Page 39 of The Cadence
“You don’t pronounce it like I do,” I said, kind of disappointed. “I’m a lot more country than you, I guess.”
“Hold on. Is someone making fun of how you talk?” he asked me.
“No, no,” I answered. “We were just laughing about it.”
“Who? You and a girl at work?”
“No, it was a guy, Cully. He thinks—”
“Cully,” he repeated. “I haven’t heard you talk about him before.”
“I probably have. Maybe I didn’t use his name,” I suggested.
“Maybe not.”
There was noise in the background, something that sounded like thumps.
“That’s some of the guys at the door,” Will said.
“Oh, ok. Have fun, but don’t stay out too late. You have a game tomorrow,” I reminded him, in case he had forgotten why he was in West Virginia and not here with me.
“Sure, sure,” he said dismissively, but I heard a smile in his voice. “You sound like somebody’s mother. Not mine, because she always had a lot to worry about that was more important than football.”
“And not mine, because I never played any sports and she never really noticed when I went to bed,” I answered. I heard more pounding. “I guess you better go. I’ll be writing to you later.”
“And I’ll be writing back,” he answered, and we hung up. I hadn’t asked him about his ankle, not again, but it was on my mind and I was sure that it was on his as well. He wasn’t wearing the boot anymore and he hadn’t missed any games, but I’d seen him limping slightly. I’d also seen him wincing a little after he’d flown home the last time they’d been away like this.
The next day, I was back at the register in the nearly empty store and watching the two ancient Woodsmen announcers do their pregame show on the big TVs. We had only a single shopper,and he was spending his time rooting around the produce section so I could mostly ignore him. The same coworker from the day before, Cully, was half-heartedly replenishing the milk coolers but he kept wandering out from the back so that he could see the screens too, and I had a feeling that the racks wouldn’t fill until the Woodsmen were done (and he had listened to all the postgame shows, which everyone here also liked to do).
The home team “won” the coin toss so they didn’t get the ball…I still didn’t really understand what was happening there, but I would figure it out later. Right now I watched the Woodsmen offense come on and then move down the field, getting close enough to the end zone to kick a field goal and score. It was like you could hear the entire town cheer and I definitely heard my coworker Cully yelling like he himself had just gotten those three points for the team.
The Woodsmen kicked off and West Virginia tried to run it toward the other end zone, and now it was time for the defense. I watched the big guy in the Bodine jersey run out—
“Miss? Excuse me, miss?”
I flicked my eyes toward the solitary customer. “Can I help you?”
“This lettuce is simply a disgrace.”
Will was at the line, getting into his stance. I watched him twist his foot slightly like maybe his ankle hurt, and then the quarterback of the other team started to yell some nonsense to his players. I was going to learn more about the offense, I really was.
“Miss?Miss!”
“A disgrace,” I repeated, but I was still watching. “Holy Moses, come on!” I covered my mouth with my hand as he violently collided with the guy across from him, someone I hated with all my heart. How dare that man have tried to push Will around like that?
“And the carrots! They’re…well, there’s no way to say it other than…they’re phallic.”
I turned away from the TVs and squinted at the shopper. “Excuse me?”
“That was a loss of half a yard,” the football announcer told us. She said more stuff, too, but this customer was behaving in a very distracting way.
“Look!” He held up a bunch of carrots and then flipped them over, pointy ends toward the sky. We both watched as they flopped into pathetic arches. “See what I mean? If that’s not penile, I don’t know what is.”
I felt myself blush. “I don’t want to think that way about our produce!”
“Short gain of about a yard on second down for the West Virginia Elks,” the TV speakers told me, and the color commentator said that the Woodsmen defense was already holding tough against the run today and the Elks would have to try a pass in this third and long situation. He mentioned “play action,” which was a term I had heard before and would now look up.
“Go Woodsmen!” I called, and shook my fist at the opposing quarterback. “Just try that action stuff! Just try to get it! You never will.”
