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Alana whipped out from the residency side of The Copperfield House, where she was prepping for her actress seminar. She brought a wave of expensive perfume with her. “What’s up? Did something happen?”
“Danny is playing on Jeremy’s football team,” Ella said, awestruck.
Alana’s smile burst. “He texted me about it. He couldn’t believe how fast Danny could run.”
Danny rolled his eyes, even though his face glowed with clear pride. “He told me I have to call him Coach Farley from now on.”
“Oh, gosh. Arrogant, much?” Alana was pleased. “I guess we’ll see you at the game this Friday?”
“Mom? You in?” Danny asked.
Ella chuckled. “I don’t know if I ever went to a Nantucket High School football game, even when I was going to Nantucket High.”
“That’s because your mom thought she was cooler than everyone,” Alana explained sassily.
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Ella insisted as Alana and Danny laughed. “But okay. Okay. I’m excited about this. I’ll wear a shirt with your name on it, Danny Boy.”
“Oh. Please don’t,” Danny said.
It was a funny thing, grappling with all these Nantucketer ways of life. Ella found herself falling deeper in love with the slower pace, the easy mornings at The Copperfield House, and the delightful banter with everyone who worked on Nantucket Jubilee. Perhaps becoming a “football mom” was just another step on the road to becoming more “Nantucketer.” She shoved aside old instincts and told herself to embrace the change.
Just like Will was, all the way across the country.
That Friday night, a September chill whipped across the island and sent the temperature to fifty-seven degrees. After such a warm and often suffocating summer, the air felt remarkably cold and refreshing. Ella, Alana, and Julia bundled up in sweaters, scarves, and jackets and set out for the Nantucket football field, where they planned to sip warm apple cider and watch Nantucket High play Oak Bluffs High School from Martha’s Vineyard. This was one of Nantucket’s top rivalries, and it always made for a “great game,” or so Nantucketers said. Ella wasn’t sure.
Ella fetched them three hot apple ciders and joined Alana and Julia at the top of the stands, which offered the best view of the lush green field. The game would begin in five minutes, and already, the stands were jam-packed with Nantucket and Oak Bluffs fans.
As Ella settled in beside Julia, she couldn’t help but notice that many eyes peered up and over at them from all ends of the stands.
“Ignore them,” Julia instructed under her breath. “It takes getting used to, but Alana and I are finally getting the hang of it.”
Suddenly, Alana burst to her feet and howled, “Go get ‘em, Jeremy!” She no longer seemed like the young woman who’d been embarrassed about basically everything. Now, she was willing to be public about her fresh love for Jeremy Farley and embrace what it meant to be a Nantucketer.
How strange, Ella thought. And yet, how beautiful.
A few minutes before the game began, a man with a microphone introduced the teams. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me welcome you to the most competitive event of the season: the football match between Oak Bluffs and Nantucket High!”
Ella was surprised to hear herself howl along with the others, caught up in the pomp and circumstance. They were just as loud as any crowd at a concert venue, maybe louder.
“Look! There’s Danny!” Ella suddenly cried out, pointing her free finger toward the lanky teenager who palled along with the other football players as though he’d always belonged.
Julia chuckled. “I’m like you. I can always recognize my kids at a distance, even when they’re in disguise.”
“If you had told me last year that Danny would be the staring running back for Nantucket High School, I would have laughed myself to the psych ward,” Ella said, her eyes widening.
“If you’d have told me last year that I would ever go to a football game again— let alone cheer on my boyfriend, the high school football coach? I would have probably sipped my thousand-dollar champagne and called you a fool,” Alana said.
“Thousand-dollar champagne?” Alana’s previous all-expenses-paid lifestyle with her ex, Asher, still shocked Ella.
Alana raised a shoulder. “It wasn’t great. Just really good.”
Julia and Ella locked eyes and shared a secret laugh just as the football team lined up on the field to prepare for their very first play.
“I wish I knew one thing about football,” Ella breathed nervously.
“You do,” Julia pointed out. “Remember, they have to get that ball thingy over that last white line over there.”
“It seems a little more complicated than that.” Ella laughed nervously as, suddenly, her son sprinted forward, his arms extended. With an ecstatic burst of energy, he nabbed the football out of the sky.
