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Two weeks later Matt was still thinking about the course of his life: the amazing turn it had taken, and the possibility (or worse, the likelihood) that the fact that he had actually met and talked to Ana Darshiell a couple of times was no more than a passing encounter. She had struck him like a tuning fork. His whole being felt tuned in to her. She had been happy to see him on Barbados...but what did that really mean? Did she even have a tuning fork?
Fortunately, he had the ideal spot for contemplation: the empty highway from Alpine to El Paso. He hadn't driven this stretch of highway for nearly a year, but now he was getting paid to do it. Not well paid, of course. His assignment was to fly to California to research an article on Cheryl Ford’s Olympic training, Cheryl being the only known candidate for the Olympics from the Alpine area.
Olympic fever had finally motivated Crusty to send Matt to the Olympic training center near San Diego, where Cheryl was in training with a crowd of other track and field athletes. Once Cheryl officially made the Barbadian team, Coach Pérez had spread the news around town, making a splash on the campus and pleasing some of the more important alumni and backers of the athletic program. Crusty was only too happy to oblige them and have Matt write a piece about it.
Matt proposed driving to El Paso and hopping a plane to San Diego, where he could stay with an aunt and uncle, sparing the newspaper the high cost of lodging and even some meals.
Crusty accepted, as long as Matt also took plenty of pictures (to save the cost of a photographer).
"Don't get any ideas about going to Ireland, though. We'll use pool coverage for that,” Crusty added.
Matt left for El Paso a day early so he could drive on through to Las Cruces, New Mexico, fifty miles beyond El Paso, and visit his aging grandmother Reyes Méndez. Nearing 80, she lived by herself in the imposing family home along the banks of the Rio Grande, among the onion and chili fields. She was aging gracefully, but she could use a bit of help around the place. Helping her this trip was beyond him, but he listened to her with sympathy. When he left the next day for the El Paso airport, she gave him a bag of fresh chilis to take to her nephew and his wife in San Diego.
There still had been no news from Darcy. He had no idea if her moon station manager had answered her message or even received it. If he had received it, had he been able to help diagnose her condition? Had her performance times had got better or worse? And most irritating of all, he'd been too addled when he was there to ask Darcy for her email address. That was one thing he planned to ask Cheryl about.
Cheryl met him for dinner at one of the nicer chain restaurants just outside the training center. She had a big smile for him, even though he knew she was preoccupied with her vigorous training and her athletic companions. She filled Matt in on her training activities and life in the "village" as they walked to the restaurant.
They found a relatively quiet table in a corner of the patio, with a busy street a few yards away and low hills dotted with palm trees in the near distance. Cheryl seemed to be in top shape, her taut chocolate skin radiating energy, her shoes rocking on the toes under the table. After they had ordered their food, Matt asked her about the upcoming trip to Ireland.
"Most all of us are leaving at the end of next week. It'll take a day to get there, and then we’re supposed to take a day or two to get settled in the Olympic village outside Dublin in order to get over the jet lag. We'll be on a light training schedule after that—don't wanna overdo it."
"No, I guess not," Matt replied, knowing nothing at all about world class athletic training. He looked at a group of people two tables over, chatting happily while the sunlight filtered through the green plastic roof over their heads, making them look like sickly zombies in a 1950s movie.
"Have you heard anything from Darcy since our visit?"
"No, I haven't, and I don't like that. I’m still worried about her. When we were there I thought she looked off her game a little, you know? Did you notice that?"
"Maybe. She did look different. Maybe she was just nervous."
Cheryl snorted. "Matt, you’re a guy, that's all. You’d probably not notice if she was missing a leg. I jes' had a feeling that she’s not right, somehow. But she wouldn't say nothing about it."
"What about your parents? Or your friends on the island? Hasn't anybody said anything?"
"Oh, yeah. The team’s looking good, they say. But that's because the papers say that. They always say that. I asked Mr. Braithwaite specifically about Darcy. He just says she’s fine and they expect her to do well, that's all."
"Well...you'll be joining the Barbadian team when you get to Ireland, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. I'll see her then, if she still looks down or maybe she’ll be better then."
"Hey, will you have email?"
"Now you know, that’s a funny thing. They tell us that we’re gonna be in the Olympic village and we’re supposed to stay there, unless we go somewhere in a group. Apparently that’s because all kinds of low-life people want to talk to us, you know, like maybe, reporters?"
With a knowing smirk, she gave him a sideways look.
Matt laughed.
"But once they get rid of the reporters, they still have to watch for gamblers, or maybe just plain kooks. And they don't want us disturbed. We’re supposed to concentrate on what we’re doing. So they say no emails, and not hardly any telephone. We can write letters, that's about all."
She paused while a waiter delivered their plates.
"But I tell you," she leaned toward him and lowered her voice. "They’re a couple athletes here who’ve been to several Olympics before this. And they say they know ways around stuff like that. They call their families and everything."
She began cutting her chicken into bites.
"So how about this? You give me your phone number, and if I get the chance, maybe I can call you, probably collect. But you have to promise not to let on that you been talking to Cheryl Ford, you hear?"
"I promise," Matt had said. He was already sitting uncomfortably on the really big stories of an extraterrestrial on earth and meteoroids soon to end all life on the planet. What was one more smaller story? Nothing, that’s what.
Much later that day he slowed his truck slightly as he rolled through the tiny whistle stop of Valentine, Texas, famous every February. No doubt about it, he was coming down with a case of Olympic fever, or more accurately Darcy fever. Heretofore he'd only cared about football and soccer, but now track and field were occupying his thoughts more and more.
To be sure, it was because he cared about two of the athletes. He found he cared a lot. Worrying about one of them was keeping him awake nights. The only thing he could think of to do when he got back to Alpine was to call the cable TV company in town and have them hook him up so he could follow the all-Olympic, all the time sports channel coverage.
He'd figure out how to pay for it later.
