Bells Above Greens (24 page)
Read Bells Above Greens Online
Authors: David Xavier
It was with a huge smile that I paid Higgins my bill and folded Peter’s jersey on the bar.
“Sorry, Sam,” Higgins said. “You can keep the jersey if you want to.”
“Sure,” I said. “I know a few kids in the park who’ll get some good wear out of it. And don’t be sorry. I like it better this way.”
I caught a quick glimpse of myself in the door glass, and it was with a bruised chin and a small cut over my eyebrow, but a relieved smile on my face and unstrapped shoulders, that I ran across the soft campus lawns to the tree behind Elle’s dorm room.
She stood on her balcony with hesitation all over her features when I told her I loved her. She broke into a teary smile and I stepped across the curved branch to stand next to her and hold her.
“You’re going to fall,” she said with her hands to her face.
But I had never been so sure of my footing, and I pulled her close to me, her body flush against mine all the way down to our feet. With her head cradled in the crook of my elbow I kissed her gently there, just as I had seen done by many returning soldiers stepping off the bus to greet their girls after long absences, just as I had seen done in the movies and on magazine pages and advertisements. She whimpered a small sigh and wrapped her fingers in the hair on the back of my head. She had the softest lips, as if there were no strength in them to move or twist them if she tried, just the warm fullness of lips that were meant to be kissed at all hours of the day, I imagined just as soft in the morning as they would be at night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The lanes crisscrossing South Bend warmed again, old trucks sputtered at intersections and the click of bicycle wheels rose and faded below. Hammer strokes were once again full in noise, dispersing quickly in the green cushion of summer heat. The bells of Notre Dame hummed and brought my smile out of sweat. I stood and gave my shadow to South Bend, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in the distance, and shook my hands out.
A coughing Chevrolet, baby-blue with fins, came out from under the branches down the way, rolling up the lane, the leaves and branches playing their nets of shade upon the windshield. It grew larger beneath me and stopped in front of the house with a single honk of the horn. The driver’s window unrolled and Elle waved to me, shading her eyes from the sun, as small as a child behind the wheel.
Myles climbed halfway out the passenger window and waved. “Hey, Sam!”
“Good to see you around,” I said.
He held his camera up in his arm. “Yeah. I figure I still have some things I want to do around here.”
Elle leaned out the window, her arm slung out like a trucker.
“That car’s too big for you,” I said.
“I think it fits me.”
I dropped my head and laughed at her insistence. “Did you steal it?”
“I paid four hundred for it. My entire savings.”
“You did steal it.”
“I figured it made it to Chicago once, it can make it again.”
The words caught me in a stagger. I was happy to hear it.
“They hired you?” I asked. “You’re the writer?”
Her smile was the answer. “I’ll be covering Notre Dame sports.”
“I knew it. They’d have been foolish not to hire you.”
Myles pounded his hand on the roof. “And I’ll be taking photos of the games for her articles.” He ducked back in the window, disappearing in an excitement that I had not seen in him before. His smile was back.
“That’s right,” Elle told me. “He put in a portfolio of his work and they hired him on the spot. How do you like that?”
“I guess you’ll be spending a lot of time in Chicago then?” I said.
“A couple days a week. I’ll be here more than there.”
“Will you be needing an inexpensive chauffeur?”
“The least expensive.”
We laughed with each other, the engine of the Chevrolet still chugging, neither of us knowing quite what to say next or what the summer would hold. That was the excitement of it all, taking each day at a time, making each decision as it came. There would be plenty of time to sit by the lake, many afternoon drives to the city, time to live in the present, and there would be plenty of time to look forward too.
“What about you?” she asked.
I looked around at the rooftop. “There’s plenty of work for me to do here this summer, and I can see the highway from here. I’ll watch for you.”
“And next year?”
“Next year,” I said. “Next year I might take a shot at playing ball and getting in the papers.”
“Playing ball? Should I look for you on the football field or the baseball diamond?”
“Some guys play both, you know.”
“I’ll have to wait and see.”
“I’ll give you the exclusive scoop,” I said. “I’ll be the first player out of the locker room.”
Copyright 2013 by David Xavier Pico
All names and characters are a work of fiction.
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