“Yes, you were. You’re nasty to him no matter how hard he tries and I’m sick of it!”
The couple in the row ahead hadn’t fully turned around to stare, but they were obviously listening. They were sitting ramrod-straight and both of them had tilted their ears toward us. They didn’t need to do that, though, since Willow had practically yelled at me.
I spoke much more quietly. “It’s hard for me to forget how much you suffered,” I told her. “Eventually, I might be able to forgive him for how he acted back then—I really have been trying,” I said, when she started to interrupt. “I’ll never forget, though. I was the one your friends called after it happened and I was the one who went to the hospital.”
“You were the one who helped me while I was there, and you were with me during rehab, too.” Her voice had softened. “I remember how much you did for me, Zo. I haven’t forgotten, either.” Now she was almost crying, and we hugged. The couple in front relaxed as if they were glad of this outcome. I was also glad that she wasn’t mad at me anymore but I hadn’t liked whatI’d just seen in myself. My mom hadn’t been able to forgive or forget either, not me or anyone else.
So when someone came by selling pickles from our local factory, I bought three, aware that my budget really didn’t allow for treats that were ten dollars apiece. I was glad that I had done it when Boyd looked surprised and then thanked me, and Willow beamed.
Then the second half started and the Woodsmen punt returner got it to the thirty-yard line. My sister grabbed my hands to force them away from where I’d been massaging my brow bones. We watched Everett head out with the giants of the offensive line, probably a lot of the same guys he and I had seen when we’d been out to dinner. I hoped that they would do their jobs and protect him—I’d asked if they were getting along better, and he’d answered “fine,” but…
Willow took my hands again and held them. “Geez, Zoey. He knows what he’s doing!” she told me, and that was correct. There was a reason that Everett was wearing the white home jersey of the Woodsmen with “Ford” on the back in bright orange. He had prepared his body by working out and eating right, and he had prepared his mind by doing hours of film study and reviewing the playbook until he had memorized it backwards and forwards. I knew that, because I’d tested him on it. He was ready.
Then everyone else in the stadium saw that for themselves. The first play had him dropping back to pass and rest of the offense exploded into motion. Two of the guys streaked downfield.
“Holy shit!” I heard Boyd say, and Everett let the ball fly. As he did, he was smashed to the ground by a defensive player in yellow but it had left his hand cleanly. My head turned right and left, right and left as I tried to watch both him and the ball. I saw him get up and I saw the wide receiver make the catch almost forty yards down the field, where he got tripped when the opposing player in yellow grabbed his foot at the last moment.
But he held on to the ball.
The stadium went crazy. Everyone in front of us was screaming and jumping up and down, but for a moment, I couldn’t even get up to see what was happening. I missed the next pass as I sat in my orange seat, stunned, until my sister started yanking on my arm.
“They’re going to get a goal!” she yelled at me, and she meant touchdown but that was ok. I rose and stood on shaky legs and I saw Everett hand the ball to a shorter guy, a running back. He took off and powered into the end zone. The crowd was even louder, deafening, and I only realized that I was also screaming when a chunk of my hair flew into my mouth because Willow had made me wear it down again (and had watched me as I’d styled it). I saw him jog to slap his hand on the running back’s helmet and the other players celebrated together, but Everett went quickly to the sideline and talked to a coach.
It was probably the one who’d been mean to him before. “He showed you!” I shrieked at that guy.
“What?” my sister screamed back, but I just hugged her. I was so happy that I felt like I’d scored a touchdown myself and that all these thousands of people were cheering for me.
“Three plays! He did it in three plays!” Boyd kept yelling, and I almost could have hugged him, too. He slapped hands with everyone around us and I did hug the woman in the row in front of us, who was practically crying with joy.
The rest of the game was just as amazing, like Willow had said. The defense was good but the offense, led by Everett Ford, was spectacular. They scored twice more just in that quarter, and by that point, I was hardly able to stand. My sister held a cup of beer to my mouth.
“You need this. You’re a mess!” she said, but she was laughing at me. “Are you so proud?”
Oddly, I was, although I’d had nothing to do with what had happened tonight. The Woodsmen won and we stayed to watch as the players milled around with the other team on the field, talking and shaking hands (they were professionals, after all, so it didn’t seem like they carried over animosity from the game). Then, gradually, they trickled back into the tunnel, Everett included.
“Zo.” My sister tugged my shirt and I looked over at her. I had been so focused on the postgame action that I had totally forgotten about her and she was probably really tired.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. “Let’s go.”
We had come to the stadium together because part of the ticket deal had been one parking pass. I assumed that she would comehome to our apartment after we dropped Boyd at his car, which he had left in a nearby supermarket lot. But Willow got out of her seat and then leaned back in to talk to me.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going to sleep at his house.”
“Again?” I asked. She’d been over there a lot, and I had to admit that it was probably a more pleasant environment than sharing the small bed with me and listening to the rants of the guy next door, which now occurred when we made any sound at all. She had been leaving more stuff at Boyd’s, which I was able to see because our apartment didn’t have a lot of storage (there was no closet). Gradually, we had acquired more floor space as her belongings disappeared—there were still plenty of boxes, though, and I still didn’t know what to do with them.
She nodded in answer to my question and slammed the door. “Thanks for getting those tickets!” she told me, and then went off with her boyfriend to his place.
She didn’t want to go there only because of increased space and better neighbors. I imagined having a boyfriend, someone I loved like she loved Boyd. “Hi!” I would greet him as he came through the front door. I’d decided that I would like to live on Lake Michigan in a house on a bluff, not in an apartment as I had planned before. He would be so happy to see me that his face would light up in a smile, like Boyd had looked at Willow. I would get to see the dimple in his left cheek.
I thought about that for the rest of the way home, but when I arrived, I had to deal with the reality of parking far away and then creeping silently into the room. The neighbor thumped thewall and yelled anyway when he heard me flush the toilet. Sorry, but I had to go! I had drunk a whole beer and maybe I shouldn’t even have been driving. It probably contributed to what I did next, which was to get my phone and send several messages to Everett about how well he’d done and how happy I was.
“You showed them that you deserve to be the starter. Good for you,” I concluded. But he didn’t write back for a long time—in fact, I was still sitting in the chair but I was halfway asleep when he finally did.
“Are you awake? I could come over.”
I became fully conscious when I read those words. “Yes, do that,” I answered, and sent my address. Then I went down to wait for him, because sometimes it was hard to fight through the people clustered outside the bar to reach the outer door of my building. They had a much bigger clientele than Jannie did. Since there had been a Woodsmen home game, she’d let me have the night off, because her place had probably been empty—no one went there to watch. The TV on the wall was about as large as a box of cereal.
Everett got recognized as he approached. The people at this bar must have seen his performance. Before I spotted him, I heard cheering and clapping, voices yelling that he was the man and “Go Woodsmen!” He shook a bunch of hands and stopped to autograph someone’s shirt before he made it over to me, and I quickly opened the front door and ushered him inside. It didn’t lock, but no one followed us.
