“Stop it, Morgan!”
She shrugged, but she did. “If you happen to see Tyler Hennessy at Woodsmen Stadium, grab him and give him a big kiss from me.”
I would not be kissing the Woodsmen wide receiver, that was for sure. Yes, of course he was handsome, but I had no interest…ok, I had a little interest, but it was like you would admire a beautiful painting. You could appreciate it but not want it in your home, and you certainly wouldn’t walk up and put your mouth on it.
But I was very excited in general as I drove through the big gate and into the stadium, after stopping at the guard shack. It was thrilling when they said that I could go right ahead, it was thrilling when I saw the building growing in size as I approachedit, and it was thrilling to see that the parking lot with the sign “Woodsmen players only” had a bunch of fancy cars in it.
Shane was waiting for me at a different parking lot, one farther away. It was also filled with cars, but they were a lot older and generally less shiny than those in the players’ area. “Hi,” he said as he opened my door. “Wow, you dressed to impress.”
“I went shopping with Avonlea. She always looks good.”
“So do you,” he told me, and I said thank you. Then I realized what he was probably thinking.
“I didn’t dress to impress the Woodsmen.”
“For me, then?” He smiled, like that was a joke. “Come on in.”
It was busy here today. There were plenty of people around but I didn’t see any players. We did run into Isaiah, the coach whom we’d had dinner with, and I asked how his arm was.
“What? Oh, I’m fine,” he said. He looked at Shane. “It’s ok. It was no big deal,” he said, enunciating the sentence very carefully. “See you later.” There had been a half-second pause between each of his words and he had also spoken them loudly, like there was the same volume of music here as in the bar when his arm had been cut.
I watched him walk away. “Why was he talking like that? Does he think that you have a hearing impairment?” I wondered.
Shane sighed. “The story got around that there’s something wrong with me. I explained my issues and said that I’m open to any questions they had. But it seems like most people are afraid to ask anything, like I’ll be offended. Instead, theymade assumptions and they’re acting strange. Some of them are talking like Isaiah just did, as if I can’t understand them, and others are doing stuff like demonstrating how door handles work. They think I have an intellectual disability, too.”
“What? Why?”
“They’re not sure how to deal with me. Maybe Isaiah is afraid that I’ll cut him again.”
I immediately got indignant. “That was—”
“An accident, yeah. Come on and let’s eat. I’m starving but don’t worry. You won’t have to feed me.”
“That’s not a funny joke,” I told him.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “You know why I wanted you to come today?”
Well, he had said that he’d missed me. “Why?”
“I wanted to see you, but also, I think that this season is going to be my last one here as a Woodsmen coach. I wanted you to get to enjoy it, too.”
I swallowed. “Thank you. I hope that’s not true for you, but thank you for thinking about me.”
“I find that I do, quite a bit.” He turned his head, looking around. “I’ll miss this.”
“You don’t know—”
“I do know,” he said. “Let’s go eat.”
It was still a long walk to the lunchroom, but I didn’t get winded doing it today. It was a lot more crowded than it had been thefirst time I’d visited, and I could see that most of the other people eating were excited. They were talking loudly and you could hear them saying “go Woodsmen!” with regularity.
“This is really cool,” I mentioned. “It would be fun to work here.”
“It is,” he agreed and I immediately felt bad for saying that, right on the heels of him talking about losing his job.
“I meant for me, that I’d like to be here myself,” I said. “I did apply for one job in housekeeping but I bet that there were a few thousand other applicants.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t get a response. I don’t mean just for that job, but for any of the things you applied to.”
