The Homecoming Hero Returns

“Oh. Oh, sure thing. You bet.”

Sandra frowned. “But you were referring to the adventure of meeting with Professor Harrison. Right?”

“Well…”

“David?”

“Guilty as charged,” he said, grinning at her. “But only because the subject practically consumed the conversation at lunch.”

“Mmm,” Sandra said, rolling her eyes heavenward. She looked over at David again. “Did you call Professor Harrison and tell him we were coming?”

“No, I thought about doing that,” David said, his attention riveted on the heavy traffic, “but when I stopped and remembered all the times we had to cancel plans because of sick kids or an emergency at the store or car trouble, and on and on, I decided to not jinx this trip. We’ll just show up and surprise him.”

“In our Lexus,” Sandra said, poking her nose in the air. “Oh, la-di-da.”

“I’m going to make a sign to put in the back window of the Lexus,” David said, smiling, “that says, ‘This car is borrowed so don’t hit it.’” He glanced quickly at his watch. “You know, if we make decent time getting home it won’t be too late for a very enjoyable activity.”

Sandra’s heart did a little two-step.

Like making love? she thought. In the living room. The kitchen. Anywhere they wanted to because the house was all theirs. Or maybe in the shower. Oh, heavens, how many years had it been since they’d done that?

“Oh?” she said, attempting to produce a seductive little purr in her voice that actually sounded like she needed to clear her throat.

“Yeah. I might be able to catch the last of the baseball game on the tube. A bottle of beer, a hot batch of popcorn, put my feet up and enjoy.”

Sandra’s shoulders slumped. “Well, fine, David, but I want you to know that if you ever give me a Crock-Pot for Christmas I won’t forgive you like Cindy would.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” she said, looking out the side window. “Just drive the car and get us home. I’m going to take a long, leisurely bubble bath when we get there.”

“Good for you,” he said, pressing a little harder on the gas pedal. “We both have something to look forward to this evening.”

Separate somethings, Sandra thought miserably. Didn’t David realize that were growing further and further apart, traveling in the same direction but not intertwined? Maybe he did, but didn’t care. Why would it upset him if he didn’t love her anymore?

Oh, they got along fine, didn’t argue, laughed, talked, made love when they weren’t exhausted, moved from one day to the next with the major focus of their existence being on their children.

Sandra sighed.

But David no longer said that he loved her.

Chapter Three

D avid spent Monday morning at the store, then after lunch placed his and Sandra’s suitcases in the trunk of the Lexus. He opened the passenger-side door and, with a deep bow and a sweep of his arm invited Sandra to enter the lush automobile. She sank onto the leather seat and laughed in delight.

“Oh, my gosh, David,” she said, “this is incredible. It’s like sitting on a marshmallow.”

David chuckled. “Which, of course, you do all the time so you’re in a position to make that comparison.”

“Oh, hush. You know what I mean. I could get used to this. Forget that. I’d better not get used to this.”

David closed the door and came around to slide behind the wheel. He turned the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s it. That’s all I have to say. Just…oh, yeah.”

“Well, here we go,” Sandra said, as David backed out of the driveway. “We’re off to Saunders University where we haven’t been in over ten years. I wonder if the campus has changed much?”

“I doubt it,” David said, turning on the radio. “It’s a landmark type place. People want it to stay the same. You know, something solid, old-fashioned looking, generation after generation with its rolling green lawns, tall shade trees, two-and three-story red brick buildings. It’s sort of a postcard-perfect example of an eastern college. I think the only addition in years has been the bike racks.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Sandra said. “They may have purchased more of the surrounding homes to convert into dorms for the students, though. There was an article in the paper last year about the student population of Saunders getting bigger every year.”

“Student population,” David said, smiling over at her. “Be prepared, my sweet, because I have a feeling that any of said students that we see who are attending the summer session are going to look very, very young to us. Ten years is a long time.”

“Being on that campus is going to bring back a great many memories, David,” Sandra said, looking at him intently. “I’m sure you’ll be remembering how close you came to achieving your dreams for your career as a professional baseball player.”

“I suppose,” he said, with a shrug. “But that’s old news. My father is the only one still pouting and brooding about it.”

“Don’t you think of what could have been when you watch a professional game like you did last night?”

“Only when the announcer mentions how much money those guys make and I’m worried about paying for the twins’ braces,” he said, laughing.

“I still think you’re going to have a rush of memories when you set foot on that campus.”

David frowned. “Am I missing a message here? Are you trying to make a point that is going right over the top of my head?”

“Well, I…” Sandra sighed. “Never mind. I’ll be quiet so you can concentrate on driving. The traffic is already bumper to bumper and we don’t want any of those bumpers hitting this car.”

“Right.”

David glanced quickly at Sandra again, then redirected his attention to the sea of vehicles surrounding him.

What was going on in Sandra’s pretty head? he thought. Why was she clutching her hands so tightly in her lap as though she was on the way to the dentist for a root canal? What was the big deal about old memories when returning to where a guy went to school? Everyone would have memories under the circumstances. It wasn’t something to get uptight about.

Well, yeah, sure, once in a while when he was losing sleep, like now—because he was facing the decision about whether or not to go into deep debt to enlarge the emporium—he thought about the big bucks he could have made as a pro player.

But if things had gone that way, they might not have had twin babies and he couldn’t imagine life without Molly and Michael. And there would be no Westport’s Emporium, and he sincerely liked owning the store and the great people who came to shop there.

Life as he knew it now would not exist. He’d be away from home a great deal of the time, traveling with whatever team he played for. He’d be missing so much of the kids’ lives and he’d hate that. He’d be sleeping in hotel rooms half of the year and not next to Sandra in their bed and he’d really, really hate that.

They’d live in an enormous house with air-conditioning, he mentally rambled on, with a deck constructed by strangers. There’d be no spending hot summer nights on the fire escape.

Yes, he’d like to be able to provide more for his family, even get Molly her pink braces, and a pro baseball contract would have made that possible. Sandra could have nicer clothes and a car like this one, with air-conditioning that worked every time she turned it on. Yep, an air-conditioned house and cool air in the car.

But his connection with his family for the majority of every given year would be by phone and you couldn’t get a hug over the phone. You couldn’t make love to your wife over the phone, then lie there and watch her sleep, marveling at how beautiful she still was. And there probably wouldn’t be time to make blueberry pancakes in the shape of animals.

No, when he added it all up, he was content with his life as it was…except for being broke most of the time. Sandra was working herself into a dither over how he might feel when the memories slam-dunked him when he walked across the campus of Saunders University. The might-have-beens. But she didn’t have to worry about that. He was a very happy man.

David began to sing along with the country and western song playing on the radio, not realizing as he belted out the words that Sandra wasn’t singing with him as she usually did.

The drive from the North End to the far west side of Boston took more than an hour due to the heavy traffic and several detours caused by road repairs. The Westports were more than ready to hand over the keys to the Lexus to the parking valet at the Paul Revere Hotel where David had made reservations. The five-story structure was one of Boston’s finest hotels and was located about two miles from the Saunders University Campus.

Sandra was definitely smiling when David unlocked the door to the fifth floor room and stepped back for her to enter.

“Oh, David,” she said, spinning around in the middle of the large room, “look at this. Antiques. I think the furniture in here is real antiques. It’s like really being back in the days of Paul Revere.”

“Nope,” David said, peering into the bathroom. “I don’t think ol’ Paul had a hot tub.”

“You’re kidding,” Sandra said, rushing across the room to look over David’s shoulder. “You’re not kidding. A hot tub. I’ve never been in one. Let’s try it out right now.”

“Patience, my sweet,” David said, chuckling. He turned and pulled Sandra into his embrace. “Tonight we’ll check out the hot tub when we don’t have to get dressed again and go out.”

“We wouldn’t have to go out now if we don’t want to,” she said, circling his neck with her arms. “It’s not like you have a set appointment with Professor Harrison. No one even knows we’re here, David. We could lounge in the hot tub, make love, order dinner in from room service, make love and…”

David laughed. “You’re acting like we’re on our honeymoon.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that? We didn’t get a honeymoon, remember? It’s ten years late, but here we are.”

David dropped a quick kiss on her lips.

“Hey, humor me, okay?” he said. “This reunion thing of Professor Harrison’s is consuming my brain, probably because everyone we’ve told about it has made such a big deal out of it being strange, and weird and whatever. I don’t think I’ll be able to really relax until I know what the scoop is. I’d like to head over to the campus and see Professor Harrison now, put to rest all this silly speculation about what’s going on. Okay?”

“Sure,” Sandra said, producing a small smile as she stepped back out of David’s arms. “No problem. The hot tub can wait. I would like to unpack, though, so our clothes aren’t any more wrinkled than they probably already are.”

“Your wish is my command,” David said, heading toward the suitcases.

“Yeah, right,” Sandra said, under her breath. “I definitely see an unromantic Christmas Crock-Pot in my future.”

“What?” David said, looking back at her.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Before Sandra felt emotionally prepared for it to happen, she and David were walking across the Saunders campus toward the building where Professor Harrison had had his office a decade before. A knot tightened in her stomach with each memory-filled step she took.

“Look at this place,” David said, sweeping one arm through the air. “I told you it would look exactly the same. Well, the trees are taller. Man, those are big son-of-a-guns, aren’t they? Hey, remember the time we were stretched out on this grass, supposedly studying, but actually concentrating on ice-cream cones we got from that vendor and the sprinklers came on to water?”

Sandra laughed. “Oh, I’d forgotten all about that. It was so funny. There must have been close to fifty of us who got soaked.”

“It didn’t do much for our ice-cream cones, either. Turned out the timer on the sprinklers was broken and the watering was usually done at night, but that afternoon we were taking a bath.”

“What was it the campus newspaper said when they wrote about it?” Sandra said, narrowing her eyes. “Something about a surprise wet T-shirt contest held for all to enjoy free of charge, or some such thing.”

“Yep,” David said, wiggling his eyebrows. “And I do recall that you were one of those wearing a T-shirt that day. Oh, yeah, lookin’ good.”

“Hush,” she said, punching him playfully on the arm.

“Perky,” David whispered.

“Perky went south after I nursed twins, Mr. Westport. Perky was replaced with saggy.”

“Small price to pay,” David said, suddenly serious, “for how beautiful you were when you nursed our babies, Sandra. You always had such a serene, womanly smile on your face and I often wished I knew how to draw or paint or something so I could capture those moments forever.”

“What a lovely thing to say,” Sandra said, looking up at him, tears coming to her eyes.

David shrugged and pointed to a building just ahead.

“There it is,” he said. “I hope Professor Harrison is in his office—otherwise this is going to be rather anticlimactic.”

“Mmm,” Sandra said.

She’d been beautiful when she’d nursed the twins? she thought incredulously. For heaven’s sake, why hadn’t David said something like that at the time, when she was feeling fat and frumpy and starving herself to death trying to lose the weight she gained during her pregnancy?

Before Sandra could decide if she wanted to slug David again, he pulled open the door to the building they had reached and ushered her inside. He stopped at the directory on the wall and nodded.

“Professor Harrison is on the second floor,” he said, “same office as before. You’d think he would have been eligible for a bigger place by now. Some of those offices are twice the size his was.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like change. Some people are more comfortable with the familiar. I don’t know, really, because I only spoke to the man twice in my life. You’re the one who had so many different connections to him.”

“Yes, I did, and I think you have a valid point,” David said, nodding. “Without actually being able to give you an example, I just have a feeling that you’re right, he doesn’t like change.” He paused. “Well, here we go. Hiking up a steep flight of stairs and waiting to see if we need oxygen when we get to the top because we’re a heck of a lot older than when we used to sprint up staircases in a single bound.”

“Oh, ha,” Sandra said. “You’re in terrific shape, and you know it. I’m the slug who will be gasping.”

“Once a jock,” David said, placing one hand on his heart, “always a jock.”

“How profound.”

At the top of the many stairs, Sandra informed David that she wasn’t even winded and how about that, Mr. Jock?

“You’re a fine example of womanhood,” he said. “Enjoy it while you can because our children will soon be informing you that you’re old like their father and…”

“David,” Sandra interrupted, looking down the hallway. “Isn’t that…? Oh, I’m sure it is. Yes.” She started quickly forward. “Rachel Jones? Oh, my gosh, Rachel, is that really you?”

A tall, slender woman cocked her head slightly and stared at the approaching Westports, an expression of confusion on her face. Then, as though a lightbulb suddenly turned on, a bright smile of recognition lit up her face and she hurried toward the couple.

“Sandra,” Rachel said, giving her a quick hug, then repeating the gesture as she turned to David. “David. You two look fabulous. David, I swear, you haven’t gained an ounce since you wore that tight sexy baseball uniform. Weren’t those exciting days? I spent more time without a voice than with one from screaming my head off every time you came up to bat. Our star. Our school hero.” She laughed. “And you look just as yummy today, you rotten bum.”

And Rachel looked even better than she had ten years before, Sandra mused. Goodness, she was a beautiful woman and maturity just added to her uniqueness. She’d always had such lovely, café au lait toned skin, compliments of her African-American mother, she’d said, and she was now wearing her curly black hair longer, brushing the tops of her shoulders.

She was wearing jeans and a hip-length over-blouse. Just like ten years before, Rachel’s clothes appeared a size too large for her, a trick she’d told Sandra helped conceal what Rachel considered a skinny body she had no desire to put on display. Sandra’s frequent declaration that women would kill for a figure like Rachel’s had no affect on her mind-set.

“Yeah, those were the glory days,” David was saying as Sandra tuned back in to the conversation between him and Rachel. “Saunders being the state champs in baseball two years in a row was really something. We had great teams back then.”

“You’re being too modest,” Rachel said, then looked at Sandra. “Isn’t he? He was the star of those teams. We never would have been state champs without him. Right, Sandra?”

“Absolutely,” Sandra said, shifting her gaze to David.

David was glowing, she thought, feeling a chill course through her. His green eyes were sparkling, actually sparkling, and the smile on his face couldn’t get any bigger. It had started already, the reminiscing, the dishing up of exciting memories of when David was the campus hero, the golden boy, with a fabulous future before him that included playing professional baseball when he graduated.

She wanted to go home. Right now. She wanted to grab David and run back to their little apartment and close the door, stay grounded in the reality of the world where they actually existed, not be here in the arena of what might have been possible for him.

“Are you here because you were invited to Professor Harrison’s reunion, Rachel?” Sandra said, deciding she could at least change the subject from baseball to why the three of them were standing in that hallway.

Rachel nodded. “Yes, I got in yesterday afternoon. Oh, you’ll never guess who Professor Harrison’s secretary is. Jane Jackson.”

“No kidding?” Sandra said. “It will be nice to see her again.”

“Well, she’s on vacation at the moment,” Rachel said. “Professor Harrison has asked me to help him locate Jacob Weber with the hope he’ll attend this shindig.”

“That jerk?” David said, frowning. “Professor Harrison wants him to be part of this get-together?”

“Yes, he does,” Rachel said. “Apparently Jacob is a fairly famous fertility specialist now. Hard to fathom, isn’t it? That creepy Jacob could be a sympathetic doctor who is dedicating his life to making it possible for couples to have babies? That’s not the self-centered Jacob we knew. But…” She shrugged. “Ten years is a long time. We should keep an open mind about him, I suppose.”

“If he’s so famous why is he hard to locate?” David said.

“Because he has clinics in this country and in Europe,” Rachel said, wriggling her nose. “La-di-da. I guess in order to work uninterrupted by people hoping he’ll take them on as patients or clients or whatever, none of the clinics will say if he’s there but will gladly take a message and blah, blah, blah. So far, he hasn’t called back. I’m trying to get fax numbers for the overseas clinics because Professor Harrison is paying for the calls and I’m running up his personal bill already.”

“Speaking of the man who decided to have this rather strange…reunion…if you can actually call it that,” Sandra said, “how is he? Has he changed much in ten years from the fun loving, smiling professor we knew?”

Rachel frowned and wrapped her hands around her elbows.

“He’s changed a great deal,” she said quietly. “It’s sad, it really is.”

“What do you mean?” David said, matching her frown.

“He hardly smiles at all now,” Rachel said. “Did you know his wife, Mary, died eight months ago?”

“No,” Sandra said. “Oh, that’s awful. What happened?”

“He told me yesterday that Mary was always frail, had a heart condition, which was why they never had children,” Rachel said. “She’s been almost completely bedridden for several years and… Well, she died. Professor Harrison is only fifty-eight but he seems much older, sort of…defeated.”

“He must miss his wife very much,” Sandra said.

“Yes, but I think there’s more going on that just that because…” Rachel said, then shook her head. “No, I’m not going to go there. It’s probably just my imagination working overtime. Forget I said anything.”

Sandra laughed. “Oh, like I’m just going to erase that enticing little tidbit.”

“Ha,” David said, with a hoot of laughter. “You might as well give up right now, Rachel, and spill it.”

“No, not until I have a better handle on what’s going on around here,” Rachel said. “By the way, did you know that Professor Harrison is no longer teaching? As of a few years ago, in fact. Oh, and he quit coaching baseball right after you left here, David. He’s strictly a student advisor and counselor now.”

“Lucky students,” David said, nodding.

“You’re right,” Rachel said, “because even in the short time I’ve been on campus I’ve seen that his approach to his kids hasn’t changed. The summer session students are in and out of here, always welcome, even if it’s just for a need to hang out somewhere if they’re feeling homesick or overwhelmed, or want a place they know they can kick back and rap.” She laughed. “Would you listen to me? Rap? I’m aging myself by opening my mouth. Rap now is music, not conversation.”

“I repeat,” David said, “lucky students.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, sighing, “but everything else about our professor is different, and I know I’m sounding like a broken record but it’s sad, it really is. You’ll see for yourself when you meet with him.”

“Is he in his office?” David said.

“Not right now,” Rachel said. “He had an appointment with the president of the college board of directors. Some guy named Alex Broadstreet, who wasn’t here when we were. I took the call from that Broadstreet guy. He said he wanted to see Professor Harrison immediately. It wasn’t a nicely scheduled appointment, if you know what I mean. Professor Harrison was very stressed when he left here to answer the summons.

“That’s why I think something is… No, erase that. I’m overreacting and I said I’d gather more data before I broached the subject of what is bothering the professor besides the death of his wife.”

“But…” Sandra said.

“Forget it, Sandra,” David said, smiling. “Rachel’s lips are sealed.”

“I can’t stand this,” Sandra said, rolling her eyes heavenward. “You’re a mean woman, Rachel. Gorgeous, but mean.”

“I just don’t want to talk out of turn until I’m sure of what I’m saying, Sandra,” Rachel said. “Okay?”

“No.” Sandra laughed. “Okay.”

“Why don’t we go over to the cafeteria in the student union and get a cold drink?” Rachel said. “I want to see pictures of your family, get caught up on news. We three were such close friends and it’s awful that we lost touch. You two dropped out after you got married, I left to get married and…poof…we were gone. We should never have allowed that to happen, but it’s understandable, I guess. We had new, complicated and busy lives.”

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