The Snap, page 19
Sunday morning we gathered at MillionAir to catch the team charter to Miami. There were more than one hundred of us shuffling through the private security screening, but aside from the soft beep of the ticket scanner, it was silent. The players wore headphones, some shifting their weight, some bouncing lightly in place. Several of them twitched their fingers, others looked at the ceiling and blew out slow breaths.
Mo coughed into his elbow, then looked around guiltily. We all moved slowly forward.
“Hey.” Brent’s voice was barely above a whisper as he nudged me with his hip. He indicated the players. “You look worse than them. You okay?”
I read once about Giles Corey, the only man killed in the Salem witch trials. They laid a board on his chest and added boulders one at a time until he was pressed to death, and the only thing Corey said as they told him to confess his sins was “more weight.” That was what this season felt like. From the outside, the Bobcats were at the top of the football world. We were it—the likely champions, the ones everyone wanted a shot at and everyone wanted to be. But the reality was crushing. The pressure was crushing. And we were all failing to handle it in our own way.
“Yeah,” I managed. “I’m fine.”
And I was. I was never unsafe, not really, with Brent and Lexi and everyone else about to walk through the door. This was someone I knew, and I wasn’t drunk, and there was no knife to my throat, and my clothes were on the entire time. I didn’t bite him, I didn’t push him off. Right afterward, surrounded by people, I didn’t say anything. I celebrated our win. And so this wasn’t that—it was a humiliating misunderstanding.
I couldn’t believe I’d fucked up so thoroughly between the text messages and all my extra-bright smiles to make Coach Guillory think I was flirting with him. It was cell-shreddingly mortifying. On Monday I’d inched toward his office, feet sticking to the carpet, but he’d given me the same friendly smile as always, with nothing behind it, like a teller at a bank, and it was so good of him, so gracious that I almost wept. In fact, most of the week I’d found myself near the edge of tears, which underlined just how unbearable the pressures of this season had become.
I watched the back of James’s head disappear into the jet bridge and felt a guilty pang in my stomach. He’d been seduced by Abby, but here I was the seducer. I’d led on a grown man and then been shocked that he wanted to do something about it. And Abby. Girls like Abby, who muddied the waters between the personal and the professional, were the reason mistakes like this happened.
I was determined to make up for my screwups by working even harder. I was in by five fifty, diligently snipping away at the papers. Guillory Answers Prayers, read one headline. Red Alert—Coach Guillory Gets the Bobcats to First Super Bowl in 30 Years, read another. I methodically copied, pasted, and formatted article after article, over and over, about the wonders of Red Guillory. About what he had done for this team and for football and for this city. About how much everyone loved him.
* * *
*
People worked their entire lives and never made it to the Super Bowl, and at twenty-two I was here. Our team hotel was a quiet zone, with no media allowed, but it did nothing to create an oasis. We were overtuned guitar strings, all pulsing with a tension so strong it was amazing the lightbulbs didn’t shatter. Richard, Brent, and I worked around the clock in a ballroom set up as a makeshift office. I ate, sometimes, slept, occasionally, and otherwise just alternated between interviews, transcripts, and game notes.
On Friday I finished up Saturday’s media call sheet, then yawned and stretched my arms, which was of course the moment that Richard approached my desk.
“Tired?” he said as I hastily reset my posture. “It’s okay, I know these hours have been tough. That’s why,” he dug into his pocket, “I have a thank-you. Congratulations, Cinderella, you’re going to the ball.”
“The Commissioner’s party?”
Brent let out a low whistle. “That is one hot ticket.”
“What is it?”
“Well, if everything else you’ve seen this week is the career fair, that party is the prom.”
“And the game is the…?”
“Don’t strain the metaphor. Last year’s was in an airplane hangar in the middle of the Arizona desert. This time it’s on some little island that the guy from Seattle described to me as ‘that place in Pinocchio, before the shit hit the fan.’ ”
“Wow. Thank you.” I held the ticket back out to Richard. “Don’t you want it?”
“No, no—youth is for the young. Go have fun.”
* * *
*
On the advice of my mother, I’d brought one fancy outfit with me—a strapless, carbon-colored bubble dress that made me look ghostly pale. I already stood out against the deep tans of South Beach, and so I might as well lean into it. Giving myself a last look in the mirror, I decided I looked young and pretty. I looked happy.
The shuttle was mostly empty, with coaches and the front office getting ready for tomorrow. I took a seat near the back and pressed my face against the window to watch the Miami skyline slip by. The sun sinking into the water drenched the buildings in citrus oranges and pinks, the whole city lit like a nightclub. By the time we got through the Super Bowl weekend traffic and crossed a small bridge to the island, the last bits of light were gone. The air was hot and sticky, sweat already forming as I followed the few others from the shuttle to a torch-lined path. It disappeared into a tunnel of vines, twisting and winding its way through the darkness. After a claustrophobic minute it opened to a clearing surrounded by a lush man-made jungle. Strings of lights crisscrossed overhead, a supplement to the star-filled sky. White-shirted waiters balanced silver trays of champagne flutes, and a bouncy, brassy salsa drifted from a quartet.
“Pretty amazing, huh?” Bernie appeared in light khakis and a Hawaiian shirt that should have been charged with assault. He held a glass of champagne in one hand and three pigs in blankets in the other. He was trying to maneuver one into his mouth without dropping the other two. “Take this,” he said, thrusting the champagne at me in defeat. “It’s brand-new, I haven’t touched it.”
I sipped gratefully as he bit into the first pig. “I’ve never been anywhere like this before. I’m from Ohio and I live in Syracuse.”
“This is just the cocktail area. That path you walked in on loops around the whole island.” He pointed to the left, where the opening to the next tunnel gaped like a missing tooth. “You have to try it all before you go.”
Brian and Steven, two other beat writers, came through the tunnel and joined us. Brian had replaced his usual band T-shirt with a polo and a porkpie hat, while Steven kept his trademark blazer but wore a white V-neck T-shirt underneath. Steven clapped Bernie on the back. “You having some people over for the Weekend in that shirt, Bern?”
“Poppy’s too young for that reference, and I’ll have you know my wife bought me this shirt.”
Brian pointed toward the hors d’oeuvres. “I’m glad you found some food. Don’t want you wasting away in Margaritaville.”
“I will not be mocked by a man in that hat,” Bernie shot back.
“Hey, have you guys seen—anyone from the office?” I finished the champagne, and a waiter appeared at my elbow to swap the flute out for a full one.
Bernie shook his head. “We’ll walk with you, if you want to take the path.”
The four of us wandered to a second clearing, this one filled with buffet tables. Chefs waited, knife tips in the air, behind mammoth hunks of meat at the carving stations, while the smell of ice and brine rose from a bed-sized raw bar. A table groaned under the weight of every type of fruit imaginable, grapes plump to bursting dangling over the sides and pineapple leaves stretching toward the night sky.
“I love my job,” breathed Steven, heading for the raw bar. I picked up a small plate and browsed a surfboard on planks serving as a charcuterie platter, loading up on prosciutto and little dollops of seashell-shaped cheese.
I had just popped one of the seashells into my mouth when a warm hand pressed against my shoulder. I turned to see James at the same moment I gagged the shell into a napkin. “I thought that was cheese but it was butter,” I managed.
He laughed and moved the hand to my lower back. Instinctively, I danced away. James probably didn’t know these were our writers, and with most of the Bobcats staff huddled over their desks at the hotel, they were some of the only people we knew here. I washed the butter taste away with a swig of champagne and nodded toward the tunnel. “Do you want to take a walk?”
The clearings were spaced farther apart now, and James and I had several minutes alone in the tunnel as we walked. “You look good in women’s clothes,” he joked, a reference to the enormous team gear I often wore. His hand found mine and squeezed, and I met his eye in the light of the torches.
He was crushing me, I couldn’t breathe, my neck didn’t bend that way, my hair hurt, it would come out in his hands…
I licked at the spot on the inside of my lip where I’d bled. It had just about healed.
We heard the next space before we saw it, a live band, a dance floor of flashing lights, and a smoke machine. “You want to give it a try?” James asked, and I laughingly pulled him back onto the path. The night was clear and calm. Most people had stayed closer to the bars and food, and so it was quiet as the fading sounds of the band gave way to insects and birds. The path got sandier and sandier until it opened out onto a small beach. The water lapped against the shore beneath a paper moon, and the whole thing felt like a set from a play just waiting for us to take our places. I kicked off my sandals and let them dangle from my fingers as I followed James to a tree swing that faced the water. I sat and he pushed, cool palms against my hot skin. I let my toes trail through the sand as the swing rocked gently back and forth in time to the waves.
“Not bad for a corporate event,” he said.
“I’m starting to see why they don’t hold Super Bowls in Green Bay.”
James grabbed the ropes and held them steady. My pulse roared in my ears like the inside of a shell as he leaned down. My head turned, because my body remembered what to do even if my mind was broken, and then soft lips met mine. The salty scent of the ocean mixed with hot breath, a sea breeze lifted my hair as James tucked it behind my ear, and now the swing was still, and it was the world around that swayed.
It didn’t hurt and I wasn’t afraid.
We rode the shuttle back to the hotel, shoulder to shoulder. To the other staff we looked tired, professional, but in the darkness of the back seat our hands were clasped, James’s thumb rubbing gently against my palm. I ached to lay my head on his shoulder. “You should go up alone,” he whispered as the shuttle pulled back onto hotel property. “I don’t want to start any rumors.”
I nodded and gave him a last smile before hurrying across the lobby and into a waiting elevator. As the door glided shut I leaned back against the rail with a happy little sigh. There were good things waiting for me—parties and drinks and cool sand and warm kisses. Someday soon, when this crushing season was over, my life wouldn’t be only about football. There would be room for a relationship, hopefully with James. During the off-season we could go out to dinner, spend lazy weekends at his apartment, lying on the couch together under a blanket and making each other watch our favorite movies. We’d find a show that was just for us and binge it. In the summer, maybe we could take a trip, somewhere warm and sandy to re-create that island beach. Nothing would ever compare to tonight. But we could chase it, I thought, as I padded down the quiet hallway toward my room. We could have fun falling short. For the first time in a long time, there were things to look forward to.
When I slipped my key into the digital lock, the flash of red was like a warning light, and it hit me—I’d never dropped off the call sheet. Shit. I turned on my heel and raced back toward the elevator, cursing and jabbing at the buttons. The coaches needed that sheet for the morning, the day before the Super Bowl.
I bounced on my heels as I waited, and then forced myself through the doors before they’d slid all the way open. I held down the button for the second floor, where our workspace was, and leaned on it as if that would make the elevator move faster, praying that Richard had left the office unlocked.
When the door opened I took off my sandals again—this time not to wander a moonlit beach, but so I could half run down the hallway. Thankfully the knob turned, and I snatched the call sheet from where I’d left it on my desk. The coaches were on the lower level, and I didn’t want to take the elevator for fear it would stop back at the lobby and admit someone who would see me holding the call sheet I should have delivered hours ago, and so I followed the signs to a stairwell instead and scurried down two flights. I pushed open the door to find a canyon of empty ballrooms and dark conference spaces. All the lobby’s hustle and bustle was muted down here, where the walls had been built to absorb sound. Most of the lights were off, but dimmed sconces dotted the walls every few doorways, casting shadows that spilled up the cream-colored wallpaper.
My heart filled my throat as the hotel carpet curled around my toes. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten something so important. It was inexcusable. Absolutely inexcusable. I took a wrong turn, found myself at the end of a small hallway, and let out a grunt of frustration.
I retraced my steps, tried another hallway. Not one pen could be out of place when the coaches reached for it tomorrow. I wasn’t here to attend parties, I was here so that every ounce of their focus could stay on the game, the game, the game.
I turned the corner and gasped as I collided with someone so hard that it knocked my teeth together. “Ooof!” My tongue throbbed where I’d bitten it, the taste of blood now back. I swallowed and struggled to catch my breath. The call sheet lay on the carpet beside the other person’s left foot, and my eyes traveled from the paper up a set of bare legs and past a crooked skirt.
Abby.
Her normally peachy cheeks were streaked an angry red, and her mascara was badly smeared around one eye. Her chest heaved beneath a missing button on her blouse, and as our eyes met she raised a trembling hand against my open mouth.
Don’t.
She pushed past me and into a stairwell. I heard her feet pounding like the echo of my heart. And then the door swung shut and I was alone.
Not alone.
Because when I peered down the hallway that Abby had come from, every door was shut but one. It was at the very end, tunnel-visioned to a focal point. The lights in the room were off, but there was a lurking, hulking shadow, a smear of black among the gray.
I pressed myself against the wall, but I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t leave. I squinted toward the shape. It was the profile of a person, their face lost to the darkness. Hands reached for something at waist level—a belt?—and threaded one side through the other.
I knew whose office that was. I knew the shape of those shoulders, the rough power of those hands. And as I stood there, barely breathing, begging my feet to move, the shadow stretched, a hand reached out, and the door was quietly but firmly closed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
NOW
I tossed and turned, sharing my bed with Annika while Dayanna and Sarah used the guest room and Nisha took the couch. Exhausted, Annika dropped off to sleep, her brow smooth, but I couldn’t get comfortable. I gripped the sheets and stared at the ceiling, not wanting to bother her but unable to stand the feel of my skin.
I’d told Chloe twice now to come to me if anyone was inappropriate, and had asked her specifically about Red. When she said everything was fine, I had no reason not to believe her, because Chloe hadn’t grown up in the world that I did, where assault meant gags and zip ties, and good girls didn’t flaunt their bodies in front of men who couldn’t be expected to keep control. In college, I’d read about a woman raped at knifepoint in a park and realized that the park in question was twenty feet outside my freshman dorm. She later passed her rapist outside a bar that my friends and I liked to go to on Thursday nights and had a panic attack right there on the sidewalk. That was assault. It meant dirt in your hair and a grubby hand over your mouth. It meant fear for your life, and years afterward spent jumping at shadows. It meant being shattered.
If none of those things had happened, I’d thought then, I couldn’t have been assaulted. It’d be self-aggrandizing to even put myself in the same category as women who’d suffered such pain and fear. Besides, it was right there in our text messages—I’d led Red on, the beloved coach who’d just brought his team to the Super Bowl. I was at fault. I had to be. Or that’s what I’d always believed.
In today’s world, of course, women knew that all kinds of things qualified as assault. An entire spectrum of behavior was inappropriate. My memories of what happened in that anteroom formed when I was very young. Over time my beliefs evolved, but the memories didn’t. They’d locked in, become unimpeachable, until tonight forced me to go back and look again with the eyes of an almost forty-year-old woman. And I saw something completely different.
The simple truth was, if any of the other WAGS had told that story, there would be no doubt in my mind that they were describing an assault. It couldn’t be otherwise just because Red was someone dear to me. And now he was dead, and I had no idea what to do with this new perspective. I couldn’t confront him. I couldn’t tell anyone—how could I do that to his widow, Lexi? What would be the point?
Annika sighed in her sleep and pulled the covers toward herself. I let her have them.
It would have been bad enough if it had stopped there, but it hadn’t. Because my mistake—my stupid, youthful lack of understanding—had wrought serious consequences, and now I had to live with the fact that I wasn’t just a victim of Red’s criminal behavior.
