I watch the game by myself in my office. It’s really not much of an office, more of a corner of a large room with a partition, but it’s surprisingly quiet during a game. Everyone else has either gone to the staff lounge downstairs or over to the stadium proper.
As support staff to “front office,” we work in a wing attached to the back of the stadium that runs alongside the private parking lot for the players and staff. In the morning, it’s a very busy space, but now that the afternoon game is underway, it’s gone very quiet.
I try to focus on work, but the marketing schedule blurs in front of my eyes.
I swipe at the tears that keep threatening. Crying at work isnotacceptable. Just because I’ve made a huge mess doesn’t mean I can’t be professional.
And today should be a victory. Theannouncers have a lot of fun when the cameras zoom in on the bobblehead that sits on the dugout railing, which happens more than once. They zoom in on Coach Rosehill even more, of course. I see him from every angle over and over again.
He’s so handsome it hurts my chest. The ache intensifies when I think about the pickle I’ve gotten us into. I don’t know how to tell him.
It looked so bad when I dodged Helen’s request for me to go see the coach, but I just couldn’t look him in the eye. Not yet. I would have broken down in tears in front of him, and that’s the last thing he needs.
The bobblehead amusement is the only fun the announcers really have, too. The game doesn’t go our way, and fans start to stream out to the parking lots in the seventh inning. Those who stick around to the end are rewarded with a two-run homer in the ninth, but it’s too little, too late, and we start the season with a loss.
I feel even worse.
When my coworkers start to stream back to their desks, I keep my head down and pretend to be working on the marketing schedule for next month. People come in, check their messages, and head out.
There’s a chorus of goodbyes, people saying, “See you tomorrow,” and “One down, a hundred and sixty-one games to go.”
And then our floor isquiet again.
I think about leaving too. I want tacos for dinner. And maybe an extra-large margarita.
But I don’t close down my computer and I don’t pick up my purse because I can’t leave until the coach’s car is long gone from the parking lot.
I was here already when he arrived. I know which one is his, and I’m watching it like a hawk out the window.
Which is why I don’t even notice the man himself appears in the doorway of my office.
“Funny, you don’tlookbusy right now,” he says.
I whirl around from where I’m standing by the small window. “Oh.”
He holds up the bobblehead. “This was a hit.”
“I’m glad.” My voice cracks.
He frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie.Everything.
“Have you been crying?” His frown deepens.
Fuck, is it that obvious?
He flicks his gaze over his shoulder, then gestures to the chair in front of my desk. “Can I sit?”
I don’t answer that question, either. I can’t. There’s a lump in my throat.
So instead of sitting, he wiggles the bobblehead in the air.
“Most people don’t know it’s us,” he says gently, more gently than I deserve. “But I do. And I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you did that day. And all the days since. You’ve worked so hard to build some excitement for thisseason for us. Even though we didn’t play the best today, the fans had a good time.”
“That’s not true,” I protest, trying desperately to not let the tears fall. “They started to leave in the seventh.”
He just shrugs. “Gotta beat the traffic. And that was their loss. We had some good pep in the ninth.”
