The Proposal, page 11
Me: Go to bed.
Gingersnap: If you can’t handle them, I can do it.
I tapped her name above the message.
She picked up after the fourth ring with a tentative. “Hello?”
“Zara. I’ll say it again because it doesn’t seem like my messages are getting through to you. Go to sleep. I have it handled.”
“But—”
“No buts. You sent me the list. Everything on the list will be completed by the time I see you tomorrow. I’m holding up my end of our deal. Go to sleep.”
“But—”
“I’m turning off my phone now. If anything on my list has been completed by anyone other than me, I’ll maybe tell Kathleen we’ve hit a rough patch and have called off the engagement. I’ll let her know the stress of all this work was getting to you, but Simply Stark is more than happy to take on the account to give you a break.”
“You wouldn’t.” Her voice became a high hiss.
“Try me. Go to bed. Let me handle it.”
The boiling, three-seconds-from-bursting vein that throbbed in her neck was probably thumping out hatred for me in Morse code. “I’ve got some time.”
“No, you don’t. Goodnight, Zara.”
Her tinny far away voice was silenced when I touched the red button on my screen.
“Everything is ready for Friday. So we have time to get a jump start on the next event.”
“Are my bloodshot eyes not enough information on how that’s not happening today? We have another day.” I rubbed my eyes and squinted at my phone. It was already after ten. We’d been at this since ten this morning.
“You said last night you were on board.” She rubbed her eyes and dropped into the chair opposite me at the table.
“I was, but every time we get through one of your lists, you come up with three hundred new things to do. No one is going to notice handwritten tent cards for a table. People don’t care if the fake pumpkins are hand painted for extra realism.” I picked at the orange paint stuck to my knuckles. “How about your bloodshot eyes?”
“They’re not bloodshot.”
I slid my tablet with the camera over to her side of the table.
She shoved it away without looking. “Even if they are, it doesn’t matter. There are so many things that can go wrong. We can keep things fluid until we see how the first event goes, but a basic idea will cut out half the work once we’re ready.”
“Celebration is part of life.”
“We can celebrate when Kathleen says she loved everything we did so much we’re getting bumped up to the big leagues.”
“When you go for my jugular?”
“I don’t need to. You’ll get bored and tap out before we’re done with this.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The fact that you’ve looked at your phone fifty times in the past hour.”
I glanced up from my screen. The message I’d sent out to an email I’d found for a producer Sports Central hadn’t gotten a response yet. “Maybe I’m googling ways to off myself using office equipment. But if you’re so assured of your win, we don’t need to keep up the engagement pretense. We can walk up to Kathleen tomorrow and tell her you lied during our pitch to get on her good side.”
The blood drained out of Zara’s face.
It wasn’t that I took pleasure in her pain—no, that’s a lie. I found her freak-outs hilarious. The way her nose scrunched up and her eyes got saucer wide. Her lip would usually fall free from her teeth and her gaze narrowed. It would be a wonderful look when I signed on the dotted line with Winthorpe when we finished.
There wasn’t anything to even feel bad about. I was beating her at her own career. Every new idea had come from me. Everything tired and boring came from her.
Cocktails. High hat tables. Waiters passing hors d’oeuvres. Another boring stringed quartet playing songs from long dead composers everyone pretended to be able to tell apart.
“Let’s compromise. One idea from you and one from me. We can keep that coming and give them something they’ve never seen before.”
She dropped her head and squeezed her forehead. “If you say—”
“Axe throwing,” we both said at the same time.
“What the hell is it with you and axe throwing?” She slapped her notepad down on the table.
“Have you ever done it? Taken the wooden handle in your hands and launched a piece of sharpened metal at your target and gotten the satisfaction of seeing splinters of wood fly out as the weapon you wielded flew through the air and hit its mark?”
“That’s some testosterone madness right there. Did you take a few too many hits to the head out on the football field?”
My fist tightened around the mug, cracking the handle. “I’m out of here.” I grabbed my coat from the back of my chair. “You run yourself into the ground if you want. Stay up all night. If you fall asleep in the middle of the campfire on Friday, that’s on you.”
“Sorry about what I said.” She rested her head on her hands, driving her thumbs into the corners of her eyes and pressing on the sides of her nose.
Had I said I found her hilarious? Scratch that. “Save it for someone who cares.”
15
Leo
Dragging myself out of bed, I felt like I’d been run over by half my team from last season. Mentally, I’d put Zara up against any opposing QB and watch him break. But she wasn’t the only reason I’d popped two ibuprofen this morning.
I rolled up to the house, idling in the driveway for a while trying to decide if I wanted to go in here. The lone vehicle in the driveway was a truck with a Wilder Landscaping logo on the side. It looked smaller to me than it had, growing up. Inside those walls had never felt like a place I could breathe, but there were happy memories there, too.
August and me playing touch football on the front lawn. August and Jameson’s punt return in seventh grade that had landed on the roof of the house next door. We tried every tree in their yard to get up there. Once we found a ladder and scrambled onto the roof, it was nowhere to be found. It had probably melted into the shingles by now.
Get it over with. If you go in, you can be out before we’re not alone anymore and that’ll make it even worse.
Hesitation stalled me on the front steps. The paperwork sat in my coat pocket. I grabbed the delivery package sitting on the steps. Shoving my key in the lock, I turned it—or tried to. A cold front washed over me. I pocketed my key and knocked, standing outside like a stranger on the porch.
The door opened and the man everyone said I looked so much like stared back at me. Only, I’d never seen the similarity.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Leo.” He stood in the doorway like I was a vacuum salesman trying to sell him the top priced model.
“Can I come in?”
He jolted and stepped out of the way, letting me in and closing the door behind him. “What brings you here?”
Setting the box down next to the pile of others by the front door, I bit my tongue before responding. “I can’t come by and see my old man? See how you’re doing?”
“Of course you can. Did you want a beer?” He was already halfway to the kitchen. Whether I wanted one or not didn’t matter.
“I’m good.”
The unmistakable crack of two bottles being opened came from the kitchen.
“I drove here, Dad.”
He scoffed. “One beer isn’t going to hurt.” Shoving the bottle into my hand, he dropped into his favorite recliner, flipping the leg rest out.
“How many jobs did you have this week?”
“Not enough. We’ve reseeded everyone, so now it’s waiting around until the snow shows up.”
I’d hated my summers lugging soil from the truck to flower beds and gardens all over what felt like the tristate area, but was actually only a few towns where my dad had carved out enough clients to keep him running—barely.
Other kids went to summer training camps in football states, I helped with the family businesses. During the days, I’d sweat through two t-shirts a day sodding, mowing, and seeding lawns. At night, I’d rush off to catering jobs Felix would throw my way, and load up on mini foods while trying not to fall asleep during droning speeches or award ceremonies for salesman of the year.
“Maybe you need to pull back from doing the work yourself. You’re not getting any younger. Look at Felix, he was younger than you.”
Dad let out a disgruntled chuckle. “Felix was soft.”
My jaw clenched. “He wasn’t soft.”
He leveled his gaze at me.
I scrubbed my hand down my face. We were not getting into the Felix argument again. They’d never been close, and once Felix had married Sam, their strained relationship became even more tenuous. But I hadn’t missed the brush of Dad’s hand against Felix’s cheek at the funeral. My dad’s fucked up way of showing emotions was nothing more than I’d expect from him. He’d fallen into a 1950s view of what being a man was and how you showed you cared. Wasn’t this insanity? Coming back when I knew what the outcome would be?
But I’d made him a promise.
“What you said about work. That’s part of the reason I was here.”
He jumped forward, spilling some of his beer on his shirt. “They team will take you back.”
Disappointment cratered in my chest. Take me back. No matter how many times we went over this it came back to when would I play again. “I quit, Dad. After talking to my doctors, I decided I’d rather walk, talk, and run for the next sixty years or so.”
Grumbling about quitters never winning, he leaned back in his chair.
My hand tightened around the cold condensation of the beer bottle. I slammed it down on the table, not caring about the foam spray.
I shook the paper and a pen free from my coat pocket. “If you want the last of the money, you need to sign this.”
That got his attention.
“When will it be here? I have a lot of plans for that money.” He snatched up the paper and scribbled his name across the line with a yellow sticky note behind it.
“They’ll deposit it in a few days.”
“Doesn’t make any sense how you locked yourself away from your own money.”
My dad had lived invoice to invoice for as far back as my memory stretched. “Savings” and “cash flow” had been foreign words to him. He also had no idea what it was like to have people crawling out of the woodwork thinking that being a pro player meant I’d won the lottery. If only it was that easy.
Protecting my money for future medical expenses and a long life ahead of me meant keeping it from myself. I thought back to the day my dad came to ask for my help. Before that, he hadn’t spoken to me since the announcement that I’d be leaving the team.
But he came to me, teary-eyed about losing his business, letting his employees go, and hurting all the families who depended on him. The choice had seemed simple until Felix showed up a week later. But the money Felix had needed and the money I had access to would’ve been like flinging a cup of water on a house fire. If I’d had to make the decision over again, it’s hard to know which way I would have gone.
Felix dying shook me to my core. If my career hadn’t already been over, I don’t know that I’d have lasted much longer on the other side of the country, worrying about my dad and Felix. But he was gone now, so my dad was all I had left.
“It means no one’s stealing any money from me and I can make choices in my life that aren’t driven purely by bills.”
“Must be nice. All those practices I took you to.”
We were in a time loop. His words, the same look of disappointment, and his own memories of what it was like growing up.
“All those practices, Dad? I walked or got rides to all but maybe three. And those were because you were on your way to plowing.”
“Some kids were taken to none. You should be happy I found time to take you to any.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, the throb in my head getting worse. “Can we not do this?”
“Do what? You’re the one bringing up the past.”
The front door flew open.
“Oscar, can you help me with these bags?” Faith came in with her arms filled with department store bags. She stopped short when she spotted me. “What are you doing here?”
For a moment, I’d been the golden child—back when she’d gotten to post pictures on social media in the club boxes or sit beside my dad for interviews with the local paper about a hometown hero. Then she’d been glowing, talking about how dedicated and driven I’d been growing up.
Nothing but praise for the same kid who’d had to go live with Felix and Sam for half of my junior year when things got too strained at home. She’d hung a banner on the front of the house with my picture on it to celebrate the draft and my championship, even deep in Philly sports territory.
“I thought you changed the locks.” Her gaze narrowed and she set down the bags.
“Leo was here for me to sign the papers for the last of the money we needed.”
Her dismissive snort grated my nerves and the headache I’d thought I’d gotten rid of came flaring up.
“We wouldn’t be in this position if he hadn’t thrown away all our hard work.”
I snapped up from my seat. “All your—” Shoving my fist against my mouth, I took a deep breath. “See you later, Dad.”
“Let me know if the money is going to be delayed.” He called after me on the way to my car.
If I had the chance to make that decision again…
The angry vibration of my phone ripped me from the silent simmer session I’d been swimming in, sitting in my car. Who the hell called anymore? Telemarketers and my dad.
“What?”
There was a stalled hello. “H-Hi, Leo. It’s Zara. You… completed everything we had left on the list.”
“Is that an accusation? Sorry for pulling my weight, Zara. I’m sorry I completed more tasks than a trained chimp could do and did something without you telling me to do it.”
“I was calling to say thank you, but now I think of it, you’re right. How condescending of me to call and see if you needed anything before we head up to Bartram Manor tomorrow. I’ll see you at seven.” She ended the call.
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, clipping the horn and startling some older ladies walking across the parking garage of my building. They stared at me like I was deranged before rushing for the elevators.
Waiting in my car until they were gone, I got out my phone again and sent off a message.
Me: Went to visit my dad today
August: On my way
Me: I didn’t say it to get you to come over
August: Maybe not, but I still am
Inside my apartment, I felt antsy and ready to hit something. Staring at the old frame on my bookcase, I took deep breaths, holding them for longer and longer until my heart rate slowed. My mom’s glowing smile and bright eyes stared back at me. She cradled me in her arms, both of us wearing hospital arm bands. It was the only picture I had of us together.
Me: Thanks
I grabbed my jump rope and opened the French doors to the minuscule balcony that hung off my building like it was clinging on for dear life. Falling into the rhythmic slap of the rope against the floors, I let the sweat, anger, and frustration leaked from my pores and roll down my back.
My apartment door swung open.
“Cheddar, Caramel, or Butter?” August set an oversized blue striped tin a few feet in front of him and nudged it toward me with his foot like I was a crazy zoo animal ready to rip his arm off.
“How’d you know it was three alarm popcorn day?”
“Mr. Pro Football, you seem to forget I was there in the third grade when you discovered this magical tub. And I took half the blame when Mrs. Fitzpatrick realized the whole thing had been devoured before anyone could get seconds.”
“She shouldn’t have left it unattended during recess.” I sat on the floor and popped the lid. The flood of sweet, salty, and cheesy goodness lifted my mood.
“Definitely her fault for leaving it in a locked classroom while she supervised the class for thirty minutes.”
The first handful of caramel corn was a sugary-sweet explosion. Nothing topped this—well, not nothing, but right now with August my options were limited.
“I’d say her supervision skills needed some work. I snuck away, didn’t I?”
“Come on, I don’t need a replay of every kernel that makes it into your mouth. Let me get some.”
I knocked his hand away and clutched the tin to my chest. “And this is why they called me Rollie Pollie until eighth grade.”
He wrestled the tin away from me mid-bite.
“Growing a foot in a couple months in seventh grade certainly has a way of shutting people up.”
“It did. Back then, that nickname was the biggest worry I had.”
“Times change, huh?”
I looked around my brand new three thousand square foot apartment, with shiny top-of-the-line appliances, and exposed brick walls. “They sure as hell do.”
“You have permission to feel sorry for yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You think I didn’t see that re-centering you did? You looked around your place and said, ‘I’ve got no right to feel sorry for myself.’ There’s no suffering Olympics, and no one’s getting gold medals for it. We all deal with our own shit in our own way. You can bitch to me. No judgement.”
I stole the tin back.
“Okay, maybe a little judgement. But, seriously. You’ve been so quiet since ‘retirement’.” He added air quotes.
“What’s there to say? I got my bell rung one too many times. I left the team. Gave up on my dream. I—”
“I lied. Judgement totally incoming. You didn’t give up on your dream. You lived it. No dream like that is forever unless you planned on dying out on the field. It’s like happiness.” He held up one fully popped kernel. “One second it’s here.” He stuck it into his mouth. “And the next it’s been devoured by a heartless creature, never to be seen again.”
