Gradually, the players started to emerge into the lounge. It had taken a long time but since he didn’t need to do any interviews with the press, he was one of the first to step through the door from the locker room area. He didn’t look upset and he smiled when he saw me, so I tried to be equally happy and carefree. He wouldn’t have guessed that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” he asked immediately.
“Nothing. How are you?”
“You’re pissed because I didn’t play,” he commented, and I gave in.
“Yes, but you don’t seem to be,” I said. He opened the door for me and the crowd of fans waiting outside to see the Woodsmen got momentarily excited before they noticed that they didn’t really know him. They would, one day, and they’d be sorry that they hadn’t asked for his autograph now. He did sign a few items before we walked through to his SUV/truck, which he’d just had painted. It was now a uniform shade of grey, but I missed the brown and sliver patches a little.
We were driving together because we had plans tonight, which he mentioned now. “I’m not tired from the game, so we can go crazy and stay up until dawn,” he said. “We could stay out until Monday morning.”
That was the positive spin, and I nodded.
“They had told me that I wasn’t going to play,” he continued. “They’re trying to fit in a new guy at defensive tackle and another one at cornerback. The coaches wanted them to be with the starters tonight to work out the kinks.”
Did that mean he wouldn’t be a starter? Seriously? That was ridiculous.
“Go ahead and say it,” he told me. He waved goodbye to the guard at the booth as we pulled out of the stadium drive.
“No, I don’t have anything to say except that I want you to be happy with everything,” I answered.
“I’m living the dream,” he told me, and I nodded. I would stop trying to push for more.
“Good,” I said. Then he asked how the Junior Woodsmen promotion had gone and we continued to the restaurant.
Even as a backup, he was now recognized as a Woodsmen, so there was a bit of a stir when we walked in. Kiya was already there because she liked to be early, and she waved when she saw us. “Good game,” she told Ronan. “The new cornerback is impressive.”
“Yeah, he’s great,” he answered, and they discussed defensive strategy. It only took a moment, though, before Myles Pham joined us.
“Hey,” he greeted our side of the table and then he turned to Kiya. “I’m Myles.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “Nice to meet you in person.”
This was my answer to her request to fix her up with someone, for either short- or long-term activities. Since I didn’t know too many people here, including men, I had asked Myles if he was interested in meeting someone when I’d invited him to sit at the Junior Woodsmen table with me.
“Sure,” he’d answered off-handedly, and not like he was very interested at all. But he seemed happy to see Kiya now. She was both fun and pretty, and I hoped they’d hit it off.
They seemed to. We had a nice time at dinner and afterwards, they went to a bar, but Ronan hadn’t been serious about staying out until dawn. I was glad, because I hadn’t slept very well the night before. Maybe it was nerves—yes, it was nerves. I had been concerned about him playing but then he hadn’t, and his explanation about that hadn’t been a good excuse. It was poor management by the coaches, plain and simple.
I hoped he would get in during the next game in Utah, which I would attend in person. My plan had fallen into my lap when Mr. Gowan had been admiring his new curtains.
“This office has greatly improved,” he had said, and I’d agreed. Annie Whitaker-Gassman and her partner had done an amazingly quick job with the drapes, but my boss continued to think that she’d done more than that. On several occasions, he’d complimented the furniture, and I hadn’t bothered to tell him that no one had touched it.
“They’re very nice curtains. A lot of gravitas,” I had offered. A desire for my affirmation wasn’t the reason that he’d called forme to “come,” though. He was (once again) wanting me to fix an issue unrelated to any special project regarding the Woodsmen.
“What do you know about hotels in Salt Lake City?” he’d asked.
“Nothing.Why?”
He had needed my help to find one last minute, because he and some friends would be flying out there for the next-to-last preseason game. They were taking a private jet, and rather than argue that I wasn’t his travel agent and my job didn’t involve his personal hotel bookings, I’d had a different response.
“I’d be happy to find you a room,” I’d said. “How large is your friend’s plane?”
It was plenty big enough for one more person and my boss didn’t object when I issued an invitation to myself to ride in it to Utah—it was no skin off his nose, anyway. As it turned out, he hadn’t even expended the energy it took to tell anyone that I was coming along.
The following Friday, we went together to the airport in Traverse City and I found out that I was a surprise. Luckily, none of the other passengers (including the plane’s owner) seemed to care too much when they saw me walking up the stairs behind Mr. Gowan. I’d dealt with my dad enough to know that I needed to get us to the airport as a duo, which ensured that I wouldn’t get forgotten.
It was a little strange that my first flight was going to be on a private jet like this. My dad and I had lived everywhere but we’d always moved around in cars, and I’d continued to do that myself. I’d driven to college and then I’d driven to northernMichigan, too, but now I was on this sleek plane and I attempted to be excited rather than apprehensive. The captain talked to us about safety and I listened closely, and then I watched what the four other passengers did to see how to behave.
