“How’s the old Pigskin going?” I say, with forced jauntiness.
“Well, it’s pretty exciting, I guess,” she says. “They finally just throw out their graphs and ratings and play their hunches. Then the yelling really starts. I liked it.”
“Well, we do try to factor in all the intangibles,” I say. “When I started here, I had a heck of a time figuring out why anybody was right, ever, or even how they knew anything.” I nod, pleased at what is, of course, a major truth of a lived life, though there’s no reason to think that this Catherine Flaherty hasn’t known it longer than I have. She is all of twenty, but has the sharp-eyed look of knowing more than I do about the very things I care most about — which is the fruit of a privileged life. “You thinking of taking a crack at this when school’s over?” I say, hoping to hear Yep, you bet I am. But she looks instantly pensive, as though she doesn’t want to disappoint me.
“Well, I took the Med-Cats already, and I spent all this time applying. I oughta hear any day now. But I wanted to try this, too. I always thought it’d be neat.” She starts another wide smile, but her eyes suddenly go serious as if I might take offense at the least glimmer of what’s fun. What she really wants is a piece of good strong advice, a vote in one direction or the other. “My brother played hockey at Bowdoin,” she says for no reason I can think of.
“Well,” I say happily and without one grain of sincerity, “you can’t go wrong with the medical profession.” I swivel back in mock spiritedness and tap my fingertips on the armrest. “Medicine’s a pretty damn good choice. You participate in people’s lives in a pretty useful way, which is important to me. Though my belief is you can do that as a sportswriter — pretty well, in fact.” My hurt knee gives off a bony throb, a throb almost surely engineered by my heart.
“What made you want to be a sportswriter?” Catherine Flaherty says. She’s not a girl to fritter. Her father has taught her a thing or two.
“Well. Somebody asked me at a time when I really didn’t have a single better idea, to tell you the truth. I’d just run out of goals. I was trying to write a novel at the time, and that wasn’t going like I wanted it to. I was happy to drop that and come on board. And I haven’t regretted it a minute.”
“Did you ever finish your novel?”
“Nope. I guess I could if I wanted to. The trouble seemed to me that unless I was Cheever or O’Hara, nobody was going to read what I wrote, even if I finished it, which I couldn’t guarantee. This way, though, I have a lot of readers and can still turn my attention to things that matter to me. This is, after I’d earned some respect.”
“Well, everything you write seems to have a purpose to show something important. I’m not sure I could do that. I may be too cynical,” Catherine says.
“If you’re worried about it, you probably aren’t. That’s what I’ve found. I worry about it all the time myself. A lot of guys in this business never think about it. And some of those are the mathematical guys. But my thinking is, you can learn how not to be cynical — if you’re interested enough. Somebody could teach you what the warning signs are. I could probably teach you myself in no time.” Knee throbbing, heart a-pounding: Let me be your teacher.
“What’s a typical warning sign?” She grins and flicks her honey hair in a this-oughta-be-good way.
“Well, not worrying about it is one. And you already do that. Another is catching yourself feeling sorry for somebody you’re writing about, since the next person you’re liable to feel sorry for is you, and then you’re in real trouble. If I ever find myself feeling like somebody’s life’s a tragedy, I’m pretty sure I’m making a big mistake, and I start over right away. And I don’t really think I’ve ever felt stumped or alienated doing things that way. Real writers feel alienated all the time. I’ve read where they’ve admitted it.”
“Do you think doctors feel alienated?” Catherine looks worried (as well she might). I can’t help thinking about Fincher and the dismal, jackass life he must lead. Though it could be worse.
“I don’t see how they can avoid some of it, really” is my answer. “They see an awful lot of misery and meanness. You could give medical school an honest try, and then if that doesn’t work out you can be pretty sure of a job writing sports. You could probably come right back here, in fact.”
She gives me her best eye-twinkling smile, long Beantown teeth catching the light like opals. We’re all alone here now. Empty cubicles stretch in empty rows all the way to the empty reception arca and the empty elevator banks — a perfect place for love to blossom. We’ve got things in hand and plenty to share — her admiration for me, my advice about her future, my admiration for her, her respect for my opinion (which may rival even her old man). Forget that I’m twice her age, possibly older. Too much gets made of age in this country. Europeans smirk behind our backs, while looking forward to what good might be between now and death. Catherine Flaherty and I are just two people here, with plenty in common, plenty on our minds and a yen for a real give-and-take.
“You’re really great,” she volunteers. “You’re just a real optimist. Like my father. All my worries just seem like little tiny things that’ll work out.” Her smile says she means every word of it, and I can’t wait to start passing more wisdom her way.
“I like to think of myself as pretty much a literalist,” I say. “Whatever happens to us is going to be literal when it happens. I just try to arrange things the best way I know how according to my abilities.” I glance around behind at my desk as if I’d just remembered and wanted to refer to something important — a phantom copy of Leaves of Grass or a thumbed-up Ayn Rand hardback. But there’s only my empty yellow legal pad with false starts jotted down like an old grocery list. “Unless you’re a real Calvinist, of course, the possibilities really aren’t limited one bit,” I say, pursing my lips.
“My family’s Presbyterian,” Catherine Flaherty says, and perfectly mimics my own tight-lipped expression. (I’d have given racetrack odds she was on the Pope’s team.)
“That’s my bunch, too. But I’ve let my lines go a little slack. I think that’s probably okay, though. My hands are pretty full these days.”
“I’ve got a lot to learn, too. I guess.”
And for a long moment sober silence reigns while the lights hum softly above us.
“What’ve they got you doing around here to soak up experience,” I ask expansively. Whatever idea is dawning on me is still below the horizon, and I don’t intend to seem calculating, which would send her out of here in a hurry. (I realize at this moment how much I would hate to meet her father, though I assume he’s a great guy.)
“Well, I’ve just done some telephone interviewing, and that’s sort of interesting. The retired crew coach at Princeton was a Russian defector in the fifties and smuggled out information about H-bombs during athletic meets. That was all hushed up, I guess, and the government had his job at Princeton all ready for him.”
“Sounds good,” I say. And it does. A low-grade intrigue, something to get your teeth in.
“But I have a hard time asking good questions.” She wrinkles her brow to show genuine concern with her craft. “Mine are too complicated, and no one says much.”
“That isn’t surprising,” I say. “You just have to keep questions simple and remember to ask the same ones over and over again, sometimes in different words. Most athletes are really dying to tell you the whole truth. You just need to get out of their way. That’s exactly why a lot of sportswriters get cynical as hell. Their role’s a lot smaller than they thought, and that turns them sour. All they’ve done, though, is learn how to be good at their business.”