Page 38 of The Cadence
“Annie and Remy just left,” I reported. “I’m here by myself but the doors are all locked and I checked the water meter.” That was something he’d also admitted to worrying about, that there was a leaking pipe quietly spewing gallons of water into the ground. “The numbers on the gauge aren’t moving at all so there’s nothing wrong.”
It took a while and I was out in the garage, in the middle of mixing some paint colors, when he wrote back. “Thank you for letting me know. What did they say about your furniture?”
The whole idea of discussing that topic with Annie had come from Will. The first time that we had met her, when she had looked around his house to get an idea of what he wanted to fix up, she had really admired the chest of drawers I had gotten off the side of the road and repainted. She had liked it enough that she’d talked about it a few times, mentioning my skill and how she loved the designs I’d done. It was abstract stuff, just somelittle decorations that made it pretty, and nothing too special. I’d tried my best since I meant it to be for Will but I didn’t think much of it.
But it seemed that he had been thinking about it, and he’d brought up an idea about my furniture the week before. “Why don’t you talk to Annie Whitaker-Gassman about selling this when it’s done?” he had suggested as I’d scraped at the orange finish on the top of a table I’d purchased (ten bucks was a good deal for it).
“You think anyone would want this stuff?” I had asked him doubtfully, and he had put down the tablet where he was watching game film. He’d picked up some of my sketches instead and appraised them carefully, the knuckle of his index finger pressed against his lip. I’d waited and felt a little anxious. He was truthful, I knew that very well, and I wondered if he really liked what I was making.
“I do think people would want it,” he announced, and I had smiled. “Annie loved that chest,” he’d further reminded me. “What you’re making is unique and there are buyers out there.”
He’d definitely been right about part of that. When Annie and Remy had come over today, I’d talked to them about his idea that I should sell my revamped furniture and they had both been very enthusiastic.
“You totally could. I love it!” Annie had immediately said. “Everyone is finally moving past all the beige and getting back to color and pattern. You know where I could really see your designs?”
She’d looked over at her partner, who nodded as if she saw it, too. “A nursery,” Remy had answered. She’d rubbed her belly, in which she was carrying a baby that was due pretty soon. “My husband Tobin and I would use this.”
“Tobin is also my cousin,” Annie had said. “There are a lot of Whitakers up here.”
I explained all that to Will—not about Annie’s big family, but I did share their ideas about pricing, of how I could get the word out, if I should do custom work, and a lot of other issues that I hadn’t considered. I slid my thumb to the letters as fast as I could in order to share it faster. The last time he’d been away, he had called, but he waited until he was in the hotel room by himself. Luckily for me, there were quiet moments when they rode in buses or had meals, so he also texted. On their last road trip, I had expected to hear a lot from him because I assumed that he’d be worried (intruders, the oven, et cetera).
No, he had mostly wanted to talk about other things, just shooting the breeze. He’d told me about the stadium and its facilities (from what he explained, the places they played seemed to vary a lot, with some really great ones and some that were junk in comparison). He talked about the hotel where they stayed and their meals. Some of the other guys liked to try to go out the night that they arrived, but their schedules were so tight that it was hard to squeeze in anything except eating and sleeping.
That was all that Will wanted to do. “I bet there’s a lot to see in these places besides just the hotels and football stadiums,” I had remarked.
“There probably is. After this season ends, we can look around. You told me you never got a chance to travel.”
The thing about Will was, if he said something, he meant it—it was real. I had gotten a huge smile as I’d read his words and immediately started to make a list of destinations, places where we could drive because airline tickets cost a lot. I knew that because I had thought, briefly, about flying into one of the cities where he was playing so that I could go to his game. I wouldn’t have stayed with him, since that was probably against the team rules, and I wouldn’t have bothered him. But it turned out that flying was very expensive and I didn’t want to put so many miles on his car, so I had reluctantly given up on the idea.
I knew that I would need more money for us to travel together and I also needed to get serious about renting a place of my own. I couldn’t depend on possible furniture sales! With Will gone, I tried to double up on shifts at the grocery store. It was easy to schedule myself on Saturdays because none of the other employees wanted to work during the Woodsmen games, even though the store’s owner had set up huge TVs and even though there were practically no customers to deal with. They were all at home with their attention glued to their own screens.
The last time he was gone, I had kept an eye on the action while I was at the register, focusing all my attention when the defense came onto the field. I’d also figured out how to record everything on the giant TV in the main house so I could watch it again, and again. After the game ended and as I waited for Will to come home, I put on my special t-shirt under my Bodine jersey, curled up on the new couch, and cranked up the volumeas high as I wanted. I’d skipped around to the interesting parts and played them over and over.
Even though I kept busy, I missed him. The house did feel strangely large and empty without his big body in it. When he was in the main house and I was in the guest cottage, we were only separated by a hundred yards. With these travel games, it was more like when he’d been up here and I’d been in Tennessee, thinking about him.
“I’m going to work,” I texted now, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to write as much. The manager at the store was pretty lenient about most things except that she really, really didn’t want us to be on our phones, like she didn’t want to see them even poking out of our pockets. Will didn’t get back to me by the time I arrived, probably because he was in a meeting, doing walk-through stuff at that stadium, or participating in all the other things they did to prepare for a game (in addition to all the things they’d already done here in Michigan).
“What do you call yourself?” I asked my coworker as I opened up my cash register.
“I’m Cully,” he reminded me.
“I know your name,” I said, laughing. “I mean that I’m a Tennessean, because I’m from Tennessee. If I live here instead, would I turn into a Michiganian or a Michigander?”
“I’m a Tennessean,” Cully repeated, imitating the way I’d said the words but making them very, very exaggerated.
“I don’t sound like that!”
“You do,” he told me. “You kept talking about the chester drawers that you picked up and I though you meant some guy. I didn’t understand until you showed me a picture of furniture.”
“What? Oh, the chest of drawers,” I said, speaking each syllable carefully. “I guess it sounds funny to you. You sound funny to me, too.”
“How?” he asked.
“When you need to clean the floor at the end of the night, you go get the…” I held my nose and exaggerated the word. “M-ah-p. It’smop,” I told him. “There’s no ‘a’ in that word.” He laughed, too, but we didn’t have much time for chatting. Fridays were busy for us with everyone preparing for the upcoming Woodsmen game by stocking up for their watch parties, and I was tired when I finally left.
“You say it now,” I told Will later that night when we talked on the phone. I had spelled out the words.
“Chest of drawers,” he stated. “Why did I have to do that?”
