John Irving - In One Person

“I don’t feel well, Tom,” I said to Atkins. “I’m a little dizzy.”

“I’ve got you, Bill,” Atkins said, putting his arm around me. “Just don’t look down for a minute.”

I kept looking at the far end of the gym, where the bleachers were, but Miss Frost had returned her attention to the wrestling; another match had started, while Delacorte was still wracked by sobs and gasps—his head was bobbing up and down under the consoling towel.

Coach Herm Hoyt had sat back down on the team bench next to the stack of clean towels. I saw Kittredge, who was beginning to loosen up; he was standing behind the bench, just bouncing on the balls of his feet and turning his head from side to side. Kittredge was stretching his neck, but he never stopped looking at Miss Frost.

“I’m okay, Tom,” I said, but the weight of his arm rested on the back of my neck for a few seconds more; I counted to five to myself before Atkins took his arm from around my shoulders.

“We should think about going to Europe together,” I told Atkins, but I still watched Kittredge, who was skipping rope. Kittredge couldn’t take his eyes off Miss Frost; he continued to stare at her, skipping rhythmically, the speed of the jump rope never changing.

“Look who’s captivated by her now, Bill,” Atkins said petulantly.

“I know, Tom—I see him,” I said. (Was it my worst fear, or was it secretly thrilling—to imagine Kittredge and Miss Frost together?)

“We would go to Europe this summer—is that what you mean, Bill?” Atkins asked me.

“Why not?” I replied, as casually as I could—I was still watching Kittredge.

“If your parents approve, and mine do—we could ask them, couldn’t we?” Atkins said.

“It’s in our hands, Tom—we have to make them understand it’s a priority,” I told him.

“She’s looking at you, Bill!” Atkins said breathlessly.

When I glanced (as casually as I could) at Miss Frost, she was smiling at me again. She put her index and middle fingers to her lips and kissed them. Before I could blow her a kiss, she was once more watching the wrestling.

“Boy, did that get Kittredge’s attention!” Tom Atkins said excitedly. I kept looking at Miss Frost, but only for a moment; I didn’t need Atkins to tell me in order to know that Kittredge was looking at me.

“Bill, Kittredge is—” Atkins began.

“I know, Tom,” I told him. I let my gaze linger on Miss Frost a little longer, before I glanced—as if accidentally—at Kittredge. He’d stopped jumping rope and was staring at me. I just smiled at him, as unmeaningfully as I’d ever managed to smile at him, and Kittredge began to skip rope again; he had picked up the pace, either consciously or unconsciously, but he was once again staring at Miss Frost. I couldn’t help wonder if Kittredge was reconsidering the disgusting word. Perhaps the everything that Kittredge imagined I’d done with Miss Frost didn’t disgust him anymore, or was this wishful thinking?

The atmosphere in the wrestling room changed abruptly when Kittredge’s match began. Both team benches viewed the mauling with a clinical appreciation. Kittredge usually beat up his opponents before he pinned them. It was confusing for a nonwrestler like myself to differentiate among the displays of Kittredge’s technical expertise, his athleticism, and the brute force of his physical superiority; Kittredge thoroughly dominated an opponent before pinning him. There was always a moment in the third and final period when Kittredge glanced at the clock on the scorers’ table; at that moment, the home crowd began chanting, “Pin! Pin! Pin!” By then, the torturing had gone on for so long that I imagined Kittredge’s opponent was hoping to be pinned; moments later, when the referee signaled the fall, the pin seemed both overdue and merciful. I’d never seen Kittredge lose; I hadn’t once seen him challenged.

I don’t remember the remaining matches that Saturday afternoon, or which team won the dual meet. The rest of the competition is clouded in my memory by Kittredge’s nearly constant staring at Miss Frost, which continued long after his match—Kittredge interrupting his fixed gaze only with cursory (and occasional) glances at me.

I, of course, continued to look back and forth between Kittredge and Miss Frost; it was the first time I could see both of them in the same place, and I admit I was deeply disturbed about that imagined split second when Miss Frost would look at Kittredge. She didn’t—not once. She continued to watch the wrestling and, albeit briefly, to smile at me—while the entire time Tom Atkins kept asking, “Do you want to leave, Bill? If this is uncomfortable for you, we should just leave—I would go with you, you know.”

“I’m fine, Tom—I want to stay,” I kept telling him.

“ Europe —well, I never imagined I would see Europe !” Atkins at one point exclaimed. “I wonder where in Europe, and how we would travel. By train, I suppose—by bus, maybe. I wish I knew what we would need for clothes—”

“It will be summer, Tom—we’ll need summer clothes,” I told him.

“Yes, but how formal, or not—that’s what I mean, Bill. And how much money would we need? I truly have no idea!” Atkins said in a panicky voice.

“We’ll ask someone,” I said. “Lots of people have been to Europe.”

“Don’t ask Kittredge, Bill,” Atkins continued, in his panic-stricken mode. “I’m sure we couldn’t afford any of the places Kittredge goes, or the hotels he stays in. Besides, we don’t want Kittredge to know we’re going to Europe together—do we?”

“Stop blithering, Tom,” I told him. I saw that Delacorte had emerged from under the towel; he appeared to be breathing normally, paper cup in hand. Kittredge said something to him, and Delacorte instantly started to stare at Miss Frost.

“Delacorte gives me the—” Atkins began.

“I know, Tom!” I told him.

I realized that the wrestling-team manager was a servile, furtive-looking boy in glasses; I’d not noticed him before. He handed Kittredge an orange, cut in quarters; Kittredge took the orange without looking at the manager or saying anything to him. (The manager’s name was Merryweather; with a last name like that, as you might imagine, no one ever called him by his first name.)

Merryweather handed Delacorte a clean paper cup; Delacorte gave Merryweather the old, spat-in cup, which Merryweather dropped in the spit bucket. Kittredge was eating the orange while he and Delacorte stared at Miss Frost. I watched Merryweather, who was gathering up the used and discarded towels; I was trying to imagine my father, Franny Dean, doing the things a wrestling-team manager does.

“I must say, Bill—you’re rather remote for someone who’s just asked me to spend a summer in Europe with him,” Atkins said tearfully.

“Rather remote,” I repeated. I was beginning to regret that I’d asked Tom Atkins to go to Europe with me for a whole summer; his neediness was already irritating me. But suddenly the wrestling was over; the student spectators were filing down the corrugated-iron stairs, which led from the running track to the gym floor. Parents and faculty—and the other adult spectators, from the bleacher seats—were milling around on the wrestling mat, where the wrestlers were talking to their families and friends.

“You’re not going to speak to her, are you, Bill? I thought you weren’t allowed, ” Atkins was fretting.

I must have wanted to see what might happen, if I accidentally bumped into Miss Frost—if I just said, “Hi,” or something. (Elaine and I used to mill around on the wrestling mat after we’d watched Kittredge wrestle—probably hoping, and fearing, that we would bump into Kittredge “accidentally.”)