For Love of the Game Read Free

don’t ski? I don’t. Not me. Christ, I’d be the biggest snowball since—but Bobbie can ski. She has two weeks easy, maybe three, from the airline, so set the date. It’s spring there already, right? Here … two days left in September. What time is that in New Zealand? September, October. How do you work that out?”
    “Figure the opposite,” Chapel said.
    “Which?”
    “Well. September comes like March. October same as April. Then November is May, and so on. Their summer is our winter. Exact opposite. January to them is … July.”
    Gus had his mouth open, delighted, figuring. But he had looked at the bed and then was looking at it again and he saw that the bed was crumpled but the pillow was still under the blanket and the bed did not look slept in. Chapel had lain on it during the night but had not undressed. Gus looked round for Carol. No sign. He said: “What … ah … is she here?”
    “Nope.”
    “Oh, boy. What happened?”
    “She didn’t show.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “A fight or somethin’?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “She just … didn’t come last night? Well … didn’t she call?”
    “Nope.” Chapel stood up, rubbed his beard. “Need a shave.”
    “Well, hell, man, is she okay?”
    “Yep. I just called her office. Didn’t talk to her. But … they said she came in.”
    “Ah,” Gus said. Then he said, with deep sudden gloom: “Ah, shit.”
    Chapel looked down at the pictures near the cassette: that blond girl on skis. He picked up a cassette: Neil Diamond again, put it on automatically, punched the button. He said: “I don’t know anything yet. I don’t understand … not like her. Maybe it’s just … something got in the way. She’ll call later and tell me.”
    “Right. Christ, I hope so.” Pause. “You and that woman … well. But what about our plan? Got to hold her to that, the trip to New Zealand—hey, there’s this thing I want to ask you about marriage. Over there. I mean, how about the hotels over there if you check in with the lady who is not married to you? How do they feel about that? I’ve heard there are some places a little … behind the times. Especially them Catholic places. They tell me—hell, you know, I never been overseas—theytell me, a lot of guys, that if you pick up any broad and try to take her back to your room a lot of hotels won’t let her in and I don’t want any of that stuff, certainly not with Bobbie. My God,
Bobbie
.”
    “You shouldn’t have any problem. Not if you check in together. Not that I know of. I never had any. Bringing a girl
in
, I don’t know about that.…”
    Another Diamond song played.
    Gus: “But her passport won’t have a married name.”
    Chapel: “So if they ask, you got the passport before the marriage, and never did change it. But nobody ever asked us.”
    “Good. Great. Takes a load off my mind.” Pause. “Man, have you been to sleep?”
    “Forty winks.”
    Gus was watching him with concern. “I never been to a
real
foreign country before. Except parts of Canada. Hee. Hey. They all speak English in New Zealand, right? I mean, do they get sticky with another language, like in Canada?”
    “No. They’re kind of … Scotchmen. No problem.”
    “Good. The French and me, we don’t see eye to eye.”
    Knock on the door. Again open immediately: the tall, lean bellhop whom Chapel had known for years, a cheerful black man named Louie, carrying the usual coffee and rolls and jelly, a broad grin, handsome features in a gleaming face.
    “
Good
mornin’, Mr. Chapel. How you doin’ thismornin’, sir? You got them baseballs all signed? Ah, right. Thank you, sir. Them kids, I tell you, them kids’ll all go through the
wall
. They all know you, they see you in them commercials. Hey. You pitchin’ today? How about that? You goin’ in there today?”
    “Think so.” Chapel searched for the tip. The bellhop was pouring the coffee. Two cups—he’d brought the extra