“How are you feeling about the tryout?”
“I’ll go clean up,” he said. “Meet you back here.”
That was very frustrating. There was hardly any time before he’d have to be at Woodsmen Stadium to start the process and I needed him to focus…
No. No, this was exactly why he’d said he didn’t want a girlfriend or a wife: he didn’t want anyone trying to control his life and his choices. So when he came back to join me, looking a whole lot cooler because nothing had been done yet about the icy shower issues, I didn’t say anything else about football or about the Woodsmen—not directly about the Woodsmen. There werethings going on in my office which I wanted to discuss but once we were in my car, I asked him about his day, too. We had driven out here together so there was plenty of time to talk.
“It was fine,” he said briefly. “Fine. You?”
The lack of detail was weird for him but I went ahead and brought up the other weirdness I’d also noticed lately, which surrounded Mr. Gowan. “For the whole week, my boss been disheveled.”
“Huh?”
“You know, messy,” I explained. “Unkempt.” He’d been dressing in a way that reminded me of his cluttered and dirty car.
“And that’s different for him?”
I had forgotten that he didn’t know the guy personally. I did talk to Ronan about work sometimes but I had never thought to describe the preciseness of Mr. Gowan’s appearance. “His dishevelment is very different because he’s just about perfect,” I answered. “Hardly anyone in our part of the building even wears a tie but he has on a suit every day with a scarf in his pocket. He always looks like he just got a haircut. He nails every detail—like he’s the definition of ‘dapper.’”
“Really.He’s perfect?”
His voice had sounded funny to me and I looked across to where he was squished into the passenger seat. “Perfectly dressed,” I explained. “But when he came in on Monday, his tie was sideways. Crooked. And there was a stain on the knee of hispants, or maybe if it’s a suit, you’re supposed to say ‘trousers?’” I waited for a moment but he only shrugged. “And it only got worse as the week went on,” I continued. “Today, he wasn’t wearing socks. He has polished, lace-up shoes, the kind where you’re supposed to have socks for sure.”
“You notice a lot of details about him.”
“Well, we’re the only two people in the office. I can either look at the walls of my cubicle or at him when he walks by,” I reasoned. “Don’t you think that’s funny, though? How his appearance has devolved?”
“Sometimes I don’t wear pants.”
“At home and not in front of me, though.” I’d seen plenty of his top half, but none of the bottom area from waist to mid-thigh. I suddenly found myself thinking of that area—but Ronan was talking about something unrelated to any of that and I snapped back to attention.
“One of Ed’s friends is planning to sell his auto shop,” he said.
“Oh.” At first I didn’t understand the significance, just as he hadn’t understood the importance of Mr. Gowan’s messy tie. But then I got it. “Do you want to buy it?”
“I never planned to have my own shop.”
“You said that to me once,” I reminded him. “You said that maybe you could do that rather than trying out for the Woodsmen. But you also told me that you don’t have any goals or plans for the future.”
“I don’t. I don’t plan beyond the next week.”
“You’ve spent the last few months preparing for the Woodsmen tryout,” I said. That was both a goal and a plan.
“Yeah, about that.”
I glanced over and then I pulled to the side of the road. There was a gravel shoulder and nobody came by here, anyway.
“What are you doing?” he asked me.
“No, what areyoudoing?” I demanded. Screw that crap about not nagging. “Are you thinking about giving up?”
“I’m not giving up! I’m talking about continuing as I am,” he told me. “I wouldn’t quit training and I’ll look to the future, the future with the Juniors. The one I always had before I—I don’t know why I started thinking about all this stupid bullshit!” His voice cracked with frustration. “Why would I do the tryout? Why the hell would I want my own shop? I don’t need any of that. I’m fine just the way I am!”
“Then fine,” I told him. “Keep going exactly as you are and waste it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard how only a few guys make it in football. Practically no one does,” I informed him. I momentarily forgot that he’d been the one to clue me in to that fact. “And you have a chance to play for the Woodsmen! Are you joking when you say you might quit?”
