CHAPTER 10
Week 2 – Sunday, September 14
“Tell me again why we’re not sitting in a fancy VIP box up there, laughing at the masses and gesturing with champagne in our hands?” Lara asked.
“Because we can support our men through thick and thin. And cold,” a woman named Erica said beside her, rubbing her arms to generate heat. Slade had made a point to tell his receiver—and instant friend—Rodger Hart that I was eager to meet some of the partners behind the players, and Rodger agreed. His wife, Erica, was waiting for Lara and me in the stands when we arrived for the four o’clock game, greeting us with impeccable ease and hugging me on sight. She had one of those faces that exuded kindness, a softness to her features that caused me to connect with her as soon as we introduced ourselves. Her olive skin and hazel eyes added to the warmth, and every time she addressed me, she paused and listened, genuinely interested in what I had to say. It helped that she smiled every time she spoke, ready to answer questions or point out Slade and Rodger. Even when exclaiming over certain tackles or harsh calls by the refs, she grinned, reminding me that our presence in this stadium was a lucky, wonderful thing.
I turned to Lara but busted out laughing instead of commenting. She’d been wrapped up tight since we found our seats, but every time I looked at her, I was reminded how hysterical it was.
It was unseasonably cold for early September, and Lara was a fitting example of it. She wore one of Slade’s team jackets—the away colors since he was wearing his home color jacket to the game. It was about three sizes too big for her, but she wore an extra-large, extra-long blue and white wool scarf around her neck to compensate. Nothing but her little button nose and beady green eyes peeped out. A red and blue ball cap was pulled all the way down to her brows.
Of course, never one to be defeated by baggy shirts, she completed the outfit with her platform booties and skinny jeans.
I was much better prepared but not nearly as warm. With the title of Slade’s girlfriend for almost a year came preparation for his games, and I had my own outfits, both away and home.
Today I was in a white, fitted, quilted jacket. It puffed out like a marshmallow, but the belt at the waist at least gave the illusion of my figure. Underneath, I wore Slade’s away jersey because I wanted to feel him on me, especially during his games.
I even wore blue knit mittens, which Lara declared adamantly she didn’t need because “it’s fucking September, and I’m not wearing fucking mittens in September.”
“Hang on. Is something happening?” Lara asked, toddling her full body into a turn. Her neck was too stiff with wool to move independently.
“I think so,” Erica said, standing on her toes. “Look, watch Slade.”
Because Slade’s team was nearing the end zone, everyone on our side, including us—and Lara, although extremely reluctantly—was standing and cheering. “I still don’t get it, why aren’t there damn announcers like there are on TV?” Lara’s muffled voice asked. “Why must we suffer through this in silence? I don’t even know what this means.”
“Why do I bother explaining the game to you?” I said over the cheers, clapping with thumps of my mittens. “When what I tell you might as well be puffs of air that enter your ears before wisping back out.”
“Listen, I understand announcers in speakers. And I absorb information even better in VIP booths, where I have alcohol and fucking chocolate-dipped ice cream. Now look at me.” She hunched forward. “I’m forsaken.”
“You’re practically on the field at the fifty-yard line. You know how expensive these tickets are normally?” I had to tilt right to shout in her ear. The crowd was stirring up for the next play. Slade was getting ready to hike the ball at the twenty-yard line.
“You know how expensive the VIP box is normally?” she fired back.
“It takes a while,” Erica said. “But then once you get used to the live plays, you’ll never be able to go back to simple television. Your answers are in the crowd. Their reactions are all you’ll ever need to decipher what’s going on down there.”
“It would help if they were naked,” Lara said. “Then my attention wouldn’t keep drifting. Is that salty, delicious pretzel I smell?”
I shook my head and smiled, my eyes no longer on Lara but glued on Slade. Lara knew full well why we were here in the stands rather than up high and separate. I preferred disappearing into the crowd, just being one of the fans. They loved Slade like I did, and I wanted to cheer with them, not above them. After commiserating with Erica, we realized we felt the same way and vowed to find each other in the stands every time we came to a game.
Lara was just being cranky because she was cold and had grown up in a desert climate. By the age of eleven, she was already sunning herself in the backyard of her circa-1950s mobile home. She and I had lived in a trailer court in Flagstaff, where she not-so-affectionately referred to her aluminum residence as “vintage.” We met because our fathers worked together at an excavation company and were neighbors.
We hated each other.
So much so that Lara took scissors to my ponytail when we were six, and I broke into her trailer (actually, her mom let me in) and took grape juice to her favorite dress as revenge. It was only when we were eleven years old and lost our fathers in the same year—hers left her family, mine passed away—that we began to lean on one another. Then, through solace, we began to love each other.
“Oh! Something is happening!” Lara said.
Tension clouded the air. Anticipation was abundant, bodies beginning to shift and jump and stomp.
In my reverie, I didn’t notice Slade had made it to the ten-yard line—it was first and goal. Two minutes left in the fourth quarter, and he was potentially one play away from a touchdown. The score was 23-30, and his team was losing. This one play could be the win, and it wouldn’t be through the normal way—with a touchdown and then an extra point kick where the kicker comes out on the field and arcs the ball in between the giant white prongs. With this score, only a two-point conversion would work.
“A what?” Lara asked me when I told her this development.
“Instead of kicking an extra point after a touchdown, a team has the option of running a play from the two yard line,” I said, pointing. “And if they successfully get into the end zone, they can then make a touchdown worth eight points instead of the usual seven.”
“Ah. I have no idea what you’re saying,” Lara said, nodding anyway. “But okay. Eight points for the win.”
“Aw.” I side-hugged her. “You got the gist of it.”
“Watch and learn,” Erica said.
I stilled as the crowd roared, my stomach doing enough flips to compensate for the rest of my frozen body. This was the best and worst part—if Slade made this, amazing. If he didn’t, wrenching.
He bent down, yelling the play to his teammates.
Then, in a clump of grunts and thumps, I lost the ball.
Slade hopped back, clutching the ball in front of his chest. It was a fake. It appeared as though one of his other teammates had the ball and served as a distraction. He threw it, not an arc but a bullet, right over the heads of the helmeted mass. My eyes flew in all directions as I deciphered the play. To the left, a body darted out—Rodger Hart—and in a fluid jump, he caught the ball in the end zone. His right leg landed and screams echoed from the crowd. His left leg landed in a twist, and he fell on his back and rolled.
Yells, screeches, and hysteria exploded through the stadium as everyone waited for the ref to make the call. The ref held both arms up in a V after two short bursts from his whistle, and even Lara knew what that meant.
“Touchdown!” she yelled, making her own V.
I waited, and after a moment, Lara gave me a sidelong look through her V. “Why aren’t you cheering, woman?”
I said in her ear, “There’s a challenge.”
On cue, a wave of boos washed over us along with a lot of other expletives.
“What? Challenge what? That hot stud o
f male caught the ball!”
I shook my head and bent toward her ear again. “His left foot. It might’ve landed on the sideline.”
“What the fuck does that mean? Speak English.”
“He might’ve landed out of bounds.”
“What?” She couldn’t hear me. The calls and cries were deafening now, demanding justice.
“It might be out of bounds!” Erica yelled.
“What?”
I pulled my hands out of my pockets and threw them up. “Foul ball!”
“Oh! Why didn’t you just say that?”
It wasn’t a football term, but it was one of the only sports analogies she understood. Erica laughed gaily at Lara’s reaction.
I turned back to the field where Slade was stomping his feet to keep warm, his hands on his hips as he stood with his coach on the sideline and conversed.
A ref walked to the center of the field, and the crowd quieted somewhat, which meant not really, as his amplified voice echoed throughout the stadium.
“After review of the play, the call on the field will stand.”
I ducked, an automatic reaction to the earsplitting answer of the crowd celebrating and affirming their previous belief in their team.
Lara’s arms split into a V again. “Touchdown!” She looked at me questioningly, her ball cap obscuring the top half of her eyes. “Touchdown?”
“Yes!” I jumped up and clapped this time, doing my own V. Both of us screamed, “Lucky Thirteen! You’re so hot!” which he couldn’t hear, but I loved saying it, anyway.
Because, well, I loved my Lucky Thirteen.