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“You know as much as I do about Sidney N.,” I answered. More, probably, since he’d carried her down to the players’ training rooms. Those were still open for them to use but we weren’t allowed to. That suddenly struck me as extremely unfair.
“We could have waited in those training rooms,” I announced. “We could have gone into the players’ locker room, too, because that’s not getting renovated and you guys weren’t using it today. Instead, we had to squish into a hallway and we didn’t have enough room to warm up before we went on stage.”
“That’s not fair,” Bowie said, and the woman who was waiting for him to sign her “Bowman” Woodsmen jersey agreed.
“You had to wait in a hallway before you went out to perform? You were on an uncovered platform, too! I don’t know why you girls put up with that,” she said, and she actually clucked a little.
“It wasn’t our captain’s fault, or the coaches, either,” I assured her. “They tried to advocate for us.” But they were right: it wasn’t fair.
“And someone could have been really hurt,” Bowie added. “I don’t think there was anything too wrong with Sidney N., though.”
“Did you get her number to text to find out?”
He looked startled. “No. Why would I get her number?”
Aubin arrived at my elbow at that moment. “Sissy, Billy and I are leaving soon,” she told me. “Oh, hi, Bowie! How’s Fan Day going for you?”
“It’s fun so far, in here where it’s dry.” He took the jersey from the woman who’d been waiting pretty patiently. “Who should I write this to?”
“It’s for my son, Jayden. He must be your biggest fan,” she answered, and then started to tell Bowie about some problems her son was having.
My sister turned to leave. “Aubin, hold on. I need to talk to you about Dad,” I said, and hurried behind her.
“I’m not going to bother him about getting the country club membership list, ok?”
“Good, but I also wondered if you could call and say hello to him. Maybe you could even drop by the cottage sometime,” I suggested.
I watched her swallow. “I’m really busy with my work stuff,” she said.
“I know, but it would mean a lot to him.”
“Is he…” She didn’t need to finish; I knew what she meant.
I shrugged. “He’s maintaining right now. He’s been asking me about you.”
She looked down and swallowed again. “You know we don’t get along.”
“But you took a bunch of money from him for the wedding, Aubin. He deserves to have a conversation with you, if only for that.”
“It wasn’t a quid pro quo,” she told me but then made a face. “Good Lord, do I sound like Coach Rylah?”
“No, that was in another language but I think you used it right. He’s not working today. You could go now.”
She hesitated. “No, not today, but I will talk to him. We could get coffee or something.”
“It would be better for you to come to the house,” I told her.
“Sissy! You don’t want him on the road, is that right? He’s drinking and driving again?”
“I’m taking him to work when I can and I’m counting the cans in the fridge. So far, it doesn’t seem like it’s a huge problem.”
“So far,” she repeated. I saw her eyes go over my head. “There’s Danni. I want to talk to her before I leave and try to figure out how she let that awfulness happen.”
I watched my sister walk away. It wasn’t her responsibility to worry about the Wonderwomen or to quiz Danni about her supposed failures, but Aubin still felt like the squad reflected on her, I guessed. She had retired, but she wasn’t quite able to give it up. She smiled at Danni and they gave each other a pretend hug and then got into a deep conversation.
I checked my messages in the Wonderwomen group chat to see how everyone was doing, and then I glanced back at Bowie. He was also still involved in a conversation with the woman whose son was ill. I shouldn’t have been hanging out around him anyway, getting in the way of the fans who wanted to meet him and making it seem like we knew each other or were friends. We weren’t, of course. It was too bad that couldn’t happen.
Ward came into the tent then, wiping his fingers on a napkin already covered in mustard. “The food here is so fucking expensive,” he greeted me. “The Woodsmen are bloodsuckers.”
