Richard Ford - The Sportswriter

At the hotel Mr. Smallwood leans across the seat to where he can see me out on the windy pavement putting money back in my wallet. For an instant I think he means to shake my hand, but that is not on his mind at all. I have already paid him our agreed fare, and the schnapps bottle is on the floor beside his considerable leg. My gift to him.

“There’s a good chop house down on Larned,” he says in a tour guide’s voice and with a grin that makes me wonder if he isn’t making fun of me. “Steaks big as this.” He holds two big chunky fingers two full inches apart. “You can walk from here. It’s safe. I take the wife now and then. You can drink some wine, have a good time.” For some reason Mr. Smallwood has started talking like a second generation Swede, and I understand he isn’t making fun of me at all, only trying to be a good ambassador for his city, putting on the voice he has learned for it.

“That’s great,” I say, not quite hearing all this insider’s dining advice, turning an ear instead into the windy sibilance of the city air. Snow flakes are falling now.

“Come on back when the weather’s nicer,” he says. “You’ll like it a whole lot better.”

“When will that be?” I smile, giving him the old Michigan straight line.

“Ten minutes maybe.” He cracks a big wisecracker’s grin, the same as his hundred-dollar-whore grin. And with the slap-shut of the yellow door, he shoots off down the street, leaving me at the hissing curbside as solitary as a lonely end.

Though not for long.

Back in the room, the TV is on without sound. The drapery is drawn and two trays of dishes are set outside. Vicki lies naked as a jaybird on the rumpled bed, drinking a 7-Up and reading the in flight magazine. Air in the room is hot and close, changed from the sleep-soft night smell. Only the sad old familiarity from the dreamy days after Ralph died is left: lost in strangerville with a girl I don’t know well enough and can’t figure how to revive an interest in (or, for her sake, an interest in me that would compensate). It is a tinny, minor-key feeling, a far-flung longing for conviction among the convictionless.

“I’m sure glad to set you” she says, giving me a happy smile in the blinky TV light. I stand in the little dark entryway, my two feet heavy as anchors, and I can’t help thinking of my life as a scene in some steamy bus station novel. Big Sledge moved toward the girl cat-quick, trapping her where he’d wanted her, between his cheap drifter’s suitcase and the pile of greasy tire chains against the back of the lube bay. Now she would see what’s what. They both would . “How’d everything work out with your old football guy?”

“Dandy.” I go to the window, pull back the heavy curtain and look out. Snow is dazzling an inch from my face, falling in burly flakes onto Jefferson Avenue. The river is lost in white, as is Cobo. In the street, flashing yellow beacons signal the first snowplows. I feel I can hear their skid and clatter, but I’m sure I do not. “I don’t like the looks of this weather. We might have to change our plans.”

“A-Okay,” she says. “I’m just happy to be here today with you. I can go to the aquarium someplace else. They must be alike.” She sets her 7-Up on her bare belly and stares at it, thinking.

“I wanted this to be a nice vacation for you, though. I had a lot of plans.”

“Well, keep ’em, cause I’ve had a plenty good time. I ordered beer-batter shrimp up here, which was a meal in itself. I put on my clothes and went downstairs and looked in the shops which’re nice, though they’re like Dallas’s in a lot of similar ways. I think I might’ve seen Paul Anka, but I’m not sure. He’s about half the size I thought he’d be if it was him, and I already knew he was tiny.”

I sit in the chair beside the coffee table. Her uncovered beauty is unexpectedly what I need to make the transition back (the familiar can still surprise and should). Hers is an altogether ordinary nakedness, a sleek curve of bust, a plump darkening thigh tapered to a dainty ankle, a willing smile of no particular intention — all in all, a nice bundle for a lonely fellow to call his in a strange city when time’s to kill.

On television the face of a pallid newsman is working dramatically without sound. Believe! his eyes say. This stuff is the God’s truth. It’s what you want .

“Do you believe women and men can just be friends,” Vicki says.

“I guess so,” I say, “once the razzle-dazzle’s over. I like the razzle-dazzle though.”

“Yeah, me too.” Her smile broadens and she crosses her arms over her soft breasts. She has, I can tell, been captured by a thought, an event she likes and wants to share. At heart she could not be kinder and could make someone the most rewarding wife. Only for some reason it does not seem as likely to be me as it once did. She may have caught this very mood in the wind today and be as puzzled by it as I am. Though she is nobody’s fool.

“I called Everett on the phone,” she says, and looks down at her knees, which are bent upwards. “I used my charge number.”

“You could’ve used this one.”

“Well. I used mine, anyway.”

“How is old Everett?” Of course I have never seen ole Everett and can be as chummy as a barber with the far-off idea of him.

“He’s okay. He’s into Alaska now. He said people need carpets up there. He also said he’s shaved his head bald as a cue ball. I told him I was in a big suite, looking out at a renaissance center. I didn’t say where.”

“What’d he think about that.”

“‘As the world turns,’ is what he said, which is about standard. He wanted to know would I send him back his stereo I got in the divorce. Everything’s sky high up there, I guess, and if you come with all you need, you start ahead.”

“Did he want you to go with him?”

“No, he did not. And I wouldn’t either. You don’t have to marry somebody like Everett but once in a lifetime. Twice’ll kill you. He’s got some ole gal with him, anyway, I’m sure.”

“What did he want, then?”

“I called him, remember.” She frowns at me. “He didn’t want anything. Haven’t you ever got the phonies in your life?”

“Only when I’m lonesome, sweetheart. I didn’t think you were lonesome.”

“Right,” she says and looks at the silent television.

Detroit, I can see now, has not affected her exactly as I had hoped, and she has become wary. Of what? Possibly in the lobby she saw someone who reminded her too much of herself (that can happen to inexperienced travelers). Or worse. That no one there reminded her of anyone she ever knew. Both can be threatening to a good frame of mind and usher in a gloomy remoteness. Though calling up an old lover or husband can be the perfect antidote. They always remind you of where you’ve been and where you think you’re going. And if you’re lucky, wherever you are at the moment — in the Motor City, in a snowstorm — can seem like the right place on the planet. Though I’m not certain Vicki has been so lucky. She may have found an old flame burning and not know what to do about it.

“Do you feel like you wanted to be friends with Everett?” I start with the most innocent of questions and work toward the most sensitive.

“No-ho way.” She reaches down and pulls the sheet up over her. She is even warier now. It may be she wants to tell me something and can’t quite find the words. But if I’m to be relegated to the trash heap of friendship, I want to do a friend’s one duty: let her be herself. Though I’d be happier to snuggle up under the sheets and rassle around till plane time.

“Did you hang up feeling like you wanted to be friends with me?” I say, and smile at her.