A loud bang on the door prevented the consummation of their handshake. Someone had thrown something hard enough to cause the wood on the inside to buckle, and the missile sounded loud as a stone. I imagined David slinging rocks at Goliath, and the next one came in harder, the impact like a thunderclap, spraying splinters into the room.
“That was a pretty good one,” the old man called out. “A little higher next time.”
The third throw arrived at a spot where my head would have been had the door not been closed. The wood absorbed most of the blow, but the object embossed a fist-sized impression.
“Strike three,” the old man hollered. From his pocket, he produced a tailor’s measuring tape and held it against the width of the door. Twenty-two inches, though I could have told him that, had he asked. Part of the occupational training for an architect is to be able to estimate with high accuracy dimensions in space. He rolled up the tape and put it back in his pocket, and then he placed his hands on my shoulders in order to address me in a direct and sober manner. “Can you be brave? Can you face the foe and not flinch, despite all instinct? You know that I am on your side, and I have taken careful measures and done the necessary geometry to reckon the angles, so I ask merely for your unwavering trust and confidence.”
I nodded my approval to his unstated plan, and he positioned me just in front of the door. “Stand here, and don’t move a muscle, no matter what happens after I open this door. Do you think you can do this? Good boy.”
Before I had the chance to think, he flung open the door. In the threshold waited a young woman in a green dress with a baseball bat resting on her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw me standing there, and as if awaiting a pitch right down the middle of the plate, she drew back and swung the Louisville Slugger straight at my bean. The fat end of the barrel connected with the doorjamb, sending a stinging vibration down the bat and right into her hands. With a small yelp of pain, she dropped the baseball bat, and the old man stepped on the handle with a bare foot. He jerked his thumb into the air. “You’re out!”
The old man examined the baseball bat and, to my surprise, gripped the handle like an experienced hitter, gave a halfhearted swing, and then tossed it in the corner with the war club, the miner’s pick, and the other weapons of my destruction. The woman at the door ticked like a furnace as her anger cooled. Like the others, she was beautiful—a straw-colored blonde with verdigris eyes and pale, almost translucent skin, set off starkly against the green dress she wore. A vein snaked along her left temple, and her full lips radiated pink health against that porcelain complexion. One would deduce from her appearance that her forebears hailed from some Scandinavian town. She had a northern composure, a skim of ice around her heart.
“Your swing leaves much to be desired,” the old man said. “But you have a helluva fastball.”
On the outside of the door, now visible to all, two deep impressions pocked the surface, but on her third pitch, the one aimed at my head, the baseball stuck in the wood, its red stitching bright as a scar.
She laughed in a four-note measure. “Those first two were just warm-ups. I brought the high heat on the last one.”
The old man asked, “Where did you learn to throw like that?”
“From watching the old ball game. From a beau—”
“Ain’t that always the kick in the teeth,” Flo interjected.
The other women murmured their assent, and a ripple of solidarity zipped from woman to woman and fizzled when it reached me. No rancor was directed toward the old man, only me. In fact, he seemed in cahoots with them, so I looked to the baby for moral support. He was busy trying to eat his fist.
“She’s the singer,” I said, suddenly recalling her face. “The one from the recital, the opera singer.”
“Are you sure?” the old man asked. “The singer is usually a bit more zaftig, and Miss …”
“Adele,” she said.
“Miss Adele is in fine shape, eh? Probably from all that baseball.”
Certain now, I insisted. “Florence there was seated at the piano, and Adele was crooning ‘The Laughing Song,’ I believe, and later, when the mermaids sang, her voice was truer, more clear and pleasing than the others. This bird can sing.”
“Is this right, Adele? You can sing as well as sling the old horse hide?”
She flushed from her chest and along her throat, and in a hesitant voice, she said, “One can love both.”