouton and covertly admired her guest.
He briefly looked up and seemed to consider his response. He finished chewing, took a sip of his water, sat the glass on a coaster and looked at her.
“I, ah, usually watch game tapes of whoever we’re playing on Sunday.”
“That’s what you do
every
Friday?” Mary’s inflection sounded accusatory to her own ears as Michael flushed slightly and looked down at his plate.
“Um, yeah.”
“What do you do in the off season?”
“The same. Our schedules are set far in advance so I study our opponents in the off season.”
Michael had been an intense student and she shouldn’t have been surprised he’d transferred his academic intensity to his career. She was kind of embarrassed. She’d been teasing him and fully expected he’d say he went out with his buddies or with a girlfriend to hit the town. Eating in the Pearl. Maybe taking in a Blazers’ game at the Rose Garden or a concert at the Roseland. There was nothing. Only work.
She cocked her head and drank him in while he finished dinner. He was as reticent to talk about himself or what was on his mind as he had been during college. He was shy, a trait she found endearing. If a two hundred pound defensive end could qualify as endearing.
“Have you always done that?” Mary questioned.
“Pretty much.”
She laughed softly and took a long pull of beer to wash down her final bite. She contemplated a second piece, considered the cake waiting for them, pulled a Nancy Reagan, and just said no.
“When you’re not watching tapes, what do you do for fun?”
Michael had been steadily sucking the remainder of the meal down, but looked up again at the question. Max still snoozed softly on his plush bed, completely oblivious to the sudden tension springing up around him.
“Why do you think watching tapes isn’t fun for me?” he countered.
She felt his eyes on her, measuring her, waiting for her response as her face flushed. Mary wasn’t flushing from the heat of the red sauce or even from the couple of beers she’d thrown back, but from the censorious retort implicit in Michael’s question. It would be akin to him assuming she didn’t have fun prepping her Quiz Bowl questions for the week or drafting her quizzes, mid-terms, and finals, all of which she often did on Friday nights.
“I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean to imply there was anything wrong,” she stammered, continuing to feel the heat rise on her cheekbones, no doubt making her look like a plump, overripe tomato.
Mary decided to start over, simply and directly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t offend me.”
Michael’s black, bottomless gaze held hers and communicated his sincerity. She hadn’t offended him. He had been genuinely curious why she assumed poring over games, plays, and calls wasn’t fun or wasn’t the way he would opt to spend his free time on a Friday night.
“Well? Is it? Fun for you, I mean?”
Michael seemed to think about the question before offering his answer.
“It’s something that has to be done.”
“Do the other players do it too? Spend their Friday nights with old game tapes?”
“I don’t know what they do in their free time. Why? You wanna date one? Make sure he’s available?”
Mary looked stricken, but quickly recovered.
“No. Not at all. I wondered if all professional athletes, including your teammates, work as hard as you do. That’s all.”
Mary cleared her throat and unfolded her legs. “Are you ready for dessert?”
Michael’s eyes brightened momentarily, but then quickly dimmed.
“No, I need to be going.” He struggled with saying anything more as he picked up his plate and followed her into the kitchen.
“Here, let me take your plate,” she said as she reached to take the plate and silverware from him. Max awakened at the sound of plates hitting the sink, undoubtedly looking for the table scraps he received every night.
Michael was already making his way to the door as though he couldn’t get away from her quickly enough before she’d even finished placing all of the dishes in the sink. While he was being rude, Mary refused to do the same.
“Well, thanks a lot for coming over tonight and thank you again for speaking the other day. It meant a lot to Walker.”
~ * ~ * ~
Meant a lot to Walker.
Mary didn’t say it meant a lot to her. Fair enough. What the fuck did he care if it meant a lot to her or not? It didn’t matter. He’d done it. He’d come over for dinner. Obligation fulfilled. Game over.
“Thanks for dinner,” he murmured, letting himself out the door.
Michael rushed away from Mary’s apartment in his car as though he were chasing a wide-out headed for a touchdown. As if Mary needed any more assurance he was a complete and utter prick, his behavior tonight confirmed it. When he’d made that nasty crack about her and his teammates…she’d looked as though he’d struck her.
Then afterwards, the awkward silence would have compelled a more rational, more decent man to fill in the space. But he wasn’t inclined to breach the gap that had sprung up between them even though he was responsible for it in the first place. At times like these, he was reminded that in spite of the physical separation in time, distance, and miles, he was still Don Santiago’s son. A mean motherfucker with a nasty mouth and an even worse disposition. He could outrun numerous professional wide-outs, but he couldn’t outrun his DNA.
It served Mary right. He wasn’t fit to sit on her couch or eat the food she’d prepared. Better for her sake she reached the realization now rather than later.
He’d known the first time he met her that Mary was what Coach Carmichael would have termed a “good soul.” She was a classic do-gooder, from tutoring struggling students, like him, for minimum wage, to giving up what was seemingly a cushy teaching job near her parents in order to teach at Walker, a school he’d learned was struggling on the verge of closure due to failing test scores.
People like Mary only looked for the good in others, never having been touched by or exposed to the filth, the dirt, the abuse, and the utter lack of humanity in the majority of people. Better for Mary to learn he was a part of that group now so she didn’t falsely credit him with qualities that were whipped out of him long ago.
Instead of making nice or even apologizing like any well-mannered, adult man in his situation would undoubtedly do, he remained silent, letting Mary sit awkwardly, vainly trying to steer the conversation back to standard, neutral dinner topics. Then he’d rushed out.
Yeah, great guy that he was.
Chapter 4
The following day, Mary had just returned from her standard set of Saturday errands of groceries, dry cleaning, gas, and Target when her cell phone jingled.
Muscling her groceries, twelve pack of diet soda and her purse into her apartment, she dropped everything on the stove and kitchen counter and dug in her shoulder bag for her phone. Finding it and seeing that it was Calleigh calling in, she flipped it open.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself. How was it?”
Knowing exactly what Calleigh was fishing for, Mary wanted to have a little fun and sought to make Calleigh work for it before she gave in.
“How was what?”
Calleigh laughed, telegraphing that she knew Mary knew exactly what they were talking about.
“Don’t be coy, Mary. You know what I’m talking about. How was he?”
“Michael? He was fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine.”
“Let me get this straight.” Calleigh paused as though she was gearing up for something significant. Something that required a lot of air and a fair amount of steam.
“Last night you had Michael Santiago over for dinner. The same Michael Santiago who looks like a walking, talking sex machine, prior NFL MVP who is by all accounts, straight, single, and hot. And all you have to say is he was fine?”
“Yep. He was fine.”
A part of Mary yearned to open up with Calleigh so they could mutually analyze and dissect every word, every nuance, every action, and every gesture through Calleigh’s perspective. While Calleigh wasn’t a total man-eater, she certainly had a lot more experience with men. What would she say about Michael’s behavior? Why he’d inexplicably become such a jerk? Calleigh was a veritable warrior in the love-is-a-battlefield department and would undoubtedly have some intuition and ask insightful questions that would yield clues as to what was on Michael’s mind and why he reacted the way he had.
Unless he was a jerk. Wasn’t that the easiest answer?
For reasons Mary didn’t want to identify, she was reluctant to expose his behavior to Calleigh. She felt oddly protective about what others thought about Michael--especially those who didn’t know him well.
“Yes, Calleigh. It was fine. He came. I cooked. We ate. He left. That’s it. End of story. Nothing to report.”
A beat of silence.
“Well, color me disappointed.”
After what felt like forever but in reality was probably no more than five seconds, Mary audibly sighed, cursed internally, but wasn’t able to stop herself. “Why are you disappointed?”
Calleigh coughed and responded softly, with not a little trepidation.
“I had high hopes this could be something,
”
she said with a sigh. “Look, Mary, you haven’t dated anyone since you’ve moved out here. I thought maybe this could turn into something since you know him and you must mean something to him since he didn’t do anything in Portland before you convinced him to come to Walker. Besides, what man would come over on a Friday night if he wasn’t interested? Not one. Unless he’s gay.”
“He’s not gay.”
“Oh, I know that’s true. That man is the embodiment of the word ‘virile’. Until meeting him, I always thought that term was simply a phrase used in romance novels and never applied to real, live flesh and blood men.”
Mary wasn’t ready to examine and discuss the other elements of Calleigh’s comments. She had no desire to analyze why she wasn’t dating, nor how she was going to remedy the situation.
“Look, I put him in a tough predicament by asking him over. He did it to humor me.”
“He didn’t come over and give up his Friday night to humor you. He could have easily said no.”
Mary exhaled. “It’s done. It’s over.”
“Okay. Fine. You’re not interested in, nor are you going to date Michael Santiago. Who are you going to date?”
Wasn’t that the $64,000 question?
“I don’t know. You have any candidates in mind?” Mary asked, eager to leave the topic of Michael and their disastrous interlude before Calleigh could delve further into the details.
“I wish, for you and me both. For what it’s worth, I thought Michael was not only ridiculously male, but for someone who was initially reluctant to speak at College Career Day, he pulled it off like a champ. He was a natural with the students and I thought Dr. Boxer was going to pass out afterwards. I’d swear. You’d think that woman has never been around a professional athlete in her life.”
Walker’s principal had practically swooned all over Michael, gushing over his interactions with the students, his professional performance last year, and even the cut of his suit.
“I didn’t think Boxer was even aware of men,” Mary commented.
“Well, if anyone’s going to remind her of the existence of the other sex, it’s Michael Santiago.”
Calleigh was clearly in no mood to shift the conversation away from Michael so Mary knew at this point, there were two forks in the road. She could forcibly tell Calleigh that the continuing topic of her former tutee was killing her Saturday morning buzz or simply ignore her and hope that she took the hint and ran with it. But the second option was unlikely since Calleigh was as dogged as a pit bull with a bone when she wanted to discuss a topic, particularly one involving the opposite sex.
“I guess so,” Mary said. “Look, Calleigh, I’m not trying to be rude, but I think I’m still processing what happened last night and what my feelings are, if any, about it. Can we talk about something else?”
“I thought you didn’t have any feelings for him.”
“I don’t. I don’t know. I’m kind of jumbled up this morning. Discombobulated and not in a good way. When we discuss the evening in its full glory, I want to do it in person, not over the phone.”
“Agreed,” Calleigh capitulated. “Let’s get together soon outside of school.”
“It’s a date.”
~ * ~ * ~
The problem with living in a city, Mary realized, was that in order to drive her problems away, she had to head to the suburbs. The small town where she’d grown up or the bigger city she’d worked in up in Northern Michigan allowed her to hit the open road whenever the urge struck. In Portland, however, she couldn’t simply slip in the car, fire up the ignition and head out for a long drive. The section of the city that she’d made her home was a blend of residential streets dotted with businesses. Every other corner was a four-way stop or a two-way stop and given the bikers, joggers, baby strollers and shoppers, driving anywhere over twenty miles per hour was a dangerous proposition.
As soon as she’d earned her driver’s license, any time she wanted to get away to think, she’d hop in her car and drive. She’d crank up the radio, play her tapes and cd’s as loud as she could bear and drive until she’d worked through whatever issue prompted the drive in the first place.
This afternoon, the walls of her generally sunny apartment threatened to close off the air to her lungs and the oxygen to her brain. Her apartment felt constrained, as though it was squeezing her. Finding any open road outside the city would take up too much time to be of any real practical benefit.
If physical ambition flowed through her veins the way it did Calleigh’s, she’d throw on her sneakers and take off for a long run until she’d exhausted the thoughts scrambling around her head, all of which centered on a certain man. Unfortunately, the thought of running contained as much allure as a root canal, so that wasn’t an option. Hitting the gym for a solid forty-five minutes of cardio to release some endorphins appealed to her nature to shed some of the pent-up anxiety and frustration that had steadily built since speaking with Calleigh.