Rana smiled at him. “I know you didn’t mean to. It’s just so quiet in here. Good morning, by the way. Where’s Ruby?”
“I just made her go in and lie down. We went to the nursery to pick up this peat moss. It’s so hot and muggy, she got a little dizzy. I told her I’d finish her project.”
“Which is?”
“To put those bedding plants into those pots,” he said, pointing them out to her.
“Pretty begonias,” Rana remarked as she rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. “I’ll help.”
“Don’t feel that you have to.”
“I want to.”
As a child she’d never been allowed to play in the dirt. She had never been allowed to do anything that spoiled her perfection. Every hair had to be in place. She wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle or roller-skate because she might scrape her knee. Scabs or scars were to be avoided at all costs. As a teenager, she had rebelled occasionally, but when her little acts of defiance were discovered, her mother’s wrath made the adventures hardly worthwhile.
Nor had she had many friends to play with when she was growing up. She had never been free to run with the other children in the neighborhood. During adolescence, female friends were rare, because other girls saw her extraordinary looks as a threat. What potential friend with any brains wanted to be compared to Rana?
Boys, on the other hand, had held her in awe, and she had very few dates during high school. Rana Ramsey was the most gorgeous creature most of the boys in her school had ever seen. She was too intimidating a proving ground on which to test newfound manhood.
Now Rana seized this chance to play in the dirt. “What do I do first?”
“First you take off some clothes,” Trent said.
“What!”
“You don’t think that’s a good idea?”
“No.”
“Don’t be shy. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll take off some of mine too.” He laughed at her withering glance. “Ana, you’ll swelter in all those clothes. It’s like a sauna in here.”
“Oh, no, I’m fine.”
“I’m afraid you’ll melt and all that will be left is a pile of clothes nobody else will want and I’ll be stuck with.”
She glared at him, but it was all in fun. “Don’t worry about me and my clothes and the heat, okay?”
He shook his head in bafflement, wondering if she had some hideous skin disease she didn’t want anybody to know about. She had jogged with him each morning wearing a sweat suit that covered her from neck to ankles. “Okay, but if you faint from heat prostration, remember I warned you.”
He showed her how to fill each container from a bag of potting soil and what proportion of peat moss to mix with it. Soon she was wielding the trowel as though she’d done it all her life. Occasionally she blotted her dripping forehead with her sleeve, but she didn’t even notice the muggy heat, she was having so much fun.
“Do you mind?” Trent asked her after a while. He was holding the hem of his T-shirt.
“Uh, no.”
He peeled it over his head and tossed it down. “I think I’m the one who’s melting.”
Rana, gazing at his bare torso, was experiencing her own melting sensation, but it was internal. Her thighs felt as though they were liquefying. “You certainly look fit enough to play football,” she said as casually as her tight throat would permit. Muscles rippled beneath his supple brown skin with each movement of his arms and shoulders.
“I hope I am.”
She noticed his worried frown and the hesitancy in his voice. “Do you have doubts?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t a mirthful sound. “I’ve lived with that kind of doubt every season I’ve played professionally, and even before then when a championship was at stake.”
“But you’ve had a spectacular career.” When he looked at her inquiringly, she added, “Ruby’s filled me in on it since you came here. Was that just her pride talking? Aren’t you considered one of the best?”
Ordinarily he would have accepted such compliments as his due. But with Rana, he felt compelled to be honest. “I’ve had some good seasons, but last year was a disaster.”
“Why, Trent?”
“I’m getting old.”
She laid the trowel aside and gave him all her concentration. “Old? You’re not even thirty-five.”
“Which in professional football is well past middle age.” Self-conscious about speaking aloud his innermost fears, he fiddled with a watering can. It was a relief, however, to have someone listen so carefully. For months he had needed to confide in someone. He couldn’t have stopped the flow of words if he had wanted to.
“Last season my age began to catch up with me, though I’d been fighting it for several years before that. My elbow had to be operated on three years ago. Once I got that back in shape, my shoulder started to give out. Every time I threw a pass, it hurt like hell. I was hitting the receivers fewer times each game. Since we’re basically a passing team, our offense was shot to hell. There was no one else to blame. The buck stops at the quarterback. In this case, me.”
Rana knew nothing about football, but she could sympathize with what he was telling her. She had known models who had considered their lives over at thirty because they were too old to continue their careers.
She moved closer to him, and barely resisted the urge to lay a comforting hand on his arm. “Surely you knew when you started that it couldn’t last forever.”
“Of course I did. I’m not that unrealistic. I haven’t walked around with my head in the clouds. I’ve made financial preparations for my retirement from football. I’m a silent partner in an extremely lucrative commercial real- estate firm in Houston. But I want to retire when I say I’m ready, not when I’mforcedto. Each season new talent is recruited for the team. Lord, they’re good, Ana. And so damn young.” He shook his head ruefully. “You probably think I’m whining because I’m jealous of the younger guys. I swear that’s not it.”
“I believe you,” she said softly.
He clenched his fists and closed his eyes. “I want just one more season. A winning season. I want to go out on top, not as an object of pity or derision.”
Her hand found its way to him of its own accord, and she squeezed his arm to emphasize her heartfelt words. “No one would ever pity you, Trent. I think this will be your season. I know it.”
“You do?”
She stared up at him earnestly. “Yes, I do.”
Everything receded into the background. They were left in a universe of their own. She searched his face greedily, feeling the fear and insecurity behind his eyes as surely as she had felt her own so often.
If I weren‘t pretty, my mother wouldn’t love me at all.
That was what the lonely, beautiful little girl had grown up thinking. Up until six months ago, she had continued to think that her only value came from the way she looked. Since she had thrown off the Rana Look, she had cultivated two important friendships, Ruby’s and Trent ’s. She was a person worthy of love and friendship, no matter what she looked like.
For as long as she could remember, she had tried to be what her mother wanted. She had wanted Susan’s approval desperately, but she had always fallen short of her mother’s expectations.
“Stand up straight, Rana… Don’t slouch, Rana… Is that a pimple, Rana? Honestly! I’ve taught you how to clean your face, but you don’t do it… Are you wearing your retainer? Do you want crooked teeth?… You wrinkled your dress, after I spent a half an hour ironing it.”
And even when Rana had been as close to perfect as any human being could possibly be, Susan could always find fault.
Yes, Rana could identify with Trent ’s anguish and uncertainty. In his drive to succeed on the gridiron, it didn’t matter what pieces of him were left behind on the Astroturf, what bones were broken, what muscles were sprained, what pain he endured. He was a competitor. He would always go the distance, give his all. But because his very best might not be good enough, he was suffering a private hell.