football?”
“I didn’t know angels had red hair.”
To my dismay, they were now heading toward me, tossing the football easily back and forth as they walked.
I started walking quickly down the hill, but of course they followed me. I realized that it was getting late, that it was chilly, that everybody had gone in to dinner or to study. Power Street, the border of College Hill and Fox Point, was still blocks away.
“Why, oh why, doesn’t our team have such an arm? Such a face, such a walk, such a —”
“Move aside, boy. Methinks the comely coed mistakes your raillery for true wit.”
Coed? They thought I was a Pembroke girl. If only I’d been Muddie, I would’ve been pleased as anything.
“What light on yon window breaks? Is that a smile?”
“We almost had windows breaking, if she hadn’t caught your pass.”
A guffaw, a certain jockeying of position around me. One of them threw the football and another dropped it. I still hadn’t looked at their faces.
“Angels don’t smile, they glow.” This voice was lower, and closer to me — too close, in fact. I could smell grass and perspiration. “Come on, bright angel, don’t break our hearts. Speak.”
The four of them had surrounded me now, with one walking backward, facing me. They were just boys, dressed in the kinds of clothes that these kinds of boys wore, pressed chinos, loafers, crewneck sweaters with knotted ties underneath. Trying to impress me with their talk, showing off their fine educations with silly quotes from Shakespeare. I couldn’t tell one from the other, and they were in my way. I tried to walk around the one in front, but he only laughed.
I stopped. “Listen, you have a swell line, but it’s not for me. I have to get somewhere.”
“Fair damsel, Providence is a dark and frightening land.”
“Find some other distressed damsel, all right?” I gave them a quick smile as I tried to brush past, trying to be a good sport. Mistake.
“Hey, not so fast. We’re just trying to make friends.”
“Yeah, what’s the rush?” The voice was low and insinuating, and the boy made a show of looking at my legs.
No, they hadn’t mistaken me for a Pembroke girl. I knew that now. I was wearing what I usually wore to dance class, black tights and leotard under a skirt and cardigan, my bare feet in scuffed shoes. My hair was in a bun loosened from class, stray ends spilling out, waving around my face. I didn’t have the brushed perfection of a Pembroke girl.
One of the boys nudged the other one aside. “Hey, dad, the girl isn’t interested.” He took my arm. “She’s looking for real class. Come on, beautiful, why so standoffish?”
We had stopped next to an empty lot, a construction site for a new building for the university. Suddenly, they were all around me in a circle, blocking me in. For the first time, I felt afraid. Their faces blurred into one face with the same expression. I tried to push my way through, but they stood shoulder to shoulder.
“Just let me go,” I said. My voice shook a little.
“But we’re just getting acquainted. We’re just being friendly.”
“Gentlemen.”
I saw another boy appear through the gloom.
“I think this young lady is trying to go about her business,” he said. “Why don’t you do the same?”
“Who do you think you are?” One of the boys turned halfway to the new boy, then turned back in contempt.
The other boy stood easily, his hands at his sides. “I think she’d like you to go.”
Something about him was familiar. Black hair, thick and uncombed, a little longer than the other boys wore theirs. A white shirt, open at the throat, with no necktie. Dark, dark eyes… and then I knew, even though I hadn’t seen him in four years.
“Hello, Billy.”
He nodded at me briefly. I wasn’t sure if he knew who I was.
“You know this character? Billy Macaroni?”
Billy didn’t react. Instead, he smiled at me, and I smiled back. I knew he remembered me then. His gaze shifted to the boys and it turned hard. His hands hung loosely at his sides, but suddenly the atmosphere tightened, as though he’d made a fist.
“Time for a drink, boys,” one of the boys said, and they ambled away, careful not to hurry.
I let out a breath and turned back to Billy. “Thanks for that,” I said.
“You’re welcome.”
“I could have taken them, though.”
He laughed, then stood uncertainly for a moment, his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I should walk you…