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“You don’t need to tell them anything except that I love you and you’re marrying me,” Bowie had said, but I’d shaken my head.
“I can’t stare them in the eyes and lie.” No, I couldn’t, so I’d come up with a short oration on our “relationship” and “engagement.” The problem was, though, that as I looked into Danni’s face—it was happening again, just like at Aubin’s wedding.
“Uh…” I tried to remember the notes I’d written out on Bowie’s laptop, the phrases I’d practiced with him that made this sound normal and not at all like a big pile of crud. “Uh, um…”
“It happened quickly,” Danni prompted. “What did? What happened?”
“Well, uh, I met him by mistake at my sister’s wedding. He helped me because Ward—Ward pushed me and I fell, and that was how I hurt my foot.”
Her expression changed from curious to horrified. “Sissy! That was a terrible injury!”
I opened my mouth to explain it away, to say that it hadn’t been that bad and anyway, it was an accident. Those were the excuses that I’d used for what he’d done for six years. “It was terrible,” I admitted. “It was terrible but Bowie was there for me. Then we ran into each other again, here at the stadium, and then…I don’t know. He’s just such a wonderful person. He’s very generous with his help and his time, even when he’s so busy. He pays attention to what I say and what I’m feeling, too. And he’s so fun to be around! We can just be sitting on the couch and I like to be with him. I can imagine us doing all kinds of things together, big things like traveling and little things like grocery shopping, and I would enjoy all of it because he’s…”
That hadn’t been the speech I’d prepared, not at all, not in any way. But unlike the one I’d given as maid of honor for my sister, it had gone over a whole lot better. Danni was smiling at me and at the same time, she was dabbing at her eyes with a wadded-up napkin she’d pulled out of her purse.
“That’s how I feel about my boyfriend,” she said. “I think about Isaac and smile, just like you are.”
She was right: I was smiling when I talked about Bowie, even through the anxiety I felt as I perpetuated the lie of our engagement. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone,” I said, meaning the situation with Ward, but she took it another way.
“If you had said anything about seeing Bowie, you would have gotten let go from the squad,” Danni answered, and switched into team captain mode. “That can’t happen. We could swap out a dancer or change our formations to hide that we were a girl down, but we can’t replace your tumbling. But now, they’re not going to do anything. I heard that Bowie threatened to quit if they punished you.”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “No, he never said anything so dramatic and extreme. He just said that he’s behind me. You know, that our team, he and I, is more important than any other.”
“Oh, I’m sooo going to repeat that line to the girls. I’ll explain this to them, Sissy. It’s going to take a while for everyone to be ok with it, though. Some of them are pretty upset that you were with Bowie in secret for so long.”
“It hasn’t been long. Not long at all! It was completely sudden,” I said. “One minute, I was with Ward and I thought that everything was going in one direction, and then the next minute, I was running the other way. I’m not even sure how it happened.”
Danni hugged me. “I’m glad it did. I’m glad that you’re going in a new direction now.”
So was I. So were a few of the Wonderwomen when I walked into the dance studio, but a lot more were pretty frosty. We had a team meeting before our practice started but Sam was too mad to say much and Rylah talked about trepanation, which turned out to have nothing to do with the subject at hand. Nothing much got resolved by that and at the end of the practice, I walked out with Danni and most of the other girls ignored me.
“I’ll talk to them,” she said again. “They’ll understand.”
That was going to be hard. I was in the middle of this situation, an active participant, and even I didn’t seem to get it. My sister had been texting me nonstop for updates and answers, too, and there was another person who deserved to know what was going on: my dad. He was at the stadium tonight rather than the country club, because the Woodsmen were hosting the Japanese national soccer team as guests at the game this weekend and they were touring the facility and having a big, catered dinner. He was supposed to be walking the grounds to do security for the event, but I was pretty sure I’d find him in his car instead.
He had the driver’s seat all the way reclined and was totally asleep when I knocked on the window, and he jumped up and then scowled at me through the glass. “Damn it, Sissy,” I heard him mumble, but he opened the door. “Why are you out here drawing attention to me?” he asked.
“I’m sorry. You hardly ever answer your phone, though, and you don’t reply to texts. I keep going by the house and I don’t think you’re sleeping there.”
He rubbed his eyes. “You’re not, either. You’re with that player, now? The handy one?”
“Um, kind of. It’s a long story.”
“But Ward’s out of the picture,” he said with satisfaction.
“Yeah, he’s gone. I think. Have you seen him around?”
“You think he’ll try something on you?” my dad asked, and I nodded.
“He has a really bad temper. He used to, um, knock me around a little. Not just a little.”
“You never told me that.”
No, I hadn’t. I hadn’t thought it would make a difference. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” I stated. “I want to talk about you. Where have you been?”
“I’m going to work every day, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
“Dad, you’re sleeping in your car in the middle of a shift!” I answered and he frowned.
