THE TIGERS LOST, BUT Rick and Pammie got to overhear Jim Northrup negotiating to buy a used Chevy from Norm Cash next to the dugout. During the game, Pammie ate a prodigious number of hot dogs, drank three Cokes, and visited the ladies’ room at least six times. She wore a Tigers cap as promised and a Snoopy T-shirt over a pair of tight green shorts that pushed the fat on her thighs into white ridges. Her knowledge of history at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull made Rick want to run home and bone up on his ten-year collection of programs. When the players went to the showers the two remained in their seats while most of the crowd hurried to join the crush of traffic leaving the parking lot. An old Negro worked his way down the bleachers, spearing paper cups and hot dog wrappers with a nail on a stick.
“I wonder if he bought it,” said Pammie.
Rick rested his head on the back of his seat and watched clouds boil past the quarter moon. The night was warm. “I doubt it. Sounded to me like the block’s cracked.”
“Maybe it didn’t sound like that to Northrup.”
“He’s been in the game too long not to know anything about cars. Everybody misses the bus from time to time.”
“I don’t think it’s the block at all. The plugs need cleaning.” She grinned when he turned his head in her direction. “I got three brothers. I spent more time in garages than Parnelli Jones.”
“That how you wound up at PG?”
“No, I’m just staying out from under foot during summer vacation. I start Eastern Michigan in September.”
“Everybody in the office seems to be on his way somewhere else,” he said. “Lee’s joining the Peace Corps, I’m going into politics, you’re waiting on a baseball scholarship—”
She giggled. “I watch. I don’t play. I’m majoring in Business. Either that or Elizabethan Poetry. I haven’t made up my mind yet. Did you go to college?”
“U of D, two years. I’d have thought you’d been around longer. You run the office when Wendell and Enid are out.”
“Oh, I’ve been there two years, nights, weekends, and vacations. My pop thinks I’m being taken advantage of, not getting paid and all. I keep telling him, money doesn’t motivate our generation.”
“Now you sound like Lee.”
“You sound a lot older than thirty sometimes.”
She was pouting now. He changed the subject. “Enid isn’t on her way somewhere else.”
“Enid was born rich.”
“You say that like you’re sorry for her.”
“I am, sort of. It sure hasn’t made her happy.”
“She and Wendell got something going?”
She looked at him quickly, then at the infield. The grounds crew was unrolling the tarp. More rain was predicted. “I wouldn’t know about anything like that.”
“Come on. You know everything.”
“You ask too many questions. Lee says it’s because you were a reporter, but I think you’re just plain nosy. Everybody should do his own thing and leave everybody else’s alone.”
“That’s Lee talking. He reads all that stuff they hand out on street corners.” He shrugged. “I just don’t like being the only one who doesn’t know what everyone else knows. Personally I think she likes women.”
“Why, because she wouldn’t give you a tumble?”
“Hey, I never asked.”
“What was that needlepoint thing all about then?”
“It was a joke. Are you sore at me for something?” He sat up.
She didn’t answer. She took off her glasses and wiped them with the tail of her T-shirt. She rubbed both eyes and put them back on. “They’re going to kick us out of here.” She stood.
“Sit down. We’re not the only ones waiting for the parking lot to clear.”
She sat down. She was still looking at the grounds crew.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry for what?”
“For being a jerk. A guy isn’t supposed to talk about other women when he’s on a date.”
She smiled then, without looking at him. “I thought this was a buddy thing.”
“If it were a buddy thing I’d have asked Lee. Him I could win an argument with on who leads the Tigers in bases on balls.”
“You still owe me a Coke.” She’d forgotten about the infield. “I thought you were interested in Enid. Just about everybody who comes to the office is. I might as well be a file cabinet when she’s around.”
“She scares the hell out of me.”
She beamed. “You?”
“These fashion mannequins with their eyes locked on their goals always do. Enid never doesn’t talk shop. When you’re a guy that’s intimidating.”
“That’s nothing. Well, you met Caroline.” She had shifted gears into gossip.
“I don’t see her every day.”
“Enid had a tragedy. I shouldn’t talk about it.” The eyes behind the glasses said she couldn’t wait to.
“She told me about her parents. I don’t think that explains it.”
“Well, you were warm before.” She got up. “I think you can get your car out now.”
He didn’t bring up the subject again. The hook was set; from here on she would reel herself in.
In the car, Pammie said the hot dogs had made her hungry. They drove to Nicholson’s Steak House on Woodward, waited a few minutes to be seated, and ordered two open-face steak sandwiches with fries. The other diners were in suits and crepe dresses and ballpark casual, like them. He watched her pour Heinz ketchup over her sirloin.
“Why Elizabethan Poetry?” he asked.
“’Cause I don’t know much about it and I sure won’t read it unless somebody makes me. I know me.” She offered him the bottle; he shook his head. She shrugged and set it down. “I’m sort of a poet. One of my poems got Honorable Mention in the Detroit News Scholastic Writing Competition last year.”
“Congratulations.”
“All I got was a Certificate of Merit and my name in the paper on a big list. Anyway, if I’m going to make anything of myself, I think I ought to try and understand it, don’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
She dipped a french fry in the ketchup and held it up like a scepter. “You’re a writer, right? I mean, you wrote for the papers.”
“Actually I just talked to people and took notes. Someone else did the actual writing.”
She looked disappointed. Then she shrugged again and took a bite out of the fry. “Still, you’re as close to a real writer as I ever got. Would you read my poems? You could tell me if they’re any good.”
“The Certificate of Merit ought to have told you that.”
“That was high school stuff. I want to know how they stack up to the professionals.”
“All I know about poetry is it doesn’t rhyme any more.”
“Oh.” She concentrated on stirring the stub of potato in her ketchup.
“I’d be glad to read them.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, really. It’s just that my opinion isn’t worth more than anybody else’s.”
“I haven’t shown them to anybody else.”
He stopped sawing at his steak. “They’re not, like, personal, are they?”
“Just stuff that comes to me.”
“You even sound like a writer.” He took a bite.
“Really?” She brightened. “I’ll bring them to the office tomorrow. Don’t spare my feelings. A poet has to have a clear idea of her limitations.”
“Who said that?”
“I just thought of it. Is it good?”
“It’s a good simple declarative sentence. They liked those at the Times.” The closest he had ever been to a newspaper office was an occasional cup of coffee with the police reporter from the Free Press. He had chosen the Times for his background cover because the paper had been defunct for six years, making his story difficult to check.
They ate their meals. Pammie sipped her Coke through a straw and wrinkled her nose. “Too much syrup. How’d you guess Wendell and Enid had—something going?”
“Do they?”
“I didn’t say that. I was just wondering what made you think so.”
He backed off again. “Just something I overheard her say to him on the phone once. Also I get the impression neither of them thinks too much of Caroline, except as a lawyer. Probably I’ve just got a dirty mind.”
“I read a letter he wrote Enid.” She took another sip.
“A letter?” He hadn’t counted on letters. His inner antennae were tingling.
“It was an accident. She had to go out and asked me to file a bunch of letters on her desk. I guess it got mixed up in the stack. By the time I knew it didn’t belong it was too late; I’d read it.” She flushed. “No, that’s not true. I went on reading after I figured out what it was. I guess that’s pretty terrible.”
“What did it say?”
But she’d sealed off. “I put it back on her desk, under some other papers. I never said anything. I don’t think she knows I saw it.”
“Must’ve been pretty hot.”
“It wasn’t your usual office memo.” She ate her last fry. “Do you think they have a dessert tray?”
He drove her home. He didn’t bring up the letter again. “We’ll get ’em Saturday,” he said, referring to the game. “McLain’s pitching.”
“I like Lolich. I just wish he’d lay off the beers. He’s starting to look like Jackie Gleason.” She watched the scenery roll past, lighted shop windows and pools of light under the street lamps like the ones Jimmy Durante used to walk through at the end of his TV show. She turned her head suddenly. “What’s this big idea you had that you wouldn’t tell Enid about?”
“I’d better not say anything yet. It might not come off.”
“Is it legal?”
“Not entirely.”
“Wendell says we should be careful and not break the law. That’s just what GM wants us to do so the government will shut us down.”
“Right, like we could be any less effective if it did.”
“Are you going to discuss it with him?”
“Sure. It wouldn’t work without Wendell.”
“Come on, give me a hint.”
He chewed on it. “You like parades?”
“Not much. I’m too short. All I ever see of the J. L. Hudson parade on Thanksgiving is the back of people’s heads.” She paused. “That’s your idea? A parade?”
“I just asked if you liked them.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
The house was in Melvindale, one of a row of narrow high-peaked residences, all painted white. Rick recognized the style. They had been built by the Ford Motor Company under the original Henry for the employees at the Dearborn plant. Blue light from a television screen flickered in one of the downstairs windows, the only illumination in the house. He walked her to the porch.
“Pop’s watching Dean Martin. We better say good-bye here,” she said. “I had a good time.”
“Me too. I learned more about baseball than Al Kaline knows.”
She smiled; then she frowned. “Don’t tell anybody about the letter, okay? I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Who’d I tell, Lee? He’d just shake his hair and say”—he imitated Lee Schenck’s sleepy tones— “‘Everybody’s got his own bag.’ “
“You do good impressions.” She giggled. “You should cut an album, like Vaughn Meader.”
“Yeah, but who’s heard of him lately?”
“Good night.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. The bill of her cap grazed his forehead. Then she went inside.
Back in the car he sat for a long time before turning the key. A light went on in one of the windows upstairs. He started the car then and backed out of the driveway. On Greenfield he reached up and flipped the mirror to the night side. That way he didn’t have to look at his reflection.