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"We'll ask someone," I said. "Lots of people have been to Europe."
"Don't ask Kittredge, Bill," Atkins continued, in his panic-stricken mode. "I'm sure we couldn't afford any of the places Kittredge goes, or the hotels he stays in. Besides, we don't want Kittredge to know we're going to Europe together--do we?"
"Stop blithering, Tom," I told him. I saw that Delacorte had emerged from under the towel; he appeared to be breathing normally, paper cup in hand. Kittredge said something to him, and Delacorte instantly started to stare at Miss Frost.
"Delacorte gives me the--" Atkins began.
"I know, Tom!" I told him.
I realized that the wrestling-team manager was a servile, furtive-looking boy in glasses; I'd not noticed him before. He handed Kittredge an orange, cut in quarters; Kittredge took the orange without looking at the manager or saying anything to him. (The manager's name was Merryweather; with a last name like that, as you might imagine, no one ever called him by his first name.)
Merryweather handed Delacorte a clean paper cup; Delacorte gave Merryweather the old, spat-in cup, which Merryweather dropped in the spit bucket. Kittredge was eating the orange while he and Delacorte stared at Miss Frost. I watched Merryweather, who was gathering up the used and discarded towels; I was trying to imagine my father, Franny Dean, doing the things a wrestling-team manager does.
"I must say, Bill--you're rather remote for someone who's just asked me to spend a summer in Europe with him," Atkins said tearfully.
"Rather remote," I repeated. I was beginning to regret that I'd asked Tom Atkins to go to Europe with me for a whole summer; his neediness was already irritating me. But suddenly the wrestling was over; the student spectators were filing down the corrugated-iron stairs, which led from the running track to the gym floor. Parents and faculty--and the other adult spectators, from the bleacher seats--were milling around on the wrestling mat, where the wrestlers were talking to their families and friends.
"You're not going to speak to her, are you, Bill? I thought you weren't allowed," Atkins was fretting.
I must have wanted to see what might happen, if I accidentally bumped into Miss Frost--if I just said, "Hi," or something. (Elaine and I used to mill around on the wrestling mat after we'd watched Kittredge wrestle--probably hoping, and fearing, that we would bump into Kittredge "accidentally.")
It was not hard to spot Miss Frost in the crowd; she was so tall and erect, and Tom Atkins was whispering beside me with the nervous constancy of a bird dog. "There she is, Bill--over there. Do you see her?"
"I see her, Tom."
"I don't see Kittredge," Atkins said worriedly.
I knew that Kittredge's timing was not to be doubted; when I had made my way to where Miss Frost was standing (not coincidentally, in the intimidating center of that starting circle on the wrestling mat), I found myself stopping in front of her at the very instant Kittredge materialized beside me. Miss Frost probably realized that I couldn't speak; Atkins, who'd been blathering compulsively, was now struck speechless by the awkward gravity of the moment.
Smiling at Miss Frost, Kittredge--who was never at a loss for words--said to me: "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend, Nymph?"
Miss Frost continued smiling at me; she did not look at Kittredge when she spoke to him.
"I know you onstage, Master Kittredge--on this stage, too," Miss Frost said, pointing a long finger at the wrestling mat. (Her nail polish was a new color to me--magenta, maybe, more purplish than red.) "But Tom Atkins will have to introduce us. William and I," she said, not once looking away from me as she spoke, "are not permitted to speak to each other, or otherwise engage."
"I'm sorry, I didn't--" Kittredge started to say, but he was interrupted.
"Miss Frost, this is Jacques Kittredge--Jacques, this is Miss Frost!" Atkins blurted out. "Miss Frost is a great . . . reader!" Atkins told Kittredge; poor Tom then considered what options remained for him. Miss Frost had only tentatively extended her hand in Kittredge's direction; because she kept looking at me, Kittredge was perhaps unsure if she was offering her hand to him or to me. "Kittredge is our best wrestler," Tom Atkins forged ahead, as if Miss Frost had no idea who Kittredge was. "This will be his third undefeated season--that is, if he remains undefeated," Atkins bumbled on. "It will be a school record--three undefeated seasons! Won't it?" Atkins asked Kittredge uncertainly.
"Actually," Kittredge said, smiling at Miss Frost, "I can only tie the school record, if I remain undefeated. Some stud did it in the thirties," Kittredge said. "Of course, there was no New England tournament back then. I don't suppose they wrestled as many matches as we do today, and who knows how tough their competition was--"
Miss Frost stopped him. "It wasn't bad," she said, with a disarming shrug; by how perfectly she'd captured Kittredge's shrug, I suddenly realized for how long (and how closely) Miss Frost had been observing him.
"Who's the stud--whose record is it?" Tom Atkins asked Kittredge. Of course I knew by the way Kittredge answered that he had no idea whose record he was trying to tie.
"Some guy named Al Frost," Kittredge said dismissively. I feared the worst from Tom Atkins: nonstop crying, explosive vomiting, insane and incomprehensible repetition of the vagina word. But Atkins was mute and twitching.
"How's it goin', Al?" Coach Hoyt asked Miss Frost; his battered head came up to her collarbones. Miss Frost affectionately put her magenta-painted hand on the back of the old coach's neck, pulling his face to her small but very noticeable breasts.
(Delacorte would explain to me later that wrestlers called this a collar-tie.) "How are you, Herm?" Miss Frost said fondly to her former coach.
"Oh, I'm hangin' in there, Al," Herm Hoyt said. An errant towel protruded from one of the side pockets of his rumpled sports jacket; his tie was askew, and the top button of his shirt was unbuttoned. (With his wrestler's neck, Herm Hoyt could never button that top button.)
"We were talking about Al Frost, and the school record," Kittredge explained to his coach, but Kittredge continued to smile at Miss Frost. "All Coach Hoyt will ever say about Frost is that he was 'pretty good'--of course, that's what Herm says about a guy who's very good or pretty good," Kittredge was explaining to Miss Frost. Then he said to her: "I don't suppose you ever saw Frost wrestle?"
I don't think that Herm Hoyt's sudden and obvious discomfort gave it away; I honestly believe that Kittredge realized who Al Frost was in the split second that followed his asking Miss Frost if she'd ever seen Frost wrestle. It was the same split second when I saw Kittredge look at Miss Frost's hands; it wasn't the nail polish he was noticing.
"Al--Al Frost," Miss Frost said. This time, she unambiguously extended her hand to Kittredge; only t
