Stuart Woods - Palindrome

The swelling is completely gone," the doctor said. "I'd say you were making a remarkable recovery." He looked Ramsey in the eye. "A very remarkable recovery. Ramsey avoided his gaze.

"Yeah? That's great."

The doctor looked at the assistant coach, Manny Davis. "Manny, will you excuse us for a minute?"

"Sure, Doc," Manny said. He walked to the other side of the exercise room and pretended to fiddle with a piece of equipment.

"Bake," the doctor said, "I've never seen that rapid a reduction of swelling after this sort of surgery without the use of massive doses of antiinflammatory drugs." He paused but got no response. "That means steroids, Bake."

"I've always been a fast healer," Ramsey said. "You're looking very pumped up, too. What's your weight gain since last season?"

"My speed's up, too, Doc. I've been working at it." The doctor looked undecided. "Bake, you know what team policy is."

Ramsey turned and looked him in the eye for the first time.

"Team policy is to win football games," he said. "That's what I do."

"But…"

"And I take a drug test every week, just like everybody else on the team, right?" The doctor just looked at him. "Now, I'm planning to play in another three weeks," Ramsey said, "and I don't think the team's management would like it much if something got in the way of that. You catch my drift?"

The doctor sighed and stood up. "Yeah, Bake. Just go easy on the knee; light running is okay, if the swelling doesn't come back." He picked up his bag and turned for the door. "And I don't think it will. I'll tell Coach I expect you to be ready for the Dolphins game, barring complications."

"Well, don't tell anybody else," Ramsey said. "He wants to spring me on the Dolphins."

"Sure," the doctor said at the door. He went out and closed it behind him. Davis came back to where Ramsey was sitting. "What did he say?"

Ramsey walked to a bench and began loading weights onto the machine. "Ready for the Dolphins," he said, "barring complications. You make sure there are no complications. Just keep getting me what I need." He stretched out and began to do bench presses. From outside came the unintelligible blare of the coach's bullhorn.

"I'm having a little problem with supply," Davis said tentatively. "The feds busted a plant in Mexico last week, and there's talk of a drought."

"Manny," Ramsey said, puffing against the weight, "you're a pretty good backfield coach. You'll never make head coach on an NFL team, you don't pull that kind of weight. But you might just might handle offensive coordinator."

"That's all I want, Bake. You know Harley's retiring at the end of the season."

"Yeah, and you might be up for it. But, Manny, unless I have an uninterrupted supply of what I need for the rest of the season, you're not even going to keep the job you've got. I'll see to that."

"Bake, you don't have to talk to me that way. You know damn well I'll do my best."

"I just hope your best is good enough, Manny," Ramsey said, racking the weights and sitting up. "If the Bobcats drop you, you wouldn't even get a decent job in college ball. I'd hate to see you coaching at some jerkwater high school next season."

Davis looked at him, puzzled. "Bake, I probably know as much about sports medicine as most doctors, and I would have said that knee would be ready in two weeks, not three."

Ramsey looked at him and smiled. "I've got something else to do in two weeks," he said. "In the meantime, you just keep peeing into those little jars for me."

Liz came back to the cottage in the late afternoon from a good day's work to find Keir sitting on the deck with a drink. He had slept with her most nights lately, but not the night before. She had missed him more than she had meant to, and not just the sex. There was an attachment growing here, and she both wanted and resisted it. "Home is the hunter, home from the hill," he said.

"And the photographer, home from the shoot," she replied, grabbing his drink and taking a sip. "Where were you last night?"

He smiled slightly. "Riding on the wind, soaring like the hawk."

"You're so fucking poetic when you don't want to give a straight answer to a question," she said, turning his face up and kissing him.

"Straight answers are boring, don't you think?"

"Not always," she said, flopping down on the lounge with him, pulling his arm around her shoulders. She stole another swig from his drink.

"Hey, do you think I'm made of bourbon?"

"I think you're made of snakes and snails and puppy dogs' tails, at very best."

"That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me all day," he said, kissing the top of her head.

"Nobody ever says anything to you but me, because you don't see anybody else but me," she said. "Not that I mind, much."

"Wrong. I see Buck Moses; I see Grandpapa; I see Germaine."

"Not much, you don't. I don't know about Buck, but you don't see much of your grandfather or your sister."

"More than you know."

"Why don't we see some people tonight?" she asked. "I'm going to dinner at the inn; want to join me?"

"Thanks, but no," he said, with a touch of regret in his voice.

"Why not?" she asked. Now and then she felt like goading him about Hamish. He must know his brother was at the inn; he seemed to know everything that happened on the island.

"What you call the inn I still think of as Greyfield House. Grandpapa's old-maid sister, Jenny, lived there when I was a kid; my great-grandfather built it for her. I loved her, and I loved the house; I don't like it with strangers sleeping and eating there."

Well, she thought, that's the most direct answer I've ever had from him. She got up. "I'm into a shower and out of here," she said.

"I like you a little sweaty," he said, catching her hand. "Can I interest you in a roll in the hay?"

"What a charmer!" she shouted. "A real smoothy! A roll in the hay, yet!" She headed for the shower, stripping off clothes as she went. When she came out, he was standing at the bathroom sink, rubbing the fog off the mirror with his hand. He was wearing only some old khaki shorts, and she admired his lean, brown body for a moment as she toweled dry. "Your hair's getting longer," he said, turning to look at her. "It doesn't stick up on top anymore."

"And about time, too," she said, snapping at his bare legs with her wet towel.

"Ow!" he yelled. "You're vicious with that thing!"

"A woman scorned," she called over her shoulder as she went into the bedroom.

"I didn't scorn you; I invited you to bed."

"You scorned my dinner invitation," she said, picking a cotton sheath from her closet and pulling it over her head. She deliberately did not put on underwear; she knew he liked that. She grabbed a brush and ran it through her hair. A quick look in the mirror told her that her sunburn would do for makeup. She slipped into some low shoes and turned her back to him. "Zip me up?" She knew that the open dress came exactly down to the crack of her ass.

"I'm better at unzipping these things," he said.

"Well," she said, grabbing her car keys, "stick around and you might get to unzip it when I get back."

"Maybe," he said.

"See you later, then," she called, heading for the back door. Her voice was gayer than she felt. Somehow, she had thought she might goad him into coming to the inn with her, but she should have known better. She had been anxious to get out of the house before he pulled her into bed; she would have given in, she knew, and she wanted to exert a little control.

At least she would have time for a drink in the bar before dinner. She parked in front of the inn and saw young Aldred Drummond sitting in a crook of the giant live oak on the broad lawn. The tree must be two hundred years old, she thought. Its limbs touched the ground in places-perfect for a small boy to climb.