The Snap, page 15
I shot her a sympathetic smile. “It’s not the same, obviously, but my first year was really hard too. It was the undefeated season and it should have been fun, but everything was just so tense. It was like a life-sized Jenga tower that got higher and higher but weaker and weaker, and nobody wanted to be the one who knocked it over.”
“That was Red’s first season, right?” Chloe’s voice hitched slightly on his name, and I did some quick math to determine she would have been about seven years old at the time. I looked at her curiously.
“It was. Did you grow up a Bobcats fan? Do you remember that season?”
“I did, I—” She smiled, closemouthed and tight. “But also…Coach said something to me about it.”
“He did?”
“Yeah—while I was delivering papers. He always talked to me for a bit when I’d bring his.”
I swallowed, smiled. “Oh.”
“He said—” Now Chloe was shredding a napkin, destroying it into a miniature snowstorm on the tabletop. “He said this year was like that one. Hard. Tense. He used the same word you did.”
Several beats passed in silence. Too many.
He said this year was like that one.
“Chloe…” Slow. Confident. Calm. “Is there anything you want to tell me? Because I hope you know that you can do that—talk to me. If there’s something I should know.”
Once again, neither of us blinked.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
Thank God for hangovers. With my head pounding and my tongue fat and fuzzy in my mouth, Saturday was a blur of bed and couch, a horizontal day. I couldn’t focus on how skeeved out I was by my apartment, or do anything beyond forcing in careful bites of crackers and slow sips of water. I barely registered the flickering images of the wild card games. The light hurt. The sound was muted. And every time two bodies crashed together on the field, all I pictured was James and Abby mashed up against each other.
By Monday I was physically better, but the mental hangover was still there. I stared blankly at my desk. How could so much have changed since Friday? I’d had Abby, the friend, and James, the crush. Now they were AbbyandJames. James didn’t owe me anything. He didn’t have to like me back. But Abby was supposed to be my friend.
Why did she do it? Abby knew I liked James. It was probably that poll, the fact that at least some of the guys here thought she wasn’t the hottest one in the building anymore. Abby was jealous. Threatened.
“Poppy B,” said Brent, his usual greeting. He smacked the light switch inside his office and hung his coat before heading to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” I said to the closing annex door. I tapped my pencil against my notebook, considering. Brent had told me not to get too close to Abby, not to let her reputation bleed into mine. Because she did have a reputation. She dated that scout last year, and now she’d made out with James. And at the bar she said she thought Coach was hot too. How had I missed so many signs? She was no better than the random skanks sending A.J. fan mail spritzed with cheap perfume.
It really didn’t make sense to base my work alliances on whoever happened to be female, I decided as I watched the copier belch out stacks of the clips packet. Abby and I didn’t have much in common beyond that. Every day I tried not to be the girl who didn’t know what she was doing, and Abby couldn’t be bothered to learn the basic terminology because she was just here on her way to work in films. She didn’t like football. She probably didn’t even actually like James. Maybe he was just a step on the way to something else too, and she didn’t care that I was interested.
I seethed as I delivered my clips, slapping them onto empty desks with an audible thwack. Who did Abby think she was? As if there weren’t a million girls like her floating around every office in the country? She made the rest of us look bad, really. It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing for me that I’d hung out with her, and Brent was right to tell me to be careful. I was learning—friends at work weren’t the people who said nice things to you all the time. Real work friends were the ones who looked out for you, who saw you reaching out to pick up the ice cubes off the ground and grabbed the back of your collar so you didn’t get kicked. Brent was right when he said he had my back. That’s what having someone’s back looked like.
I ate lunch alone at my desk. I took the long way around to use the ladies’ room at the opposite end of the building so I wouldn’t have to pass Mo or James, and when James came through the annex, I grabbed my recorder and hurried off, muttering something about blogging buddies.
Monday grumpies? he emailed me midafternoon. I brought my finger down on the Delete button with the force of a lumberjack’s ax.
My path wouldn’t cross with Abby’s on a normal workday, and so I didn’t know how to show her I was freezing her out. It was so unsatisfying. I wished I was an ice-veined customer who could pretend she never existed, that I could put both Abby and James out of my mind and concentrate on heading into the playoffs undefeated during my first NFL season. But I didn’t have that kind of composure, and I badly wanted Abby to know, unambiguously, that she was out.
I wanted to rumble.
I finally got my chance on Friday when she fell into step behind me on my walk to the far bathroom. I pretended not to notice and went on my way, but she caught the door I’d intentionally let fall shut and followed me in.
“Okay.” She closed the door to the lounge, trapping us between the hallway and the actual bathroom. Her dress was a bright, look-at-me yellow. “It’s the playoffs, so I could understand skipping out on lunch now and then, but not the entire week. And now you have to hide the fact that you’re taking a bathroom break? You need to stand up to Richard. Or go to Brent, or something. You’re only an intern, he can’t treat you like this.”
How could she be so dumb? “You think I’m hiding from Richard?”
“Aren’t you?”
All my mirror-rehearsed rages failed me. Every speech I’d put together while brushing my teeth or practiced aloud in my car during morning traffic was gone, leaving me with nothing more than a gaping mouth and a hot neck. I barked out a frustrated laugh. “I’m not hiding from anyone, but I am avoiding you.”
“Me?”
“Are you kidding me?” It came out as a roar, much too loud for the office, and I glared at her as if she’d been the one to yell. “Yes,” I hissed, “you. You did what you did—at least own it. At least don’t pretend like you don’t know why I’m upset.”
“Is this about Friday? James?”
“Oh, look at that, you do know why I’m upset.”
“Poppy. What the hell? We were all out, it was a fun night. I thought you and Carter were going to get together. James and I both did.”
“Just because I talked to him?”
“Because you invited him. You were weird with James all night, jumping away from him when he touched you, and then Carter showed up and you were practically purring.”
“That’s not—”
“And,” Abby continued hotly, “maybe you forgot, but you told me at Thanksgiving you’re not into James.”
“That was—a month ago, and you were the one being all, ‘Oh, here’s to work friends,’ so don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
She threw up her hands. “Listen, Poppy. I know you’re still in college mode, but I’m not a mind-reader. You told me you didn’t like him, so when he asked if you’d said anything about him, I told him that—get this—you didn’t like him! This is grown-up time now. You want to be the coyest little fish in the pond, this shit’s going to happen.”
“I’m sure it just broke your heart to pass that on, huh? You knew that wasn’t true, and you said it anyway because you wanted James for yourself.”
“Please. It’s not that serious. I’d had a rough week—a rough season—and he was there and cute and into it. I don’t have to sit back and wait in case you maybe, sometime in the future, decide you’re interested in someone. I can sleep my way through this whole office if I want to, and it’s not any business of yours.”
“Is that your five-year plan?” I sneered. “I hear you’re making good progress.”
“Fuck you.”
The door slammed, and Abby was gone, leaving me alone in the ladies’ lounge. I closed my eyes and tasted the salt of a tear bump against my lips. When I opened them again, a streak of mascara ran in a vertical line down my face, splitting me into a Jekyll and Hyde. On one side I was the girl who walked into the stadium that first day looking for a friendly face, a trusted outlet, a confidant. On the other, I was a viper, scratching and clawing to claim space, to protect my spot. Did I have to be one or the other? Which version did I want to be, and which version would I have to be to stay here?
* * *
*
The snow crunched beneath my feet as I made my way to the car on the morning of our first playoff game. It was frigid even by Syracuse standards, with temperatures hovering around fifteen degrees and a real-feel below zero. Normally a game this important would be in prime time, but the powers that be at the League seemed to realize it would only get colder as darkness fell, so afternoon it was.
“This is some real Ice Bowl shit,” said Brent once I’d made it to the press box. It was warmer here than outside but still too cold for human habitation. The wind found its way through the tiny cracks between the press box’s all-glass front, causing a low whistle that brought my shoulders to my ears.
The field was barely visible from up here—everything was drenched in white. I could just make out the grounds crew, black specks studiously working to clear the yard markers and edges of the field. Swarms of stadium workers attacked the stairs with shovels while others cleared the paths in front of each row of seats. A cluster of players gathered by the tunnel, and I pressed my nose against the glass to get a better look.
“Are the linemen…Are those their bare arms?” Since football jerseys are short-sleeved, players usually wore at least one compression shirt as a base layer to cover their skin.
“They won’t wear the sleeves. Think it makes them look tough.”
Maybe there was something to that, since we were playing San Diego, but there was intimidation and then there was amputation.
“Go down to the supply room and gear up,” Brent said. “We’ll need you defrosted and functional for postgame.”
With no seal to the outside, it was even colder in the stadium bowels, and I hugged myself as I hurried down the hallway. “Look alive, Poppy,” called our equipment guy, Sam, as he drove past on a cart. “I left it open for you.”
The supply room was a giant walk-in closet filled with Bobcats merchandise from throughout the team’s history. It was lit by bare bulbs with chains I could reach only on my tiptoes. Most of the time it smelled thick and musty, but today the cold had wiped it clean—even the scent of the air was frozen. The walls were lined with industrial steel shelving stacked two high with faded cardboard boxes, and if you dug deep enough, you could find sweatshirts and hats with every logo the team had ever had. A pile of boxes had been pulled to the front, filled with sleeping-bag-sized Bobcats puffer coats, bobble hats, and hand and toe warmers. I grabbed a crimson coat at the top of the pile and shrugged it on. It was enormous. My hands were marooned halfway through the sleeves, and the bottom swished against the floor.
“You look like you’re wearing a hot-dog costume.”
I spun around—none too gracefully, in the giant coat—and saw James, arms folded, leaning up against the doorframe. He was wearing a sturdy, arctic-explorer-style goose down jacket that must have been reserved for people higher up the food chain than me.
“That’s funny.” I tossed my head with all the dignity I could muster and made a move for the hallway. “Excuse me.”
“Poppy—wait.” Now that he’d said it, I really could only picture my look as a hot dog, which made it incredibly hard to strike the kind of sophisticated indifference I was hoping for. I tried to fold my puffy arms, failed, and shot him an expectant look instead. “I’m sorry about Friday. No—” He grabbed my mammoth sleeve as I turned to leave. “I mean it. I’ve been trying to talk to you all week. I thought we were…you know, whatever, but then at the bar you seemed really cold. Not like—” He indicated my team gear. “You know. Unfriendly. And then Abby said—”
“I heard what she said.”
He shook his head. “That was so bitchy, I can’t believe her. I should have listened to Mo.”
A small light flickered deep in my chest, a damp match against the wind.
“It was stupid,” James went on. “I was stupid. And drunk, and frustrated, and she was, like, really in my face about it…I’m sorry.”
So Abby had been the one to initiate things. The light held firm, small but steady. “You didn’t owe me anything,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “You and I weren’t—I mean, we hadn’t…”
James stepped closer. Even inside the supply room it was so cold that I could see his breath, an extension of him that bloomed out and beckoned. “I know. But I want to be. Do you?” My pulse kicked into high gear as nonchalant went the way of the buffalo. I nodded. James reached out, his arms circling toward my back and his angled jaw coming closer to mine—
And then we were cracking up, because his arms didn’t fit around me in my giant coat. It was like trying to hug a sumo wrestler. The tension between us for the past week and the anticipation of our first kiss and the pressure of the game about to kick off and the sky literally falling outside—I clutched his arm to steady myself, I was laughing so hard. He reached for my face instead, cupping it with both hands, and pulled my lips to his, and we were still laughing, a fun and messy first kiss that felt like a fiftieth.
We pressed ourselves together, foreheads and cold noses touching, and stood there grinning like idiots, savoring the closeness and the warmth and the quiet before going back out into the fray. He grabbed the collar of my coat and whispered with mock sincerity, “the hottest dog.”
* * *
*
The wind blew the snow sideways. My dad called weather like this the Great Equalizer, and it was true, because speed and skill were wiped out by the elements. In cold like this, bone crunched against bone. Running backs who hadn’t fumbled all season could let a stiff football drop from frozen fingers and change the course of the game. Wide receivers who relied on their ability to streak down the field had their powers nullified as they slipped and slid across yard markers too covered in snow to see.
All those things were happening as the first half came to a close. Thankfully San Diego was even more affected by the elements than we were, and when the teams ran into their tunnels, the Bobcats were ahead a sloppy 14–3.
“Not a great day to be a statistician,” said Brent. He stretched his arms over his head, flashing the top of his woven belt. “Hey, could you get me a soda? I know that’s not kosher to ask anymore, but could you just do it?”
It was warmer in the dining area, where the steam trays below the press box meal fought mightily to keep the marinara sauce from congealing. A radio guy pressed a hot roll between his hands like a first-class passenger with a warmed towel.
The soda machine was blocked by a mass of red curls. A young woman in leggings and a long blazer was kicking its base and hissing curses as the Sprite dispenser let out nothing but air.
“Sarah?” I hadn’t seen her since she was a senior when I was a freshman, but I’d never forget that hair.
Sarah turned and broke into a grin. “Poppy Benjamin! I heard you were doing something in the NFL. You’re with the Bobcats?”
“Media relations. How about you?” I craned my head to see her credential.
“This tiny paper out in San Diego. I’m on general assignment, so I don’t usually travel, but for this—”
“Sure.”
“So how is all this? It must have been such an insane year. And you have A.J.—what’s he like?”
“He’s…” I so badly wanted to tell her, to vent like girlfriends. A.J. was spoiled and moody and unnecessarily difficult, but he was my team’s quarterback and this wasn’t school anymore. I was talking to a member of the media. “…super talented, you know? The whole team is amazing, with DeMario, and Coach Guillory…”
James passed through the dining area balancing four bags of to-go popcorn in his arms while trying not to let the buttered edges touch his suit. He tossed me a wink as he headed for the executive elevators to bring Asbel his favorite midgame snack, and a whoosh flew up my spine. I kissed that guy—he kissed me. In a supply closet! Bananas!
“I don’t want to be weird or anything,” Sarah was saying in a low voice, “but just…be careful around him. I’ve heard a few things.”
I took a step back. “What kind of things?”
“It’s nothing official—just rumors and stuff—but I guess he can be kind of…handsy.”
I wanted him to be handsy! James was hot, charming, confident, and clearly on his way to success in the League. I’d just bet there were lots of girls who would welcome a little attention if he was willing to give it, but he was interested in me. He chose me, he’d kissed me.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I said just as the announcement came that the second half was about to start. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NOW
Two gowns in just over a month had to be some kind of record. This event, though, on the white marble patio of a Charleston plantation, under a dripping canopy of angel oak so lush and thick it blocked out the stars, made the Syracuse gala look like the line outside a falafel cart around two a.m.
