Page 21 of The Progressions

When I quickly scanned her texts, I still didn’t totally understand but it seemed like she was ok. She was asking if I’d seen something, but she hadn’t said anything about herself or her pregnancy—

“I’m all through here,” the siding contractor announced. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, because it was hot again today and he’d been working outside Building C for several hours. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but these buildings are pieces of shit. I don’t think there’s any insulation in this wall, and it’s exterior. I don’t know how they could have gotten away with that.”

“It explains the heating bills that I’m always hearing about,” I said. There were many complaints in the winter. “Thanks forcoming out so fast.” Iva would be happy to hear that I’d gotten this project done, one of the many that she hadn’t wanted to leave unfinished before she’d gone on her leave. The repair guy and I walked together toward the front and I read my messages more carefully once I got into the relative coolness of my office. Since it was just an old trailer, it never seemed to maintain the temperature we really wanted, but it was better…what was all this?

“I don’t get what you mean,” I wrote back to my boss. She had asked me if I’d seen, if it was true, and said she couldn’t believe it. Before she had time to answer, though, a couple knocked and walked in from the parking lot. They had questions about renting here, and I ended up showing them around and we talked for a while. All in all, it had been a great day for me; I’d accomplished so much for both my jobs and now I had interest from possible renters.

They were just leaving when Tyler also walked into the trailer, and they stopped dead and gaped so that the three of them got jammed into the doorway together.

“This is one of our residents,” I said, thinking that his timing couldn’t have been better. Now they would see that a Woodsmen player lived here, and that was such a draw! “Thank you for stopping by.” With my hands on their backs to guide them, they eventually left, still staring with their mouths agape. I turned to him. “Thank you, too. I think you just sealed the deal for me. I bet they’ll sign by the end of the week.”

“You didn’t see,” he stated. He pointed to my phone, lying on my desk.

“Um…” I picked it up and I did see that Iva had texted at least ten more times while I’d been meeting with that couple. “My boss is saying something about your girlfriend. What’s happening?”

“Fuck.” He sat down in the extra chair, which creaked as he tried to fit within its confines. “Shay’s going crazy.”

“Why?”

“It was that picture,” he said. “It was the picture we took together at lunch on Saturday. She saw it.”

“She did? How?” I hadn’t even seen it yet myself. The photographer at the practice facility had told me that all the shots would be posted on a website, and I had wanted to show my father.

“Somebody sent it to her.” He pulled his own phone from his pocket, the really nice, super-new phone that I’d seen him glued to before. He held it out and I looked, and then took it from him.

“This is great,” I said as I studied our two smiling faces. “Look how happy we both are! Good grief, it looks like I could feed fifteen people with the amount I have on my plate. I was really full when we left.” We’d had so much fun, though. We’d stayed at our end of the table until the family I’d met before, the Nours, came over to chat again. Tyler hadn’t said much, either nice or insulting, and it had gone well. Then we’d all walked on the field to play games and I’d gotten to run like I was scoring a touchdown. I’d laughed so hard I’d had to sit down in the end zone to recuperate, and Tyler had watched and then shook his head and smiled. He’d held out a hand and pulled me up.

“Everything about that day was great,” I recalled, but he was shaking his head again now.

“Read the caption under the picture,” he ordered.

I blew it up so I could see better. “Woodsmen tight end Tyler Hennessy and girlfriend Kasia Decker enjoy the catered lunch.” I stared at it for a moment longer and then burst out laughing again. “This is hilarious! How did the photographer get the idea that I was your girlfriend?” I asked, then answered my own question. “I guess it was because everyone else there meant something to the players, like they were wives or actual girlfriends. She must have just assumed and I didn’t think to say, ‘No, I’m barely an acquaintance. I’m an employee.’ Oh, well. At least they got my name right.”

“Shay saw this and she believed it.”

“No, she couldn’t have,” I said, but he just looked at me steadily. “Didn’t you explain who I was?”

“She knows who you are, and she’s extremely pissed off.”

“Just tell her that it was a mistake,” I said. “No one could ever believe that you and I are actually together. She can’t really think so.”

“Give me my phone.”

I did, and he flipped around for a second before he handed it back again. This time, it was a post from Shay Galton’s account, a video of her and she was clearly crying. I turned up the volume to hear her speak in a shaky voice. “This isn’t the first time he cheated,” she said, and she wiped under her eyes. Somehow, hermakeup remained intact and amazing. “I try to be strong and deal, because I love him so much. It’s just unfair that I have to go away for work and a girl like that worms her way into his life. I hate her! She’s tearing us apart! My heart is shattered! Tyler, I love you!” She put her hand over her eyes and her beautiful lips quivered. Wow, what a great shade of gloss and what a performance, I thought. I might try to cry in front of my mirror tonight, to see if I could do it on command.

“She got more reactions to this than to her last twenty posts,” he stated.

“It’s very good,” I said. “She looks beautiful when she goes tragic. Would it help if I called her and tried to explain?”

“You don’t get it. She said your name.”

“She did?” I replayed the clip and she had, kind of. At the beginning she had called me “Casey,” and she’d talked about the picture of Tyler and me. The top comment under the video was a screenshot of that very picture, and it had my name clearly and correctly spelled. “I guess she did. That wasn’t very nice.”

“Nice? No. She’s telling all her followers that it’s your fault. They’re going to come after you.”

“Like they’re coming to my house or something?” I shook my head. “I’d like to see them try to get down our road. No one has touched any of the potholes in at least twenty years.”

“I mean online. They’ll dig up everything.”

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