Away from Home Read Free Page B

She walked to the front door to greet other arriving guests, holding her head high, her emerald pendant earrings swinging against her tanned neck.
    “She hates the heat,” Phil murmured apologetically.
    “Don’t we all,” said Helen. “The front of our apartment is unbearable during the day. I have to stay in the back when I’m home. But at night it’s cool.”
    “It’s only the crowd,” said Phil. “This is a very cool apartment. Listen, this is Trainer Wilkes. Trainer, Helen and Bert Sinclair.”
    Trainer Wilkes was a tall, good-looking man in his late thirties. He had curly brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses and a suntan. When he shook hands with Helen he took her hand gently, almost gingerly, as if for years his forceful handshake had made ladies wince and he had finally learned. He was wearing a black silk suit and he looked hot. “How do you do,” he said.
    “I’m glad to meet you,” Helen said. Phil Burns had pulled Bert away to meet someone else, and she found herself alone with Trainer Wilkes. They looked at each other for a minute, trying to think of something to say, and Helen smiled. “Have you been in Brazil long?”
    “Few weeks.”
    “How long are you staying?”
    “A year.”
    “Do you like it? I guess everybody asks you that and you must be sick of hearing it.”
    “Oh, I like it,” Trainer Wilkes said, not too enthusiastically. “Getting to like it. It’s interesting. Wouldn’t like to live here, but it’s all right.”
    “Where are you from in the States?”
    “Garnerville College in Pennsylvania. It’s a small school; you’ve probably never heard of it. But we have one of the best baseball teams in the country.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t know much about baseball,” Helen admitted. “My son was too young to play when we left the States. Is that what you do there, teach baseball?” She smiled at him. “I guess that’s why they call you ‘Trainer.’”
    “I teach English history,” he said. “English history and baseball.”
    “And Phil said you’re here for the government.”
    “More or less. I’m with the Cultural Division. We bring our ideas, our culture, over here, and it makes friends. I’m here to teach Little League Baseball. That’s my job. And I’ll tell you something.” He raised his glass and drank thirstily, as if the effort of such a long speech were too much. But his eyes were sparkling and for the first time he looked animated. “It was the best idea they ever had, to bring me over for the Cultural Division. The Brazilians want to know America; let them know baseball. Baseball is really America. I don’t care about books, music, theater, art, all that junk. I’m going to give ’em baseball, and they’re going to love me.”
    “I hope so,” Helen said.
    Trainer Wilkes took a clean handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face and neck thoroughly, as if it were a hand towel. He looked at it and put it back into his pocket. “You bring your boy over when we get started, and we’ll let him join a team,” he said. “How old is he?”
    “Six. That’s a little too young, I think.”
    “All right. We’re going to have a team for five-year-olds. Can’t start too young. It must be pretty tough for the American parents here, so far away, trying to keep all the things we have at home.”
    “But there are certain compensations to travel,” Helen said mildly.
    Trainer Wilkes looked down into her face seriously. “You be careful,” he said. “Just don’t get into trouble. You don’t know these people.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’ll know when you get into trouble,” Trainer said. “You’ll remember I told you.”
    Someone had put a record of American Christmas carols on the phonograph, and it sounded strange to hear them, almost as if it were really summer and someone were trying to be Bohemian. It was terribly hot. The men were beginning to wipe their foreheads and move closer to the opened windows, and the waiter