The Art of Fielding_ A Novel - Chad Harbach [34]
Later that night, while still thinking about Owen, thinking about why he was thinking about Owen, he received an e-mail:
Dear Guert,
Thank you very kindly for meeting with us today. I found it edifying but more cacophonous than might have been maximally productive. I don’t wish to impose on your busy schedule, but perhaps we could schedule a smaller meeting to determine which initiatives might be fiscally possible?
Sincerely,
O.
A Dear Guert and a one-initial signature, coming from a student, would normally have annoyed Affenlight. In this case, for whatever reason, it felt more like intimacy than presumption. Since then he and Owen had met several times, had put together a plan, and a plan for achieving the plan. Owen’s group would collect the student signatures; Affenlight would rally the faculty and lobby the trustees.
Had Owen caught him staring and known what it meant? Was that why he’d written that e-mail? The eyes behind those wire-rimmed glasses seemed to miss nothing. In their subsequent meetings, Owen was self-assured and patient and sometimes teasing; Affenlight was rapt and eager to please. After nearly thirty years of student-teacher interactions, he’d found himself on the wrong end of a crush. After a few weeks the word crush no longer covered it.
Affenlight drew another fry from the carton. Henry’s eyes were squeezed shut—he wasn’t asleep but seemed rather to be wincing, perhaps in memory of his errant throw. His face was ghostly pale, still dusted with infield dirt. He was in full uniform, except for his cap. His glove sat on one knee. “It’ll be okay,” Affenlight said. “He’ll be okay.”
Henry nodded, unconvinced.
“He’s a wonderful young man,” said Affenlight.
Henry’s chin squinched, as if he might cry. “Schwartzy,” he said, “do you have a ball on you?”
Schwartz, having finished his dinner, had pulled out his laptop and begun typing away, a stack of note cards at his elbow. Now he reached down into his backpack and flipped a baseball to Henry. Henry spun the ball in his right hand, slapped it into the glove. The gesture seemed to enable him to speak. “I keep seeing it over and over in my head,” he said miserably. “I’ve never made a throw like that. A throw that bad. I don’t know how it happened.”
Schwartz stopped typing and looked up, his face bathed in the cool submarine glow of his laptop screen. “Not your fault, Skrimmer.”
“I know.”
“The Buddha’s going to be okay,” Schwartz said. “He’s already okay.”
Henry nodded, unconvinced. “I know.”
“Goddamn Dunne.” Coach Cox kept his eyes on the bikini-clad Catholic girls on TV, who were testing the novitiates’ faith with back rubs. “I’m going to wring his scrawny neck.”
A door opened. “Guert Affenlight?” called a young woman in pale-blue scrubs, reading the name off her clipboard.
“Yes.” Affenlight stood and straightened his Harpooner tie.
“My name is Dr. Collins. Are you a relative of Owen Dunne?”
“Oh, no,” Affenlight said. “His family, actually, is from, um…”
“San Jose,” Henry said.
“Right,” Affenlight said quickly. “San Jose.” He’d felt such stupid pride at having the doctor call his name, as if he were the person nearest to Owen. The doctor turned to address herself to Henry:
“Your friend isn’t doing too badly, all in all. The CT showed no epidural bleeding, which is what we worry about in this kind of case. He has a severe concussion and a fractured zygomatic arch—that is, a cheekbone. His functions appear normal. The arch will require reconstructive surgery, which I imagine we’ll try to do right away, as long as we’ve got him here.” Dr. Collins, who despite the purple fatigue marks under her eyes looked no older than twenty-five, paused to pluck at the V of her scrub top, above which her skin was Irishly pink and mottled. Affenlight saw, or imagined he saw, her tired eyes settle on Henry in an interested