“Just once? You were there for months.”
“We’re not a very close-knit group,” he said. “I used to see my grandmother a lot, but she passed away last July, a year ago.” He had been gathering a bite of small grains on his fork but he put it down. “I spent a lot of time with her when I was a kid, too. My parents were busy running their company. Both my brother and my sister work there now.”
“So that’s something else you could do,” I pointed out. “You could help run the family business.”
He didn’t respond to that. “My sister was into school, always really academic, and my brother also played football. My parents were either at the office or with them or traveling. They liked to vacation. So I was with my grandma, which I loved.”
“I didn’t know my grandparents,” I said. “My dad’s parents died before I was born, and my mom never talked to hers. She always said that they were assholes.” I’d wondered if that was true, because my mom wasn’t the easiest to get along with. I imagined her in Florida, arguing with people.
“Zoey?”
I looked up.
“Why are you frowning like that? Is your sandwich bad?”
I was not being a Fun Girl at all. ‘It’s delicious,” I said, and took a big bite to prove it.
“What’s happening with your mom? Is she back yet?” he asked, but I needed to turn the course of this date—a friend-date, between friends.
“It’s ok. Tell me all about Arizona,” I requested. “Everything you did.”
“I was busy,” Everett stated, and he explained a lot of it. There was still nothing fun in our conversation, though. It seemed that, almost from morning until night, he had prepared for the Woodsmen tryout. Conditioning, lifting, nutrition, film study, and everything else.
“That wasn’t much of a vacation,” I commented.
“It wasn’t supposed to be. Did you take one?”
“Me? No!” I laughed because it seemed so silly. How could I have done that? “I’m not a traveler. Well, we went to Alabama once. It was a family vacation to the beach there, which is beautiful. Where’s the farthest you’ve ever gone?”
He had been to a lot of places. He told me about Europe and South America. “I’m the worst Spanish-speaker ever. In the world,” he said, and he finally smiled again. “I’m good with ‘sí” and ‘gracias,’ and that’s it.”
“I took Spanish all through high school and last semester, there was a native speaker in the fourth grade. I tried to talk to her and I humiliated myself with how bad I was,” I said.
“We should learn together. We could do it.”
“Yes!” I got extremely excited, because that was one thing I was good at. I had gotten good grades in high school, good enough that I could have gone to college in Ann Arbor. I’d even gotten a scholarship but of course I couldn’t have left. I was needed here.
He held out his knuckles and I bumped them, but then the relaxed expression on his face tightened.
“Jesus. Damn,” he muttered. “Why the hell would those guys have come here?”
I followed his gaze over to where a giant group had just entered the restaurant. It wasn’t that there were a lot of them: they were, themselves, giants. “Who are those guys?” I asked.
“Most of the Woodsmen offensive line,” he said. “We don’t really get along.”
“Aren’t they supposed to protect you?” I asked. Was it smart to be adversarial with them? Because he was still frowning in their direction and not making any effort to go say hello. And now they were staring back, also unsmiling. “I’m not an expert on friends, but I did learn a few things from the first and fourth graders,” I mentioned. “You have to be nice, so you should stop scowling. Sharing and generosity also make people like you. Maybe you could buy them dinner.”
“Do you have any idea how much those guys can eat?”
“I imagine that they’re like pandas. Those animals can eat fifty pounds of bamboo every day and poop just as much.” I’d also learned that from a fourth grader in the form of a book report. “It would be very expensive, but maybe it’s worth it?” I shrugged, because I wasn’t clear on his financial situation.
“You’re right.”
“I am?”
He nodded. “You’re right about buying them dinner. But you’re wrong about making friends. You do that well.” He held out his knuckles again and this time, he smiled, too.
Chapter 8
