Page 23 of The Cadence
“I would wear boots,” I answered, and he smiled. It was just a regular get-together, he told me next, with no dead fish involved. He added that it would be at a bar nearby that wasn’t the fanciest place, so I still might not want to wear open-toed shoes. But he had to get back to talking to people and I resumed looking around.
Eventually, they did shut the doors and the crowd gradually thinned. Almost the last fan in line was a girl who might have been the only person in the stadium not wearing the team’s color (even I had on one of Will’s home game jerseys, which was white but had orange writing). She looked at him but she also stared hard at me, and suddenly I knew who she was.
“Kirsten?” I ventured, and she nodded.
“You’re Calla,” she answered, and I nodded too. “You’re really pretty.”
“Oh…thanks,” I said. “That’s a nice thing to say.”
“It’s just the truth. She didn’t mention that to me.”
I assumed that she was talking about her grandmother, so I just nodded again. “So are you,” I told her.
Kirsten returned her eyes to Will. “Hey,” she greeted him, and smiled. I’d meant what I had said about her looks. She had short blonde hair that was cut in a way I never would have dared to try on myself, but it looked so cool on her. And she was built in a way that I also would have wanted for myself, but would never achieve. I was tall, which I’d come to terms with after praying for a couple of years that I would shrink, and I was also fairly straight up and down. But Kirsten had hips and a chest that I admired quite a bit, and she dressed to show it off. The Woodsmen jersey I wore, Will’s, didn’t show much of me besides my neck and knees—and despite more praying, there weren’t a whole lot of curves beneath it anyway.
“I had to wait outside forever. Can I sit down?” she asked, still looking at him.
“No,” he told her. “I can’t ask you back behind the table.”
“Oh, ok. We can talk more later,” she said. “Aren’t we going out?”
“There’s a party tonight,” I volunteered, but Will glanced at me and shook his head.
“It’s Woodsmen only,” he said and then told her, “Sorry.”
“Another time,” she suggested, smiling again.
“Definitely,” I answered.
“Great.” She looked over at another of the players, one who didn’t have a wife, girlfriend, or kids seated in his area. “I’m going to talk to that guy.” She smiled in his direction and moved fast.
“Kirsten seems nice,” I said happily as I watched her walk away.
“Does she?” Will sounded doubtful again.
“She said I was pretty,” I reminded him. “She didn’t have to lead with that, and it’s a good way to make friends.”
“Sure, I use that line all the time with strangers.”
“Well, as long as you’re being honest. Am I really included in a Woodsmen-only party?” I asked.
“Didn’t I invite you?” he reminded me.
Yeah, he had. “What should I wear, besides my boots?”
“Party stuff,” he suggested vaguely. I followed his eyes over to where they had fixed on Kirsten as she talked to another of the players. “That dress that your grandma made was good.”
“She made so many of my clothes,” I said. “I can sew but not like she could. I bet if I’d lived with her since I was little, I would have learned better.” Not for the first time, I wished that I had lived with her for always. “I’ll wear that happily.”
Even with the doors now closed and with the efficient staff in the orange polo shirts hustling around, it took a while to get everyone out of the giant hall where the Woodsmen players had their tables. Will had told me that I didn’t need to stay with him but I had, anyway. He’d taken several breaks and we’d gone into a back room to hang out, and he’d introduced me to some other players and their entourages. I had cut out earlier, before the autograph signing began, in order to go on the tour with the head of security and to look around at the other events—but I’d rather have been with him then, too.
“Jesus Christ,” he sighed as the last fans were ushered away, and he shook out his hand again. “How many things did I sign?”
“You’re too precise,” I told him. “I watched the other guys, and they basically make a line with a few dots and call it a signature. You do every letter, W-I-L-L B-O-D-I-N-E.”
“That’s my name.” He seemed a little puzzled, and it made me smile.
“That’s how you do everything,” I said, just as one of the polo shirt ladies came over to start collecting all the decorations. That was a big job since they’d put around a whole lot of orange stuff so I got involved helping her and finding where my sunglasses had gone. Then Will and I went out a back way to where we’d parked and with the stadium security escorting the car, we were able to negotiate the traffic and return to his house.
