Anyway, it was also time for me to go. “I’ll talk to you again when I hear about getting this approved,” I told him, and I didn’t look at Ronan when I said goodbye to him, too.
I walked out to the front parking lot with the roofing contractor. “What’s your position with the Woodsmen team?” he asked. Now he sounded more than skeptical. He was outright suspicious.
“I work in the Office of Special Projects,” I said, and he was correct to feel both skeptical and suspicious of me. I hadn’t been there very long, my job had nothing to do with anything, I was twenty-two, I had no experience in managing construction projects, and I was doing this behind my boss’s back. There was no reason that I could accomplish jack squat. And besides the global problems of the building which were potentially solvable, like the roof and the rats, there were other issues that were specific to the Junior Woodsmen team and I had no ideas about how to tackle those. There was the terrible field, for one thing, and the lack of lights around it. There was crappy old equipment, broken benches in their locker room, and rusty machines in the weight room that looked like they’d been scavenged from an abandoned high school gym.
It didn’t seem like I could fix any of that. But why not? I had done everything else that I’d wanted in my life. Yes, I’d gotten help from teachers and then professors, and I’d had a few mentors at different jobs—but I’d found those mentors myself and I’d also actively sought any help I’d received. I’d been the one to put it all together so that now, I was the one reaping the benefits.
It was possible that I could screw up those benefits by bending the rules for a development league team that no one cared about, no one except for Ed. Not even the players seemed to mind how much their situation sucked. They didn’t bother to do anything to better their circumstances, which was a possibility, wasn’t it? You had to try and put in effort.
I thought about that on my way back to the beautiful facility where I worked, the Woodsmen Stadium complex. You had to try. You had to put in effort. And sure, I had been the one to go ask for help but people had responded and stepped up for me. Now, here I was in the position to help someone else. Ed needed it.
I had accomplished everything I’d put my mind to. Almost. This would be a challenge but maybe I could do this, too. It would be something else that I could add to my list of things I was proud of: I had bought this car, I had gotten into college and then graduated without a mountain of debt…
Mountain. It made me think of Ronan Wilder and the idea that Ed might have tried to arrange our meet-up today—it sure seemed like that to me. I had been mad but it was actually nice, I supposed. Most people had the idea that fixing others up was a good thing, as if everyone was seeking a relationship and “love.” That obviously wasn’t true, but he’d thought that I needed it (or that Ronan did) and it was sweet that he’d made an effort to bring us together. Embarrassing, too, but I wouldn’t let that show.
Ed wasn’t aware that Ronan and I hadn’t had any contact since that barn party, but why would we have? There had been some talk about going mini golfing again but nothing had come of it and I hadn’t expected it to. Sure, I wanted to make friends but I wasn’t going to force anything. I had too much self-respect. Just like I wasn’t going to chase after those three girls who sat together at lunch and had such a good time, I also wasn’t goingto throw myself at Ronan Wilder for friendship or for anything else.
No, definitely not. I didn’t need or want that. I kept driving through the landscape that I was pretty sure should have shown some hopeful signs by now—hopeful signs of spring. They were probably there, but I just wasn’t able to see them quite yet.
Chapter 4
Iflipped through the videos. When these people did it, the effect was casual elegance and mismatched charm—that was what they called it. But when I tried…
I looked up from my phone to examine my new couch again. My pillow arrangement was nothing like what the content creators displayed in their own homes. It reminded me more of the shelf at the store, where everything had been thrown around and jumbled, not carefully placed and styled like I had tried to do.
I’d wasted a bunch of money, the pillows looked like crap, and this was a boring way to spend a Saturday. This morning after I’d gotten dressed, I’d gone to the coffee shop and sat for a little while, mostly watching people. It had been busy there but I hadn’t talked to anyone. What would I have said? Everyone at work seemed to be very excited about the change in weather, how it was getting slightly warmer. Several of them had mentioned wearing shorts this weekend which seemed insane to me—it absolutely wasn’t that warm, but a few people at the caféhad been dressed like it was the middle of summer. I had on a sweater.
Then I had gone to buy these pillows, and now…I pushed them out of the way to make a space for myself on the seat. Now I wasn’t sure what to do. Sometimes the weekends were hard without homework or a job to keep me busy. You could only clean your apartment so many times. Maybe I could go to the gym? I’d been doing that frequently since there were a lot of hours after work, too, and I only stayed until five o’clock when the building emptied out. My boss was gone well before that. In fact, he’d been out all day Thursday and Friday to meet friends and play polo, the horse kind.
I went to my bedroom and changed into workout stuff, slowly because there was no rush. I slowly went down to the parking lot, too, and then something weird happened. I had always taken care of my car, performing all the standard maintenance and bringing it in for the things I couldn’t do myself. It had seemed ok when I’d been out this morning but when I started it now, there was a funny rattling sound. I let it run for a while and as the engine warmed up, it did get quieter—but I wouldn’t ignore what I’d heard because I planned to have this car until it fell into pieces on the road in twenty or so years. I sat for a while longer and researched the problem as the engine continued to run quietly.
Luckily, I knew a mechanic. I didn’t need him to fix anything but he could confirm my diagnosis and he would have recommendations about a repair shop. I remembered that he worked at a dealership that belonged to a part-owner of theWoodsmen team, which (I’d discovered) meant that he worked at Whitaker Automotive. That name was everywhere in this area since the family seemed to own everything else, too. Mr. Gowan was married to a Whitaker.
I drove to the dealership, parked, and quickly texted. “Hi. Do you have a second to discuss a problem with my car?”
In a moment, Ronan responded. “Cate. What’s the matter with it?”
“I think it’s the timing belt. It might make the noise again if you want to come outside. I’m parked here. If you have time,” I added.
He didn’t answer but after a minute, he walked out of one of the garage bays, wiping his hands on a rag. He smiled when he saw me standing next to my car, too. “Hello. Where have you been?”
“Around. Working. Doing things.” That sounded empty and dumb. “What about you?”
“I was mostly crying at home since you left me at the practice facility last week,” he said. “We were going to lunch, but you took off. Now you’re here wanting me to fix your car.”
I swallowed and felt my cheeks get hot. In fact, I felt hot all over as I remembered that day and how Ed was trying to be a matchmaker. I had run away from that because I was embarrassed, and I was again now. I tried to be a duck and let it roll off, like everything always did for me. “Sorry.”
“Why’d you leave like that?”
Did I really have to explain it? I shook my head and lied instead. “I had to get back to my desk. I’m trying to accomplish things, to get at least some of the repairs done. I’ll be persistent until I get a response.”
“Right, I remember that you said you were persistent and went after your goals.”
“I’ll leave,” I told him. “Sorry I pulled you out of work and bothered you.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said. “I’m taking a little break. I can look at your car and forgive you for letting me go hungry that day.”
“I wasn’t trying to be a bitch.”
