In One Person (46 page)

I was remembering my one and only sighting of Mrs. Kittredge, when Tom Atkins and I noticed Miss Frost. She was sitting in the first row of
the bleacher seats, as close to the wrestling mat as she could get. (Mrs. Kittredge had sat in the back row of the bleachers, as if to signify her immortal-seeming aloofness from the grunting and grimacing of human combat.)

“Look who’s here, Bill—in the first row. Do you see her?” Atkins asked me.

“I
know,
Tom—I see her,” I said. I instantly wondered if Miss Frost often, or always, attended the wrestling matches. If she’d been a frequent spectator at the home meets, how had Elaine and I missed seeing her? Miss Frost was not only tall and broad-shouldered; as a woman, it wasn’t just her size that was imposing. If she’d frequently had a front-row seat at the wrestling matches, how could anyone have missed seeing her?

Miss Frost seemed very much at home where she was—at the edge of the wrestling mat, watching the wrestlers warm up. I doubted that she’d spotted Tom Atkins and me, because she didn’t glance up at the surrounding running track—even during the warm-ups. And once the competition started, didn’t everyone watch the wrestlers on the mat?

Because Delacorte was a lightweight, he wrestled in one of the first matches. If Delacorte had played Lear’s Fool as a death-in-progress, that was certainly the way he wrestled; it was agonizing to watch him. Delacorte managed to make a wrestling match resemble a death-in-progress. The weight-cutting took a toll on him. He was so sucked down—he was all loose skin and super-prominent bones. Delacorte looked as if he were starving to death.

He was noticeably taller than most of his opponents; he often outscored them in the first period, and he was usually leading at the end of the second period, when he began to tire. The third period was Delacorte’s time to pay for the weight-cutting.

Delacorte finished every wrestling match desperately trying to protect an ever-diminishing lead. He stalled, he fled the mat; his opponent’s hands appeared to grow heavy on him. Delacorte’s head hung down, and his tongue lolled out a corner of his open mouth. According to Kittredge, Delacorte ran out of gas every third period; a wrestling match was always a couple of minutes too long for him.

“Hang on, Delacorte!” one of the student spectators inevitably cried; soon all of us would echo this plea.

“Hang on! Hang on! Hang on!”

At this point in Delacorte’s matches, Elaine and I had learned to
look at Favorite River’s wrestling coach—a tough-looking old geezer with cauliflower ears and a crooked nose. Almost everyone called Coach Hoyt by his first name, which was Herm.

When Delacorte was dying in the third period, Herm Hoyt predictably took a towel from a stack at the end of the wrestling-team bench nearest the scorers’ table. Coach Hoyt unfailingly sat next to the towels, as near as he could get to the scorers’ table.

As Delacorte tried to “hang on” a little longer, Herm unfolded the towel; he was bowlegged, in that way a lot of old wrestlers are, and when he stood up from the team bench, he (for just a moment) looked like he wanted to strangle the dying Delacorte with the towel, which Herm instead put over his own head. Coach Hoyt wore the towel as if it were a hood; he peered out from under the towel at Delacorte’s final, expiring moments—at the clock on the scorers’ table, at the ref (who, in the waning seconds of the third period, usually first warned Delacorte, and then penalized him, for stalling).

While Delacorte died, which I found unbearable to watch, I looked instead at Herm Hoyt, who seemed to be dying of both anger and empathy under the towel. Naturally, I advised Tom Atkins to keep his eyes on the old coach instead of enduring Delacorte’s agonies, because Herm Hoyt knew before anyone else (including Delacorte) whether Delacorte would hang on and win or finish dying and lose.

This Saturday, following his near-death experience, Delacorte actually hung on and won. He came off the mat and collapsed into Herm Hoyt’s arms. The old coach did as he always did with Delacorte—win or lose. Herm covered Delacorte’s head with the towel, and Delacorte staggered to the team bench, where he sat sobbing and gasping for breath under the all-concealing mantle.

“For once, Delacorte isn’t rinsing or spitting,” Atkins sarcastically observed, but I was watching Miss Frost, who suddenly looked at me and smiled.

It was an unselfconscious smile—accompanied by a spontaneous little wave, just the wiggling of her fingers on one hand. I instantly knew: Miss Frost had known all along that I was there, and she’d expected that I would be.

I was so completely undone by her smile, and the wave, that I feared I would faint and slip under the railing; I foresaw myself falling from the wooden track to the wrestling room below. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t
have been a life-threatening fall; the running track was not at a great height above the gym floor. It just would have been humiliating to fall in a heap on the wrestling mat, or to land on one or more of the wrestlers.

“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.”)

It was not hard to spot Miss Frost in the crowd; she was so tall and erect, and Tom Atkins was whispering beside me with the nervous constancy of a bird dog. “There she is, Bill—over there. Do you see her?”

“I see her, Tom.”

“I don’t see Kittredge,” Atkins said worriedly.

I knew that Kittredge’s timing was not to be doubted; when I had made my way to where Miss Frost was standing (not coincidentally, in the intimidating center of that starting circle on the wrestling mat), I found myself stopping in front of her at the very instant Kittredge materialized beside me. Miss Frost probably realized that I couldn’t speak; Atkins, who’d been blathering compulsively, was now struck speechless by the awkward gravity of the moment.