Page 56 of The Fall Classic

Georgie

More hours, earlier start. It’s fine and it creates some exciting opportunities for the business.

Logan

Is it actually fine?

I look at the question for a moment.

Georgie

It will be.

I’m able to take three orders and make two drinks before he responds. He waits so long, I wonder if the bus has arrived or if he’s talking to a coach, or something.

Logan

Okay.

But will you tell me if it stops being fine?

Georgie

Sure.

Logan

I mean it. I want to know, even if I can’t help.

Georgie

You wanting to know IS help.

It’s nice knowing someone cares.

Logan

If I had a hat from wherever it is you work, I’d wear it all the hours you’re working so you knew someone was cheering you on.

Georgie

<3

Logan

<))

***

The next day, I send Logan another selfie with his hat on before the game, and he responds with his signature double-scoop ice cream cone. I have Logan’s game playing on the radio in the background while I wear his hat and serve up the best coffee I can make at the factory. During the quiet times, I look up highlights. No surprise, but Logan is killing it, and the announcers say things like “What in the world was that?” We text all evening long and well into the night, when he needs to be sleeping and I need to be studying.

At ten o’clock, he finally goes to bed, and I realize I’m starving and forgot to eat dinner, and that’s when I find more food from Alma in the fridge.

I devour it, occasionally looking around my cluttered apartment that has more books and memorabilia than actual floor space. There are probably a dozen tripping hazards, a reading chair buried in blankets, and at least three stacks of books that border on load-bearing. The mugs Mama said weren’t fit for the store line the windowsill. There’s an old Mudflaps pennant hanging over the door that I’ve had since my parents took me to my first game.

Every surface tells a story and every pile holds a memory, and I’m the only one left to keep them.

Alma is over it all, based on the sticky note she attached to the meal.