Country Roads(39)

Julia felt a ripple of nerves as they walked to a foosball table set in a flaring circle of light cast by a heavy brass-and-glass light fixture suspended over it on long chains. It was a strange, new situation, and she was part of a grudge match that Paul wanted to win, so she was feeling pressure. She checked the edges of her vision for wavering or blackness before anger at her weakness ripped through her. She wasn’t going to have a seizure now.

Dave walked to the table and slapped a dollar on the edge. “I need this table free and clear for one game.”

“You play winners like everyone else,” one of the combatants at the table said.

“No sir, I got me a rematch against the king of foos,” Dave said.

“The king of foos?” Julia said.

Paul gave her waist a little squeeze. “You didn’t notice my crown?”

Suddenly, the cry was taken up by the crowd. “Make way for the king of foos! Clear the table!”

The two men grumbled good-naturedly as they vacated the table, their game unfinished.

“Wait! Couldn’t I just watch them play for a minute?” Julia asked Paul. “I don’t want to do something stupid.”

Dave had moved to the opposite side of the table and was rocking the plastic men attached to the shiny silver rods back and forth.

“Give me a minute,” Paul said to him before guiding Julia to the end of the table and pointing to the bar closest to the goal with three red men spaced along it. “This is the goalie rod. What I want you to do is just hold it so the middle man stays in the center of the goal. I can handle the rest of the defense with the rod in front of it.”

Julia wrapped her hand around the rubber-encased handle and slid the bar back and forth. It moved with a well-oiled weightiness she found pleasing. She tried spinning the players the way Dave was doing and discovered it was harder than it looked.

“Don’t move it unless I ask you to dig the ball out of a corner,” Paul said. “That way I’ll know exactly what I have to protect.”

“What happens if we lose?” Julia asked, her knees feeling like jelly.

He pulled her against him in a reassuring hug. “We won’t lose.”

Releasing her, he shifted a step sideways and put his hands on the two rods farthest away from hers before nodding to Dave. A scuffed-up white ball went rolling across the lacquered green tabletop, and Paul slammed one rod across to send it zinging toward Dave’s goal. Dave blocked it with one of his goalies and sent it caroming off a wall toward Paul’s goal.

She positioned her rod where Paul had told her to and squeezed her eyes closed as the ball sped closer. She felt the table jerk and heard a smack. Opening her eyes, she saw the ball dancing between the men on the front rod under Paul’s control as he set up for a scorching shot on Dave’s goal. She was about to cheer when Dave stopped it again.

Pretty soon, she gave up worrying about the ball coming anywhere near her three men. Paul scored three goals in quick succession, so Julia could relax enough to enjoy the speed and confidence with which he shifted his grip from one rod to the other as he passed the ball forward.

She even had time to notice he was overdressed for the bar in his pale-blue button-down shirt, neat khakis, and polished loafers. He’d worn a suit earlier, so she began to speculate about where he had gone between work and showing up at her hotel room. She was starting to think he hadn’t planned this trip to the Black Bear ahead of time.

Shouts snapped her out of her reverie. “Heads up, pretty lady!”

The white ball zinged past her stationary goalie and banged into the goal.

“Oh no! It’s all my fault.” She bit her lip and looked an apology at Paul.

He appeared unconcerned as he reached around her to retrieve the ball. “It’s just one goal. Don’t change a thing.”

“What score wins?”

“First to seven, but you have to win by two goals.” He spun the ball through the opening and onto the table.

She stopped staring at him and focused her attention on the game. She knew nothing about strategy but she understood visuals, so she studied how the ball banked off walls and players. She began to see where the ball would go as long as it wasn’t intercepted by another player.

Paul scored two more goals, but they were hard fought, as Dave seemed to be bringing his game up a level. A few beads of sweat stood on Paul’s forehead. Yet his hands never slowed or faltered.

She saw the ball sneak past Paul’s three bar and roll toward the side of the goalmouth. Jerking her rod sideways, she succeeded in changing the ball’s path, but it still went into the gaping black hole.

“Nice try,” Paul said, giving her a quick smile. “But don’t worry about defending. I’ll get that goal back.”