Page 52 of The Cadence
“What?” I had been listening with half an ear as I’d talked to Langston, but I definitely hadn’t heard that. “She did?”
“I think so,” he agreed, nodding. “She said several things about being tired of school, hating her classes, and how the town was boring and not as good as The City. She also mentioned that she never wanted to go back there, but then she admitted that she couldn’t. I kept listening and she complained that it was a shitty school where the professors only cared about grades but those weren’t important, and she said that they weren’t ever going to have a fun student body if they let people walk away only because they had some issues with turning things in. It made me think that she’d flunked out.”
I thought for a second. I had vaguely heard her say all those things, but they’d been interspersed with other comments aboutwine, bars, the Woodsmen, and yes, her parts. “I didn’t put that together.”
“She’s going to live with her grandmother up here. Her parents are angry and don’t want her to come home until she figures out a plan,” Will said.
“She told you that, too?”
“More or less.”
“And you understood her because you were used to decoding your parents and how they tried to hide the truth?” I asked him.
“People are always doing that,” he answered. “They say things they don’t mean and they omit the important parts. I listen and watch, and that was how I figured out that my dad had a girlfriend and that my mother…” He shrugged. “You already know about my mother’s issue with prescription drugs.”
I nodded, remembering how I’d learned about that.
“I do the same thing on the field,” he continued. “Do you know what the quarterback’s cadence is?”
“No,” I said.
“You need to learn more about the offense.”
“I’m working on that, but it isn’t as interesting as the defense.”
Will smiled at me. “Before the quarterback snaps the ball, he calls out a message to his players. Some of it is nonsense but some of it is important information about what they’re going to do next on the field. If I can understand even a little bit of what he’s saying, it’s a huge advantage.”
“So you’re an interpreter,” I said. “You’re a word detective.”
“I guess so.” But he sighed a little. “It would be better if everyone just said what they meant. It would be a lot easier for me and the defense if the quarterback would yell, ‘Next play for us is a strong-side sweep.’ They never seem to do that.”
“I try to say what I mean. Do you?”
Will looked at me for a moment. “I’m not honest all the time.”
“Nobody is, not totally. You lied to me recently because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings.”
“I did?”
I nodded. “I gave you that book about the gardener who digs up the engagement ring and then meets…I don’t want to ruin it for you.”
“What?”
“You said that you’d read it on the plane back home from West Virginia and that it wasn’t bad, but I found out the truth when I looked at the team’s social media posts,” I said.
“What did those tell you?”
“You were in the background and I saw that you were reading something else, not anything with a beautiful aqua cover,” I answered.
“I’ll read it on Thursday when we fly to Alabama,” he promised, and I said it was a library book but I would renew it.
“I know that you’re honest about the important stuff,” I said, which led me to my next question. “Are you going to visit with anyone while you’re away?”
“It’s too far to make it back and forth to Chattanooga to see my mom. I won’t have enough time.”
I hadn’t been referring to her. “So, no one?”
“Well, one of the guys who used to play for the Woodsmen got traded to the Rackers in the deal that sent me up here, and I think some of us are going to go say hello to him. Ray Bishop,” he added, but I only knew the names of the people who played with Will, not any extras.
