Making It Count, page 15
“Oh, okay.”
“I also want you to know that you’ve done great work for us in the past few weeks and that we’re not extending the same offer to some of the other interns, so that is a testament to what you’ve been able to show us in just a few weeks.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” Layne replied.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to let you keep your laptop and the monitor we sent you as a courtesy, and I hope you use them both with us next year, but even if you don’t, they’re all yours. We’re going to call yesterday your last official day of work, but we’re still going to pay you for the entire pay period through next week to help as much as we can. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any actual severance since it’s an internship program and it only started a few weeks ago.”
“Right. Okay.” Layne nodded, but she wasn’t actually hearing anything the woman was telling her.
Truthfully, the computer they’d sent was way better than her personal one, and she’d never had an external monitor before, so she was happy she’d get to keep all of that and the adaptors they’d sent with everything. She was also grateful that she’d have at least another week of getting paid, but she had no idea what she would do after that.
Her mom was still technically sick and couldn’t go back to work. This was the only money they had coming in. And her mom’s COVID-related medical bills would soon need to be paid since her benefits weren’t exactly great. Worse yet, they’d have rent to pay, and while there were extensions available to them now, Layne knew they might end up on the street unless she was able to figure something out soon.
When the meeting ended, Layne closed the computer, no longer needing to work that day. She had no idea how to tell her mom that the program was over and she’d just lost her job, so she just picked up the plate left for her and walked to the kitchen to do the dishes. After that, she went back to her bedroom and promptly crashed into her bed, feeling the weight of the world hit her.
Then, Layne coughed.
CHAPTER 19
Shay missed another shot and ran after the ball, trying to catch it before it ended up in the street. She’d missed thirteen shots in a row, which might be a new record for her. She thought an easy layup would help her get back on track, so she dribbled toward the basket and practically lifted the ball up, watching it promptly hit the rim and bounce off. The ball then proceeded to roll into the street and over into her neighbor’s grass.
“Fuck,” she whispered to herself and hurried across the street to pick it up.
She decided to switch it up and work on some dribbling exercises, which would undoubtedly go better than her shooting attempts, but she couldn’t find her rhythm. She knew why that was: she’d been off since receiving Layne’s last text message.
Layne: Okay.
That was it; one word. Layne’s messages had gotten shorter and shorter, and instead of them being every day how they’d been coming in before, after she’d told Shay about her mother being sick, Shay was lucky to get a message every other day. She knew Layne was dealing with a lot, but it was August now. They’d gone a whole six weeks without talking and with only a few messages exchanged between them. Shay didn’t want to make Layne feel bad about not being available more, and they weren’t technically dating or anything, but they’d at least been moving in that direction, so Shay had been expecting a little more than a text every two to three days from the woman she liked and who, she knew, liked her back.
“Okay. I will. I have to go. Bye, uh… babe, I guess,” Layne had said, and that had been the last thing she’d said to Shay. They hadn’t actually talked since.
“Honey, I’m sure she’s just busy taking care of her mother,” Shay’s mom said at dinner that night.
“I know. And I don’t want to bug her or appear like I’m clingy or anything, but I’m worried about her, Mom. They don’t… Well, they’re not exactly rich, and her mom doesn’t have vacation days or anything, so if she’s still really sick and can’t work, I just… I’m worried. Layne told me what she makes at her internship, and it’s not much. It’s barely above minimum wage. So, I’m worried about her mom being that sick, Layne catching it, and the fact that I know they can’t exactly afford for her mom to be sick like that. I’m sure it’s weighing on both of them, and I want to be there for her.” Shay pushed her dinner plate away.
“I know you do, honey. But she might want or need to handle it alone right now. I’m sure she wants to talk to you; it’s not that. She’s busy with a lot right now. Just be patient.”
“I am being patient. It’s not like I expect her to call me just so we can talk about whatever’s been going on between us or anything. I can wait for that. I just want to know she’s okay and help if I can. I hate that she’s so far away, Mom. I hate that I can’t just see her when I want. At least, we had our daily calls and video chats. But now, I don’t even have those.”
“You really do like her, don’t you?”
“I do, yeah. I’m still so mad at myself for not seeing it before. She was there for four years. I never took the time to try to get to know her, and I should have.”
“Honey, not everyone wants people to get to know them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, based on what little you’ve told me about her, it sounds like Layne kept to herself, mostly.”
“Yeah, but our team wasn’t that big.”
“You know how you just told me that her family isn’t well off?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Dunbar isn’t a cheap school. It’s not a state school, honey. It’s not as expensive as some, yes, but it’s also not as cheap as some others. You’ve talked about a lot of your teammates over the years, and I know you think your dad and I don’t listen, but we do. They all seem… well, like you: basketball or bust, with outgoing personalities. Maybe Layne didn’t want to draw attention to herself because she didn’t feel like she fit in with that group. And you’re just now getting to know her because she trusted you enough to be herself with you. I think that’s a good thing. Also, beating yourself up over the past won’t change it, so it might be time to just embrace where you are now, plan where you want to go next, and worry about that.”
“I’d like to talk to her about all that. Things are starting to open up now, but I don’t know if she’s moving to Chicago or if they are still letting her work remotely.”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Chicago is closer to Dunbar than where she is now. So, yeah, a little.”
“If she’s there, you’d be able to see her more?”
“Maybe. She said she could come to some of our games. I guess I had this image of her driving down on Friday night, staying with me, coming to a Saturday night home game, then staying another night, and driving back on Sunday for work on Monday. But we’re not a couple, so I got ahead of myself here. I think now, I just want to know where she stands. Maybe she’s somehow met someone else, and this is her ghosting me to try to be nice, but it’s actually really mean.” Shay’s eyes widened then, and she looked over at her mom. “Mom, what if she’s met someone else? I just realized that’s a possibility.”
Her mom chuckled and said, “Where would she even meet her, and with what spare time, Shay?”
“There are other interns in her program. She has a job now. She could’ve met someone there. Maybe they’re doing long-distance over the phone, like we were.”
“Shay, I highly doubt that’s the case.”
“But how would I know? I like her, Mom. I don’t want to be sitting around here waiting for her to call me only to find out she has someone else months from now.”
“Then, ask her.”
“I told you; I’m trying to give her space to deal with everything there.”
“Then, wait until she calls.”
Shay grunted and said, “I’m going to my room.”
Her mom laughed and replied, “She’ll call, Shay. Just think about it from her side of things; pretend me and your dad both got sick for a minute.”
“What? No!”
“Just pretend we have bad colds, but we can’t really go to work or take care of ourselves. You’d have to do just about everything around here. You’d have to feed us, make sure we’re sleeping, taking our medication, and clean up after us. Now, picture you have a full-time job that means you’re busy for forty-hours a week at least on top of that, and you need to sleep yourself.”
“Okay. I get it.”
“It’s a lot. She’ll call. She just needs time.”
“You’re right. I’ll try to chill.” Shay stood up. “Dad still working?”
“Yes. I’ll bring him a plate. Can you do the dishes?”
“Sure,” she replied.
While Shay was finishing cleaning up in the kitchen, she tried to picture Layne having to do this while her mom was sick, and she wished she could talk to her, see her face, know that Layne was okay for real, and maybe offer some words of encouragement. Instead, Shay went down to her apartment and decided to start packing up her stuff since she had to report to campus in two weeks so that they could have enough time to move everyone back into the dorms and still keep everyone spaced out. She’d also have their off-season workouts starting shortly after, so she needed to get her shooting back on track and stop letting this stuff with Layne get to her so much.
Her phone rang, and she rushed over to it, hoping to see Layne’s face on the screen, but instead, it was only her coach’s name. Shay shook her head in disappointment and answered.
“Hey, Coach.”
“Hey. I wanted to make sure you were still good getting to campus a little early.”
“Yeah, I’m good. I’m packing now, actually. Why?”
“We’ve been approved for all those off-season workouts I mentioned before, which is good. I think the NCAA realized that they’re going to need to relax some rules this season because everyone was trapped indoors for months, unable to work out in the right ways for their sports. Anyway, I’m working on the plan now, so I wanted to make sure you were still good. I’m calling everyone else, too.”
“All good. I’ll be there.”
“Great. I also wanted to know something. Have you heard from Layne recently?”
“Um… Yeah. She texted me the other day. Why?”
“She didn’t answer when I called.”
“Why did you call Layne?” Shay sat on the side of her bed.
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Layne enrolled in Dunbar as a graduate student.”
“She did what?”
“I don’t know the specifics. She just sent me an email asking if she could play again, and I said yes because she has the fifth year of eligibility. I thought she would’ve told you.”
“She didn’t. When was this?”
“Last week. She had to be accepted into the university’s program first.”
“She’s… she’s coming back?” Shay asked no one in particular.
Silently, she followed that with, ‘And she didn’t tell me?’
“She is. I’m guessing they made an exception for her. Given COVID, they’re making exceptions all around, and they might have let her in late because of that. Either way, we get her back on the team, which is fantastic because I need more experience. We lost a lot of seniors after last season. Now, we have one more, even though she’s a grad student. Anyway, if you hear from her, can you have her call me? I’ll email her, too, just to verify. She’s really the one I’m worried about since it’s all happening last-minute with her.”
“I’ll tell her, yeah,” Shay replied.
“Great. Thanks, Shay. I know it’s going to be a weird season, but we’ll make it through it together.”
“Yes, Coach,” she replied and hung up.
Shay’s first instinct was to call Layne and yell at her for not telling her that she was going back to Dunbar. Her second instinct was to smile because Layne was going back to Dunbar. They were going to be playing together again, living down the hall from each other, and they could finally talk in-person about what was going on between them. She decided that a text message was at least in order here because, as good as that all sounded, she was still a little upset that Layne hadn’t told her.
Shay: Hey. Coach just called me to ask me something, but she said you’re coming back to Dunbar. You’re a grad student now? She asked me to tell you to call her because she needs to talk to all of us about the off-season plan. And, Layne, can you just send me a text that’s more than one word, please? I know you’re busy. I hope your mom’s okay. I’m just really confused, and I want to call you, but I’m trying not to make this about me and what I need. So, I went with this. I hope you’re okay, too, by the way.
She hit send before she could think too much about it and went about figuring out what she was going to bring back to school for her fifth year there. She knew it would be a strange season, like Coach had said. They all still had to be incredibly careful not to get sick, and it wouldn’t be how it was any other year. They’d all lost something. The ability to be in the same room watching film together without masks and having to spread out their chairs, for one. The team dinners would also likely not happen in the same way. They’d have to adapt. But if they did that well enough, they had a chance to have a good season and maybe get back to where they were before everything went to shit in the spring.
When her phone sounded, Shay hurried over to it, and while she didn’t see Layne’s face on the screen, she did have a message from her.
Layne: I’ll explain more when I see you in a couple of weeks. I’m sorry, Shay. Things have been hard here. I’m doing the best I can, but I lost the internship. They ended the program because of COVID. I got a remote job working customer service, and that’s, like, fifty hours a week, but it’s helping us get by right now. My mom is getting better. She’s had a negative test, and she’s going back to work next week. I applied to the MBA program thinking that I wouldn’t get in since I was so late, but they let me in; probably because I’m a student-athlete. I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t know what else to do. If I go back to school on scholarship, my room and board is paid for, so my mom doesn’t have to worry about feeding me, too, you know? I’m only eligible for my basketball scholarship this year, so I don’t know whether I’ll actually finish the program or not. I can do the internship again starting next summer. They told me I’d get my spot back. Everything is just so hard right now. My mom told me she didn’t want me to just hang around here and answer chats from rude customers for the rest of my life. She didn’t tell me that she was kicking me out, but it was close enough. She means well. I know that. Going back to Dunbar just seemed like the safe thing for me to do right now. I can postpone worrying about everything else and focus on school and basketball again. I didn’t tell you because I just got accepted officially last week, and I needed to make sure Coach would honor my scholarship, or I couldn’t afford to go anyway. Things have been busy around here, but I’m wrapping everything up that I can, and with my mom going back to work, I think she’ll struggle with me back at school. I am sorry, though. I’m going to focus on getting things taken care of here, but I’ll see you back at school soon, okay?
“Well, at least it was more than one word,” Shay said to herself.
CHAPTER 20
This was not the direction her life was supposed to take. Layne had done all the right things, taken all the right steps, and here she was, right back at Dunbar University, where she’d already spent four years and was supposed to only see again if she came back to campus to watch a basketball game. She’d never planned on going to graduate school because she hadn’t needed it for the job she wanted. And she’d never imagined herself being able to afford to go to a school for four years and pay for it without massive loans, so graduate school had been completely out of the question. COVID had changed all of that.
Layne sat in her car, which was packed with her stuff. She had a full trunk and a full back seat and was sitting just outside her old dorm building, waiting for her slot to move her stuff in solo. Although, it wasn’t her old building anymore; it was her current building, and the same room she’d lived in for the past two years was about to be her home again for the next year.
After that, she would no longer be on scholarship because she wouldn’t be eligible for a sixth year unless there were some more pandemic-related rule changes from the NCAA that would impact her. It wouldn’t matter. Layne tried to look at the bright side as she pulled her car up and saw someone with a clipboard and a mask on pointing to her to roll down her passenger window.
“Name?”
“Layne Stoll,” she replied.
“You’re up. You’ve got an hour to get everything from the car. Just get it all upstairs, and you can unpack it later, okay?”
“Okay,” she replied.
The bright side was that Layne’s mom was good now and back at work. The woman wasn’t all better yet, but the coughing was gone, and the fever had broken weeks ago, so she was mainly dealing with fatigue. Layne had found a job after the internship had ended unexpectedly, and she’d worked a minimum of fifty hours each week, taking as much overtime pay as she could to help her mom out as much as possible. She couldn’t get a part-time job while in school and playing basketball, but she planned to try to tutor to earn extra cash, and when the season was over, she’d get something part-time before probably doing her internship again. It was the best she could do right now. She had offered to keep her job and live at home until the internship started back up, but her mom wouldn’t allow it.
“You’re not giving up a year of your life because I got sick. If that school lets you back in, you’re going,” she’d ordered.
Her mom had promised to be even more careful at work and not to take any housecleaning gigs for a while because they were both convinced that was where she’d gotten it from in the first place.
Layne got out of her car, checked that her mask was secure, and began with the stuff in the back seat. Her room was on the third floor, but at least there was an elevator. She needed it, too. She couldn’t carry the mini-fridge or the microwave up three flights of stairs today. Unlocking her door brought back so many memories as she moved into the room quickly. The window was open, which was good, and she dropped the fridge onto the floor and quickly sat down on the mattress. She needed a minute to catch her breath. She took that time and went back down in the elevator for more of her stuff until she was finally able to drive her car to the parking lot.
