Page 28 of The Progressions

I watched the screen and saw Tyler jog over to see his girl as she waited on the sideline. They were right behind our Woodsmen announcers so they were perfectly in the frame, and they stood close together and seemed to speak quietly. Shay Galton pressed up even closer, her body against the pads that protected him under his Woodsmen uniform. She ran her nails up over his orange jersey, although now he wouldn’t have felt that, and then traced one around the edge of his jaw. He bent to kiss her, and it turned into much of the same situation as when I’d been trapped in the bedroom with them on the condo tour. I stared, just as thousands of other people must have, as they made out.

“Whelp,” my dad said, and that summed it up. Whelp.

I cleared my throat. “See? I told you that they were fine. Everyone can see.” Good, I told myself, that was good. It was exactly what I’d needed to happen, in fact, because now everyone in the Woodsmen world could attest to the fact that they were very, very together, and hopefully some of her fans were recording the moment and would post the same things. Iva saw, because she texted me, and I was also glad that it had distracted from her own problems.

Good.

The game was also good, kind of. At least the Woodsmen won. Despite their work in the offseason, the Nautilus still largely sucked, so our defense was able to control them, allowing only five first downs—yes, only five, and in the entire game.

“Preseason,” Dad said briefly, and I knew what he meant. This was the time when teams were supposed to work out the kinks and work in new personnel.

And that was why we were both trying not to be upset about our offense, which had also struggled. It wasn’t a “five first downs in the game” level of struggle, but you could see that they had things to work on—Tyler, in particular. It kind of seemed like he was confused or wasn’t familiar with the playbook, and he missed some blocks. I’d never seen him do that before, never. As the clock ticked onwards, it became clear that he was the last option as Matthews, the quarterback, moved through the progression of eligible receivers. But maybe since Rami Nour was new this year as the offensive coordinator, we needed to give everyone a minute. After all, it was the preseason.

“It’ll be fine,” my father said, and I went to help him up. Then I hovered (although he always told me not to), in case he needed me in the bathroom, and I helped him into bed.

“I liked him,” Dad told me as he settled against his pillows. “He’ll be great.”

I knew who he meant, and I nodded and said good night. I went into my room, the living room/kitchen/dining room, and pulled out my own bed. Then, with the bathroom door open, Istood next to the arm of the couch so I could see my whole body in the mirror. I moved my hip so that it protruded slightly; I considered the effect, and moved it out more. Then I rotated my shoulder back, elevating my breasts. I pushed forward my lower lip as I tilted down my chin and I looked at my reflection.

I looked like I had some severe joint injuries and needed immediate medical attention. “Sweet Jesus,” I muttered, and went to wash my face.

There was plenty of information flying around that Sunday, and as I worked around the house and outside in the yard and the garden, I listened to Herb and Buzz’s postgame wrap-up. They said a lot of the same things that I had thought about Tyler’s performance, and they seemed equally puzzled by it.

“We know how he played for the Seals last season, hot as a pepper in July,” Buzz reminded us all, and I had been watching replays of those games since he’d signed with us. Tyler had been underutilized in their offense but ours should have been tailor-made for him.

During breaks from weeding, I also checked on Shay Galton and what people were saying about her. Her fans seemed happy about the make-out session on the sidelines but also a little confused by it. “I guess she really took him back??” one asked, and that was the general attitude. Like, she forgave him, all was well, and she and Tyler were moving on? Her followers had questions.

But I could tell that it was totally better, all fixed, which I knew for sure when I went inside for water and saw Shay Galton’s firstpost of the day. It was of herself, of course, smiling sleepily at the camera with her shiny hair gorgeously tousled. Her cheek rested on the naked back of a man and the lower half of his face was visible, the curve of his full lower lip and his strong jaw. You could also see the tattoo of a moon and stars over his trapezius and deltoid, which were quite well-defined: it was Tyler Hennessy, obviously.

“Just woke up with the love of my life. Good morning, big boy,” she’d written. How was her makeup so perfect? She might have gone to fix it before taking the picture, but I tended to believe that she was always like that, naturally. When I woke up (alone), nothing was perfect or even close. Granted, I didn’t wear a lot of makeup most of the time…why not? Iva was always suggesting different stuff for me to put on.

I zoomed in on the picture of Shay Galton, at the way her eyeliner smudged around her eyes but looked sexy, not like a sad raccoon. And her hair wasn’t messy and bedraggled, like she’d been mashing it into her pillow and tangling it. It looked sexy, too.

“Kasia? Where are you, honey?”

I put down the phone and went outside but that night, after my dad had gone to bed, I studied the post again. I looked in the bathroom mirror and carefully drew a thick line above my eyes. Then I put on one swipe of mascara, and then another. Not bad, I congratulated myself. It wasn’t for nothing that I had taken all those art classes in high school! I took some creamy blush and smoothed it over my cheeks…nope. I had gotten enough color today as I’d cut down a dead tree and split it into firewood forthe winter. No need for the blush, and I wiped it off. But a little shadow was good, and so was some gloss. I stuck out my lip again, trying it.

The next morning, I looked through my wardrobe, such as it was. I had never developed much of a sense of style, and I wasn’t even very sure what I liked. Anyway, clothes were the last thing I spent money on, and only after every necessity was covered and I’d put away enough in our savings, too—and since those things never actually happened, I wasn’t out shopping. I got a lot of Iva’s leftovers because we were about the same size and about the same height, although she was on the medium-short side and I was medium-tall, and she was a lot curvier. My curves were nothing much to speak of, so nothing fit exactly right. I had never cared too much and it hadn’t bothered me that she’d been ready to give the stuff away, sometimes because she thought it was ugly. Like her mustard dress: yes, the dark, dirty yellow wasn’t the best color, and maybe it was a little short on me, but when I’d gotten actual mustard on it as I ate in my car? It didn’t even show. It was hard to argue with that.

I went through my closet again and chose my best outfit, the one I reserved for the days when I knew I’d have a tour with prospective tenants. It had been what I’d worn when I’d shown Tyler and Shay Galton their new condo, but neither of them had been overly impressed. I looked down at the shirt underneath my vest and popped open the top button. Then I popped the next two, and I was ready.

I was aware, due to my familiarity with the team and due to the reporting of Herb and Buzz, that the orange plane had flownhome on Saturday night with no problems and that the day of meetings and practices would be delayed this Monday morning to let everyone sleep a little more. Just like Iva and I had always done after a weekend game, I watched for our Woodsmen tenant going to his car. The two of us had always liked to assess how they were walking and if they had suffered any unreported injury, but we always said something like, “It’s raining and oh, there’s Marcus Sears and he’s moving fast like he’s going to be late.” Then we had felt relieved and went about our day.

I saw that Tyler Hennessy was early getting to his SUV this morning, and I thought that he might have been heading to the stadium to visit with a trainer. But he made a right from the footpath and knocked on the door to my office, which I had locked behind myself when I’d come in. Maybe the kiss and Shay Galton’s post had solved some of my problems, but maybe not all of them.

“Hi,” I said as I opened the door for him. “Good game.”

“It wasn’t,” he answered as he sat down in the uncomfortable chair. “That was one of my worst performances since I came into the league.”

Statistically, that wasn’t true, which I knew because I had checked. I thought he might have meant that it felt worse, though, so I nodded in sympathy. “Sorry.”

“You have a bunch of crap under your eyes,” he said, and mimicked wiping something away on his own face.

“It’s called makeup. Good grief, I know you’ve seen it before.”

“It looks different on you, I guess.”

“You just don’t know what looks good,” I said. “This does.” He seemed skeptical. “Is Shay still sleeping?”

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