Page 36 of The Progressions

Chapter 8

“Please, Dad.Please?”

“No, Kasia. No, I’m sorry, but no.”

“Please?” I tried again, but I had known that it was a lost cause even before I’d asked the first time. “I have to because he’s paying me…” I needed the money for the car, but I also really wanted to go.

“I don’t begrudge you doing it,” my dad said, and I knew that was true. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t feel guilty, though.

“Tyler set everything up. We have a special pass so we can go right to the front and security can meet us at the car to help if we need it. We can also leave early if we want, if you get tired.” I had a lot of good arguments and I rolled through every one of them, but nothing swayed him. He didn’t answer but I knew what his silence meant: no.

I finally wound down. “I can’t imagine being there without you,” I said. “I can’t imagine seeing the Woodsmen for the first timeand we won’t be together.” My voice had started to break but I steadied it. “We’ve always watched together. This is such an amazing chance! Please, Daddy.”

“I should have taken you when you were a little girl,” he told me, but now I was the one who stayed silent. I hadn’t ever really understood back then—not only about missing Woodsmen games, but about why our lives operated under limitations that the other kids at school didn’t seem to have.

“Please?” I tried, one last time.

But the answer was no, and that didn’t change. As I left by myself, I tried to feel excited rather than guilty. I shook my head as I drove because I also felt angry at both of us, him for not coming and me for failing, again. I’d always tried hard but I’d never been able to make him happy.

“Pass is on the table,” Tyler had written to me, the same words as he’d sent before, so I stopped at the condo complex on my way to the stadium and hurried toward his unit on the path behind the row of bushes. It was a beautiful day but the sunlight was blocked by the hedge and—

“Sweet Jesus!” Fear spurred me to jump nearly high as one of those plants when I saw the figure standing in the shadows of Tyler’s building. “Cody, why are you here now? It’s Saturday!”

“I’m setting up a dispenser unit for a woman in this block. Special delivery.” He grinned. “I didn’t expect to run into you either, No-Kasia. Do you want one of my special deliveries, too?”

I certainly did not. “Get out of here. It’s bad enough to see you on your regular day. You don’t have to ruin my weekend, too.”

He laughed like I was joking, which I was not.

I stared at him, wishing (as always) that he would disappear, but he only stood there grinning. I didn’t want to go to Tyler’s condo and pique his interest in my activities. So…

“Bye,” I said pointedly as I swiveled, and I went to my office instead. I stood next to the window and waited for Cody to come back down to the parking lot but he didn’t appear and his delivery truck wasn’t parked there, either. After a while, I couldn’t waste any more time. I had to get to the game, so I ran up to the condos again, looking both ways to check for lurkers before I opened Tyler’s door. The pass was right where he’d said it would be, a rectangle of bright orange with the Woodsmen logo of the crossed axes on the back.

And next to that, hanging on a chair, was a white jersey with lettering in the same beautiful shade of orange. It was part of the home game uniform and I held it up and saw the writing on the back of this, too: Hennessy, 62.

Was it supposed to be for me? It was one of the nice ones made of thick, quality fabric that was almost as good as the actual jerseys that the players wore. It was much too small to fit Tyler. Maybe it was supposed to have been for his mother? Or was I supposed to use it now and then return it? I didn’t have time to stand around and ponder, because I wanted to get over to the stadium and meet her there. I looked at it again, holding it upto my body, and then I pulled off the sweatshirt I wore and put it on. I ran back down to my car to drive as fast as I could and…

Stupid traffic! I was plenty early for the actual start, but so were plenty of other people. Tailgating began hours before the whistle blew to kick off the action on the field. That was what I’d heard, anyway, but I’d never actually participated. We had never even been in the area when there was a game and it was crazier than the last time I’d been here for Fan Day, with people absolutely everywhere. Eventually, I did make the turn onto the long driveway, and then my pass allowed me to keep going farther and farther until I was practically up to the main doors. Except those weren’t open yet and I was directed around to the side, to another entrance that didn’t seem like it was for normal fans. I straightened my Hennessy jersey and felt special.

“Kasia and Jerry Decker,” the security guard at that door said, when she scanned the pass Inow carried.

“Just Kasia,” I answered. Yes, my dad should have been here, too. I kept thinking that as another guard escorted me inside, but I was so excited by this point that I was close to jumping up and down. I was in Woodsmen Stadium. On game day. The noise of everything happening in this giant building reached me even here, down in some kind of subterranean—

Sweet Jesus. A door opened in the hallway in front of us and Malachi Hubbard, the best punt returner in professional football, walked out of it wearing his uniform, ready to represent the best team in the world.

“Miss?”

I realized that I was clutching the security guard’s arm. “Sorry,” I told her. “This is really exciting.”

“I understand,” she said, grinning. “It’s hard to believe they’re real. Who did you know to get a field pass?”

“What?” I stared at her. “What do I have?”

She pointed at the paper that I was clutching, but trying not to crumple because I would be putting it in my autograph book. “That’s where we’re heading right now, down to the field. We’re going to walk through the tunnel…are you ok?”

I nodded although no respiration was currently happening and I didn’t think that my heart was beating, either. Somehow, I managed to continue moving forward, and the noise got louder. There were so many voices, people yelling, calling out names, laughing. Then we were in a tunnel and it was the real deal: it was the one I’d seen from a distance on the stadium tours I’d taken and the one I’d watched countless Woodsmen players emerge from on game day. And now I was walking through it.

“It’s ok,” the guard told me, but she was nodding sympathetically as if she understood my overwhelming emotions. “We’ll stay on this side of the field, where the Woodsmen are.”

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