But of course, he had still felt guilty. “I did that to Isaiah,” he’d told me. “I caused it to happen.” And since then, he’d been…
“Do you want to go for a walk?” I suggested. “On a hike? To the lake? To a museum? To the lighthouse?” I could have kept going, but he had started shaking his head when I’d first spoken and he continued swinging it from side to side.
“I have a lot of stuff to do,” he told me.
That was probably true. As I’d recently learned, it was hard to start a new job. You had to memorize their procedures and figure out how you’d accomplish your new duties. Even though he had been working for the Woodsmen before, this position was totally different. He had a different office, he had told me. “Theymoved the sliding nameplate out of the old door and stuck it in the new one,” he’d explained. “I guess they don’t expect anyone to stay very long so they don’t make it more permanent.”
Shane hadn’t been spending much time in that office, though. “A lot of the guys are working from home right now,” he’d explained further. “They don’t mind me being here instead of at the stadium.”
Maybe. I wasn’t totally convinced, though. It seemed like it would have been a good idea to become a familiar face at your job and get to know your new colleagues better. Your dedication could have impressed your new bosses, too. So his idea to work from home appeared to be a problem, but who was I to say?
There was a bigger problem that he had just exposed by saying no to all of my suggestions: he didn’t seem to want to leave the house at all, not even to do necessary stuff. “I’ll have groceries delivered,” he had told me more than once—except that I knew how picky he was about produce. He liked to choose it himself. “No, I don’t want to go to the gym. I’m going to work out here,” he had also said several times—except that this house was small, especially with the extra table and chairs in it. There wasn’t enough workout space for someone six-four (he really was, because he didn’t lie about his height like I did). Declining the gym made no sense because before, he’d been so serious and steadfast about getting there, and also about going on runs, hikes, and walks. He was into all kinds of exercise.
I was thinking a lot about his sister and how she hadn’t wanted to leave their house. I was also thinking about my sister and her problems, and it all scared me. A lot. I couldn’t watch himslide into despair but I wasn’t sure how to force him out of it. I had failed at that with Morgan, so I knew that anger and bitter comments wouldn’t work. Those were, of course, my fallbacks in any difficult situation but I also didn’t want to act like that to Shane.
“Molly, you’re still staring.” He got up, very slowly, and carefully moved aside the chair before walking over to where I sat. I quickly turned over my phone with the exciting email and put it on the arm of the couch. “Is something wrong?”
I made a quick decision that lying was better than badgering. “No, nothing,” I answered. “Hey, I had an idea. What if we went to visit your family in Arkansas? I could drive us! I’ve never driven so far and I’m interested in the challenge.”
“Well, sure,” he said, and I nodded gladly. But then he continued. “I won’t be able to take vacations for a while. Probably not until the season is over.”
“That’s in the next calendar year,” I pointed out.
“I know. It’s a crazy schedule.”
At the bar where we’d gone with the Woodsmen people, Roshni had complained about her husband’s salary and later, I had asked Shane if it was as bad as she’d claimed. He had previously said that he was getting a raise and in response to my question, he told me exactly what he was now making.
That number was about double what I currently earned as a server. Waitressing was a hard job and being a clerk at the drug store wasn’t chocolates and roses, either, but the hours were nothing in comparison to what he would have to do for theWoodsmen team. I knew what the head coach made and what the new running back had just inked a deal for, and I agreed with Roshni: it didn’t seem right.
“You know, I’m reconsidering this coaching gig,” I heard myself say out loud.
His eyebrows went up. “You are? What are you reconsidering?”
“Uh…” There was no backtracking from that statement, so I charged ahead. “I was thinking about what your mom said to me before about a future career. Remember how she asked what I was interested in, what I had trained in, and what I was prepared for? And remember how I said, ‘Nothing except the restaurant,’ and you reminded me of all the different things I had done there? Bookkeeping, security…you had other ideas, too. You seem to think that your only skill is football but I bet you also have plenty of other ones that would transfer to other jobs.”
“Sure, football isn’t everything. That’s why a lot of guys are able to move on and have different careers after they’re done playing.”
“Well, you could try that right now,” I said. I pointed to his laptop on the card table. “If you like that data entry stuff, you could look for a position that would use it. If you like compiling statistics, then that’s something else! There are so many things.”
He looked at me for a moment. “Why do you want me to change jobs?”
“I’m just saying that your mom was right. There’s a whole lot out there and maybe you haven’t been thinking about it, but you could.”
“That’s interesting,” he said and I got really excited. “Let’s go for a walk and discuss this.”
“Ok,” I happily agreed. It was a beautiful Saturday, after all, and it was the perfect time to be outside. I was so glad that he wanted to leave our house.
Unfortunately, my phone started to ring—not a text, a real call, just as we made our way through the door. “Max?” I answered it. After our disastrous meeting, I had removed him from my contacts but I still recognized his number on the screen.
“Molly, I have a few questions,” he greeted me.
He had more than a few questions, and all of them were about Walter’s. What, exactly, were the opening procedures? How would one have lit the griddle? Did I think that any of the food (which should have been tossed weeks before) was still good? How would I have gotten the lights back on? Was the roof as bad as Mom and Morgan kept saying?
Also, where was the key? He couldn’t find it.
“The electricity should be on already,” I said. My mom had been paying the utility bills and we never switched off the light above the door, so it was easy to see that...
“Wait a minute, are you there right now?” I asked him. “Are you currently standing in front of Walter’s?”
