A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [39]
“Well, lucky guy.”
“Could be you,” she said.
“Include me out,” Quinn replied.
“Uh-uh. Every day a new day and a new way. We’ll buy out all the candles in Boulder, incense, mirror the nooks, clothing fit for a whore, tattoos. I’m having a one-year blowout before I go conquer New York.”
“You’re really a friggin’ nutcase,” Quinn said.
She flung her arms about him. “I know! And I know something else. You’ve got a thing for that Maldonado chick.”
“Come on, stupid. She’s only sixteen years old.”
“But oh, my. You ought to see her watching a ball game.”
“Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
The “I’ll call you” macho talk didn’t last long. Quinn was annoyed that Greer didn’t show up for practices and a game where he hit three doubles, one to each field.
He caught a glimpse of her in the deli in the company of a tank-topped beanpole crowned with a bush of hair that could give shade to a regiment. He was the star of the basketball team. It occurred to him that an animal like Greer was the ultimate colorblind woman; in fact, she might just pursue her curiosity. Quinn always ended his sermons to himself with, she ain’t nothing but misery.
The ball club played a respectable .500 season. Quinn O’Connell became a .294 spray hitter, moved from eighth to second in the lineup.
As a matter of fact, the professional A-team out of Bakersfield tried to woo him for the summer. Coach Hoy held his breath and put on his hound dog look.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Quinn told him. “I owe my dad a big summer’s work, and I want to get reacquainted with the ranch.”
“You coming back for a senior year?”
“Funny. Professor Maldonado lives down the road from me, but I’ve got to come to Boulder to hear his lectures. I kind of think I’ll be back.”
“The skinny broad?” Coach Hoy grunted.
It hit! Quinn shrugged. “Her game is just a game. Big mouth trying to cover little boobs.”
“They called it cock teasing when I was a young man,” Hoy said.
The conversation ended with Quinn holding a pair of trembling hands down by his sides.
He saw her alone again cuddled in a chair in the reading room of the Norlin Library.
“Howdy, pardner.”
“Oh, hi there. Sit down, it’s public.”
“I was hoping you’d see what your student did in the last three games.”
“I saw you. You hit nine-for-fifteen against the best pitchers Missouri and Kansas had. God, if Colorado had one more pitcher.”
“Why haven’t I seen you, Greer?”
“Same reason I haven’t seen you. I felt so good and open with you, I guess I went over the edge. I painted you a picture of a tawdry whore, and actually, all I want to be next year is a tawdry whore. I thought it could be kind of crazy with us but…”
“What?”
“What! Hey, Quinn, you got it all going for you with that handsome, steady, skilled silence and you ain’t Elmer Fudd, not with the titles on your bookshelf. You’ve got a few dozen girlie tricks up your sleeve, but you’re just not as loud about it as I am.”
“Movies, Friday night?”
“Why don’t we pass?” she said.
“Are you ashamed of yourself or something like that?” he asked.
“Feel silly.”
“Christ, woman, I envy you from head to toe. The way life bursts out of you and puts bright colors on everything around you,” Quinn said.
“You stealing that from some poet?” she replied.
“Movies, then?”
“No.”
Quinn gnashed his teeth to head off in some different direction. He was trying to decide which. A frustrated fist on the table brought “shhh” and “ahem” from around the library. His squealing chair brought the required raised eyebrows from the librarian.
“Look,” Quinn said, speaking softly and smiling to those seated nearby. “See, I know how to talk barely above a whisper. Let’s go outside.”
She pouted a moment. He loved to see her pout. “Okay,” she said.
They found a place