Page 6 of The Progressions

I waited to get to the front to ask him to sign my autograph book, the one I’d been bringing to Fan Day since I’d first come as a little girl with my dad. That was when my memories began, anyway. I had attended before with both my parents, and in fact, there was a picture of me as an infant being held by Warren Wilde—yes, the real Warren Wilde.

“What’s your name?” Tyler Hennessy asked. I couldn’t tell if he’d glanced up from the book to see the person he was addressing.

“I’m Kasia,” I reminded him. “Kasia Decker. I gave you the tour of the condo. I helped you look for the earring,” I continued, when he didn’t speak. “It’s Kasia with a K.” I spelled it, too, because it was hard. It was especially hard if you didn’t listen.

“Sure,” he said. To C-A-S-H-A, he scrawled on the page, then signed, “Tyler Hennessy #62.” He rolled his neck and his mouth turned down more.

“I kept searching for the earring. Your girlfriend’s earring,” I said, to jolt his memory. “You said it was a six-carat, Asscher-cut diamond.” I had looked that up, and it meant a gemstone in a square shape that was very pretty. It had nothing to do with butts, which might have been interesting, too.

I had his attention now. “Did you find it?” he asked.

“No,” I was forced to admit, and he shook his head and then yawned.

“Thanks for coming,” a woman in an orange polo shirt told me. She worked here, and it was her job to move along the peoplewho overstayed their welcomes at the players’ tables. “Are you interested in meeting our amazing center, Freddy Uchita?”

I nodded and stepped to the side, so that the next fan could have her turn with Tyler Hennessy. “Thanks,” I heard him say, but when I turned back to look, I didn’t know whether the word was directed at me or toward the woman who had pulled me away. Freddy Uchida was always nice, so I moved on to him, and then to Zachary Santiago, a wide receiver. Both of them were very friendly and took time to talk for a moment before they wrote in my book, spelling “Kasia” just right. I took pictures of everything.

The stadium had undergone more renovations a few seasons back, but it was still so much the same on the tour. It was comforting to know that my team was here and that even if parts of it might change, the Woodsmen were always a constant. We went through the locker room, peeked into some of the training rooms, and stood in the stands to look down at the field. It concluded, as it always did, in the hall of fame, the big trophy room which displayed all the awards that the team and individual Woodsmen had won. I walked around, admiring the displays of gleaming silver, brass, and gold, and I swelled with pride.

No, I wasn’t really a part of it—like, I had never played football for them, obviously, and I had never actually been to one of the games. These events, the free ones, were the only times that I visited the stadium. But I watched every game from my house, on the biggest and best TV I had been able to afford. I went to the practice facility when they worked out there in the summer, Iattended every (free) event they held around the area, and I had even driven down to a few of their closest away games. Not to go into those stadiums, either, but to wait with the rest of the fans and cheer when the guys came out and walked to the team bus that would drive them to their private plane. I was a Woodsmen fan absolutely and without question.

“It was great,” I said when I got home. “So good. Did you see the pictures I sent?” I’d been steadily texting throughout the afternoon.

“No, I didn’t look at them yet,” my dad answered. He seemed tired, and I could tell that it had been one of his harder days. He wouldn’t ever say it to me, though. “What about the Wonderwomen?”

“They were spectacular! Aubin Baines is an amazing coach. There are four rookies,” I said eagerly, but then modulated my voice so that it was quieter and more soothing. “Remember how I read to you about them during their try-outs? Their bios are on the squad website as of today. We can look later.” He really did seem tired. “One of them is from England. Isn’t that cool? There are Woodsmen fans there, too, and she came all the way to Michigan and made it. I think it’s really inspiring how she took the risk.”

“Your mother also did that,” he reminded me, and I realized that I’d strayed into tricky territory. When he was tired like this, he was more likely to get sad.

So I moved on. “I saw Tyler Hennessy again. He didn’t remember me at all.”

That made my father got mad instead. “How could he have forgotten you? You’re the prettiest girl in Michigan, and the smartest.”

“Thank you,” I said, and kissed his forehead. “He may not agree with your assessment. Also, I’m not sure that he even looked at me when we were together, not in the face.”

“What was he looking at?” Dad asked suspiciously, and sounding even more annoyed.

He made me laugh. “It wasn’t like that!” I assured him. Those hazel eyes hadn’t been on my body, for sure. “He probably didn’t think I was important enough to bother with.” The first time we’d met for the condo tour, his gaze had been on his phone and on his girlfriend’s butt, and then the next time, he’d stared at the ground to look for her missing earring. I really had searched for it again, several more times, but it was as if the could-have-been-wood floor in the unit had swallowed it up.

I would have given my father every last detail of the day, because I always worked on remembering the specifics of fun events so that I could tell him, but he was too tired right now. I got him dinner and then left him in peace. He always promised that it didn’t make him feel bad or left-out to hear what he was missing. No, he didn’t do most things himself, not anymore, but he didn’t begrudge that I went. And besides Iva from work, I didn’t talk to a whole lot of people, so it was fun to chat and to listen to his thoughts in return. Now, she would be gone and I’d be alone in the office, so we wouldn’t be speaking much unless there were problems. I hadn’t thought about that too much untilthis moment, and I found that I wasn’t looking forward to sitting there by myself.

Also, I’d have to deal with everything without Iva’s calm advice. I actually was concerned about handling the water delivery, even though I’d told her that I could deal with it. But I wasn’t going to bother her all the time, texting and emailing and whatever, no matter what she had also said about that. Like, right now, I was getting a call from another area code, not one I recognized, and it was going to be up to me to figure out what this person wanted and then to fix it. That this call was an “emergency” related to my job, I was totally certain; besides my dad and Iva, I didn’t talk to many people on the phone, either.

“This is Kasia,” I answered. “May I help you?”

“It’s Tyler Hennessy. I want to rent the condo.”

“Oh, that’s great!” I said. I checked the time and saw that it was around eleven. I’d spent a few hours cleaning the house and prepping for the next day, doing laundry and getting my father’s meals together. “I can send those documents over to you tomorrow morning.”

“I want to get it done now.”

Well, that was unfortunate. “The office was closed due to Fan Day, and I didn’t bring the laptop home,” I explained. “I can’t access anything without it.”

There was silence. “All right, I’ll go with my second-choice apartment,” he announced.

“No, hold on,” I said. This would be a perfect start, me showing our upper-level bosses that I could handle my new responsibilities. If I signed another Woodsmen to a lease in our complex, it also looked great for Iva and her trust in me.

I glanced again at the clock on the stove. “I can be at the office in forty-five minutes, and then it will take me a little bit to prepare the paperwork for you. Give me an hour total to get it done.”

---