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"Don't look at me. I can bench press 290, but I can't budge those suckers."
She fiddled with the cap and finally gave up. Dan was right. They needed to talk. Setting aside the bottle, she folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "Do you want to go first?"
"All right." He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. "It's pretty simple, I guess. I'm the head coach, and you're the owner. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell me how to do my job, just like I don't tell you how to do yours."
Phoebe stared at him. "In case it's slipped your mind, you've been telling me how to do my job since you broke into my apartment in August."
He looked injured. "I thought we were going to have a discussion, not an argument. Just once, Phoebe, make a little effort to hold on to that quick temper of yours."
Her hand crept toward the aspirin bottle. She spoke slowly, softly. "Go on, Coach Calebow."
Her formal mode of address didn't deter him. "I don't want you to interfere with the team again before the game."
"What do you consider interference?"
"Well, I guess it pretty much goes without saying that showing up in the locker room before the game would be at the top of my list. If you have something you want communicated to the players, tell me and I'll pass it on. I'd also appreciate it if you'd stay in the front of the plane when we're traveling. I guess the only exception to that would be on the flight home if we've won. Then it'd probably be appropriate for you to make a quick walk-through to congratulate the men. But I'd want you to do it in a dignified fashion. Shake some hands, and then leave them alone."
She slipped on her leopard-spot glasses and gazed at him steadily. "I'm afraid you're operating under the mistaken impression that I was having an attack of female hysteria last night when I reminded you—quite forcefully as I remember—that the Stars are my team and not yours."
"You're not going to start that again, are you?"
"Dan, I've been doing my homework, and I know that a lot of people with some impressive credentials think you're on your way to being one of the finest coaches in the NFL. I know that the Stars are lucky to have you."
Despite the sincerity in her voice, he regarded her warily. "Keep talking."
"The Stars entered this season with a lot of high expectations from fans and the media, and when you didn't win the early games, the heat was turned up hard and fast. The stories about me didn't help, I'll admit. Everybody from the coaches to the rookies got understandably tense, and in the process, I think you may have forgotten one of the most basic lessons you learned when you were playing. You forgot to have fun."
"I'm not playing now. I'm coaching! And believe me, if I had a whole squad raising the kind of hell I used to raise, we'd be out of the game fast."
Judging from the stories she'd heard, that was undoubtedly true. She slipped off her glasses. "You're a tough disciplinarian, and I'm beginning to realize just how important that is. But I think you need to figure out when to turn up the heat and when to relax a little."
"Don't start this again."
"All right. You tell me why the Stars weren't able to hold on to the ball until last night's game."
"It's a cycle, that's all. Those things happen."
"Dan, the men were too tense. You've driven them hard for weeks, beaten up on them for the smallest mistake. You've chewed out everybody from the secretarial staff to Tully. You pushed too hard, and it was affecting everyone's performance."
She might as well have lit a keg of dynamite because he erupted from his chair. "I don't fucking believe this! I can't believe you're sitting there like John Fucking Madden and telling me how to coach a fucking football team! You don't know shit about football!"
Profanities exploded like firecrackers over her head, his anger so scorching she half expected the paint on the walls to blister. She was shaken, but at the same time, she had the weird sense he was putting her through some kind of a test, that his ranting and raving were a carefully staged ploy to see what she was made of. Leaning back in her chair, she began inspecting her nail polish for chips.
He went ballistic. The veins in his neck stood out like cords. "Look at you! You barely know the difference between a football and a fucking baseball! And now you think you can tell me how to coach! You think you can tell me my team's too tense, like you're some goddamn psychologist or something, when you don't know shit!" He paused for breath.
"You can shoot off that gutter mouth of yours all you want, Coach," she said softly, "but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still the boss. Now why don't you take yourself to the showers to cool off?"
For a moment she thought he was going to leap right over the desk and come after her. Instead, he gave her a furious look and stalked from her office.
Half an hour later, Ron found Dan behind the building slamming a basketball through the hoop near the outer locker room door. Dark patches of sweat soaked the front of his knit shirt, and he was breathing hard as he dribbled the ball to the center of the concrete slab and spun toward the hoop.
"Tully told me you were out here," Ron said. "I need some information about Zeke Claxton."
The hoop vibrated as Dan slammed the ball through. "Phoebe isn't happy with my coaching!" He spat out the words, then threw the ball at Ron's chest with so much force that the general manager stumbled backward.
"Take it in," Dan roared.
