Rooney’s first showcase is happening in the Rotunda at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. As I step through the museum doors, memories of butterflies flutter to the front of my mind, uncontrolled.
Rooney’s greeting people at the entrance to her showcase. This face-to-face time with viewers is new and she seems to be appreciating every second of it.
“Jack! Hi,” Rooney calls out when she sees me. She’s as beautiful as ever, in a red knit sweater and long blue skirt. Rooney as herself, not Red String Girl. She’s fully in her element. Whether she was hidden or not, and with or without me, she was always going to accomplish big, great things.
“Hey. Happy New Year,” I say as an icebreaker. Without thinking, I add, “You’re like a seahorse. You blend right into your environment, give or take a few more colors. I like the new hue.”
Rooney’s face relaxes slightly. “I’ve been seeing a few more colors lately,” she says. “How have you been?”
Awful. Missing you. Trying and failing to focus on work. Wishing that keeping my distance from you wasn’t an effort every single day. It’s been a month and a half since Hugh’s. With the holidays, no suit-ups or team visits were scheduled. Rooney disappeared into her work while I refocused on mission-related tasks.
“Fine. Busy.” I slide my hands into my pockets. “You?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been busy, too,” she says with a small smile. Rooney appears calm, despite today being her first showcase and the day of the auction.
“Right. No, of course,” I say, gesturing toward the door. “I can’t wait to see it.”
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“More than you know.”
When we step into the Rotunda, it’s as though I’ve been transported into the cosmos. IfEntangledwas Mercury, the smallest planet, then Rooney’s first showcase is Jupiter, a behemoth of an installation. It must’ve taken Rooney and her team hundreds of hours to put this together. I expected to see her signature color everywhere. But there’s not just red. There’s also blue and purple and green strung throughout the room.
The string has been strategically looped around the tall marble columns lining the perimeter of the room. It stretches up past the second-level balcony to the ceiling, giving viewers a look from different heights. The string is manipulated to take the shape of a carefully crafted sphere. In the center, theThree Gracesbronze sculpture stands, with each Grace representing science, art, or history. Together, they hold a globe skyward toward the beautiful stained-glass dome illuminated by sunshine. Strands of colorful thread branch out at different lengths from the raised globe. It’s an optical illusion that allows the imagination to take over.
There’s something familiar about this installation. My imagination runs wild, wondering if this could possibly be a—
“Looks like I was successfully inspired,” Rooney says, breaking my spell. Her eyes drop to my lip for the briefest second.
“It’s…” I touch my finger to my lip, and Rooney smiles. It’s meant to look like an exploding star. A supernova. My Supernova Scar. My heart twists inside my rib cage. She was inspired byme.
This rattles me, and it probably shows. Rooney has taken bits and pieces of our time together and materialized them into this unbelievable creation. I’d need days, weeks, a lifetime, to fully process how much this means to me.
“I’m… stunned,” I finally say. “I don’t believe there are words that exist that properly capture how entrancing this is. It rivals discoveries we’ve made in space.”
Rooney laughs. “That’s nice of you to say, Jack. I couldn’t have done it without you. Your inspiration.”
We let a heavy silence fall between us, weighted by the limited time we have left together. As Rooney quietly watches people interacting with her creation, I observe her. Red lips. Shining brown eyes. Sideswept bangs. Relaxed shoulders that no longer carry the weight of being uninspired. She took her artist’s block and blew it up into this.
“I have something for you,” I say, tearing my gaze from her.
I set a keychain of a sports jersey into her palm. She flips it over. On the back of the shirt are the letters R-O-O-N-E-Y.
“I don’t get it,” she says.
“I just couldn’t believe that there weren’t any keychains with your name on it,” I explain. “And then I found this. It’s the soccer jersey for Wayne Rooney, but still. There’s your name.”
She laughs. My favorite sound. It’s been a while.
“I guess I owe you that million dollars back,” she says with a smirk.
“Eh, keep the money,” I tell her playfully, waving her off. “No matter how the public perceives you and whatever name you go by, whether it’s Red String Girl or RSG, I wanted to remind you that, to me, you’re just Wayne Rooney. I mean Rooney.”
She laughs again. “I won’t let you down, Coach. Thank you.”
I smile back at her. “Just remember, it’s everything about you that makes you so good at what you do.”
Her eyes are transfixed on mine. For a beat too long, we stand there, like we’re playing a game of chicken of who will look away first. But here neither of us wins.
