Goldengirl

‘You’d have found out,’ said Serafin simply. ‘You would need to know, anyway. There are sure to be things we must discuss in the next four weeks. You and I are the principals in this enterprise now. Without disrespect to the others, they don’t need the information. They could be a nuisance, pestering me for progress reports. I don’t mean to be unsocial, but there’s a lot to do. If you still want a meeting with Goldine, I suggest you don’t make it too late. My guess is that She’ll be pretty exhausted by this evening.’

‘Don’t kid yourself this is leading up to anything,’ Goldine said as she flopped on the bed. ‘It’s just so much sitting. Bliss to stretch my legs.’

‘Your training is all wrong,’ commented Dryden, smiling. ‘I get a lot of practice sitting. I could win medals at that. Would you say I have an elegant style?’ He posed stiff-backed, with arms folded.

‘Championship class,’ she said in an effort to sound amused.

The room overlooked a shadowy square of lawn. One corner of the quadrangle glowed vivid orange in the sun.

‘How did it go?’

‘The interviews? Great,’ she said with more animation. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t say that till I see what they write, but I had a ball.’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘I have been trained to talk about myself,’ she went on. ‘This was for real, with people I never met before in my life, people who want to know about me. Jack, I wallowed in it. I gave some cute answers, too.’

He nodded, but with slight unease. ‘I’m sure you did. No problems, then?’

‘My throat’s a little sore. Doc figures I have a virus infection.’

‘He told me.’

‘Myself, I think it’s the talking,’ said Goldine. ‘The press conference last night, and then all the interviews today.’

‘You don’t feel unwell, then?’

‘Thirsty, that’s all,’ said Goldine. ‘I must have drunk a gallon of water.’ She giggled. ‘I kept stopping to visit the john. I hope they don’t put that in the magazines. But I still feel thirsty, so I guess Doc is right. He gave me something to help my throat. Say, I had a visit from one of the U.S. team managers. A real nice woman.’

‘What was that about?’

‘They wanted me to get some altitude training at Colorado Springs.’ She gave another quick laugh. ‘I had to confess I’ve done a little already. I told her Doc has arranged for me to have the use of a track where I can train in seclusion, and she seemed to think that was okay. So long as I report for the U.S. team briefing and medical on July thirtieth, they’ll let me alone. Doc already sent them a letter saying I wasn’t available for the relay teams. Some committee is considering that. I don’t see how they can object. I mean, I know it’s traditional for the girls in individual events to make up the relay teams, but nobody has ever tried three events before, if I ran the relays, that would make seventeen races in eight days. Somebody must see that’s ridiculous.’

‘They might suggest you drop out of one of the individual events instead.’

‘The four hundred, I suppose. They could suggest it, but I wouldn’t back down for anything. I mean, I had to fight for that place, all the way up that home stretch. Okay, maybe I only got third because I have a better chest measurement than Janie Canute, maybe Janie was shook up from her fall, but the fact is that the photo showed me ahead of her.’

Some of this was news to Dryden. ‘She had a fall, you say?’

‘I heard some talk of it,’ said Goldine vaguely. ‘She stumbled on the hostel steps, I understand.’

‘Tough,’ said Dryden. ‘So that was why she couldn’t go faster in the Final.’ Before he got the words out, he was cursing himself for being so tactless. His voice trailed away in embarrassment.

Goldine propped herself on her elbows, eyes burning. ‘Tough for her? How do you think I felt, getting beat by two girls I could have run off their feet if I hadn’t caught this bug? I know people are saying I tried too many events, I should stand down and give Canute a run in Moscow, but, hell, she can run in the relay team. I’m not giving up my place to anyone.’ The bedsprings rattled as she thrust her head back on the pillow.

‘Why should you, indeed?’ said Dryden quickly. ‘After all the training you put in. It sounds to me as if Canute was looking for an alibi.’

He expected her to latch on to this, but she spurned it.

‘What the hell — it’s all history. The fact is that I took third place. I’m thinking of Moscow now, what I have to do there. You have to be single-minded if you aim to excel in sports.’

‘Or anything else,’ said Dryden.