Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,6

about a man lying around in an old T-shirt or something, watching a football game all day.

Billy: He works hard, he deserves a little rest.

Gilly: Sure. But what women hate is that everything has to stop while his highness watches the quarterback go in the whatchamacallit.

Billy: In the pocket.

Gilly: Well, whatever he goes in. I mean, it's all supposed to be so important.

Billy: It is. You just don't disturb a man when he's watching football.

Gilly: Phooey. Billy: No, really.

Gilly: I think the best thing you can do for a man is disturb him.

Billy: Ouch.

Gilly: Okay girls, let's all get out there tomorrow afternoon and make him pay attention to us.

Billy: Hold, fast to your couches, men – your way of life is at stake.

ERNIE MIKLOS

The old champ on the TV was telling the rookie to steer clear of the greasy kid stuff. Ernie Miklos sat back and pressed his chunky fingers against his forehead. Oh. For Ernie it was a small hangover, a band of numbness stretched across the temples, and that wasn't bad, not for Ernie. Usually he bombed himself out at those neighborhood bashes. Last night, for some reason, the bar wasn't the center of attraction for him. He kept thinking about the way she had moved inside that dress.

He turned again to the TV and put the cold can of beer against his forehead. A former football "great" on the pregame show was employing stop-action to demonstrate how the guard pulled out of the line to block for the halfback.

"Another great effort by an all-time great," the former great said. "That's why Fuzzy's so… great."

Ernie glanced around the room, his room, done in cherrywood paneling that had run 45 cents a foot. He started at the pictures – his high school football team and the photo of seventeen men wearing Marine Corps uniforms. "Iron Man Ernie Miklos" was what he was called in those days, and to Ernie things had never changed. He was the same man despite forty-one years, thinning hair and expanding girth. Beside him were the weights and the exercise bench. He'd spend thirty minutes lying on the bench pushing metal in the morning. The thought of it today, though, forced him to rest his head back on the head rest and prop both feet on the red leather ottoman. The pregame show was ending, and it seemed pretty certain now that the rookie had switched from the greasy kid stuff.

Ernie had reached that point in life where his Saturday afternoon football game was more than welcome respite, it was his raison d'être. This Saturday afternoon there was a small bonus. Laverne had packed up the kids and retreated to her mother's apartment in the city. He was left alone with his six-pack, his Fritos, his memories. The garbage – the lawn, the leaves, the yelling, the kids – that was locked out on this Saturday afternoon. And for the moment he forgot about that woman in the dress and concentrated on the game.

The phone rang. It took only one ring, mainly because Ernie's head couldn't take more.

"Hello there."

Ernie waited for the voice to give him the weather – it was that kind of voice, soft but mechanically so.

"Huh?"

"It's Gillian, remember?"

"You'll have to do better than that."

"You must have been more smashed than I thought," she said. "And that doesn't seem possible. The party last night. You said you wanted to drink beer from my… bra."

Oh yes. The one in the dress. Gillian? All he could remember at the moment was that he had seen her at the Plaza West with some woman, and that she had a sweet-working rump, and he hoped he'd see her again, but didn't until he saw her at the party.

"Yeah," Ernie said, chewing off the rest of a mouthful of Fritos. Army had just kicked off. "What's–"

"I have your cuff links," the voice said. "Or one of them anyway, the one you lost outside."

"Cuff links?"

"In the garden," she said. "Remember? You were doing a lot of talking. I think you were complimenting me in a sort of, well, basic way."

"If the old man is upset," Ernie said, "tell him I was bombed out, smashed, you know…."

"It's not that." Gillian looked across the room at Bill. He was reading. "It's just I thought you might want it back. I mean it looks like it might be something special, as though it were made specially for you."

Ernie wished the lady would get to the point. Notre Dame was on Army's